Returning from the sophisticated French court to take up her throne in cold and backward Scotland, 18-year-old Mary finds herself trapped in a web of ambitions and intrigues: those of her self-righteous brother, James, who desires to rule in her place; of her brilliant Secretary of State, Lethington, dedicated to placing the Stuarts on the throne of England; and of Elizabeth I, dazzling and unscrupulous, who fears Mary as a threat to her crown and to her life.
Mingling a poet's passion with an historian's insight, Tannahill chronicles an era of easy violence, desperate actions, and the grand, often terrifying, designs of those who would dominate it.