Victoria’s age viewed her with a mixture of repulsion and fascination, particularly in her relationship with Bothwell and Darnley. The pre-Raphaelites of course adored her – but she still represents a challenge for the twenty-first century.
Male historians used once to level against Queen Elizabeth the charge of unwomanliness, of sexual coldness – and later, by way of variety, excessive closeness to her male favourites. Neither, however, look like major crimes today.
By contrast the crimes of which Mary has been accused, murder and adultery, are still sins. So too, in a completely different sense, is that other charge levelled against her: that of being, essentially a silly woman, given great power and throwing it away.
That was the idea with which I grew up, and that was what damned her for me. Recent work has sought to rediscover Mary’s queenship and highlight her abilities – notably My Heart is My Own, by John Guy. The work has succeeded – to a degree.
We now appreciate that the situation she faced in Scotland was an impossible one – that her failure was not due only to her own weaknesses. All the same, unlucky in both love and war, she remains a highly dubious role model… And that, it seems, is very often what we want our heroines to be.
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The Queen's Mary: In the Shadows of Power... Page 26
