Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart

by John Guy

“Throughout all your life show that you value truth so highly that your word is more to be trusted than other people’s oaths.”

If Elizabeth had triumphed in life, Mary would triumph in death. Far from disappearing into oblivion, as Cecil had intended, she rose from the ashes to become one of Britain’s most celebrated and beguiling rulers. In choosing the phoenix as her last emblem, she had written her own epitaph: “In my end is my beginning.”