Mary, Queen of Scots and the Casket Letters

by A.E. MacRobert

Mary Queen of Scots was a romantic and tragic figure. The story of the ‘Casket Letters’ adds richly to the enigma and mystery – eight letters, a love sonnet and two contracts, allegedly written by Mary to her lover, implicated Mary in her husband's murder and ‘proved’ her adultery. This forensic re-examination of the controversy, the latest historiography, and the huge literature it has generated together with an accessible presentation of the ‘Letters’, is a detailed and powerful study for both scholar and general reader and illuminates sharply the dramatic events leading to Mary’s imprisonment and eventual execution.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Useful material but old-fashioned in the questions it asks of it

This is a balanced book in lots of ways, despite the fact that MacRobert himself clearly believes in Mary Stuart's innocence in terms of the accusation that she was complicit in Darnley's murder. So if you want an exhaustively detailed look at the events of 1567-8 then it's probably all here - although not always in the most accessible form as MacRobert skips from 'facts' to 'conjecture' to endless 'conspiracies'.

He does, helpfully, offer transcriptions/translations of the casket letters themselves, as well as the sonnets in French and English.

The reason for only 2-stars from me is that this feels like a very old-fashioned book in terms of the questions it is asking: MacRobert wants to read all the material as either autobiography or forged autobiography in order to ascertain whether or not Mary was involved in a love affair with Bothwell and complicit in her husband's murder. The idea that texts might be rhetorically-invested rather than simply the early modern equivalents of diary entries doesn't enter this book. So this is all about Mary's personality, is she a 'good' or 'bad' woman depending on her relationships, sexual or otherwise, with men. The fact that the sonnets, especially, situate themselves against other literary texts of the period in terms of Petrarchism and/or literary love complaint is ignored here (as is the fact of a woman writing is what is, overwhelmingly, a male-authored genre) and the poetry is thus reduced to simple and straightforward historical evidence rather than something more complicated and literary.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't remember why I decided to read this.

[Shelfari · Rating 2 out of 5]

i read it...recommende by my teacher...i got bored in half of it...gave it up!!