Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles Quotes

“The cure for a broken heart is simple, my lady. A hot bath and a good night's sleep.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“I had a desire to see something besides my own shores, if only to be content to return to them someday. If I wish to live in my native land and love her, it should not be out of ignorance.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“Defeat I can endure with cheerfulness, my lady. But betrayal is like taking the wind from my sails, or the earth from beneath my feet. It chills my spirits like a rainy day, and all I can do is draw the curtains and cry into my pillow.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“To love someone is to catch your breath whenever he walks in the room.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“Heart of my heart, bone of my bone, spirit of my spirt, we cannot be held.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“Mary awoke from her nightmare with a pounding heart, convinced that she had only imagined Elizabeth's cruel plot. A full moon was shining into her chamber, illuminating everything around her in silvery light. That was when she noticed for the first time that there were bars on her window.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“The most wicked criminals have God on their lips at all times, for God is the only one who can stomach them.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“Kindness is stronger than iron bars.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“Hope is a straw hat hanging beside a window covered with frost.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“Mary was like a caged tiger in the first days of her captivity. Keen, alert, and watchful, she listened tensely each dawn for the key that unlocked her door. After breakfast she watched the road for messengers, pacing back and forth like a confined feline.

But no messengers ever came.

Elizabeth had abandoned her. Or forgotten her.

And the days passed.

Little by little, the Queen of Scots grew accustomed to her captivity. She no longer heard the key in the lock, or the footsteps outside her door. More often than not it was the maid's cheerful voice that woke her, along with the hand on Mary's shoulder and the delicious smells wafting from the breakfast tray.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“I embrace Fate like a lover. All my life, Fate has wished to be my lover and tried to govern me. Now I turn to submit to his embraces.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“The soft strings of the lute rippled with memories, and the maid's lilting voice made Mary sigh as she closed her eyes. She fell asleep filled with sadness, but without regret.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“Mary watched the sunset from her carriage window, realizing that such beauty could never last. Life was a golden glory that faded in the wink of an eye. Life was a village fair that only lasted for a single day. As the carriage rattled along, rocking her like a babe in arms, Mary felt very old and wise. She found that she didn't mind being taken back to the castle, to a caring captivity that was filled with comforts and kindness. And she also found that she couldn't keep her eyes open.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“My firm resolve was to escape my wicked cousin and my English captors. But the wind was howling, and rain was coming down in sheets. And even as I relaxed in a hot bath in my snug apartments, the clamor of the storm outside was counseling me to be patient and wait.

A wise woman never does anything in a hurry.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“Mary fell asleep early, but her dreams were most unpleasant. She was a mouse running across the kitchen floor, and Elizabeth was a sharp-clawed cat waiting silently to pounce. Then she was a wild deer being chased by famished dogs. Elizabeth was a laughing huntsman in black velvet, urging the ravenous pack onward with a whip. And then Mary was her true self, barefoot and in a bedgown, attempting to escape by night. But the castle was dark and the halls were a winding maze. Mary ran down long shadowy corridors, panting and out of breath, but at every turn she ran into blank walls or locked doors. At last she managed to yank open a door, expecting to breathe the sweet air of freedom. But the way was blocked by laughing faces, all of them growing larger and larger while Mary got smaller and smaller. There was Elizabeth . . . and Dudley . . . and Cecil . . . and Walsingham . . . and their loud laughter filled her ears, drowning her pleas like ocean waves.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“In France her tutor had once taught her that to truly fix an image in the mind to fasten it down completely so that it remained forever captive and vivid she should carefully name each aspect of the thing to herself as though she were describing it to a blind person.

"For ma petite such is the fickleness of the human mind that it soon lets go of whatever it sees if you would keep it you must tack it down with words." She had tried it and found that it worked on flowers rooms faces ceremonies.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“Looking out the rain-fogged window at the gray November day, Mary felt almost grateful for the snug warmth of her well-heated chamber. Escape, the captive queen decided with a yawn, would have to wait until spring.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

“Not far away, the River Tweed sparkled as it ran past in the full moonlight. If she had been nearer it, she could have heard the murmur and tumble of its shallow waters over the rocks. What was the rhyme that Bothwell had taught her about the Tweed? Tweed said to Till— What gars you run so still? Till said to Tweed— Though you run with speed And I run slow, Where you drown one man, I drown two.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles

“Someday you must tell me more about the different Border families. I wish to know; I have heard, for example, that the Kerrs are left-handed and that their stairs spiral to the right instead of to the left so they can use their sword arms unhindered. Is that true?” “Aye,” said Bothwell. “Not all of them are left-handed, but a large number are, ’tis true. In the Borders they call all left-handed people ‘ker-handed,’ ‘car-handed,’ or ‘corry-fisted.’” “Is it also true that here in the Borders a male child’s hand is held back from the christening so it remains unhallowed and free to murder?” Bothwell threw back his head and laughed so loudly the other four turned around. “No. That is a tale,” he finally said. “Good Christians can murder as well as anyone else, ’tis no hindrance.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles

“This is the soft, friendly side of Scotland,” said Lord James. “Over on the western side, with the isles, it’s cold and bleak. Farther north, too, beyond the glens and in the Highlands, the people are different. They live in their mountain fastnesses and keep to their own clans, free from interference. They are for the most part still Catholic. Or so they call themselves. But the truth is, they’re still pagan.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles

“Swirling around these plain, honest colours was the ever-present, transcendent green that seemed to appear in such unexpected places, such as in the cracks between the stones of any building, and which lay like a mist over all the land. In the autumn, another colour briefly held sway, coating the hills with soft purple: the blooming heather. And there were the tiny touches of orange—wildflowers, autumnal brush, fresh-cooked salmon, the flaming hair of one person in a crowd—to catch the eye.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles

“She was struck with the thought that, if white was the colour of France, green, grey, silver, and brown were the colours of Scotland. The rocks, the very base of the land itself, were grey in all its variations: from the palest speckled pebbles to the almost-black jagged rocks singing in the sea. These stones were the only building materials, so that the castles were grey, the little cottages were grey, and the paved streets were grey. But so many shades of it! Grey itself began to look rich and mysterious. And the browns! There were brown sheep, and a deep ashen-hued wool that came from them, woven in the people’s garments. The hills were dun-brown with bare patches, and the fierce little terriers were drab brown. Cottages were topped by pale brown thatch, bogs were greenish-brown, and the bracken and reeds were brown. Even the whisky had been a lively brown!”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles

“They say ’tis like an ivory comb, the Royal Mile of High Street, with the center clean, but the teeth on either side stinking and foul. The wynds—the side streets—are beyond description, I fear. At least to a Queen. But the High Street—it’s the fairest in the world!” He could not keep the pride from his voice. Today she would not have wished to be anywhere else; even Paris seemed sprawling and unimaginative compared to this dramatic wedding of hard, dark, natural rock and smooth, polished building-stones, of steep cliffs and equally steep-pitched roofs and gables surmounting them atop tall, thin town houses, all framed by the bright blue sky with its racing clouds.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles

“The Elect. The Predestined. It was such a thorny concept. If God had predestined some to be saved, “before the foundation of the world,” then of what use was preaching? God’s own would presumably come forward of their own accord. And what if someone not chosen was moved to come forward as a result of preaching? What a cruel hoax on him! And was God that cruel? Would He tease people with a hope of something they could not have? Only little boys did that to their younger brothers. But I am called to explain this, he thought. And what of the even more difficult allusion in Revelation 7:4 about only 144,000 people being saved? Was Heaven that limited?”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles

“But on earth here in France, every sense was bathed in luxury, luxury of which she became more and more aware as she grew older. The palate was indulged with strawberries from Saumur and melons planted in the Loire by a Neapolitan gardener long ago, with trout pate, Tours pastries, and vin d’Annonville, with its delicate bouquet. The nostrils were pampered by the happy work of Catherine de Médicis’s Italian perfumers working with the flowers from the fields of Provence, producing heady fragrances to be worn on throats and wrists and to scent gloves and capes. Hyacinth, jasmine, lilac—all wafted through the rooms and from the bathwaters of the châteaux. The skin was caressed with unguents and the feel of silk, velvet, fur, leather gloves of softest deerskin; goosedown pillows cupped weary bodies at the day’s end; and in winter, newly installed Germanic tile stoves at Fontainebleau provided central heating. Eyes were continually presented with beauty in ordinary objects rendered more opulently pleasing: a crystal mirror decorated with velvet and silk ribbons; buttons with jewels affixed. There were fireworks reflected in the river; paintings by Leonardo; and black-and-white chequered marble paving in the long palace gallery over the Cher that spanned the rippling water outside. Pleasing sounds were everywhere: in the chirping of the pet canaries and more exotic birds in the garden aviaries; in the baying of the hounds in the matchless royal hunting packs; in the splash and gurgle of the fountains and elaborate water displays in the formal gardens. And above all that, the sound of melodious French, exquisitely spoken; witty conversations, and the poets of the court reciting verses composed to celebrate the aristocratic dreamworld they inhabited, with a haunting melancholy that it would all pass away.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles

“Looking back on it years later, although it was not true, it seemed to Mary that it was always summer in France as she was growing up. The air was always rich and caressing, full of the smells of flowering meadows and ripening plums and apricots. Dusks were milky and warm and lingering; the stones of the châteaux took on a luminosity as the light faded and lanterns were lit. Huge, pale, feathery-winged moths would come to the open windows and light on the lanterns and fly around the pure white wax candles burning in sconces. White was the colour of France: the white swans dotting the moat water; the peculiar Loire stone used to build the châteaux, which whitened as it aged; the great white fireplaces with their gilded royal emblems of salamanders and crowned porcupines; the milk from the she-asses the court ladies used for their complexions and which Mary began to use as she grew up; the white lilies of France, the royal flower.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles

“Half the nobility seem to dabble in witchcraft, she mused. They say Lord James’s mother, Lady Douglas, is a witch, and used her spells to bind the King to her, and Patrick, third Lord Ruthven, one of Mary’s own guardians appointed by Parliament, is said to be a warlock himself. The dark powers seem so close here.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles

“Mary was only six months old when she came to live at Stirling, and the whole world was contained in that mountaintop fortress for her. She was crowned there; she took her first tottering steps there; her tutors taught her her earliest lessons there in the antechamber off the Queen’s apartments. When she was only three, she was presented with a tiny pony from the islands in the farthest north of Scotland, and so she first learned to ride there.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles

“The Earl of Arran, James Hamilton, was there; had not this baby been born, he would now be king. He smiled benevolently at the infant. “I wish her a long life,” he said. The Earl of Lennox, Matthew Stuart, who claimed to be the true heir rather than Arran, came shortly and stood looking longingly down at the baby. “May she have all the gifts of grace and beauty,” he said. Patrick Hepburn, the “Fair Earl” of Bothwell, stepped forward and kissed the Queen Mother’s hand lingeringly. “May she have power to make all who gaze upon her love her,” he said, raising his eyes to Marie’s. The red-faced, stout northern Earl of Huntly strutted past the cradle and bowed. “May she always rest among friends and never fall into the hands of her enemies,” he said.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles

“What meant he by his words?” one of the attendant lords whispered. “The crown of Scotland,” replied another. “It came to the Stewarts through Marjorie Bruce, and he fears it will pass away through—what is the Princess’s name?” “Princess Mary.” “No,” said his companion, as he watched the physicians slowly turning the dead King, and folding his hands preparatory to having the priest anoint him. “Queen Mary. Mary Queen of Scots.”
― Margaret George, Mary Queen of Scotland & The Isles