San Antonio College Library

Evaluates the rivalry between the fertile Stewarts and barren Tudors as critical to the sixteenth-century British Isles, tracing three generations of feuding that led to the violent competition for the throne between Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots.

The Trial of 1568-9 is perhaps the most neglected period of Mary's life. Before it, she had been a girl in France, the romantic queen in Scotland: after it, she became the prematurely ageing captive, the royal martyr. During the crucial period of change, we see the Mary of flesh and blood, less attractive but no less fascinating: the figutive from justice, accused of adultery and murder; her life in peril from her own subjects, yet bent on vengeance;...

Previously unpublished letters and excerpts from contemporary accounts complement an intimate portrait of the personalities, whims, ambitions, and schemes of the Tudor sisters.