| Title | : | Mary Queen of Scots |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1848 |
Mary Queen of Scots Reviews
-
At the beginning of the book, the author said that Mary “had a sad and sorrowful life.” At first, having watched the TV show Reign, I found myself thinking that her life was unfortunate, but it couldn’t have been all be that bad. At the end of the book, I found myself saying what a sad and sorrowful life.”
I’m not usually into biographies, but I pleasantly enjoyed this short book. -
Outstanding history of Mary Queen of Scots!
-
I read this book because of the show Reign. It's an amazing show and I got really invested in the lives of all of these people in history. I wanted to know how the real life of Mary Queen of Scots played out. This is a really factual book, but I did tear up. I love Mary in Reign and because of that I felt for her. After her first husband died, she was imprisoned and lived a long, unhappy life until she was beheaded by warranty of Queen Elizabeth. Man, she had a shit life. -
I picked up this book from Amazon's store as an ebook because it was free, and I certainly got what I paid for. Written in 1876, the book has an archaic tone and even takes care to teach a few moral lessons to its audience, such as how husbands and wives ought to treat one another in order to incite love. The writing was stilted, though the story was interesting.
I selected the volume as a reference book for my seventh grader's homeschool curriculum, and in this I feel it serves its purpose. Although she'll be less-than-pleased at the dry tone and lack of details, she will be able to pull a number of facts regarding the life of the monarch. There are no direct citations or quotes, leaving one to conjecture how much of the writing was factually based and how much was fictionalized - though details such as the insertion into the mind of the newly crowned infant queen provide hints that at least some portion of the book evolved from the writer's imagination.
In terms of a time line, the book was fairly linear, only once noticiably jumping backwards in time, and then with great apologies. It would have been nice to have more hard dates and/or ages of the queen; the last I recall came when she was widowed at seventeen. The range of years was stated at the start of the chapter but who wants to stop reading to calculate? Given the already frequent intrusions and bluntness of tone, it seems especially annoying that such details were omitted.
The brief overview of the queen's life left me wanting to know more. This book was adequate but not exceptional, probably worth a 2.5 more than a 2 but such as it is. -
Mary Queen of Scots never had a chance to rule any country. The religious views of the time tore countries and loyalties apart. Catholic VS Protestant. She was caught up in the middle. Always considered a threat by the Protestants and the English throne. She didn't have any one to trust, not even her own people. I do not truly believe she was ad devious and plotting as those who made her out to be- maybe those around her. Again, she was a small pawn on a big board.
-
Now it is a special point of honor among all sovereign kings and queens, throughout this civilized world, that they can, technically, do no wrong.
Mary, Queen of Scots, had a rough life.
During her fifteenth through seventeenth years:
Mary Stuart married Francis, the Dauphin;
her father-in-law, King Henry of France died;
her husband, Francis, was crowned King;
her mother, the queen dowager of Scotland died;
and her husband, King Francis died.
Her life back in Scotland was tumultuous, primarily because her husband(s) were power-hungry men who tried to seize the throne, and won the enmity of most of the nobles of Scotland. Also, no small thing, she was Catholic in a Protestant country.
She gave birth to James, the sixth James to reign in Scotland and the first to rule over England. Sadly, mother and son were rival claimants to England's throne in the event of Elizabeth's death. They did not share a warm and caring relationship.
Mary spent a great swath of her life under house arrest at Fotheringay Castle until Queen Elizabeth had Mary beheaded.
Sigh...
One feature of this series that I especially enjoy is the explanation of word origins. How the French heir apparent came to be called Dauphin; how tournaments got their names; the difference between a dowager and a consort; the meaning of 'inch' in Scotland — all fun discoveries.
-
Het verhaal van Mary, Queen of Scots, haar jeugd in Schotland, en hoe ze op 6-jarige leeftijd naar Frankrijk gebracht werd, als toekomstige bruid van Frans II, en ze na zijn vroegtijdige dood terugkeerde naar haar geboorteland. Daar kreeg ze ook te maken met veel tegenslagen en weerstand. Ze huwde met een knappe jongeman, Lord Darnley, en kreeg een zoontje. Later werd Darnley vermoord en Mary werd ervan beschuldigd mee in het complot te zitten. Deze beschuldiging bleef haar achtervolgen. Ze huwde daarna met Boswell, maar het blijft onduidelijk of hij haar dwong met hem te huwen, of dat ze hem werkelijk liefhad.
Uiteindelijk, na nog vele andere beschuldigingen, werd Mary onthoofd op bevel van haar nicht, koningin Elisabeth van Engeland. Maar jaren na haar dood werd Mary's hartewens toch werkelijkheid: haar zoon James werd de eerste koning van zowel Engeland als Schotland.
Dit is eigenlijk een boek voor jonge lezers, zodat alles heel duidelijk uitgelegd wordt. Ik heb toch weer wat bijgeleerd! -
A good example of the difference between simple and dumbed down - a nice streamlined, straightforward read. The history is biased, of course, but amusingly so - this guy was crushing on Mary for real.
-
After watching Reign, I wanted to read more about the truth of Mary and how it compared to the show. I actually listened to the audiobook while I worked. The book is very straightforward and simple to read. Like others have stated, it would be a good book for a younger reader.
At times I felt the book droned on about frivolous details like her clothing and such, but overall it paints a genuine picture of what a tragic figure Mary was.
Her life was far more interesting and sad than what was portrayed in the show. -
A good book for a child to read, although the author does write with a very condescending tone. It's a little out of date, and could not be used as a text book to read for say, 11 plus exam, to get into grammar school.
-
Well done overview of her life, I listened to a podcast about her that referenced this book stating it was a great resource and felt like a book written recently. The fact it was in fact written so long ago makes it possible to get a hold of for free through other resources so i made use of an audio book thats link i will attach. I honestly enjoyed the book and found myself learning some new details despite being well versed in history around that time period.
https://archive.org/details/mary_quee... -
Good history
Brief but thorough. Gave me a better overview of her life after her first husband died. Wish the diagram or maps referenced were included, but they are not. -
#2 of 22 in my personal (and rather random) challenge to read Abbot's Makers of History series. The series is most famously known for influencing Abraham Lincoln.
The first volume I read was Queen Elizabeth I, and as her life crossed over with Mary's, it made sense to choose this volume as the next one to read. One of the most interesting aspects of both volumes is how the women were perceived in Abbott's time. Before the rise of feminism, which has led to Elizabeth's popularity in recent decades, Mary was the more-admired historical figure. Abbott often describes her beauty and grace and usually gives her the benefit of the doubt when it comes to her motives. And when confronted with evidence that she may have not been wholly innocent of various charges, he is highly sympathetic and provides understandable reasons for why she would be involved. He delivers her from responsibility to preserve the popular notion that she was a victim. They loved their tragic heroines back then and she and her villainous, controlling husbands make for a great romantic tragedy.
In contrast to the fidelitous, graceful Mary, Elizabeth is duplicitous, jealous, and paranoid. Oh, and she's no great beauty we are told. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of Abbott's perspective of Elizabeth and the contemporary perspective that she was a great feminist role model. Both Abbott and feminists seem to view Mary as little more than a pawn, shuffled around from man to man, but Abbott is sympathetic to her plight, while we (I) just see a weak-willed woman who let herself be bullied into bad decisions. Again the truth really lies in the middle, for even I can admit the unfairness of judging a woman from a feminist perspective when she lived about four hundred years before feminist thought.
Abbott goes to some length to describe the architecture and layout of various Scottish buildings where events occur, something he did not do in the Queen Elizabeth I volume. He even describes how these places look today, some in ruins. Towards the end, he briefly describes a tour to one of the castles with such imagery and emotion that I almost felt like I was there. However, I did find the room layout descriptions to be tedious, especially as the diagram images were not part of the Kindle edition. I don't feel it was necessary to give that level of detail.
My perspective (bias) is different from Abbot's but I still enjoyed the book for the most part. It should definitely be read as a companion to the Queen Elizabeth I volume. -
A very good and brief account of Queen Mary Stuart's life that dictates the fact of the time but does not impress the author's opinions of the matters onto the reader. This book is part of a series titled "Makers of History" by the same author. Very informative and paints a good picture of the events of the time. I recommend it for all lovers of the TV show "Reign" as it sheds light on a lot of the events of the TV drama.
-
A simple book, obviously written for youthful readers, Mary Queen of Scots by Jacob Abbott, explains well the ambiguous personal life of a great but extremely unfortunate woman. Of her three marriages, two only lasted two years but all three were very unhappy for her. The machinations, plotting, and intrigues of court life in the latter half of the 16th Century made her hold of the crown of Scotland very precarious. With family ties in both England and France, one would think that she would have allies to help her but because of jealousies she wasn’t only left to her own devices, eventually she was condemned and eventually beheaded by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I of England. The book went far to relate her personal life but didn’t really try to explain actions in a larger circle that eventually had much to do with her fate. As a monarch she couldn’t have been considered great or even good as internal and external enemies kept her from the task of ruling. I think this is a good introductory book to England and Scotland of this time.
-
The story was somewhat interesting, although, after the halfway point, it became difficult to remember all the Lords and servants names who would come into play for a moment or two, only to be killed or imprisoned and replaced by several more with the same design and the same end. Poor Mary is painted as both (a) a victim of intimidation and coercion on nearly every occasion of turmoil, and (b) a mystery concerning whom histories can't seem to decide is a schemer or an innocent.
A lot of the wording is repeated. (Count how many times the author write, "pomp and ceremony"!) Granted, enough detail is presented that allows me to follow the tale without questioning its accuracy and at the end of the day, I know a lot more about Mary, Queen of Scots than I did before, so, mission accomplished! -
Mary had a very interesting life. Hearing it was sad but somehow expected. Abbot's narrative seemed to be well researched, but one could tell he did not have a good grasp of Catholicism and misrepresented Catholic worship somewhat. Despite that, he seemed to try to tell the tale without bias. I listened to a Librivox recording of it. This was my first Librivox listen. It was not a solo reader so volumes were not together. Some of the narration was done very well, some not so well. Over all, I have a much greater grasp of Mary, Queen of Scots.
-
A pretty interesting text if you're looking for something unabbashedly pro-Mary, anti-Elizabeth, which I haven't read that many of, but it's nice to see someone confirm my suspicions that Elizabeth was largely a monster. It's old history, not written like a modern engaging history, but still readable. Some quibbles with the obvious bias of the author and on his victorian notions of gender that he imposes on everyone (Mary is the good guy because she is a good virtuous and beautiful victorian-ideal, Elizabeth evil because she is the opposite), but otherwise I'm plased.
-
This book hits all the major points of Mary's life, although the tone and style of the book are dramatically different from modern history texts. The author even takes care to include lessons on Protestantism vs. Catholicism, marriage advice, and the technical points of medieval tournaments. That said, there are some interesting asides in this book, and he does present the facts as they were known and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions. This text is best as a supplement to other more complete histories on Mary Stuart.
-
While reading this book I felt that the author was sympathetically biased towards Queen Mary and leaves mostly to the readers to arrive at their own conclusions ...abstaining from any negative remarks ...this book drives home the point thst A beautiful and amicable persona may sometimes be accompanied by weaknesses as in case of Queen Mary....remarkable differences of personality between Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth...
-
I am typically a big fan of Jacob Abbott brief history books but this one did not seem to resonate the way that other volumes have. It is nonetheless a good summary of the story Mary and her trials and tumult in living her faith and seeking her claims for monarchy. Her life was destined in many ways for the tragedy it became.
-
A great read! Very "distinguished language" which I enjoyed immensely. This is a vastly depressing book - more so than "The Last Days of the Romanovs." There's just so much anguish in this woman's life. I was continuously rooting for her to find happiness; which, sadly, she never did. It does make me want to read more about her son and about Elizabeth I.
-
Mary Queen of Scots was just as embroiled in plots and schemes as any monarch of her day. However, I found myself liking her a lot better than her cousin Elizabeth who was frigid and harsh, respected, admired, but never loved.
-
If you like learning about the tudors and queens and kings of Europe, you will love this book. This book tells the story of Romance, Sadness and betrayal. It also covers some of the details and fight about the Roman Catholics vs. Protestants .
