Mary of Guise in Scotland, 1548-1560: A Political Study (Paperback)

16th century Europe is one of the most fascinating periods in history, populated by some of the such colourful and well-known figures as Henry VIII, Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I and Bloody Mary. It is also a century, as the names listed above suggest, that features a large number of women in positions of power. Mary of Guise, mother of Mary Queen of Scots, was another of these powerful political women.

The side-effect of the colourful nature of the lives of some of these women is that sixteenth-century history books often read like little more than romantic fiction. They play up the history of personalities (often based on poor research and quasi-psychological guesswork), but ignore the serious side of the women who ruled some of the most powerful kingdoms in Europe.

Pamela E. Ritchie does not make this mistake. Her book is a serious study of a serious woman, and is based on meticulous and extensive research. But the book is no turgid academic tome, and Ritchie manages the difficult trick of providing a thoroughly readable and engaging study of the career and ambitions of a fascinating woman. Mary of Guise has traditionally been written off in Scotland as the main agent of an unpopular French/Catholic domination of Scotland that took place in the 1550s, which was overturned by the popular revolution of John Knox's Reformation in 1560. Ritchie shows this was not the case. Instead Guise, for most of the 1550s, enjoyed considerable support from Scots, and her plans for a dynastic union of the French and Scottish crowns by the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots to the Dauphin Francois was supported by Catholic and Protestant Scots alike. Guise, above all, was a skilled politician who carefully balanced the difficult circumstances of the dynastic conflicts of sixteenth-century Europe to best pursue the interests of her own family (les Guises) and her daughter, the monarch of Scotland. That her regime collapsed in 1560 as a result of a rebellion brought about as much by the role of a new protestant regime in England as any deep-seated popular hatred of the French influence in Scotland, should not obscure the successes of her time in power.

16th century Europe is one of the most fascinating periods in history, populated by some of the such colourful and well-known figures as Henry VIII, Mary, Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I and Bloody Mary. It is also a century, as the names listed above suggest, that features a large number of women in positions of power. Mary of Guise, mother of Mary Queen of Scots, was another of these powerful political women.

The side-effect of the colourful nature of the lives of some of these women is that sixteenth-century history books often read like little more than romantic fiction. They play up the history of personalities (often based on poor research and quasi-psychological guesswork), but ignore the serious side of the women who ruled some of the most powerful kingdoms in Europe.

Pamela E. Ritchie does not make this mistake. Her book is a serious study of a serious woman, and is based on meticulous and extensive research. But the book is no turgid academic tome, and Ritchie manages the difficult trick of providing a thoroughly readable and engaging study of the career and ambitions of a fascinating woman. Mary of Guise has traditionally been written off in Scotland as the main agent of an unpopular French/Catholic domination of Scotland that took place in the 1550s, which was overturned by the popular revolution of John Knox's Reformation in 1560. Ritchie shows this was not the case. Instead Guise, for most of the 1550s, enjoyed considerable support from Scots, and her plans for a dynastic union of the French and Scottish crowns by the marriage of Mary Queen of Scots to the Dauphin Francois was supported by Catholic and Protestant Scots alike. Guise, above all, was a skilled politician who carefully balanced the difficult circumstances of the dynastic conflicts of sixteenth-century Europe to best pursue the interests of her own family (les Guises) and her daughter, the monarch of Scotland. That her regime collapsed in 1560 as a result of a rebellion brought about as much by the role of a new protestant regime in England as any deep-seated popular hatred of the French influence in Scotland, should not obscure the successes of her time in power.