Writing this book has been an exciting, invigorating experience, one of the most thrilling of my life, an adventure even for someone who had already worked on the historical records for a quarter of a century. I had no idea when I began that so much fresh material could be found in the archives about a woman who has been the daughter of debate for four centuries. Then, when I steadily began to uncover this material, I felt a sense of elation. I simply could not stop working on the book until I got to the bottom and the end of the story.
I’m deeply grateful for all the help and support I’ve received from the archivists and curators whose repositories and libraries I’ve ransacked for so many weeks and months. Monique Cohen and her staff at the Département des Manuscrits, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, showed me how to find what I needed in a library I’d never used before. In more familiar haunts, Dr Sarah Tyacke and her team at the National Archives (Public Record Office), London, and the staff of the University Library at Cambridge were as helpful and courteous as ever. Dr Andrea Clarke and her colleagues in the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library were always willing to assist me, supplying microfilms of key volumes of the Cottonian and Additional Manuscripts so that I could read them at home. I also thank the staff of the Rare Books Department for producing every copy in the collection of certain titles, including multiple copies of the same edition. Dr Richard Palmer and his staff at Lambeth Palace Library offered me the opportunity to read newly acquired documents concerning Mary’s trial and execution, some of which had been out of the public domain for decades. I’m most grateful to the Trustees for access to this material.
In Edinburgh, my path was greatly eased by the reading room staff of the National Archives of Scotland, HM General Register House, and of the Department of Special Collections, National Library of Scotland. At St Andrews University Library, Christine Gascoigne and her colleagues in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department repeatedly came to my aid. For access to and permission to quote from the manuscripts of the old Advocates Library and other documents held at the George IV Bridge repository of the National Library of Scotland, I wish to thank the Trustees.
For access to the Cecil Papers at Hatfield House and for permission to cite them, I am most grateful to The Marquess of Salisbury, and to Robin Harcourt Williams, Librarian and Archivist. For access to and permission to quote from the manuscripts and rare books at the Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California, I gladly thank Dr Mary Robertson, Chief Curator of Manuscripts, whom by a happy coincidence I first met in Sir Geoffrey Elton’s Tudor seminar in Cambridge some thirty years ago. For permission to read the manuscripts and rare books at the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, I acknowledge the generosity of Dr Gail Kern Paster, Director, and the Trustees.
The maps and genealogical tables were drawn and digitized by Richard Guy of Orang-Utan Productions from rough drafts I supplied. For undertaking the picture research and obtaining loans of transparencies, I thank Sheila Geraghty, whose expertise was invaluable. My colleague Stephen Alford at Cambridge read the entire manuscript in draft and I relished all of our lengthy conversations. Professor Michael Lynch, Department of Scottish History, University of Edinburgh, read and most generously commented on the uncorrected proofs. I’m grateful for his suggestions and list of corrections on the Scottish side, and for corrections supplied by Rachel Guy, who also read the page proofs. I accept full responsibility for such errors as may still remain.
I must note here two omissions in the Bibliography. A full transcript of Randolph’s letter of 14 February 1566 to Dudley was published in Scottish Historical Review, 34 (1955), 135–9, and an article by A. A. MacDonald, ‘Mary Stewart’s Entry to Edinburgh: an Ambiguous Triumph’, Innes Review, 42 (1991), 101–10, provides further detail about the 1561 entry into Edinburgh.
Some academic historians may regret my spelling of ‘Stuart’ in preference to ‘Stewart’ for the dynasty. But Mary called herself ‘Stuart’ not ‘Stewart’; her motto ‘Sa Virtu m’Atire’ only works as a near-perfect anagram if the family name is spelled ‘Stuart’; and it seemed likely to irritate most readers if ‘Stuart’ and ‘Stewart’ were promiscuously used. I also prefer ‘Ker of Fawdonside’ to the alternative ‘Kerr’, adopting the orthography of the manuscripts. Lastly, I’ve followed the example of Elizabeth I and William Cecil in styling James Hamilton, 3rd Earl of Arran, as ‘Arran’ after his father, the 2nd Earl, was made Duke of Châtelherault, even though he was not strictly Earl of Arran until his father died.
I’ve nothing but thanks and admiration for Peter Robinson and Emma Parry, my agents in London and New York, for their constant encouragement and for persuading me that I could write this book and that it might really work. Both read the manuscript and gave helpful advice. In preparing a book where the interpretation counts for just as much as the archival research, I’ve also realized how much I’ve learned from the BBC producers with whom I’ve been privileged to work during the last four years, in particular Catrine Clay, Dick Taylor and Jane McWilliams.
I owe an immense debt to Courtney Hodell and Nick Davies, my editors at Fourth Estate. Courtney’s detailed and exacting comments on my first complete draft were pitched exactly right, challenging and encouraging me to produce my very best work, perhaps the highest compliment any editor can pay to his or her author. I feel greatly privileged to be published by Fourth Estate, whose magnanimity in allowing me to get on with my work uninterrupted for almost three years created the closest thing to ideal conditions. For assistance in the editorial and production process, I also wish to thank Natasa Kennedy, Michael Cox and Louise Tucker.
I express heartfelt gratitude to my former students at the University of St Andrews, and those I currently teach at Cambridge, for their contributions to seminars and supervisions where Mary made her appearance more often than she should have done. Other debts are to Fiona Alexander, who saw instantly that the mysterious ‘object’ Mary holds in her left hand in the placard of the mermaid and the hare, previously defying explanation, is a rolled-up net. Frances and David Waters offered constant encouragement, uncannily predicting the date on which I’d deliver the final manuscript, and making sure we had tickets for Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro for the very next night.
Most importantly, Julia accepted Mary’s presence in what must increasingly have seemed like a ménage à trois, showing infinite patience. She pored over innumerable drafts, reading some chapters as many as a dozen times and discussing Mary at all hours of day or night. I can never adequately thank her or repay her love. Emma was just as tolerant, never complaining that she hardly saw her father, and merely teasing him about when he’d finish ‘the book’. Lucy, Susie and Gemma sometimes got their paws into Mary’s affairs more than I might have liked, but in doing so kept me in touch with normality.
Clare College
Cambridge
24 October 2003