Quotes from John Guy

to see her not merely as a bundle of stereotypes or as a convenient and tenuously linked series of myths, but as a whole woman whose choices added up and whose decisions made sense.

Huntly was also taken, but died of a stroke while still mounted on his horse. His corpse was embalmed and sent to Edinburgh, where it was kept until the following May, when it was put on trial in Parliament. As the clerk's report put it, "The coffin was set upright, as if the earl stood on his feet." He was then found guilty of treason, and the family estates were declared forfeit.

Learning that flowered in days of yore In these our times is thought a bore. Once knowledge was a well to drink of; Now having fun is all men think of.

Canterbury, despoiled of her goods

If there is any debate about peace, do not discuss each clause with excessive subtlety, for exactness produces contention and contention excites and ignites the dangerous flames of hatred." Consider the bigger picture and the damage that will accrue to the church if you persist in your quarrel

As the common people say, Only harlots marry in May.

and then staged a "war" between two indigenous tribes.

She looked radiant in her shimmering white dress, itself a daring and unconventional choice

There is no other proof.

He was intolerant of quiet," says Walter Map, "and did not hesitate to disturb almost half of Christendom.

From her neck hung a magnificent jeweled pendant, the one she called "Great Harry," a gift from her father-in-law

The jeweled crown opens, and inside the lid are two hearts and a golden

Morton and the rest of the conspirators, around eighty in all, came up the main staircase

FOR MARY, the weeks and months after the explosion were the most critical of her life.

the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and Mary the wife of Clopas, who stood by the cross at the crucifixion of Christ.

true-love knot, pierced with Cupid's arrows and over them the motto "What we resolve.

Her guilt or innocence depends on whether the letters are true or false.

which she valued so much that she later placed it with the Scottish crown jewels.

Darnley was the first to appear. He entered the supper room and spoke to Mary.

Her integrity was on the line.

In a final spectacle, a mock sea battle was staged on the Seine between rival "French" and "Portuguese" fleets

and on her head she wore a gold crown studded with diamonds, pearls, rubies, sapphires and emeralds.

It is not what happened before the murder that precipitated her downfall, but the astonishing events that followed it.

Mary kept her wits and turned to Darnley. "What do you know about this?" she demanded.