Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles by Margaret George

They don’t signal the beginning of a monarch’s reign. Held at Westminster Abbey since 1066, coronations are largely symbolic formalities. The ceremony marked the last time a banquet and an appearance by the king’s champion formed part of the day’s festivities. It was one of the more notable in the thousand-year history of British coronations-George’s estranged wife, Queen Caroline, tried to crash the occasion. The highlight of the feast was the ceremonial arrival of the king’s champion, a nobleman who rode into the hall in full armor and threw down his gauntlet as a challenge to anyone who might object to George’s rule. After the British king was crowned, a select group of attendees moved to Westminster Hall for a banquet featuring 160 dishes of fish, 480 sauce boats, 80 savory pies and 100 gallons of iced punch. An estimated 4,656 guests flocked to Westminster Abbey in London, many of them dressed in costumes inspired by fashions of centuries past. (Sept.George IV’s 1821 coronation was a lavish affair, costing upwards of $26 million in today’s dollars. 150,000 first printing major ad/promo Literary Guild selection. Moreover, her deep sympathy for her subject renders Mary an entirely real and unforgettable heroine. With her use of authentic period language, her gifts for assured pacing and accomplished characterization, and her ability to convey the complex political issues and intrigues of 16th-century England and Scotland, George has created an engrossing novel. Readers will empathize with Mary's pain over an unhappy first marriage, the wrenching upheaval of adultery and her searing realization of trust misplaced and loyalties lost, finally coming to know with her the peace of a soul at rest in God and the glory of a meaningful death. Mary's story becomes an allegory for the victory of morality over human weakness her reign, a symbol of the abuses of rule by ``divine right'' her death, of the triumph of the rule of law. Recreating the Elizabethan era with a sure eye for telling detail, George uses her entirely plausible vision of Mary's private life to explain the failures of her public one. Like all tragic figures, George's Mary Stuart has a flaw: a personal and political naivete, misunderstood to the end, that leads to her downfall. From the author of The Autobiography of Henry VIII comes another massive, painstakingly researched novel that makes history live.

Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles by Margaret George