Mary Queen of Scots As a Symbol of Contemporary

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AS A SYMBOL OF CONTEMPORARY NATIONALISM MARY STUART’S IMAGE IN THE HISTORICAL NOVELS MARY QUEEN OF SCOTLAND AND THE ISLES, FATAL MAJESTY AND THE OTHER QUEEN.

Word count: 19,279

Lotte Ruysschaert Student number: 01610491

Supervisor(s): Prof. Dr. Guido Latré

A dissertation submitted to Ghent University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Comparative Modern Literature.

Academic year: 2019 – 2020

PREFACE My interest in the elusive person of Mary Stuart has grown gradually over the years. I started reading about her every now and then and two years ago I had the opportunity to visit Stirling Castle and Holyrood Palace in Scotland, the places where she was born and where she spent the six most tumultuous years of her life. Exploring Mary’s dwellings gave me more inspiration to write this dissertation, and I am grateful for the opportunity to combine this small part of history with literature, two of my main interests.

Of course, I could not have written this dissertation without the help of some others. First and foremost, I want to thank my supervisor Professor Dr. Guido Latré, without whom writing this thesis would not have been half as pleasurable. His enthusiasm and knowledge about the topic and his confidence in my dissertation kept me motivated to continue the writing process.

In the non-academic field, I would like to thank my parents for giving me the opportunity to study literature and for their support and confidence in my ability to finish my studies. I am also grateful to my friends, who heightened my spirits during the four years of my university studies and who waited patiently for me every time I was late for a meeting because I was finishing an assignment or reading and writing for my dissertation. Without all these people it would have been much harder to be able to finish my studies.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ...... 1

1. Introduction ...... 3

2. Nationalism and the Scots as a rough people ...... 10

2.1. Definitions of nationalism ...... 10

2.2. The Scots’ initial reaction to Mary ...... 11

2.3. The unpolished Scots ...... 15

2.4. A traditional Scottish banquet ...... 18

3. Mary as a metaphor for Scotland ...... 22

3.1. Mary in The Other Queen: enemies and admirers...... 22

3.2. Mary in Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles: an unfortunate queen in history books ...... 27

3.3. Mary in Fatal Majesty: Maitland and loyalty to the nation ...... 30

4. Mary as a Catholic martyr ...... 35

4.1. Catholicism versus Protestantism ...... 35

4.2. A divine and haughty queen ...... 36

4.3. A truly divine queen ...... 37

4.4. Mythologization of the Catholic Mary ...... 40

5. Conclusion ...... 42

6. Bibliography ...... 45

6.1. Primary sources ...... 45

6.2. Secondary sources ...... 45

Word count: 19,279

1. INTRODUCTION Mary Stuart, also known as Mary, Queen of Scots, is best known for her tragic life as both a ruler and a prisoner in the sixteenth century. She was crowned queen only six days after she was born and spent most of her youth in France. After the death of her first husband Francis II, she returned to Scotland to reign and find a new husband. After four years, she married her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, and not even two years later, he was killed in an explosion. Until today, the biggest question concerning Mary Stuart is whether or not she was involved in the plot to murder her husband. She married one of the suspects, the 4th Earl of Bothwell, only one month after he had been acquitted. This made her very unpopular with the Scottish people, and the Scottish lords raised an army against her. Eventually she was forced to abscond. She sought refuge in England, only to be beheaded nineteen years later.

Many books have been inspired by her and many documentaries, movies and series have been made. Examples of historical novels are Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles (1992) by Margaret George, Fatal Majesty (1998) by Reay Tannahill and The Other Queen (2008) by Philippa Gregory. On the big screen there is the recent movie Mary Queen of Scots (2018) and on television there was the loosely adapted period drama Reign (2013-2017). Centuries after her execution, the Catholic martyr and mysterious queen still intrigues many historians and scholars. Her tragic life and death appear to be as relevant as ever as the Scottish cry for independence is becoming stronger with the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. Even though Mary Stuart was driven away by her own people more than four hundred years ago, it seems some of them now want her to come back, in a manner of speaking. The historical novels mentioned above almost never speak directly against her and show the different events that led to her choices and downfall.

All three of them were published in a period of sixteen years in which the Scots actively fought for more independence. In the late 1980s and 1990s the general concern about how Scotland was governed was the setting for devolution debates (Arnott 2019: 54). The Scottish national identity was progressively politicized as well in that period (Arnott 2019: 54). In 1979, a first referendum was held under a Labour government to devolve an agreed list of powers from the Parliament of the United Kingdom: the Scottish Assembly. Although most of the people voted in favour of the Assembly, not enough members of the electorate had done so. As a result the Scottish Assembly

did not go through. Less than twenty years later, in 1997, a new referendum was held, again with support of the Labour Party. The Scots now voted whether or not there should be a Scottish Parliament with devolved powers. The majority of the population voted in favour of devolution and in 1999 the Scottish Parliament was reinstated. The term ‘reinstated’ is used here, since the Parliament of Scotland was brought into being in the early thirteenth century already with the independent Kingdom of Scotland. However, under the Acts of Union in 1707 the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England merged into the Parliament of Great Britain. Scotland had lost its independence, but with devolution in 1999, the Scottish people finally got the chance to speak for themselves again. Devolution allowed the Scots to govern at a subnational level. There was a decentralization of the Parliament of Great Britain, which gave Scotland more autonomy. Nevertheless, a nation did not gain full autonomy by devolution. The new devolved powers still ultimately reside with the central government. Great Britain thus remains the highest authority. However, the reinstitution of the Scottish Parliament shows that the shared feeling of a Scottish history, identity and nationality had once again become stronger than or at least as strong as their identity as a member of the United Kingdom. According to Sutherland, Goodall, Little and Davidson “the creation of the Scottish Parliament under the Scotland Act 1998 was without doubt a momentous political, constitutional and social happening in Scotland” (2011: 3). It may also have strengthened the feeling of a Scottish identity and nationality even more after the establishment of the Scottish Parliament.

Daniel Mulhall, however, does not link Scottish devolution to a strong sense of nationalism. He called Scottish devolution a “fortunate coincidence” (1999: 3). He claims devolution “has become a reality at a time of hope and opportunity in the evolution of the peace process” (1999: 3). Thus not everyone agrees with the rise of Scottish nationalism. Former Prime Minister James Cameron and the Palace of Westminster underestimated the extent of Scottish nationalism when they agreed to have a Scottish independence referendum in 2014. This referendum falls out of the scope of this paper, but it is nevertheless interesting as it shows the contemporary relevance of Scottish nationalism today. In September 2014, the Scots could answer “Yes” or “No” to the question if Scotland should be an independent country. There was a high turnout of 84.6%, of which a slight majority – 55.3% – voted “No” (The Guardian 2014). As a consequence, Scotland remained part of the United Kingdom. However, these results show that Scotland had grown quite close to becoming independent, and Cameron had taken a great risk holding the referendum. In advance,

he had been confident he would win. He was confident in the “arguments of the head”, but especially in the “arguments of the heart” which would keep this “family of nations” together (Cameron 2014). He had clearly misjudged the degree of Scottish nationalism before the referendum took place. This might suggest that the intensity of Scottish nationalism has always been underestimated by outsiders.

Scotland is thus a nation without a state. In his book Modern Scottish Culture Michael Gardiner defines a nation as “a society culturally aware of itself as a discrete body and with a discrete civic structure – institutions like law, education, media and strong local government” (2005: 13). This definition also applies to Scotland. Gerry Mooney and Lynne Poole call Scotland a “land of milk and honey” (2004). They claim that the Scottish people are more devoted to social democracy, particularly regarding social welfare policy and delivery (2004: 459). Did a feeling of nationalism have any influence on how they see the nation, or were they carried away with the enthusiasm of the Scottish people? Anthony D. Smith, who wrote a lot about nationalism and nations, argues that “the idea that nations are real entities, grounded in history and social life, that they are homogeneous and united, that they represent the major social and political actors in the modern world, (…) no longer seems as true as it did thirty and even twenty years ago” (2013: 2). Slowly over that period, the main theories of that paradigm and the whole model of how nations were built, were cast doubt upon by a series of critiques which first exposed the nation to be a mental concept. The nation is “an invented, imagined and hybrid category” (Smith 2013: 4). Secondly, nations are modern forms derived from less complicated communal and cultural societies which go back in history many decades and even centuries. Additionally, Smith states that “the story of the rise and decline of nations and their nationalisms in the modern world is mirrored in the recital of the rise and decline of the dominant paradigm of nations and nationalism, together with all its associated theories and models” (2013: 4). It is thus interesting to have a look at the main paradigms of nations and nationalism and how they have developed over time. In the next chapter I will cover some definitions of nationalism and go deeper into the subject.

The development of the Scottish nation goes back a long time in history. George Watson notes that for writers, the weight of history and the destruction of the nation are never-ending topics for their novels (1991: 39). This also applies to the three aforementioned historical novels about Mary Stuart. They were, as said before, published in a period relatively close to the establishment of the

Scottish Parliament in 1999. Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles was published in 1992, so before the reinstitution, while Fatal Majesty was printed in 1998, after the referendum but before the creation of the parliament. The Other Queen followed a decade later in 2008. In this paper, I would like to investigate whether there is a link between Scottish nationalism on the one hand, and on the other, the contents and time and the publication of these novels. Were they deliberately written in a period with a revival of Scottish nationalism? Were they written in favour of Mary Stuart, using her as a symbol for a free, independent Scotland, or do they picture her as an adulterous queen not worthy nor capable to rule such a rough country? I will take a closer look at all three novels and how they depict the fallen queen and the Scottish people.

Margaret George, the author of Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, was born in Nashville, Tennessee. However, her family is of Scots, English and Irish background. In the “Author’s Afterword” in her novel, she admits that she could “not help making a few affectionate comments about my ancestors, the Scott clan” (George 2012: 369). To her satisfaction, she discovered that they remained faithful to Mary until the end, and she says to be following them in their footsteps. She is thus sympathising with Mary and the Scottish people. George sees herself as “a spokesperson for those whom history has misunderstood” and picks out the historical figures that intrigue her (2019).

Reay Tannahill is the author of, among other works, Fatal Masjesty. She was born and raised in Glasgow and she obtained an MA in History and a postgraduate certificate in Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow. Later in her life she moved to London, where she died in 2007. The fact that she moved to England indicates that she was not strongly bound to the Scottish nation, although her dedicating a whole novel to the tragic Scottish Queen might suggest otherwise. In the “Historical Endnote” at the end of Fatal Majesty, she does not specify why she chose to devote a book to Mary Stuart. However, in the period in between the referendum and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, this novel – which also shows the struggle between England and Scotland – was more relevant than ever. Tannahill does make a reference to the situation in this endnote. She refers to the Scottish Declaration of Arbroath1, which was a letter to the Pope in 1320 in which was said “For we fight, not for glory nor for riches nor for honour, but only and alone for

1 A letter to Pope John XXII written by eight Scots earls and thirty-one barons in the year 1320, in which they declare “for so long as a hundred of us remain alive, we will yield in no least way to English dominion”.

freedom, which no good man surrenders but with his life” (Tannahill 1999: 461). The declaration got forgotten for a while, but now, Tannahill says, “after almost three hundred years, everything is once more in process of change – and the seven-hundred-year-old Declaration of Arbroath has ceased to be as politically irrelevant as, not so long ago, it seemed to have become” (Tannahill 1999: 462). Although pretending to be neutral, she was perfectly aware of the situation in which she was writing a novel about Mary Queen of Scots.

The last author I will discuss here is Philippa Gregory. She is well-known for her internationally bestselling novel The Other Boleyn Girl, which was turned into a major film as well. She has written a numerous amount of Plantagenet and Tudor novels, for which she has been praised widely. In 2016, she was rewarded with the Outstanding Contribution to Historical Fiction Award by the Historical Writer’s Association. The Other Queen is one of these acclaimed historical novels. In contrast to Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles and Fatal Majesty, this book does not account Mary’s whole period in Scotland, but only starts from the moment when Mary is imprisoned in England already. In the “Author’s Note” of The Other Queen, Gregory speaks positively about Mary. Her novel is largely based on historical evidence, and she does not agree with the image of Mary as a romantic and foolish woman. She writes:

I believe she was a woman of courage and determination who could have been an effective queen even in a country as unruly as Scotland. The principal difference between her and her successful cousin Elizabeth was good advisors and good luck, not – as the traditional history suggests – one woman who ruled with her head and the other who was dominated by her heart. (Gregory 2017: 441)

Like Margaret George, Philippa Gregory sympathises with Mary and sees her as a victim of the circumstances and time. Gregory was born in Nairobi, Kenia, but moved with her parents to Bristol shortly afterwards. Her personal link with Scotland may therefore seem less strong than that of the other two writers. However, she earned her doctorate in 18th-century literature at the University of Edinburgh. Since her novel was published a few years after the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, it could easily have been influenced by the spirit of that period, or Gregory’s interest in “one of the great iconic characters of English history” (Gregory 2017: 441) could have been raised together with the rise of a feeling of Scottish independence. However, she does not mention this herself in the “Author’s Note”.

A good way to find out if these novels are indeed still relevant and wanted today, is by checking if they are still in print or available in the regular book store. Fatal Majesty is the only one out of the three novels which is not available anymore except on second hand. Even though it is the oldest novel, the most recent reprint of Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles was in 2012, and it is still available. The Other Queen, which is the most recent novel, also had a reprint in 2017 and is easily available. From this can be concluded that the topic is perhaps less wanted than it was twenty years ago, but the relatively recent reprint of The Other Queen suggests that it is still relevant today.

In this dissertation I will look especially at the portrayal of Mary Stuart in relation to Scottish nationalism in these three historical novels. In what manner do they depict her and the Scottish people? How is she described in comparison to Queen Elizabeth? What was the importance of religion in the Scottish nation in the sixteenth century? Was Mary as a Catholic queen responsible for the downfall of her protestant country – according to the novels? I will examine if she is represented as a symbol of Scottish nationalism and if the novels were written in favour of Scottish independence. In general, I will observe how the Scottish identity is depicted in the novels on the basis of the historical figure and myth surrounding Mary Stuart. What image does the reader receive of Scotland? More specifically will I examine how the novels differ from each other regarding this stance. Do they offer a different image of Scottish history? I will do so by first looking closely at the concept of the nation and nationalism, in particular focusing on Anthony Smith’s writings about nationalism. With these definitions and theories in mind, I will analyse the portrayal of Mary and the Scots and her people. Afterwards the connection between religion and nation will be brought into consideration. In the end I hope to find a clear answer to the question whether or not Mary Stuart is a true heroic figure in the history of the Scottish nation. I expect to find a less clear-cut answer to the question if these novels were written deliberately at a time when Scottish independence was coming closer within reach. The research question related to Mary Stuart may seem to be paradoxical. Since she was evicted from her country by her own people for almost twenty years, it is not self-evident to see her as a true symbol in Scottish history. Nevertheless, her execution on English soil angered the Scots and she became some sort of myth in history. In Fatal Majesty, the paradoxicality of the situation is mentioned too: “Human nature being what it was, the Scots, who had rejected Mary Stewart almost twenty years before and barely thought about her since, had become highly excitable at the idea of a foreigner threatening

to execute their queen” (Tannahill 1999: 441). It could be a feeling of nationalism that arises in the Scots at the thought of their queen being executed on the orders of a queen of another nation. As I will touch upon later in this dissertation, it is namely when the nation is under threat that the sense of nationalism becomes the strongest (Smith 2001: 95).

2. NATIONALISM AND THE SCOTS AS A ROUGH PEOPLE

2.1. DEFINITIONS OF NATIONALISM In this chapter, I will thus first clarify the concept of nationalism by applying it to a limited extent to the situation in Scotland. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, nationalism is “loyalty and devotion to a nation (…), a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups” (2020). This definition suggests that nationalism includes superiority above other nations and it appears to be a contest against other nations. In Smith’s theory of nationalism, there is not such an element present. Apart from a definition, he first gives five different meanings of the concept of nationalism. The first is that nationalism is a process of formation of nations (2001: 5). In this sense nationalism refers to the development of nations. The second meaning of nationalism is “a sentiment or consciousness of belonging to the nation”, which speaks for itself (2001: 5). The third meaning is of the most importance in this paper, namely “a language and symbolism of the nation” (2001: 5). Especially symbolism is relevant here. National symbolism includes naturally the nation, but it is likewise characterised by the definiteness and clarity of its distinguishing markers. Examples of those are national flags and heroes, which unite members of the nation by means of a shared representation of mutual myths, memories and values (2001: 7). A fourth meaning of nationalism is “social and political movement on behalf of the nation” (2001: 5). This would for example be the support for and the referendum of 1997 itself. A last meaning of nationalism following Smith is “a doctrine and/or ideology of the nation, both general and particular” (2001: 6). The symbols and movements of a nation are driven by the ideology of the nationalism behind it (2001: 8).

The third meaning which points at language and symbolism of the nation is comparable to what Leerssen calls “cultural nationalism” (2006: 560). He argues that the nation, which is the idea at the basis of nationalism, exists of a cumulation of people with the same particular mindset in terms of the nation, and this peculiar mentality is partly shaped by cultural elements such as language or historical consciousness. More specifically, “the right to national self-determination, cultural survival and cultural self-expression” is by considered nationalists to be “a self-evident and ethically autonomous principle, alongside (not derived from) equality, justice and political stability” (2006: 560). In his theory, nationalism considers the state as a means to an end. It is

partly the task of the state to personify its fundamental nationality since it is also due to nationality that the state has the right to exist (2006: 560). Cultural nationalism is according to Leerssen the most important kind of nationalism, inasmuch as he states that “all nationalism is cultural nationalism” (2006: 560-562). In his comparative research of Ireland and Scotland, Ryan emphasises the importance of culture and history as well. He says that Scotland in a certain way has already achieved its independence. In the history it is guardian of it holds its own tradition. The key to actually achieve independence is by linking the past to the present (2002:41). It is on this aspect of nationalism that I will focus the most, as the historical novels that I will discuss both contribute to culture and history.

Before I start with the novels, it is time to look at Smith’s definition of nationalism. He himself calls it a working definition: “an ideological movement for attaining and maintaining autonomy, unity and identity for a population which some of its members deem to constitute an actual or potential ‘nation’” (2001: 9). From this definition, he concludes three things. The first is that nationalism presumes a common, ideal-typical character. However, this character only belongs to the members which identify themselves with the nation, as in his definition Smith clearly states “some of its members”. The second conclusion is that nationalism is a movement with a clear goal. It is an ideology and therefore it suggests certain types of action. The last conclusion is that according to this definition, nations do not necessarily exist before their nationalisms (2001: 9-10). There can thus be nationalism without a nation. Scotland itself is a separate case, since it was an independent country until 1707, after which it entered a political union with England. In 1997 it gained some of its independence back with the establishment of the Scottish Parliament. Through history its members have thus known what it is to be a nation with a state and a nation without a state. Smith also stresses the difference between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism is allegiance to the grander territorial state and its institutions, whereas nationalism is a psychological connection to ancestral affinity, which originates fundamentally from kinship affection (2001: 16). Hence a Scottish person can experience a strong sense of patriotism towards The United Kingdom, while at the same time actively identifying with the Scottish nationality.

2.2. THE SCOTS’ INITIAL REACTION TO MARY With these theories in mind, I will first take a look at the portrayal of the Scottish people in the novels and how they perceive Mary. Afterwards I will pay more attention to the other way around,

namely how Mary perceives the Scots and their traditions. The usual image of Scotland is one of a rough country with an impressive and beautiful landscape, but unpredictable weather. An image perhaps applicable to its inhabitants as well. Mary’s half-brother Lord James and most of the high lords at her time, proved to be harsh and untrustworthy. It is thus interesting to look at the other Scots and whether they supported Mary. In both Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles and Fatal Majesty, Mary is received back in Scotland by her people. The Other Queen is less relevant in this respect, since the novel only shows Mary’s time in captivity, and so less Scots appear in the book. In Fatal Majesty, she is described as the enchanting and graceful queen as remembered in history:

There was no dour or sullen face to be seen, nothing but animation as, rumour scampering ahead, the crowds thickened into throngs, waving and cheering, smiling, bowing, curtseying, ready and willing to be enchanted by the laughing, vivacious young woman who, as far as looks and charm went, was just the kind of queen they would have chosen if anyone had asked them. A stranger she might be and an idolatrous Catholic in a dourly Protestant land, but she was tall and regal, graceful and beautiful, and Lord James would put her right. (Tannahill 1999: 9)

She is rendered harmless by the Protestants too, as they trust Lord James will make her reign his way. The Scots are enthusiastic to embrace their new queen. However, there might be a hint to her tragic future in this extract as well, since it emphasises that she is their perfect queen “as far as looks and charm went”. There is no mentioning of her intellectual capacity to reign the country. The historian Wormald does not hesitate in her study of Mary Queen of Scots to call Mary an inept queen who was less intelligent than her counterpart Elizabeth. She even claims Mary was “wholly unable” to cope with the responsibilities of the supreme power she was born to (2018: 199). This is in contrast with Gregory’s vision, which blamed circumstances and not Mary for her downfall. In the account of Mary’s arrival in Scotland in Fatal Majesty, it is not her intelligence but her religion which is described as the most serious complication. Her religion was indeed a difficulty for the protestant Lords of the Congregation, who feared before her arrival that she would persist to rule a Catholic country.

In Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles there is not only an extensive account of the queen’s life, but also of her advisors, Elizabeth, and other characters such as Bothwell and her greatest enemy John Knox. George narrates her story from the very beginning with Mary’s birth to the very end with her death. In the part after Mary’s mother, Marie de Guise, dies, four Lords of the

Congregation – William Maitland, Lord James, Morton and Erskine – discuss whether Mary should return to Scotland. Maitland tries to convince the other lords that the Catholic Mary will be good for Scotland. Initially they disagree with him but he claims that she will bring liveliness and joy to the “dull and grey” country (George 2012: 116). They argue this and claim that John Knox would never approve, but Maitland says that even Knox will have to admit it is a good idea: “For at heart he’s a hard-headed Scotsman, and he will know that a sparkling court will raise Scotland’s prestige abroad. A government of sober men, working in committees, does not appeal to the imagination, or even seem like a real country” (George 2012: 116). It appears as if even at that time, the Scots had to defend the right of their country to exist, and prestige was of major importance. Maitland even compared the atmosphere of the land to its grey weather, and the Protestant lords reigning the country contributed to that. Mary, on the other hand, would radiate warmth and elegance.

According to Wormald, “For all outsiders, it was common ground that Scotland was indeed small, geographically remote, and impoverished” (2018: 18). However, that is not how the Scots saw themselves. They took great pride in their country and they were enthusiastic for the world outside their small nation (Wormald 2018: 21). Over the previous century and a half, they had developed the tradition of “regarding themselves as far more powerful, more important, more interesting than their remote geographic position and comparative poverty actually entitled to be” (Wormald 2018: 21). They created a positive self-image which made it impossible for the larger powers of Western Europe to continue to overlook their country. The Scots gained their self-confidence because the English had been unsuccessfully trying for almost a century to conquer Scotland. They failed to do so partly due to effective Scottish resistance (Wormald 2018: 21). The Scots were not as remote as they were often described to be, if outsiders would only have tried to see so (Wormald 2018: 24). George’s portrayal of Scotland through Maitland’s words rather depicts a Scotland from the stereotypes, than a Scotland according to Wormald’s historical vision. Nevertheless, there is no doubt Mary brought the Scottish court to life again, which heightened its international prestige.

In George’s version of the story, mourning her late husband Francis II in France, Mary is ordained by a higher authority inside her to return to Scotland: “The next morning she awakened and sat bolt-upright, filled with conviction. She must go to Scotland. The decision was less a decision than an order from somewhere deep within her, which had gathered strength during the night and now

took command” (George 2012: 123). She was born to be queen of Scotland and has to save the country where she belonged. This can be seen as a manifestation of a sense of nationalism as well, where she is to rightfully rule her country and make it flourish again. When Mary arrives in Scotland in Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, it is not as she imagined it would be. There has been a white mist covering the country for days, which makes her return less festive: “So thick was the fog that in spite of the voices and noises as the galley approached the landing, Mary could not even see the wharf. There were no trumpets, no gladsome shouts of welcome, nothing but the smell of tar, the thump of ropes, and the raw voices of seamen crying” (George 2012: 129). Mary has arrived earlier than expected and so her people were not ready to welcome her.

Even though in an earlier cited extract of Fatal Majesty, the people were amazed by her beauty and grace, they were not as pleased with her return before they had seen her as well. In the first paragraph, Tannahill writes: “She should have been welcomed by lords and ladies in velvet and jewels; heralds in scarlet and gold; loyal addresses, fanfares of trumpets, cheering throngs. But there were only a few open-mouthed bystanders. Her subjects had not expected to see her so soon. In truth, many of them would have preferred not to see her at all” (1999: 3). By spending most of her youth in France and only returning fourteen months after her mother Mary of Guise had died, Mary had to gain the trust of her people again by showing her face and ruling the nation with a righteous hand. When she greets them on her way to Holyrood Palace, she spreads hope among them that better times are ahead. She has come to rebuild the rough country.

On her way to Holyrood in Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, there is a rather symbolic moment in which Mary pardons a group of young men who organised a play on a Sunday. Their leader was condemned to death by new laws of the Reformed Kirk. As a result the youths cheer for her and she enjoys their happiness against the will of her brother James: “‘Sister!’ said Lord James, catching his breath. ‘The royal dignity!’ He urged his horse forward and the party set out again, with the freed youths dancing behind them” (George 2012: 133). Mary has freed the young men, as she is bound to free her nation. However, history will tell otherwise and weaken her high spirits. Both George and Tannahill thus describe how Mary’s return home eventually binds the citizens together in the hope that her arrival brought, while also emphasising how an ominous mist darkens this hope. Mary Queen of Scots led a tumultuous life, which is in accordance with the

eventful history of Scotland. As Watson notes, the weight of its history and the changing status of the nation, make Scotland an eternal interesting subject for writers (1991: 34-44).

2.3. THE UNPOLISHED SCOTS In The Other Queen, the Scottish people are only depicted once in Mary’s memory of her time in Scotland. When Morton visits her during her imprisonment in England, she realises what kind of country she is striving to go back to:

For a moment I think of what a return to Scotland will mean to me. It will be no summer of French roses. The Scots were ill-suited to me before, and matters will not have improved. I shall have to live with a barbaric people and dine with a bloodstain on my floor. I shall have to rule them with my will and all my political skills. When Bothwell comes we can dominate them together, but until he arrives I will be in constant danger again of kidnap and rebellion. (Gregory 2017: 343-344)

She is entirely negative about the Scots and they are in nothing comparable to her grace and beauty. The bloodstain on her floor refers to the brutal murder of her beloved private secretary David Rizzio, who was killed by a large group of conspirators – there were around eighty of them – in her presence at a time at which she was heavily pregnant (Guy 2009: 248). Her second husband Darnley was one of the betrayers. Mary thus rightly remembers the Scots as a barbaric people, especially the higher lords. This is a dark part of Scottish history, which casts a stain on the nation, while at the same time it is this kind of common history which binds the people somehow. The lords were brutal, but Mary was utterly brave and managed to escape her precautious situation. She is brave too, for wanting to go back to the country with the lords who brought her so much trouble. Scotland is her ‘homeland’ where she desires to go back to no matter what (Smith 2001: 31). According to Smith, rooting in the homeland is essential for every nation. Even for the nations that inhabit their homelands, it is important that the inhabitants reconnect with their original ancestries (2001: 31). In the future, Mary becomes part of the homeland as well, following Smith’s definition of it:

A homeland constitutes an historic territory, the ancestral land. It is the land of our forefathers and foremothers, and contains their last resting-places. It is also the arena and indispensable setting for the great men and women, and the turning points, in the nation’s history – battles and treaties, synods and assemblies, the exploits of heroes and the shrines and schools of saints and sages. Then there is the landscape itself. (Smith 2001: 31-32)

The novels that are discussed in this paper help the Scots remember their homeland. Readers will obtain a knowledge of how their forefathers and foremothers lived, while also receiving a detailed account of the much-discussed great woman Mary Queen of Scots. In Fatal Majesty, the Scottish forefathers and -mothers appear to be predictable and naive. William Maitland is described as an exception to the people: “Watching him go – a tall, lean, competent and clever man with his hand on the dagger at his belt – de Quandra thought, ‘What a very sophisticated man, for a Scot’” (Tannahill 1999: 103). As Mary’s Secretary of State, Maitland is depicted in the novel as someone who has Scotland’s best interest at heart. Therefore it is not always clear at whose side he is and he sometimes is compared with Machiavelli, as Morton does at a certain moment in Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles: “No wonder they call you Michael Wily (…). Machiavelli could learn from you. The pupil surpasses the master” (George 2012: 116). In the end Maitland dies after fighting for Mary’s cause, and after always striving for what is best for Scotland, he can be considered as one of the great men in Scottish history. In Fatal Majesty, Maitland’s father does not see a bright future for Scotland: “What hope is there for a land whose people can find only one man among their rulers who is worthy of respect?” (Tannahill 1999: 220). The only respectable man he refers to is his son, while the unreliability of the lords is again emphasised.

A little later in the novel, Mary reflects back on her time in Scotland. She has been deeply disappointed in the lords and awfully mistreated by them. The cold and dark Scottish climate has also saddened her spirits: “She had tried her best to love Scotland, and had succeeded for a while, despite the long, hard winters and the long-faced, hard-headed lords, until the endless grey days had begun to bear down on her spirits and she had learned to like or trust no one whose native tongue was Scots or whose interests might run contrary to her own” (Tannahill 1999: 231). Again she thinks negatively about the Scottish higher classes, especially the men. However, she realises that not all Scots can behave in that manner, and she does not want to abandon her people. With “her people” she means “the ordinary people who loved her” and who have been slightly suspicious at the arrival of their anointed queen who has been raised at court in France (Tannahill 1999: 231). Yet they have learned to love her when they saw her for the first time only four years earlier. Nevertheless Mary has underestimated their hatred for France and regrets that she did not notice this negative feeling at the time, for things might have ended in a different way (Tannahill 1999: 231). This might suggest a strong sense of nationalism with the Scots, as they feel

threatened by the habits of a foreign country. It might also indicate that Mary does not entirely identify among the Scots and their nationalistic feelings.

The gap between Mary and the ordinary people only becomes larger after the murder on her second husband Lord Darnley and her marriage to Bothwell, who was accused of this murder. The people blamed her for Darnley’s death and lost respect for her. They even put placards on the street at night, to show their discontent and humiliate Mary and Bothwell. In both the novels describing Mary’s time in Scotland, there is one placard which stands out: “On the 1st March, the most savage of all the placards appeared, one bearing a vaguely heraldic image showing a mermaid and a hare. The mermaid was a symbol of prostitution, and the hare happened to be the crest of the Hepburns” (Tannahill 1999: 289). On top of that, the artist has inscribed Mary’s initials next to the mermaid, so that there could be no misunderstanding as to whom this represented. According to the English diplomat Throckmorton, her people had become hostile towards Mary – especially the women – and to him it was clear that there was no hope to restore the queen to her throne (Wormald 2018: 174). Even though the Scots speak against their queen, this is no sign they do not support the nation. In fact, it unifies those who fight for the same cause and feel let down. Smith compares the effects of nationalism with the impact of religion (2001: 2). They both still reach and define millions of people today. Following this comparison, it is important to consider “the role of symbolic elements in the language and emotional aspects of the discourse and action of the nation” (Smith 2001: 3). This humiliation of Mary by her own people questions the possibility of her being a symbol of Scottish nationalism. On the other hand, the anger of the Scots can be seen as one of the emotional aspects of the nation that Smith mentions. They feel betrayed by the head of their country and are very intense about it.

Another moment when they show their aversion towards the queen is at the battle of Carberry Hill. One month after her marriage to Bothwell, Mary and her army are opposed to the Confederate lords and their army on 15 June 1567. After a whole day in full sunlight without water, and to avoid unnecessary casualties, Mary surrenders to the lords. She had not expected them to show respect to her, but she is shocked again at the hatred of her people: “But neither had she expected their men – those ordinary subjects whose love had never failed her – to howl and jostle her, to tear the hat from her head and the gown form her shoulders, to jeer and spit at her. To shout, ‘Kill her! Burn her! Burn the whore!’” (Tannahill 1999: 326). This is a typical representation of the

rough, unmannered Scots. They are passionate, harsh people, even frightening at certain times, but there is beauty in their passion as well. Again they can be compared to the Scottish landscape, not only because it is grey and dark, but because it is positively impressive too. Mary rediscovers the beauty of the landscape at her return to Scotland and it makes her love her country a bit more: “It was strangely beautiful, with its odd diffuse light and its muted range of colours, the still lochs reflecting silver and grey from the sky. ‘What a fair land this is!’ She said to Lord James” (George 2012: 162). Mary’s description of the landscape as “strangely beautiful” can thus be used for the Scots as well.

In Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, George follows Mary’s soul that leaves her body after her execution. Mary looks back at the country and people which were both her destiny and ruin. Finally she can understand them and find rest:

The mother went to Scotland and saw James, a grown man, dressed all in black. She saw the courtiers, too. New ones, ones that were not there when she had ruled. And the old ones, the ones who had held sway and terror in her time, now quite vanished. But Holyrood was the same; Edinburgh Castle was the same.

She saw the Earl of Sinclair striding in in armour; heard James ask, peevishly, if he had not received the order to wear mourning for the Queen of Scotland; heard the Earl cry out, striking his armour, ‘This is the proper mourning for the Queen of Scotland!’ and flourish his sword.

Scotland… it had not changed. But now she could love it. (George 2012: 865)

It has taken her her whole lifetime to entirely warm up to Scotland. She has loved it at times and hated it, until in the end she can appreciate and love it entirely as it is. She can finally see her son, who will unite Scotland and England in person. She feels that the country has not changed, which might also be part of its strength as a nation. It is a strong nation not only because of its beautiful aspects, but also because of its citizens’ determination, roughness and passion.

2.4. A TRADITIONAL SCOTTISH BANQUET Apart from its landscape and citizens, a nation holds its own traditions. According to Smith, traditions form a crucial part of the national identity. He defines national identity as follows: “The continuous reproduction and reinterpretation of the pattern of values, symbols, memories, myths and traditions that compose the distinctive heritage of nations, and the identifications of

individuals with that pattern and heritage and with its cultural elements” (2001: 18) The Scots today thus still identify themselves according to the values and memories of their ancestors. George reproduces these manners and traditions in her novel. Shortly after Mary’s return to Scotland, the lords want to give a special banquet in her honour. The banquet is full of surprises for Mary, who wants to restore her country’s lost glory and customs, but who does not even know half of these traditions. This banquet should make her more familiar with Scottish life at court. Her foreignness already shows when she is dressing for the event and remarks that she has “never been a guest in [her] own palace before” (George 2012: 154). Lord Seton in turn ensures her that she should not feel odd and that it is a custom in Scotland. Mary notices that instead of giving a welcoming speech at the beginning of the banquet, Lord James thanks the Lord for bringing their Sovereign Queen back home. At the banquet, she is presented with numerous dishes of which she thinks they have unusual tastes. They are not comparable to the delicate French kitchen, but the Scots are not delicate either. The first dish is a cockle stew with seaweed, which she finds “spongy and impossible to cut through” (George 2012: 155). After that come the Dunfermline dumplings, which are made from pig’s liver and caul, followed by the powsowdie, which “has a sheep’s head in it” (George 2012: 155). Mary politely tries to swallow it all but she is unable to enjoy the dishes. She is again surprised and a little shocked when during dinner some musicians start playing the bagpipes, a for her unusual instrument she had not heard before: “Just then a blast of screeching music jolted her out of her chair. It rose to a crescendo and then wailed off in a whimper. It sounded like a supernatural scream” (George 2012: 155-156). Mary cannot immediately appreciate the sound of the most typical Scottish music instrument. She is disappointed again when she tastes the remarkable pink wine, which she finds “musty” (George 2012: 156). Lord James explains that it is beetroot wine because grapes cannot grow in Scotland. A new shock is coming for her when the bagpipes start “screeching frantically” at the arrival of the most famous Scottish dish. All the attendees stand up when the plate is carried in. Lord James clarifies to Mary what it contains: “‘The haggis (…). Something only true Scotsmen can appreciate.’ He paused, before explaining, ‘It contains the heart, lungs, and liver of a sheep, boiled in intestine. With suet and oatmeal, of course’” (George 2012: 156). After taking a bite, Mary decides it is better than the cockles, since it does not resist to teeth. Lord James approves of her eating the haggis, for he says that now he knows she is a true Scot.

While eating the Scottish delicacy, another peculiar Scottish habit catches her eye: “Only then did Mary look around and notice that all the men were eating with their own daggers. Evidently they carried them at all times and used them as they pleased, even at formal banquets. She also noticed how few of the men seemed to have wives present. Was this a nation of bachelors?” (George 2012: 156). The image of the rough and slightly barbarous Scots is confirmed here. They eat with their own daggers at festivities, and most of the young men are unmarried. This might suggest that they are not tender enough to have a wife, or that they are not interested in the warmth and feeling of safety a woman could bring them. However, the Scots do show they have soft feelings after they have had some glasses of their beloved whisky. When a woman starts singing a song, a number of the Lords starts weeping, which makes the French guests feel embarrassed: “It was disconcerting to see these warriors, still clutching their daggers, moved to tears over a song” (George 2012: 157). Again there is a portrayal of the Scots as brave fighters. Even though there is a huge difference between her upbringing at French court and the Scottish way of living, Mary tries to adjust to the new situation and she respects the Scottish manners. Nevertheless she cannot keep up with the Lords who happily keep refilling their glasses. Yet she enjoys the taste of whisky: “It filled her mouth with a burning sweetness, deep and compelling, yet searing. (…) But the taste it left in the mouth was comforting, calling for another sip. Its flavour was like nothing she had ever tasted, and it was so much stronger than wine it seemed another creature altogether” (George 2012: 157). George’s description of whisky as “another creature altogether” could be interpreted as a metaphor for Scotland. Scotland is entirely different from France and wine, but therefore not less valuable. They are different yet equivalent nations.

At the end of the banquet, Mary feels more connected to her Scottish company. She is starting to feel her bonds to the Scottish heritage: “Mary looked around at this company of fierce men – fierce in their joy and their eating and their drinking. She was sober herself, but despite the lack of whisky in her veins, she felt something within her very self that answered them” (George 2012: 158). She had started to love her country a bit more. With the description of the banquet, George reminds the Scottish readers of the habits of their forefathers. She gives them a glimpse of their cultural heritage, which might strengthen their possibly nationalistic feelings today. Her own ties with Scotland lie with her ancestors, and as mentioned in the first chapter, she is proud of her heritage.

Traditions of different nations can be quite different, and one who is unaware of this may unwillingly insult the other nation. In Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, this is what sometimes happens to Mary. Lord James points out that she gives scandal in Scotland by riding her horse side-saddle so that she shows her legs. In Scotland this is regarded as provocative. Mary is sincerely shocked to hear this and she starts wondering if she has unintentionally offended her people. She decides to summon James Melville, who had accompanied her to France, but was also trained to be a soldier in Scotland, so he knew the customs of both nations. She asks him to warn her in the future if she unintentionally gives offence to her people by her speech or manners (2012: 161). The described excerpt shows how important traditions and customs are in a nation, and George manages to reproduce this in detail in her novel.

To sum up, history and culture are of major importance in the development of a national identity. For a stronger connection to the homeland, its inhabitants need to keep in touch with old traditions and heroes. With their historical novels, George, Tannahill and Gregory help the Scots to preserve their national heritage. Their ancestors are portrayed as rough and brutal, yet brave people. They did not always approve of Mary, and she not always loved them either, but in the end, they all fought for Scotland.

3. MARY AS A METAPHOR FOR SCOTLAND

3.1. MARY IN THE OTHER QUEEN: ENEMIES AND ADMIRERS After looking at the representation of the Scots and their habits, in this chapter I want to investigate the manner in which Mary is depicted in the novels. How is she described and do the authors present her as a rightful ruler? Was she really a true Scot as Lord James exclaimed when she had eaten the haggis? Was she responsible for her downfall or was she a good match for Scotland nevertheless? I will also touch upon the possibility of Mary’s imprisonment as a metaphor for the independent Scotland today.

Since the moment she was born as a girl, Mary had her proponents and opponents. One of her strongest opponents was the Protestant preacher John Knox, who is said to have hated her even more for her gender than her beliefs (Guy 2009: 177). In Fatal Majesty, during the last years of Mary’s life, her only original remaining lady-in-waiting Mary Seton sighed that none of the unfortunate events would have happened if only Mary had been a man (Tannahill 1999: 409). It was a peculiar time at the island of Scotland and England in that century, with two queens reigning the island instead of two kings. John Guy, who has written a well-researched biography of Mary Queen of Scots, summarizes the general feelings after her death well:

In death as in life, Mary always aroused the strongest feelings. To her apologists, she was an innocent victim. She was mishandled and traduced: a political pawn in the hands of those perfidious Scottish Lords and ambitious French and English politicians who found her inconvenient and in their way. To her critics, she was fatally flawed. She was far too much affected by her emotions. She ruled from the heart and not from the head. She was a femme fatale: a manipulative siren, who flaunted her sexuality in dancing and banqueting and did not care who knew it. (2009: 10)

Having done extensive research, Guy himself appears to be rather sympathetic to Mary’s cause. This is in contrast with the earlier cited historian Wormald, who claims Mary was responsible for everything which happened to her. As mentioned in the first chapter already, Gregory does not believe that Mary ruled with her heart only instead of with her head too. She was left to rule “a country as unruly as Scotland” (2017: 441). However, at first sight it seems as if Mary is portrayed in a more negative manner in The Other Queen than she is depicted in Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles and Fatal Majesty, where some of her bad decisions or unfortunate characteristics are

less prominently pointed out. The Other Queen also takes place during the latter part of Mary’s life and the reader is given a straightforward account from three different perspectives on the queen’s time as a captive. The novel gives an insight in the minds of her jailer, the sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, George Talbot, his wife the Countess of Shrewsbury, Elizabeth (Bess) of Hardwick, and Mary herself. Bess and George both develop different feelings towards Mary.

Before Mary has even arrived, Bess already strongly disapproves of her: “a young woman, a vain woman, a sinful woman, an idolatrous Papist woman, God forgive her errors, and save us from the destruction she will bring us” (Gregory 2017: 2). Mary does indeed almost ruin Bess’s fortune and marriage, as queen Elizabeth refuses to pay for the costs of her cousin and Bess’ husband the Earl falls in love with the Scottish queen. Yet the Earl only develops these strongly sympathetic feelings for Mary after a while. At first he is wary of her well-discussed charm: “I must say, she does not inspire me either to love, or to deep loyalty. I would never trust her with my oath – as I have trusted my own queen. This one is quicksilver: she is all fire and light. A queen who wants to hold her lands needs to be more of the earth” (Gregory 2017: 55). Mary is described as being so perfect, she is too good to be true. However, he mentions a reason why she was not able to keep her country is that her spirits are too high. He compares her to quicksilver: she is lively and elusive, as appears in her sometimes whimsical moods. She is not earthly either in the sense that he believes she is truly divine: “She is an extraordinary creature: moody, mercurial, a thing of air and passion, the first mortal that I have ever met that I can say is indeed truly divine. All kings and queens stand closer to God than ordinary men and women; but this is the first one in my experience who proves it. She is truly touched by God. She is like an angel” (Gregory 2017: 54). She would thus be entitled to the Scottish throne by her divine right to rule.

Even though the Earl implies that she is untrustworthy and not approachable to her people because she is so extraordinary, Mary is generally thought to have a warm heart for both the rich and the poor. This kindness is already shown in an aforementioned excerpt where Mary pardons a group of young men at her arrival in Scotland in George’s novel. Guy even calls her “unreservedly generous and amiable” in his biography (2009: 2). He also adds that several contemporaries noticed her “almost magical ability to create the impression that the person she was talking to was the only one whose opinion really mattered to her” (2009: 2). Mary was fully aware of her capacity to enchant her bystanders, although she might have overestimated this ability of hers in

Scotland since it did not help her to win the lords to her side. Her grace emphasises the difference between her and the Scottish lords, but it could also make the ordinary people proud at the time, while nowadays it adds to the mysterious and mythical person she has become in the history of the nation.

In The Other Queen, it is shown from Mary’s perspective how important she finds the image of her person as a queen. She must behave like it and be perceived in this manner at all times: “I have to stand still and proud, I have to be seen to be a queen, even dressed like a serving woman in a black travelling cape. (…) There is nothing more important now, at this moment of my humiliation, than preserving the power of majesty. I am a queen. (…) I have to make the magic of majesty all alone, in the darkness” (Gregory 2017: 40). She thus admits that she purposefully creates the “magic of majesty” around her person herself. In this excerpt, she is caught trying to escape Bolton Castle and is about to meet her new jailer George Talbot. Although at first he does not give in to it, she eventually succeeds in making him love her, in spite of which he remains loyal to Elizabeth. The first weeks, the Earl is stunned by the Scottish queen’s behaviour and personality. Her moods change from being light-hearted to strong-willed and one day she is full of energy while the next she cannot move because she is too ill and too tired. She complains about the cold and her health is failing her, causing her to have a persistent pain in her side. She is said to have suffered from rheumatism (Guy 2009: 3). One would expect her illness and pain at a young age to attenuate the image of her as a divine queen and make her appear more human. Nevertheless, her finding the courage and power despite her physical discomforts to escape Bolton Castle through the window on a rope makes her even more godly in the Earl’s eyes. She has ridden for three days straight from Scotland to seek refuge in England, only surviving on oatmeal and cutting of her thick, long hair to hide as a boy. The Earl is put in front of a mystery: “Riding hard and sleeping rough, with rough soldiers as her companions? What powers can she draw on, that we mortals cannot have? It has to be God Himself who gives her this tremendous power and her female nature that undermines her strength with natural delicacy” (Gregory 2017: 54-55). A Scottish nationalist could say it was not only her willpower which made her more divine, but it was also her Scottish blood that gave her strength. The Scots have a reputation of being hardy and courageous fighters (Wormald 2018: 19).

Even though Mary grew up mostly in France, she carries at least as much of the Scottish nationality with her as she carries the French nationality. According to Smith and an “organic conception of nationalism”, one is born into a nation and it does not matter where one migrates, the nation of birth will always be a fundamental part of the person’s identity (2001: 40). Mary’s ambiguous nationality is, among others, shown through her language, which is inextricably linked to nationality. The Scots distinguish themselves from the English partly through their language and their accent. In The Other Queen, Mary experiences difficulties with the pronunciation of both Scottish and English. She cannot pronounce the Earl of Shrewsbury’s name and he even states that “She speaks like a Frenchwoman; you would never know that her father was a Scot” (Gregory 2017: 59). This statement is in contrast to Fatal Majesty, where no such thing is mentioned. At her hearing in England, an Englishman at court is surprised by her voice “because it was low, musical and youthful. She had a rather pretty Scottish accent” (Tannahill 1999: 436). He does not think she has a typical Scottish accent, but she sounds Scottish nevertheless. This might suggest that Tannahill indeed takes a slightly more favoured position towards Mary than Gregory does.

In Gregory’s novel, we are also given an insight into how perhaps Mary’s greatest enemy, Elizabeth’s advisor William Cecil, perceives Mary after meeting her. He is friends with Bess, who asks him bluntly what he thinks of the Scottish queen. He starts by confirming the usual prejudices which are so often associated with her: she is beautiful, charming, clever while keeping her own interests in mind, and cunning. She is elegant both physically and in conversation, with a lot of radiance about her. She is undoubtedly the most beautiful queen in Europe, perhaps even the most beautiful woman he has ever seen (Gregory 2017: 332). However, he also finds an equally important down side to Mary: “She is untrustworthy, an unreliable ally but a frightening enemy. (…) She lies like a bargee, and deceives like a whore. She sits like a spider at the centre of a web of plots that corrupts or ensnares almost every man in the country” (Gregory 2017: 333). She is his enemy, an enemy to his queen and an even more dangerous enemy to the peace in England.

Bess completely agrees with Cecil and she thinks Mary brings trouble everywhere she goes. Bess believes that Mary is “a woman accursed”: none of her husbands have flourished in marriage to her and nor Scotland nor France has benefited from having her as a queen of their countries (Gregory 2017: 283). Even Bess is susceptible to Mary’s charm, and therefore she hates her even more. In her eyes, Mary is a thoroughly bad woman. Yet, Bess’s husband does not want to believe

Mary is dishonest with him. When a servant of Cecil asks him how he can “admire a face which is two-faced”, he finally starts to doubt her reliability (Gregory 2017: 370). A little later it appears that he was right to do so, as Mary easily breaks the promise she made to him that she would not try to plot or escape. She has lied to Cecil and Morton as well and so dishonoured her word as a queen (Gregory 2017: 380). This negative trait is similar to how the Scottish lords behaved to Mary when she was still in Scotland. A signed bond would in the end mean nothing.

However, Mary lies to protect herself and her country. She believes it is utterly unfair of Elizabeth to keep her as a prisoner. When she is caught trying to escape Bolton Castle, she starts panicking: “I can feel the courage drain from me as if I am bleeding to death, and I am icy. The taste of defeat is like cold iron in my mouth, like the bit for an unbroken filly. (…) I want to run and I want to throw myself face down on the ground and I want to weep for my freedom. But this is not the way of a queen” (Gregory 2017: 40). She yearns so much for her freedom she cannot bear the thought of letting it slip through her fingers again. In the novel, it is mentioned numerous times how she was destined to be free. Her desire to be free is also shown in the way she loves to ride her horse. At a certain time while riding, George asks why she always wants to go so fast and far, and she responds the following: “Because I love to be free. (…) I love to feel the horse stretch out and the thunder of his hooves and the wind in my face and the knowing we can go on and on forever” (Gregory 2017: 117). She loves to ride “astride like a boy” and “as fast as a man” (Gregory 2017: 113). Her craving for adrenaline might as well be a sign of her Scottish blood. By escaping Lochleven Castle and being willing to ride and fight as a boy, she shows her bravery and fearlessness. These are characteristics that would usually be ascribed to a Scottish man, but Mary has it in her too. She is a strong female ruler who is by no means inferior to a king. Even the Earl feels to be cruel and as if he is her jailor against his will. He cannot bear to be the one who confines her, but he could not bear for anyone else to do so either. He strives for her freedom in his mind: “There is something in the set of her head, like a beautiful figure in a tableau, that makes one long for an army in the fields below her, an army to rescue her and take her away. Even though she is my prisoner I long for her escape” (Gregory 2017: 157). Therefore she is dangerous for Elizabeth, for there will always be men who want to risk their lives to save her.

In this perspective, Mary can be a metaphor for contemporary Scotland. Many nationalistic Scots want to strive for an independent Scotland, as the country is still tied to England. They might have

their parliament back, but its decisions still need to be approved of by the parliament in Westminster. They did not gain complete independence in 1997. In the same way as the Scottish queen was imprisoned by the English queen in the sixteenth century, Scotland’s independence is, in a manner of speaking, imprisoned by England today. In his work on nationalism, Smith writes down six basic propositions which accomplish nationalism. One of those is that “to be free, every individual must belong to a nation” (2001: 22) However, this proposition works in two directions. When Mary is in England, she is not free for she belongs to another nation, but if one is home in one’s acknowledged nation, one can feel free.

3.2. MARY IN MARY QUEEN OF SCOTLAND AND THE ISLES: AN UNFORTUNATE QUEEN IN HISTORY BOOKS In Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, there are less direct descriptions of Mary’s personality and behaviour. The narrator follows her closely through the whole story and as a reader, one often receives a clear insight in her mind. She is described as a brave survivor who has the willpower of a man. She is elegant, kind hearted and caring. She is also passionate, clever and impulsive. Her appearance is graciously as that of a queen, yet she fails her subjects. Her caring personality is shown as she thinks of Scotland as a “poor, broken country”, which she longs to nurture and bring back to life (George 2012: 144). She also has a love for gardening and taking care of animals. It all serves to brighten up the Scottish court again. She brings in two lions, which are the emblem of Scotland. According to Lord James, they “mean power as well as grace” (George 2012: 2013). At the end of Mary’s reign, one could say she had plenty of the latter but lacked of the former. Throughout the novel, Mary pays attention to flowers every now and then. She enjoys it when they start to bloom and she is passionate to see them grow. She notices that “Flowers had no memory, although they evoked it in others” (George 2012: 210). She wants to grow flowers and plants from the French gardens in Scotland, but her gardeners immediately tell her they will not grow there since it is too cold. However, she persists and does not let their pessimism ruin her delighted mood. Her love for gardening shows how passionate she can be.

Her passion is always prominent during a fight as well. When she travels with her soldiers who are to protect her against John Gordon, who was a threat to Mary because of his obsession with her, she even longs to be one of them: “I am sorry I am not a man! I should like to know what life it is to lie all night in the fields, or to walk upon the causeway with jack, a helmet, a Glasgow buckler, and broadsword!” (George 2012: 201). She feels for them and this illustrates her empathic

character. This scene also portrays her bravery and fearlessness. When later in the novel Mary is accused of plotting to kill Darnley and to be the author of the Casket letters2, Maitland cannot link the content and tone of the letters with how he knows his queen: “She was passionate, she was impulsive, God knew she could become stormy and angry, but she never whined or whimpered, and she never debased herself” (George 2012: 660). In George’s novel, she is thus a temperamental queen who manages to keep her grace at all times. She is grateful to the Lord for “delivering” her “her kingdom”, but she is deeply saddened too by the state in which it finds itself (George 2012: 290). She had cherished high hopes when she returned to her homeland, but now she is disappointed in her failure and the treason of some of the dissatisfied lords. She tries to be a wise ruler and she seeks “His guidance”, but she cannot control her country (George 2012: 290).

Her half-brother Lord James bluntly calls the rule of his sister “an experiment which has failed” (George 2012: 328). He wishes to captivate and dethrone her, after which it would be convenient if she would fall ill and die. He thus blatantly suggests regicide on the basis of the following principles: “A Catholic Queen who has been unable to control her protestant country, and who has proven herself weak and in need of a man’s guidance? But in her folly and lack of discernment, she has chosen unworthy men like Riccio to lean on, alas” (George 2012: 328). Despite Lord James’ description of her as an inadequate queen, she succeeds to escape from the lords’ hands. Nevertheless, it is only a matter of time before she is finally beaten and has to spend the last nineteen years of her life as a prisoner in England. At the age of twenty four, after her disastrous marriage to Bothwell, Mary looks back on her reign. Thus far, the only thing she has achieved is failure. She feels that “there would be nothing to write of me in the chronicles” (George : 561). She was Queen of France for a year and a half, a country which, according to Mary, does not even remember her. She did not succeed in unifying the nobles, and she has pardoned those who plotted against her multiple times. None of her marriages have been a success and Elizabeth will presumably never recognize her as her successor. In Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, Mary is thus portrayed as a queen who is not up to her task, not only by her mischievous half-brother Lord James, but also by herself. She may look like a queen on the outside, but she does not have the right qualities to rule with a firm hand. This opinion is similar to Wormald’s vision of Mary.

2 Eight letters produced by Lord James to prove that Mary was an adulteress with Bothwell as her lover. It was the only evidence that Mary was an accomplice to the murder of Darnley (Guy 2009: 396).

Still, she is described as a likeable and sympathetic person, so as a reader you start to care and feel for her. Despite her French upbringing, her Scottish blood is represented in her bravery and temperamental character. During her last years in England, she realises that the only manner in which she can still achieve something as a queen, is by preserving her memory in the future. Of her servants she asks the following when she is to defend herself at the English court for plotting against Elizabeth: “My courage has always been of the physical type – run, fight, ride. The kind that comes from pounding blood and anger. This requires courage of a different order. And, I beg you – whatever happens, when you leave this place, tell my story. Do not let my words and actions perish, or be snuffed out in this castle” (George 2012: 824). She recognizes the importance of historical records, and even though her reign was unsuccessful, she wants to be remembered as a worthy and divine queen. If Elizabeth wants to make an example of her, Mary will use this to her own advantage. Although the English do not want Mary’s execution to be too public and though all the relics have to be destroyed so she will not become a Catholic martyr, they do not succeed in keeping her out of the history books. Her death makes her even more an icon than her marriages, rule and imprisonment did: “There remained still the body of the Queen herself, which would not vanish, the witnesses at the execution, who would recite all the facts to wider and wider audiences; the mementos she had already given away. There were all the places she had lived, the people she had known, the child she had borne – all now elevated and enlarged by the death she had just died” (George 2012: 864). In the end, Mary got her last wish.

According to Smith, the collective identity of a nation is at its strongest when it is largely founded on cultural elements. He sums up what these essentials include and the figure of Mary as an unfortunate queen who was beheaded suits in some of these type elements: “These elements are embodied in collective memories of great exploits and personages, values of honour, justice and the like, symbols of sacred objects, food, dress and emblems, myths of origins, liberation and chosenness, and traditions and customs, rituals and genealogies. In these cases, the collective cultural element is particularly salient and durable” (Smith 2001: 19). That these elements are durable is proven in the three historical novels I discuss here. The justice of Mary’s choices, imprisonment and execution is questioned; in her death she has become a symbol of both Scottish turbulent periods of reign and of the Scottish freedom which is limited by England. Scottish traditions and customs are also extensively touched upon, especially in Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles.

In The Other Queen, Gregory points out the importance of portrayal in historical records too. She ends her novel with Bess who recounts the end of Mary Stuart. Even though Bess strongly dislikes her, she predicts that Mary will even win the charm of numerous historians over time:

But in a way, despite them all, the Scots queen has won the battle. She always said that she was not a tragic figure, not a queen from a legend, but she saw in the end that the only way she would defeat Elizabeth – fully and finally defeat her – was to be the heroine that Elizabeth could not be: a tragic heroine, the queen of suffering, cut down in her beauty and her youth. Elizabeth could name herself the Virgin Queen and claim great beauty, surrounded by admirers; but Mary Queen of Scots will be the one that everyone remembers as the beautiful martyr from this reign, whose lovers willingly died for her. Her death is Elizabeth’s crime. Her betrayal is Elizabeth’s single greatest shame. So she has won that crown. She lost in their constant rivalry for the throne of England, but she will win when the histories are written. The historians, mostly men, will fall in love with her, and make up excuses for her, all over again. (Gregory 2017: 435)

Mary may be portrayed in the least positive manner in Gregory’s novel, yet Bess makes us feel as if Mary has won in the end. She might not have been clever enough to outthink the Scottish lords, Cecil and Elizabeth, but she was clever enough to try to preserve her memory. She clearly succeeded, as the numerous historical research and representations in public culture illustrate. To cite Wormald: “There is great appropriateness in Mary’s motto, ‘in my end is my beginning’; for she has given people far more pleasure, and far less pain, after her death, when reality ended and legend began, than ever she did in life” (2018: 199). Smith mentions the concept of ‘reinterpretation’, which includes the rediscovering of parts of history of the nation and connect them with the alleged ‘golden ages’ in their pasts, so they are revived and bring back the ‘glorious destiny’ of the nation (2001: 85). The three discussed historical novelists reinterpret Mary’s life, as they recount it on the basis of historical evidence and they fill in the gaps with an in their eyes plausible imagination. It is perhaps contradictory to perceive Mary as a part of the ‘golden ages’ since she was dethroned and beheaded, but she was also a beautiful queen who brought splendour back to court and who produced the Scottish heir that would unite Scotland and England in person.

3.3. MARY IN FATAL MAJESTY: MAITLAND AND LOYALTY TO THE NATION After looking at the representation of Mary in both The Other Queen and Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, it is time to have a closer look at Fatal Majesty. In the “Historical Endnote”, Tannahill calls Mary “a myth with an identity crisis” (1999: 459). So much has been written about

her that it is difficult to distinguish the true facts from subjective judgement. She has become a legend rather than a real person in Scottish history, as the abovementioned citation of Wormald illustrates. Tannahill thinks she might have been a successful ruler if she had been born in a later era, but the Scottish world was too tough for the merciful, kind hearted queen who was raised in France. According to Tannahill, “All that can be said with certainty of Mary is that she was intelligent and well-trained, gracious and kind of heart, beautiful and charismatic, but that she was also self-centred, impetuous, and unreliable in judgement” (1999: 459). She acknowledges both Mary’s good and unfortunate characteristics. Even a queen with a more suitable personality might have been defeated at that time.

Tannahill does take a positive stance towards Mary, but she is rather negative about the brutal and harsh Scotland. In her novel, she illustrates the impossible political circumstances in which Mary has to find her way. She explains them particularly through the thoughtful nature of her secretary of state Maitland – whom she refers to as Lethington. In the first months when he gets to know Mary better, he is pleasantly surprised with her reasonable personality: “Lethington (…) had discovered that Mary was more receptive to rational argument than he had dared to hope. There was still no sign of the religious bigotry that might have been expected of a pupil of France and the Guises, and where Elizabeth, her mind already made up, was accustomed to say flatly, ‘I will not’, Mary’s attitude appeared to be, ‘I might, if you can give me good reason’” (Tannahill 1999: 77). She is thus described as being less stubborn than Elizabeth, a sympathetic feature which however does not make her rule easier. She sometimes trusts the lords too easily so she does not always see treason coming, and after a period of time there is no other option than to pardon them to prevent more harm to the realm (Guy 2009: 263).

Despite Mary’s troubled relationship with the lords, she is loved by the common people during her first few years in Scotland. They appear to be more sympathetic than the lords. The English ambassador, Thomas Randolph, is surprised by this dichotomy: “The common people continued to worship her. On festive occasions, she was spectacularly, gloriously, beautifully royal – everything a queen should be – and it seemed to increase rather than diminish her glamour that she should, now and then, descend mischievously from the throne to the market place in order to talk to, and laugh with, her people” (Tannahill 1999: 179). According to Guy, Mary could indeed be

informal with her people “as long as her ‘grandeur’ was respected” (Guy 2009: 2). Tannahill describes the Scottish common people in a more positive manner than she describes the lords.

However she does appear to show a special interest in Maitland, who is an important character in her novel. It could be that she expresses her opinion on Mary’s reign through his character, or that she mostly agrees with his point of view. At a certain point in the novel, Maitland is frustrated at the way in which the English depict Mary as a “desperate danger” (Tannahill 1999: 187). He defends her to Robert Dudley: “She’s a queen and she believes in her divine right to rule. She believes – with justice – that she has a better claim to the throne of England than Elizabeth, but she is prepared to accept the situation as it stands. Beyond that, she is a charming young woman, well educated, artistic, romantic, frustrated, emotional, generous, occasionally unmanageable. But tolerant in religion. (…) I believe that Scotland has been lucky in her” (Tannahill 1999: 187). Maitland mentions some negative traits, but overall he thus believes she is right for Scotland. He wants to use her to “to unite the dissident factions among the lords” and in this manner to achieve more stability for the country (Tannahill 1999: 71). After a while it will become clear to him how naïve that hope was.

Although there are some centuries in between, at the core Maitland has the same desire as the Scottish nationalists today: an independent Scotland. On top of that he wants to enact peace between Scotland and England: “However much I may have been diverted over the years, however great my personal sympathy with Mary, I have always had one overriding purpose, to see the establishment of peace between Scotland and England, we will at least start on the right footing. Scotland is not, and must never be, a dependency of England” (Tannahill 1999: 389). Mary had to be sacrificed because Lord James and Lord Morton were selfish and chose power and protection over Scotland’s honour. The other lords let it happen and that “is a dishonour that has contaminated the entire country. (…) I cannot tell you how it breaks my heart to see Scotland yield so readily to Elizabeth’s will” (Tannahill 1999: 388). Maitland is ashamed in the lords and he sees his lifelong aim slip through his fingers.

According to Hastings, even though “medieval nations” did not have a theory of nationalism, they showed a strong and vibrant nationalism of their own, which was at its highest under threat and during conflicts (Hastings 1997: 14-16). He sees (medieval) nationalism as a particularistic movement, which is the foundation of its strength. Before 1800, nationalism did not gain its

strength from a theory of self-determination. Many nations existed before their nationalism. Instead, it can be stated that “nations under threat produced their own nationalisms” (Smith 2001: 95). With this theory in mind, one can say that the Scottish nation in the novels produced its own nationalism because of the English threat under the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The English threat, however, originated from long before Elizabeth’s reign. According to Wormald, the Scots were a success in resisting it and this gained them international prestige: “It all stemmed from the fact that England had tried for almost a century to conquer Scotland – and failed. That failure owed as much to English inability to sustain their efforts for long enough as to successful Scottish resistance” (2018: 21). Maitland wants to restore the peace between the two kingdoms, but not at the cost of Scotland’s independence. This fits in one of the basic propositions of nationalism according to Smith, namely that “loyalty to the nation overrides all other loyalties” (2001: 22).

In Fatal Majesty, Mary is entirely loyal to her nation. However, partly because some of the lords and her husband Darnley are not loyal to her, she is put in an impossible position as a ruler. Her situation becomes hopeless and she is overcome by despair, which nearly kills her: “The physician said she had been suffering from a blockage in the intestine. But Mary and those closest to her knew that to have been only part of it. The greater part of it, what had given the attack its virulence, the reason why she had almost died of it, had been despair” (Tannahill 1999: 271). Some of the people closest to her, such as her half-brother Lord James and her husband Darnley, had driven her into desperation. These incidents provide a negative image of the Scots, however friendly and sympathetic the common people may appear. Mary is no saint herself, but her kindness and generosity bring some warmth to the Scottish court. She is the best version of herself especially during joyful festivities such as weddings (Tannahill 1999: 91). Her tolerance is shown in some parts when she is intolerant, as opposed to her usual behaviour. Once Mary Fleming notices the following: “Although the queen was frequently mischievous, she had never before known her to be spiteful. It made a refreshing change” (Tannahill 1999: 130).

After William Maitland dies, it appears as if Tannahill expresses her opinion on Mary, as revealed in the “Historical Endnote”, through the perspective of his younger brother John Maitland. He does not know Mary very well and his image might be influenced by his brother, as he literally thinks it is not her own fault that she was unable to give the country stability: “Briefly, he remembered his own limited acquaintance with her, and her charm, and her political ineptitude –

which had not been altogether her fault, - and the sweetness of nature that had been there, au fond. If she had been stronger, tougher, more dislikeable, many things might have been different” (Tannahill 1999: 442). According to John Maitland, her soft personality is one of the factors that caused her downfall. However, her warm-heartedness could in some periods fade and make place for apathy and melancholy. Only a few months after the murder on her second husband Darnley, she was abducted and presumably raped by Bothwell, after which she was forced to marry him (Guy 2009: 329). Nevertheless, there is no unanimity whether or not Bothwell truly raped her or if she had somehow consented in marrying him under duress. William Maitland is mystified by her behaviour after the abduction and he does not know whom to believe: “Even the fine skin of her face showed no sign of contact with the roughness of a Borderer’s beard. He instructed his boyservant and groom to make enquiries but, although there was gossip, none of it was conclusive” (Tannahill 1999: 315). Just as Mary’s imprisonment in England can be seen as a metaphor for Scotland’s “imprisonment” in the United Kingdom today, the rape of Mary can be interpreted as the rape of Scotland, namely the parliament taken away in 1707.

Overall and keeping the Historical Endnote in mind, Fatal Majesty speaks positively about Mary, often through the affectionate eye of Maitland. The Scottish lords, on the other hand, are portrayed as brutal and without much moral values. The political statement that is made – also through the personality of Maitland – is that Scotland should never lose its independence from England. It is however unclear if the author has the same opinion about Scotland today, but it may be assumed. The three novels thus each take a slightly different view on Mary, with The Other Queen as the novel with the most differing opinions, since it includes the negative perception of Mary through the character of Bess. Nevertheless, the three authors all express their sympathy for Mary in an afterword.

4. MARY AS A CATHOLIC MARTYR

4.1. CATHOLICISM VERSUS PROTESTANTISM Religion is of significant importance both in Mary’s life and in the concept of nationalism. It can be one of the main factors on which nationalism is based, while on the other hand nationalism can be seen as a kind of religion (Smith 2001: 35). Nationalists may celebrate their national heroes on national holidays, just as in religions saints and prophets are celebrated as well. With this comparison in mind, “we can grasp the nation as a ‘sacred communion of citizens’ – a characterization that accords with an interpretation of nationalism as ‘surrogate religion’” (Smith 2001: 35). Even though nationalism can thus be interpreted as some kind of religion, religion often offers a strong basis for nationalism itself. For Hastings, religion is even its main source, and more explicitly Christianity (Smith 2001: 98). Christianity implemented the core educational and social welfare networks, and moreover its priesthood was in regular contact with the common crowd. The Church held power over the emotions and perspectives of the crowd through its weekly sermons (Hastings 1997: chs 1, 9). Christianity, in both the Protestant and Catholic branch, thus had a substantial influence on Scottish nationalism according to Hastings’s theory. Mann’s vision is in line with this theory. He divided the development of nationalism into four stages. The first stage began in the sixteenth-century in Europe and had a religious character. It started with the rise of power of the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, which they achieved by promoting new networks of elite literacy (Mann 1993: 216-47). This first stage thus takes place in the same century Mary lived in. Since religion and nationalism are clearly linked according to these abovementioned theories, I will examine their relationship to Mary in the novels.

In the three novels discussed in this dissertation, Mary is depicted as a devout Catholic. Yet The Other Queen and Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles focus more intensely on it. Her profound devotion as a Catholic causes conflict in Scotland with the lords and especially the Reformed Kirk under leadership of one of Mary’s greatest enemies, John Knox. He will continue to undermine her authority until his death. Mary was born a Catholic and she was brought up as one at French court. When she returned to Scotland after the death of her first husband Francis II of France, Scotland had become officially Protestant (Guy 2009: 126). In this sense the research question if Mary is a symbol of Scottish nationalism might seem paradoxical too. How can she as a sincere

Catholic represent a Protestant nation? But is she a sincere Catholic? Wormald openly questions the devoutness of her religion, as Mary never attempts to impose her religion on her people (2018: 103). Yet she had some fervent Catholic followers, both in England and Scotland. In Scotland, she was allowed to attend her Catholic Mass in private and she was a tolerant ruler, but her religion still caused discords with the extremely Protestant lords and people. This is clearly shown in George’s novel. Once, when Mary attends her private Mass, an angry crowd wants to invade the chapel she is in. Lord James holds them back by insulting her religion: “I say, do not trespass! For within here is wickedness and evil: the mass! No good Scotsman should take it upon himself to expose himself to it, lest he fall once more into the devil’s trap!” (George 2012: 152). At first Mary feels betrayed, but eventually she realises it was a clever move from her half-brother since it made the crowd go away. However, his speech would not contribute to a solution for this conflict. Wormald deposes the idea of Mary as a tolerant ruler in an intolerant era as “wholly anarchistic” (2018: 135). It was rather a matter of irresponsible indifference towards both her religion and her country. Her ‘tolerance’ of Protestantism was presumably more linked to her desire to be the successor of the English throne (Wormald 2018: 136). That was a personal, and not a nationalistic desire.

4.2. A DIVINE AND HAUGHTY QUEEN The novels Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles and The Other Queen take a different approach to Mary’s faithfulness. In George’s novel, Mary is sincerely very religious, while in Gregory’s book she appears to use her religion in a different way. Her religion has made her a divine queen and she is sent by God to rule Scotland. It may even be said that she uses Catholicism to justify her being a queen. She believes no one is allowed to touch or harm her because of her divinity: “‘I will be free,’ I repeat. ‘Because, in the end, no one has the power to imprison me. I was born, bred, crowned, anointed, and wed to a king. No one in Christendom is more a queen than I. No one in the world is more of a queen than I. Only God Himself is above me. Only He can command me, and His command is that I must be free and take my throne’” (Gregory 2917: 63). Again the possible metaphor of the imprisoned Mary as a representation of the independent Scotland is present. She strongly believes in her right to be free and the injustice of what she experiences. Her spirituality is an extra reason why this harm should not be done to her. In the end, her pride may be part of her downfall.

In The Other Queen, she is convinced she will be free again and she takes unwise risks to achieve her freedom. Her steadfastness is proven after the Northern Rising. Mary and her household, on the road from castle to castle, are secretly greeted by English Catholics in the villages, while they barely visibly cross themselves and almost soundlessly recite a Hail Mary. This gives her strength and confirms her faith in her destiny as a queen: ‘These are my people, I am their queen. We have been defeated by Elizabeth and her traitorous army once; but we will not be defeated again. And we will come again. We will come under the flag of the Pope. We will be unbeatable. She can be very sure of that” (Gregory 2017: 301). Mary is satisfied with only being on the throne of Scotland, but circumstances and her cousin’s hesitation to receive and help her change her ambition. Elizabeth insults her as a queen and possibly at the same time she insults the Scottish nation, which may evoke a feeling of Scottish nationalism. If Mary does become queen of England as well, it is because it is God’s command and not because of her own desires and actions: “But I have lived long enough to know that all things are decided by God. When the tide is running strongly it will carry all the boats. If God gives us a great victory and the army of the North rides on to take London, then it is God who gives me the throne of England and I would be an ungrateful daughter to refuse it” (Gregory 2017: 186-187). In this sense, Mary believes in the deterministic character of her religion. If she takes this further, it would mean that none of what happened really is her fault and that all is as God wished it would be. She hides behind her religion. Her devotion is in a strange contrast with her physical passion and the desire she awakens in everyone who sees her: “This queen, as equally famous for her piety as she is notorious for her lust, wears a rosary at her belt and a crucifix at her throat where I sometimes see her blush rise; she blushes pink like a girl. The Pope himself prays for her by name as she rides through mortal peril” (Gregory 2017: 56). Mary still is very religious in The Other Queen, but through the perspective Gregory gives her, it appears as if she uses her faith to her own advantage. It may even serve as a way to avoid blame and to diminish her own desires.

4.3. A TRULY DIVINE QUEEN In Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, Mary occurs to be pious in a less selfish manner. She feels a deep connection to God and she is able to draw strength from her religion. When she is about to return from France to Scotland, she even wishes for a short time she could enter into a convent. She is puzzled since the abbey feels more like a home than the vague memory of Scotland she has. She senses the abbey is where she belongs: “The convent had felt like a

homecoming, and she had realized how deeply she cherished her faith, how sweet it was to be surrounded by others who were further advanced in spirituality and could teach her” (George 2012: 122). She is thus strongly connected to her Catholic faith, which may even make her more divine than the representation of Mary in The Other Queen, in which she appears to be especially divine due to her grace and beauty.

In George’s novel, as Mary’s life passes by, she is disappointed in herself, the lords and her country. She feels as if she cannot please anyone with her tolerant reign: “The Catholics abroad have turned against me because I was not severe enough with the heretics in Scotland, the heretics in Scotland hate me because I am a Catholic at all” (George 2012: 561). As a result she receives little to no support from powerful realms when she is imprisoned in England. Both her own people and her French in-laws reject her. It shows the difficulty of her position as a tolerant Catholic ruler in a protestant country. Almost the whole of Europe was torn between branches of Christianity, which led to rises of nationalism in the different countries (Mann 1993: 216-247). Besides her difficult position in a torn country, Mary also fails to find the same comfort in her religion as she used to do: “Once in this melancholy recitation, she poured out her heart to the crucifix, but it seemed as unresponsive and stony as the Lords. She remembered how it had graced the wall of the Abbey of St.-Pierre, and how she had prayed before it when she had taken retreat with her aunt and had decided that her destiny lay in Scotland” (George 2012: 561). She has come back because she believes that God wanted her to fulfil her duty in Scotland, but looking back on it, her return feels more like a mistake: “God. I have failed God, too, she thought miserably. I flattered myself that I had a spiritual life. Instead I have lived in a manner to give the people reason to call me whore and even to suspect me of murder” (George 2012: 561). She is saddened and upset and for a moment she loses her courage. Eventually, she finds her faith in God again and together with it some sort of rest in herself: “‘Help me,’ she prayed. But she no longer expected a direct answer, as she had long ago. She knew the crucifix, and God, and herself, so much better than that now” (George 2012: 805).

After the declaration of her coming execution, one would expect her to give up, while it is this final setback that gives her strength again. She finds hope and a cause in her religion in a seemingly hopeless situation. She makes it her mission to die defending her honour and religion. She may have no influence on her present anymore, but she wants to be remembered as a Catholic

martyr in the future. It is the only manner left in which she can serve God. At her trial in England, she decides to appear only for higher reasons and not legal ones. She realises her impulsiveness has done her more harm than good in the past: “For once in my life I must anticipate. I know it will be their aim to silence me, and I must counter that. I come from an ancient and honourable line of kings, and it is imperative that I die worthy of my blood” (George 2012: 824). She remembers her royal heritage and she needs to protect it. She wants to save the Catholics similarly to Jesus who sacrificed himself according to the Old Testament. Moreover, she only wants to sacrifice herself and she will not offer the lives of her citizens to wage a religious war: “I am the last Catholic member of both royal houses of England and Scotland, and I would cheerfully give my best blood to procure relief for the suffering Catholics of the realm; but not even for their sake would I purchase it at the price of religious war and the blood of many others, having always been tender of the lives of God’s meanest creatures” (George 2012: 829). Even though she knows she is guilty of plotting against Elizabeth, she will not admit it at court since they have no evidence. From this moment onwards, she intends to be a Catholic martyr who was killed by her fellow queen, the merciless Protestant Elizabeth. Against their own intentions, the English actually encourage the creation of this myth of Mary by destroying everything which belonged to her and which she touched on the day of her execution: “They took away her crucifix and her writing- book, her bloodstained clothes, the block itself, and anything else that she had touched, and burnt them to ashes in a bonfire in the castle courtyard. There were to be no relics, no mementos. The earthly presence of the Queen of Scots was to be utterly effaced” (George 2012: 864). It was naïve of them to even only wish to erase Mary from history.

This victory of Mary in the historical records is also touched upon in The Other Queen as I discussed in the previous chapter. History, together with destiny, community and territory, is one of the four elementary categories of the nation (Smith 2001: 144). Religion plays an important part in the history of the sixteenth century in Europe and its nations. According to Smith’s interpretation of Mosse (1975 and 1994), “the nationalists built upon these traditional religious foundations, selecting and modifying older motifs, symbols and myths for their own political ends. But, at an even more basic level, nationalism as a political religion, as a ‘religion of the people’, necessarily drew upon these four sacred properties in order to reconstruct and maintain modern national identities” (2001: 145). Mary can thus be interpreted as a symbol for both Catholicism and Scottish nationalism.

4.4. MYTHOLOGIZATION OF THE CATHOLIC MARY Over time, there arose some sort of mythologization of Mary as a devout Catholic too. In Tannahill’s novel, Maitland says: “In religion, no one has more appeal than a martyr” (1999: 389). In this respect, Elizabeth and her advisors made a bad decision in executing Mary. These myths and stories about her have been used by those loyal to Mary to procure her memory and religion. Perhaps now Tannahill, George and Gregory also intend to use these myths as a manner to achieve a (stronger) sense of nationalism with the Scots. Religious purposes would blend into political ends. History, territory, community and destiny were still relevant at the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, as it presumably is still relevant today as well. In Fatal Majesty, it is shown how religious mythologization had already started in the sixteenth century, even when Mary was still alive and kept as a prisoner:

Dreaming, and praying in the various castles that were her seasonally changing prisons, and writing – always writing – she was not aware of how the religious ferment in the outside world was altering the image she presented to that world. She did not know that, although in Scotland she had become merely the unregarded mother of a child-king around whom all the old, familiar plots now revolved, it was very different in England and abroad where, for restive nobles and predatory foreign powers alike, she was gradually being transformed from a human being into a Catholic martyr, a fleshless focus for the ambitions of the counter-Reformation” (Tannahill 1999: 403).

This citation illustrates how Mary almost has become irrelevant for the lords and people in Scotland at the period the novel describes in this part. Initially, it was only abroad that major political powers transformed her person into a Catholic martyr. Only later on, at first gradually and then more intensely after her execution, did the Scots start to care for their banned queen again. This paradoxicality is stated clearly in Fatal Majesty, as I already mentioned in the introduction: “Human nature being what it was, the Scots, who had rejected Mary Stewart almost twenty years before and barely thought about her since, had become highly excitable at the idea of a foreigner threatening to execute their queen” (Tannahill 1999: 441). After the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, Walker researched if there was a link between religious identity and support for independence with the voters (2016). 57% of the Catholics voted “Yes”, while only 41% of the Protestants did the same (2016: V). This is statistically relevant, and indicates that the Catholics probably have a stronger feeling of Scottish nationalism, which has some of its roots or at least finds an iconic moment in their loyalty to Mary in the sixteenth century. The Protestants might

feel a stronger connection to England because of their partly shared religion. To some extent, this interpretation of the figures and the link suggested here with Mary’s story remain hypotheses at this case, but the likelihood is strong.

To conclude this chapter one could claim that Mary’s Catholicism is partly responsible for her alienation from the Scots. It certainly did not bring the queen closer to her Protestant people, and her laxity towards the Protestants also drove some Catholics away. In the two oldest novels, Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles and Fatal Majesty, there is a slightly more objective account of how Mary was perceived by both bystanders and foreigners. In Fatal Majesty, the least attention is given to Mary’s faith, while in the other two novels her religion is a recurring motif. Once it is described in a sincerely faithful and gracious manner, and once as the origin of a divine queen. The novels all portray Mary as a Catholic martyr, which was something that made her popular in among others France, Spain, the Low Countries and Northern England, but not Scotland itself. According to the aforementioned theories, religion and nationalism are tightly linked to each other. In Scotland’s case, the nation was indeed tightly linked to Protestantism and excluded Catholicism, including Mary. However, since the Scots started to care about her again after her death, she can still be perceived as important for Scottish nationalism today, as she regained some respect and she was wrongfully treated by England. In this sense, it can even be said that although her religion did not bring her profit during her life, it brought her closer to Scotland afterwards.

5. CONCLUSION I started writing this dissertation with the intention of finding an answer to multiple questions concerning Mary Queen of Scots in three novels of which it is hoped that they are a representative sample of the literary production about her from 1992 to 2008. One of the main questions was how the three discussed historical novels portray Mary and if they do so in a different manner. All three authors took a different stance in the way they chose to depict Mary. The Other Queen is the most different here since the book has three first person narrators who freely express their emotions, which makes the novel more dramatic. It also deviates the most from the other novels because it only starts when Mary has already been two months in England. This way, the book’s opinion on Mary’s behaviour in Scotland stays a little under the radar and it is up to the reader to read in between the lines and guess what happened. Both positive and negative reflections on Mary are present. The image which sticks the most after reading the book, is that she is a divine and gracious, yet unreliable and deceptive queen. She urges to be free, as Scottish nationalists today urge to be independent from the United Kingdom. However, Mary loses interest in the Scottish throne when she finds herself in an impossible position as an English prisoner and she agrees to assassinate Elizabeth and to take over her throne. It raises the question whether a true Scottish nationalist would do so. According to Wormald, it was partly due to her English ambitions that she failed to see and rule Scotland justly. Wormald’s opinion, as expressed in a historical study and not in a novel, that Mary was not a very devout Catholic, fits in with how Mary experiences her religion in Gregory’s novel. She uses her religion to defend her rights as a queen and even hides her ambition to be queen of England behind it. There is not much information on how the Scots see Mary in The Other Queen, just as there is only a limited view on the Scots by Mary herself, in which she remembers them as a barbarous people. In this sense, the novel cannot be seen as predominantly positive towards Scotland and the Scots. However, in the “Author’s Note”, the author is sympathetic towards Mary. It is thus slightly ambiguous to decide whether or not this novel was written in favour of Scottish independence, but since it is not that positive about Scotland I would argue that she did not write it with the Scottish independence dominantly in her mind. She is intrigued by Mary as a historical figure, but in the end she presumably just wanted to write a good novel based on psychology rather more than on history .

In Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, George takes a different approach to narrate the story. Her novel is by far the most extensive, which gives the reader a more detailed account of the

Scots, Mary and the circumstances that determined the period of her reign. The Scots and their traditions receive considerable attention. They are a special people who should be admired for their customs and bravery. Most of them appear to love Mary at her arrival, but this gradually fades away until the majority hates her after marrying Bothwell. Then not only the lords, but also her people appear to be ruthless. Mary herself is a sincere Catholic who would perhaps even have been happier in a convent than in Scotland. In this novel it appears as if Mary has good intentions and she is really trying to rule as best as she can. She makes mistakes, such as falling in love with Bothwell, yet she is not involved in Darnley’s murder. She is warm-hearted, passionate, generous and brave. She has some difficulties adjusting to the Scottish life but in the end she learns to love it. When she senses her end is near, she consciously decides to behave in such a way that would make a legend of her in history books. As a reader, you easily pick Mary’s side and the way she is treated by the lords and England feels unjust. Therefore the assumption that this novel is written in favour of Scottish independence is more likely than it is with The Other Queen. George admits to being sympathetic to Mary in the afterword to her novel, so it is plausible that the Scottish independence is a matter close to her heart. However, it is not because she is compassionate to Mary that she consequently supports Scottish independence. Yet, even though the Scots come across as brutal, they are also depicted as worthy in their traditions and they have a beautiful country. Once more, only a tentative answer to this question can be found.

Tannahill, author of the remaining novel, Fatal Majesty, again uses a different writing style than the other two novelists. It is more straightforward and therefore the narration appears to be more neutral. When Mary arrives in Scotland, her subjects would rather not have seen her coming, but they open up to her the moment she arrives and she takes the time to greet them personally. They continue to worship her until she reacts indifferently to the murder on Darnley. After some setbacks and betrayals, Mary mistrusts most of the Scots, and she is shocked by their hate for her after six years of reign in Scotland. The Scots are predictable, naïve and brutal, yet there is one Scot who commands respect: William Maitland. Sometimes it is not clear which side he is on, but he fights with his brain for what is best for Scotland. In the end, he is Mary’s ally. She is described most directly through his eyes as a graceful, well-educated and kind-hearted queen, notwithstanding her temperament and impetuousness. She is less stubborn and more reasonable than Elizabeth, and Maitland even believes “Scotland has been lucky in her” (1999: 187). However, she still fails as a queen. Her religion is less dominantly present in this novel, but it does

make the reader aware of how Mary, when she was still alive, – and without her own knowledge – was already turned into a Catholic martyr by international Catholic forces. In the “Historical Endnote”, Tannahill writes about the legend Mary has become. She acknowledges her positive and negative traits and suggests that even a more suitable monarch might have failed at the time. She thus appears to be rather neutral. Nevertheless, this “Historical Endnote” with the mentioning of the Scottish Declaration of Arbroath, in combination with Maitland’s explicit opinion that Scotland should never be a dependency of England, may not be so neutral after all. It was published only one year after the Scots had voted for Scottish devolution, and in the same year in which the Scottish Parliament was reinstituted. In fact, it all makes this novel the most likely out of the three to have been written in favour of Scottish independence.

In the end, only one main question remains. Is Mary Queen of Scots a true symbol of the Scottish nation? I want to share one final quotation of Smith who insists on the importance of linking the past to the present and the future:

The shared memories of golden ages, ancestors and great heroes and heroines, the communal values that they embody, the myths of ethnic origins, migration and divine election, the symbols of community, territory, history and destiny that distinguish them, as well as their various traditions and customs of kinship and sacrifice, provide the keys to understanding the relationship of the ethnic past to the national present and future. (2001: 119)

If one ignores the history and traditions and everything which belongs to it, one will fail to fathom the present self-understanding of nations and to anticipate the future (Smith: idem). Mary Stuart is inherently part of Scottish history, and she is one of their most widely known historical figures. She may not have been a hero, she may even have cast a shadow on her country, but she remains a monarch from the Scottish past. The three novelists of the discussed historical novels were so intrigued by her they wanted to write about her, and that is only a tip of the iceberg. Many books and films and theatre plays can be analysed in this manner and more extensively. It might seem peculiar to call someone who was dethroned and locked up by the Scots, a symbol of Scottish nationalism, but one is looking here less at how she was seen then, and more at everything that she has come to embody as a person and as a legend. She shows both the beauty and the harshness of Scotland in the three novels. In the end she only desired so strongly to be free, just as almost fifty percent of the Scots desire to be independent today.

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