Mary Queen of Scots: The Power and the Glory

Mary, Queen of Scots remains synonymous with glamour and mystique. The subject of a vicious propaganda war following her deposition in 1567, Mary was portrayed for centuries as either a virtuous Queen whose only faults were naivety or excessive mercy, or, a cunning, sexually promiscuous Jezebel ruined by her French upbringing and obsession with the English throne.

In this lecture Dr Amy Blakeway takes us beyond this simplistic binary, to show how Mary managed to rule her own country of Scotland successfully for six years from 1561 until just before her deposition. We will see how in her adoption of traditional Scottish ruling practices, Mary set the stage for her success. Often critiqued by her enemies for introducing foreign practices to Scotland, we will see that in fact Mary’s clever combination of lavish ceremonial and personal accessibility, was a velvet glove covering an iron hand ready to strike hard and fast against those who threatened her security.

Dr Amy Blakeway is a lecturer in Scottish History at the University of St Andrews. Previously, she taught at the University of Kent, Homerton College, University of Cambridge, and Westminster College in Missouri where she was the Fulbright-Robertson Visiting Professor in British History. Amy is an expert on sixteenth-century Scottish politics, propaganda, and Scotland’s relations with England and France. She has published widely on these topics and enjoys sharing this research through regular appearances on BBC Radio Scotland’s Time Travels and public lectures.

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