Tudors Versus Stewarts
The Fatal Inheritance of Mary, Queen of Scots
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
The war between the fertile Stewarts and the barren Tudors was crucial to the history of the British Isles in the sixteenth century. The legendary struggle, most famously embodied by the relationship between Elizabeth I and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, was fuelled by three generations of powerful Tudor and Stewart monarchs. It was the marriage of Margaret Tudor, elder sister of Henry VIII, to James IV of Scotland in 1503 that gave the Tudors a claim to the English throne—a claim which became the acknowledged ambition of Mary Queen of Scots and a major factor in her downfall.
Here is the story of divided families, of flamboyant kings and queens, cultured courts and tribal hatreds, blood feuds, rape and sexual license, of battles and violent deaths. It brings alive a neglected aspect of British history—the blood-spattered steps of two small countries on the northern fringes of Europe towards the union of their crowns. Beginning with the dramatic victories of two usurpers, Henry VII in England and James IV in Scotland, in the late fifteenth century, Linda Porter's Tudors Versus Stewarts sheds new light on Henry VIII, his daughter Elizabeth I and on his great-niece, Mary Queen of Scots, still seductive more than 400 years after her death.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this comprehensive account, British historian Porter (Crown of Thistles) reexamines the events that led to James VI of Scotland's accession to the English throne in 1603 as James I. Much has been written already about the rivalry between his predecessor, Elizabeth I of England, and her cousin (James's mother), Mary Queen of Scots, which culminated in Mary's execution in 1587, and Porter avoids rehashing familiar tales about Elizabeth and Mary. Instead, she sets the rivalry between the two cousins in its familial context, with the focus on the earlier Stewarts, who have been overshadowed through the centuries by the more flamboyant Tudors. The relationship between the two dynasties had been fraught ever since Henry VII ascended to the English throne in 1485. There was the occasional reconciliation, such as the marriage between James IV of Scotland and Henry VII's daughter, Margaret, in 1502, when the notion of a united Britain was seriously considered. Even Porter's retelling of Mary's life from birth until 1567, when she fled Scotland for England, provides fresh insights concerning that queen's troubled reign and the causes behind her downfall, which, Porter argues, was not inevitable. Porter's work relates the oft-neglected Scottish perspective and is recommended for anyone interested in Tudor England.
