tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/mary-queen-of-scots-11666/articlesMary, Queen of Scots – La Conversation2019-02-27T19:16:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1116042019-02-27T19:16:17Z2019-02-27T19:16:17ZMary, Queen of Scots is newly relevant in the age of #MeToo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260873/original/file-20190225-26162-1hn6nnw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Saoirse Ronan as Mary Stuart in Josie Rourke's 2018 film Mary Queen of Scots.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2328900/mediaviewer/rm155744000">Liam Daniel/Focus Features</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The dramatic life of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots is a hot topic in popular culture. Josie Rourke’s 2018 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2328900/?ref_=ttmi_tt">Mary Queen of Scots</a> has reached wide audiences, while the Sydney Theatre Company play <a href="https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/whats-on/productions/2019/mary-stuart?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIts_17_jX4AIVgwsrCh332AADEAAYASAAEgIiH_D_BwE">Mary Stuart</a> is playing to packed houses. What fuels this interest in a queen who died over 400 years ago?</p>
<p>As the differing treatments of her life in the film and play demonstrate, Mary Stuart is a figure open to opposing interpretations of what it means to be a powerful woman. They explore deeply held cultural anxieties over what might happen if a woman holds the role of head of state, which resonate today.</p>
<p>She was queen of France through marriage in her teenage years, then returned to Scotland in 1561 to rule as queen by birth. Her Scottish reign was initially successful, but errors in managing the powerful factions and religious divides of her court and nation led to a series of disastrous events in 1567.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260869/original/file-20190225-26149-2vx5s4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260869/original/file-20190225-26149-2vx5s4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260869/original/file-20190225-26149-2vx5s4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260869/original/file-20190225-26149-2vx5s4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260869/original/file-20190225-26149-2vx5s4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260869/original/file-20190225-26149-2vx5s4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260869/original/file-20190225-26149-2vx5s4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260869/original/file-20190225-26149-2vx5s4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Mary Queen of Scots, oil on canvas, 17th century (artist unknown).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Queen_of_Scots_Blairs_Museum.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Following the murder of her second husband, Lord Darnley, she quickly married one of his supposed killers, Lord Bothwell. She was then driven from the throne and forced to abdicate. Fleeing to England, Mary sought protection from her Protestant cousin and fellow queen, Elizabeth I.</p>
<p>But instead of finding refuge, she was kept under house arrest in England for 19 years, before she was publicly beheaded in 1587 for treason.</p>
<p>If this colourful history were not enough, portrayals of Mary Stuart since the Renaissance have been sharply divided.</p>
<p>Catholic defences viewed her as an innocent victim of scheming and powerful men, wholly virtuous and martyr to the Catholic cause. Protestant attacks viewed her as an adulterer and murderer, driven by private passion to abandon her realm. </p>
<p>This polarised view of Mary’s reign has persisted over centuries. Biographers in the 19th century, such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Strickland">Agnes Strickland</a>, used the queen as an example of why women’s “feminine” qualities conflicted with their ability to exercise power. They were seen as too weak, or too irresponsible. Mary’s short and disastrous life as queen of Scots is often contrasted with Elizabeth I’s long and peaceful reign, making Elizabeth the exception rather than the rule.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mary-queen-of-scots-was-a-poet-and-you-should-know-it-29645">Mary, Queen of Scots was a poet – and you should know it</a>
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<p>In 2019, the question of whether women have the capacity to be successful leaders is still contested. Hillary Clinton, with years of political experience, was defeated by Donald Trump, with none, in the 2016 US election. In Australia, Deputy Prime Minister Julie Bishop was not put forward to lead the Liberal Party and nation in a recent leadership spill, despite her qualifications.</p>
<h2>Two very different stories</h2>
<p>In Josie Rourke’s film, we see a sophisticated and beautiful queen (played by Saoirse Ronan) who is ruled by the heart: falling in love with the handsome Lord Darnley (Jack Lowden) in an unwise match that leads to the murders and schemes eventually forcing her abdication.</p>
<p>Mary’s passionate reign is contrasted with Elizabeth’s icy political acumen. Mary Stuart has a lover and a son but no kingdom, while Elizabeth (Margot Robbie) is lonely and barren but successful. Each wants what the other has and is obsessed by personal rivalry with the other. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Mary Queen of Scots (2018) trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The message the film sends is not only that women cannot have it all, but if they do exercise power they will be derailed by jealousy and caught up in trivial power struggles. It ends with an image of a male king, Mary’s son James (Andrew Rothney), uniting England and Scotland in peaceful prosperity once Elizabeth and Mary’s exhausting personal battle is over. </p>
<p>This provides a deeply conservative take on women’s ability to exercise power responsibly and to balance emotional, familial and workplace demands. Set in the past, it suggests that this is a universal story: that women are unsuited to leadership and unable to govern themselves and others. It forms part of a wider political backlash against women’s potential in positions of authority.</p>
<p>By contrast, Kate Mulvany’s adaptation of the 19th century play Mary Stuart, originally by Friedrich Schiller, tells a very different story of women’s leadership. The two queens are initially opposed, with Mary (played by Caroline Brazier) isolated in prison and Elizabeth (Helen Thomson) surrounded by male courtiers at the height of her power.</p>
<p>But the play slowly uncovers their shared experiences in a society where power is everywhere held by men. It provides a sympathetic, but not sanitised, treatment of women’s experience of leadership, friendship and rivalry. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260866/original/file-20190225-26149-1s53tcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260866/original/file-20190225-26149-1s53tcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260866/original/file-20190225-26149-1s53tcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260866/original/file-20190225-26149-1s53tcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260866/original/file-20190225-26149-1s53tcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260866/original/file-20190225-26149-1s53tcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260866/original/file-20190225-26149-1s53tcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260866/original/file-20190225-26149-1s53tcq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Helen Thomson as Elizabeth I and Caroline Brazier as Mary Stuart in STC’s Mary Stuart. The play presents both queens as complex women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman</span></span>
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<p>Both queens are portrayed as complex women of intelligence, wit, courage and humour. Mary’s relationship with her jailer Paulet (Simon Burke) gives a sense of her warmth and bravery in the face of deprivation and illness, and her exchanges with the militant Mortimer (Fayssal Bazzi) reveal her strategic and political power even in confinement. </p>
<p>Elizabeth is similarly seen to be confident in the exercise of her authority, playing mercilessly with the ambitions of the French ambassador to marry her to his king, and engaged in a spectrum of relationships with her courtiers, from intimacy to reciprocal ties of duty and care.</p>
<p>The third act brings the queens together. If Mary is first Elizabeth’s echo, submissive and secondary, they move through shared points of connection until Mary becomes the aggressor, claiming her right to the English throne. Key to their alignment is their experience of sexual abuse by men: Elizabeth as a 14-year-old raped by her stepfather, Mary by her Scottish husbands (at least as the play tells it). </p>
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<span class="caption">Caroline Brazier in Sydney Theatre Company’s new production of Mary Stuart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman</span></span>
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<p>In the final scene, both recite the same prayer, Elizabeth in the vernacular English of Protestantism and Mary in the Latin of Catholicism, while their maid sings a version of Greensleeves that concludes “all are in captivity”.</p>
<p>The experience of these queens is the experience of so many women, as the #MeToo movement has shown. At a time when the disenfranchised are seen to be both victims and agents in speaking out against sexual abuse, the story of Mary Stuart takes on new relevance. </p>
<p>Rather than exceptions, or polarised versions of idealised and vilified femininity, the queens are at once victims and agents, disempowered and empowered, flawed and inspiring. </p>
<p>The retelling of Mary Stuart’s history in popular forms can repeat and reinforce old stories about women and power. But it can also break these open, reaching into the past to imagine new and complex ways in which women might be leaders: at once vulnerable and flawed, strategic and successful.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111604/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalind Smith receives funding from the Australian Research Council for a Discovery Project on early modern women and the poetry of complaint. The project considers poetry by Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I, among others, and links early modern women's writing to contemporary cultures of complaint.</span></em></p>Was Mary Stuart a passionate and jealous failed queen, or a brave and complex woman? Opposing representations in a new film and play reflect modern anxieties about women’s agency and leadership.Rosalind Smith, Professor and Acting PVC Research and Innovation, University of Newcastle, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/910202018-03-16T12:31:02Z2018-03-16T12:31:02ZMost Scottish authors want to break up the Union – why don’t they write about it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/210298/original/file-20180314-113458-817acq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Barking. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/black-scotch-terrier-reads-old-books-163255019?src=8p3yLSeW5cSBtDNhrfeyeA-2-81">eAlisa</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Glasgow’s annual book festival, <a href="https://www.ayewrite.com/Pages/default.aspx">Aye Write!</a>, is getting underway. Now in its 11th year, big name writers making appearances include the philosopher AC Grayling, broadcast journalist Robert Peston, crime writer Val McDermid and the mountaineer Chris Bonington. </p>
<p>The name of the festival is a play on “aye right”, a sarcastic Scottish way of saying no. This encapsulates much about the literary outlook in this part of the world – a vernacular defensiveness, a strident overcompensation in the face of imagined English snootiness about Glaswegian speech. A neutral might conclude that the arts in Scotland exist in a state of perma-froth at presumed metropolitan condescension. </p>
<p>If support for Scottish independence can be considered a proxy for such froth, there is certainly much in evidence. At the time of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/events/scotland-decides/results">2014 independence referendum</a>, the Scottish literary scene was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/19/scottish-independence-literature-nationalism">near unanimously</a> in favour of a Yes vote – nowhere close to the 55-45 split among the wider population. </p>
<p>This normally disputatious crowd felt overwhelmingly that the Union was inimical to Scottish culture and that the literary tradition would best flourish with independence. Little has changed since. Don’t expect much enthusiasm from them about Theresa May’s Britain at this year’s festival. </p>
<p>This mood didn’t begin in 2014, it must be said. In the Thatcher-hating days of 1988, the pro-devolution Campaign for a Scottish Assembly <a href="https://thecrownandtheunicorn.wordpress.com/the-claim-of-right-1989/">gave this</a> starkly black and white assessment:</p>
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<p>The Union has always been, and remains, a threat to the survival of a distinctive culture in Scotland.</p>
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<p>Is this right? Most great Scottish writers – Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, for example – thrived within the <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/act-of-union-1707/">Union between</a> Scotland and England. Indeed, most Scots will know much more about their nation’s literature since 1707 than about previous eras. </p>
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<span class="caption">Bovvered? Robert Louis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/robert-louis-stevenson-vector-illustration-756799360?src=7zAqRQJSVv9GNFEfHCfOHw-1-0">Mario Breda</a></span>
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<p>If the Union was such a problem for Scottish writers, why was it invisible in what they had to say? Why is there no tradition of anti-Unionist invective? Aside from Burns’s well-known <a href="http://www.robertburns.org/works/344.shtml">1791 poem</a> condemning the “parcel o’ rogues” who “bought and sold” Scotland “for English gold”, the Union is at best an absent presence. Even today it receives little attention from Scottish writers – why? </p>
<h2>Before nationalism</h2>
<p>Scottish literature’s relationship with the Union is the focus of a new book of essays which we have edited, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/literature-and-union-9780198736233?cc=us&lang=en&">Literature and Union: Scottish Texts, British Contexts</a>. The most compelling explanation for the lack of literary attention to the Union is that until recently, other questions were more important to Scottish writers, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries. </p>
<p>In particular, partisanship and religion long trumped national identity. Indeed, they were deeply interwoven, shaping two distinctive mythical representations of Scotland. </p>
<p>One was Presbyterian and democratic, the myth of Scotland’s godly <a href="http://www.covenanter.org.uk/whowere.html">Covenanting</a> tradition. The other was Episcopalian, royalist and Jacobite, the cause of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Forty-five-Rebellion">Forty-five Rising</a>. Each reached back to earlier periods – the Covenanters claimed to be the true heirs of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/articles/scottish_reformation/">Scottish Reformation</a>; Jacobite sympathisers were entranced by the romantic plight of <a href="http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/Mary-Queen-of-Scots/">Mary, Queen of Scots</a>, imprisoned and finally beheaded by a Protestant queen. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/works/novels/waverley.html">Walter Scott’s Waverley</a> (1814) might be the classic example of the Jacobite representation, recounting many of the events of 1745 from a perspective very sympathetic to the Highland rebels. It was followed by a long stream of Jacobite literature – and Scott himself returned to the theme both in <a href="https://theconversation.com/two-centuries-before-marvel-and-star-wars-walter-scotts-rob-roy-was-the-first-modern-anti-hero-89421">Rob Roy</a> (1817) and <a href="http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/works/novels/redgaun.html">Redgauntlet</a> (1824). </p>
<p>Depictions of Covenanters are variously positive and negative in Scottish literature. Many 19th-century novels present them as heroes for their democratic outlook, with their roots in the culture of ordinary folk. John Galt’s <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30749">Ringan Gilhaize</a> (1823) is one example, telling the story of three generations of rural people.</p>
<p>Other writers are repelled by the illiberal and philistine totalitarianism they discern in the tradition. The most notorious example is James Hogg’s 1824 satire, <a href="https://theconversation.com/confessions-of-a-justified-sinner-captures-the-modern-condition-perfectly-46298">The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner</a>, whose lead character considers that having attained his place among God’s saved, he has carte blanche to commit terrible crimes. </p>
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<span class="caption">Hugh McDiarmid.</span>
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<p>Nationalism took hold on the Scottish literary scene over the course of the 20th century, primarily under the enduring influence of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LeCqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=Hugh+Macdiarmid+Reformation&source=bl&ots=LPaq_MR_uw&sig=Sq2__1BhbFFocYPjpPXjGayITZk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK0fSdj8nZAhUYM8AKHYO4AkQQ6AEIOzAC">Hugh MacDiarmid</a>. Even so, he and others held to a view that Scotland’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/history/articles/scottish_reformation/">Reformation</a> had been just as bad, if not worse, than the Union. For McDiarmid, it was the founding of the Protestant church – and not the merger with England – that was the beginning of the repression of Scottish folk and their authentic culture. </p>
<p>Novels and poems about Covenanting and Jacobitism still abound today. James Robertson, for example, who is <a href="https://www.ayewrite.com/Pages/Whats-On.aspx#/event/de1f87b9-938b-42b2-ab83-a85d00ea01ca">appearing</a> at this year’s Aye Write!, makes sport with Covenanting fanaticism in <a href="https://www.harpercollins.co.uk/9781841151892/the-fanatic">The Fanatic</a> (2000) and <a href="http://www.scotgeog.com">The Testament of Gideon Mack</a> (2006). Robertson has also written the only novel that has brought Scottish nationhood into focus in recent years: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/15/and-land-lay-still-robertson">And the Land Lay Still</a> (2010). More generally, the Union remains a submerged and largely invisible feature of the Scottish literary landscape.</p>
<h2>Stark contrasts</h2>
<p>While it is true that the Union never enjoyed much of a fanfare among Scottish writers of previous generations, it was rarely if ever the focus of their work. Several even made conspicuous contributions to British – indeed to English – national identities. How else do we account for the fact that the figure of John Bull was the coinage of a Scottish doctor, <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarlyeditions.com/view/10.1093/actrade/9780198127192.book.1/actrade-9780198127192-book-1">John Arbuthnot</a>, and Rule, Britannia the work of the Scottish poet, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45404/rule-britannia">James Thomson</a>? </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Sgd9nYqVz2s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>It is hard to imagine a Scottish writer expressing a similar sentiment in their work today. Yet the reluctance to write about independence has continued, despite writers’ enthusiasm for the cause. It is as if the literary tradition weighs heavy on their shoulders and encourages them to look elsewhere for inspiration. </p>
<p>In sum, the relationship between Scottish literature and the Union turns out to be much more tangled, ironic and surprising than might have been expected. Today’s nationalists do indeed dominate Scotland’s literary scene, and will undoubtedly be in force at Aye Write!, but they do not have all the best tunes. It will be fascinating to see to what extent this changes in future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin Kidd receives funding from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. He is affiliated with These Islands and Scotland in Union. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gerard Carruthers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The politics may have changed over the years, but the literary obsessions of ‘northern Britain’ seem hard to shake.Colin Kidd, Professor of History, University of St AndrewsGerard Carruthers, Francis Hutcheson Professor of Scottish Literature, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/865782017-10-31T14:08:49Z2017-10-31T14:08:49ZThe Mary, Queen of Scots cover up – and why hidden paintings keep being found<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192482/original/file-20171030-18720-1ehljr2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Behind the mask. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Galleries of Scotland</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An exciting discovery for British history buffs: an unfinished portrait believed to be of Mary, Queen of Scots <a href="https://www.nationalgalleries.org/press-office">has been</a> revealed under a 16th-century painting using X-ray photography. The hidden portrait is a special find by painting conservator <a href="http://courtauld.ac.uk/people/caroline-rae">Caroline Rae</a>, yet it is not unique. In having her features painted over, Scotland’s doomed queen finds herself in excellent company. </p>
<p>The portrait in question is of Sir John Maitland, the first Lord Maitland of Thirlestane (1543-1595), and normally hangs in a gallery in London. At the time it was painted in 1589, two years after Mary’s death, Maitland was one of the most powerful men in Scotland, having attained the office of Lord Chancellor. The work is attributed to <a href="https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/adrian-vanson">Adrian Vanson</a> (or Van Son), an artist from the Low Countries who later became court painter to James VI, Mary’s son. </p>
<p>The X-ray revealed that Vanson originally had very different plans for this portrait. Instead of Maitland’s face with its characteristic moustache and goatee, we can see the face of a woman, slightly tilted and turned in the opposite direction. The outlines of a square-necked gown and a wired lace ruff are clearly visible; the ghostlike appearance of someone who perhaps needed to be forgotten. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192485/original/file-20171030-18735-e2xtwa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Can you tell what it is yet?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Galleries of Scotland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mary Stuart <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/mary_queen_of_scots/">was executed</a> for plotting the murder of Elizabeth I of England. Her image was identified from the few authentic portraits in existence, including <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O62538/portrait-miniature-hilliard-nicholas/">two miniatures</a> by the English painter Nicholas Hilliard. </p>
<p>If it is Mary, the painting may well have been begun around the time of her execution. This would be surprising but not unlikely: it is easy to imagine portraits of her still being in demand in Scotland but at some point being judged too dangerous. Whether asked to do so by a patron or at his own initiative, Vanson would have been reusing the panel to cover up the politically sensitive evidence. </p>
<h2>Cover ups and more cover ups</h2>
<p>The history of art is full of examples of covered up or destroyed portraits. Often politically motivated, they are sometimes known by the Latin expression <em>damnatio memoriae</em> – the condemnation of memory. In ancient Rome the senate sometimes sanctioned the destruction of the images of previous emperors on coins and life-size sculptures, whereby often only the heads would be replaced – a cheap solution. </p>
<p>There are other good examples from around Mary’s time. The Italian bishop Bernardo de’ Rossi commissioned a painting of the Madonna and Child that included his own portrait, having recently survived an attempt on his life. But at a later date his family had his image painted over in favour of an infant St John the Baptist. No one looking at the painting nowadays would guess that it once contained the bishop. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192479/original/file-20171030-18735-4os3v3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Madonna and Child (1503), Lorenzo Lotto.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Later in the 16th century Bianca Capello, grand duchess of Tuscany, fell victim to a campaign of <em>damnatio memoriae</em>: after her premature and possibly violent death her brother in law, Ferdinando de’ Medici, saw many of her portraits destroyed.</p>
<p>There are also more recent examples. The Soviet Union <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/people-who-were-erased-from-history-2013-12?IR=T">was notorious</a> for erasing unwanted figures from the photographic record, long before the existence of Photoshop. Stalin had the head of his secret police, Nikolai Yezhov, airbrushed after his execution in 1940, for instance. The Nazis and Chinese communists also have form in this respect. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=236&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=236&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=236&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192480/original/file-20171030-18683-f3lut0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nikolai Yezhov vanishes from Stalin’s left …</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Artists sometimes covered up initial compositions for more mundane reasons than politics, of course. Vincent van Gogh is <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/two-for-the-price-of-one-van-gogh-confirmed-with-another-underneath-7578001.html">well known</a> for having recycled canvases to save money. Three years ago, researchers ascribed similar motivations to Pablo Picasso after finding a portrait of a man with a bow tie underneath his famous <a>Blue Room</a>. No less spectacular was the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/aug/04/x-ray-reveals-mysterious-face-hidden-beneath-degas-portrait-of-a-woman">discovery</a> last year of Edgar Degas’s favourite model under his Portrait of a Woman. </p>
<p>While art historians have been using X-rays to analyse the authorship of paintings for over a hundred years, it has always been limited by the fact that, depending on the chemical composition of the paint, it does not make everything visible, and only results in the characteristic black-and-white image. </p>
<p>This makes the results difficult to interpret, although it can still produce important results, as we see with this latest discovery. Yet recent advances in X-ray technology have helped to overcome this problem in certain cases: a technique called <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep29594">X-ray fluorescence</a> makes it possible to see under-paintings in high-resolution full colour. This is what was used to uncover the image in the Degas painting, for example. </p>
<p>While specialised knowledge and highly costly equipment are required, it is probably only a matter of time before more fascinating discoveries are offered up by old masters. Who knows what else might be revealed from the Maitland painting if it was subjected to similar techniques. A tantalising prospect, especially for what such finds may tell us about artistic process and changing historical fortunes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86578/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elsje van Kessel receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p>An old Scottish master has revealed its secret after 430 years. What next from art detectives?Elsje van Kessel, Lecturer in Art History, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/296452014-07-27T20:25:49Z2014-07-27T20:25:49ZMary, Queen of Scots was a poet – and you should know it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54738/original/rh5fx78t-1406170159.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mary's poems give a unique insight into how the queen experienced her bloody, passionate and tragic life.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dave McLear</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Think Mary, Queen of Scots and a few key facts probably come to mind: she was Catholic, she was imprisoned and she had her head chopped off. But a poet who offers insight into 16th-century women’s writing and what it was like to be a queen? Not so much.</p>
<p>Some 39 poems have been attributed to Mary, some circulated only in manuscript, some written in the margins of her prayer book, and others published and circulated widely in the 16th and 17th centuries. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54861/original/4bwvk8zk-1406262116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54861/original/4bwvk8zk-1406262116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54861/original/4bwvk8zk-1406262116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54861/original/4bwvk8zk-1406262116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54861/original/4bwvk8zk-1406262116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54861/original/4bwvk8zk-1406262116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54861/original/4bwvk8zk-1406262116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54861/original/4bwvk8zk-1406262116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Stuart at 16, about the time of her marriage to the French heir Francis of Valois, the later King Francis II of France.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">François Clouet/Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is likely some of these poems were not written by the queen, but were forgeries. All, however, were circulated as Mary’s writing and under her signature at the time – meaning she was one of the most widely-read women writers of the 16th century. </p>
<p>She was known not only for her political status, but also for her textual skill – whether authentic or imagined. </p>
<p>Raised in the French court and educated by humanist tutors, Mary was briefly Queen of France, then Queen of Scotland. During her short and turbulent Scottish reign (1561-8), she was accused of the murder of her second husband, <a href="http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usbiography/s/henrystuartdarnley.html">Lord Darnley</a>, and abducted and imprisoned by her third husband, <a href="http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/75139/James-Hepburn-4th-earl-of-Bothwell">Lord Bothwell</a>, before they were married. </p>
<p>Forced to abdicate the Scottish throne in a civil uprising, she fled to England seeking the protection of her Protestant cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. The presence of a rival, female and Catholic sovereign on English soil created a politically volatile situation for Elizabeth, especially as Mary had legitimate claim to the English throne. </p>
<p>After public trial, Mary was imprisoned in a series of aristocratic houses for 18 years. The discovery of her involvement in the <a href="http://www.history-magazine.com/babington.html">Babington plot of 1586</a>, in which she was to be freed by her Catholic supporters and Elizabeth assassinated, meant that eventually, in 1587, Mary was publicly beheaded at her cousin’s command.</p>
<p>Her poems were produced at key moments during that history. An extended elegy to her first husband, who had been King of France for only a year, is both a conventional poem and a surprisingly intimate expression of grief. </p>
<p>It describes the speaker lying within her bedchamber, dreaming of her husband’s voice and touch, as well as his presence accompanying her in her duties and work. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Si je suis en repos<br>
Sommeillante sur ma couche<br>
J'ois qu'il me tient propos<br>
Je le sens qu'il me touche<br>
En labeur, en recoi<br>
Toujours est pres de moi </p>
<p>If I am at rest<br>
Sleeping on my couch <br>
I hear him speak to me<br>
I can feel his touch <br>
In my work, as I receive<br>
He is always near me. <br> </p>
</blockquote>
<p>More scandalously, a sonnet sequence widely circulated in print under Mary’s name was alleged at the time to describe her rape by her third husband, Bothwell. In this sequence, the speaker is an adulterous mistress, seeking to show proof of her passion for her beloved in direct rivalry with his wife. </p>
<p>Not only do these poems have the speaker giving up her kingdom to her lover, sonnet 9 of the sequence begins by describing that lover possessing the speaker physically, without her emotional consent. </p>
<p>This was published both in the original French in which Mary wrote, and in Scots translation, reproduced here with an additional translation in standard English:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For him also I powred out many tearis, <br>
First quhen he made himselfe possessor of thys body.<br>
Of the quhilk then he had nat the hart.<br>
Efter he did give me one vther hard charge,<br>
Quhen he bled of his blud great quantitie,<br>
Through the great sorow of the quhilk came to mee that dolour,<br>
That almost caryit away my life, and the feire<br>
To lese the onely strength that armit me. </p>
<p>For him also I poured out many tears<br>
First when he made himself possessor of this body.<br>
Of which then he had not the heart. <br>
After he gave me one other hard charge,<br>
When he bled great quantities of blood,<br>
Through which great sorrow brought further sadness to me<br>
That almost carried away my life, and the fear<br>
Of losing the only strength that armed me. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This sequence is formally inventive, combining the everyday elements of popular complaint with the more elite genre of the sonnet sequence. It probably was not written by Mary, and it certainly was circulated widely by her enemies as a way of slandering her and implicating her in her second husband’s murder, motivated by her desire to marry again. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54862/original/8rpk3zn9-1406262354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54862/original/8rpk3zn9-1406262354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54862/original/8rpk3zn9-1406262354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54862/original/8rpk3zn9-1406262354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54862/original/8rpk3zn9-1406262354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=890&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54862/original/8rpk3zn9-1406262354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54862/original/8rpk3zn9-1406262354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/54862/original/8rpk3zn9-1406262354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1118&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there is some evidence that some 16th-century readers believed these poems to be genuine. They provide a new insight into what might have been considered possible for an early modern woman to write about, as well as an acceptance that a queen might write in popular as well as elite forms. </p>
<p>The least known, but most interesting, of Mary Queen of Scots’ poetry lies in 14 poems and fragments written in her distinctive hand in the margins of her Book of Hours, over her lifetime. She was given the beautiful, richly illuminated prayer book during her childhood in the French court and kept it until her death.</p>
<p>As was typical of the time, the Book of Hours contains signatures by the queen herself and by ten others, some her friends and relatives and others, more disturbingly, her enemies, who wrote in her book after her death. </p>
<p>Most sinister of these signatures is that of <a href="http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/walsingham.htm">Sir Francis Walsingham</a>, Elizabeth’s spymaster, who was instrumental in uncovering the plot that led to Mary’s death and for advocating her execution.</p>
<p>The Book of Hours poems vividly lament the queen’s loss of status in imprisonment, and her anger at her public vilification:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>en feinte mes amis change leur bienveillance
tout le ben quils me font est desirer ma mort
et comme si mourant jestois en deffailance<br>
dessus mes vestements ils ont jette le sort</p>
<p>My friends feign their concern<br>
Wishing instead to see me dead<br>
And as if dying I was merely in a faint<br>
They have cast lots for my clothes</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yet they also position Mary as a martyr, whose political and religious power will extend after her death, and who fights for her cause until death:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>ils ne apartient porter ces armes<br>
qua ceus qui dun coeur indomte<br>
com[m]e nous nont peur des allarmes<br>
du temps puissant mais sans bonte</p>
<p>Only those with an indomitable spirit<br>
Who have no fear of danger<br>
Should carry the fight<br>
In these hard-hearted times</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The poems give a unique insight into how the queen herself experienced her bloody, passionate and tragic life. They also illuminate how early modern women were thought of as writers, as lovers and as queens. </p>
<p>Despite their historical and literary significance, however, there is no scholarly modern edition of these poems and very little critical work on them. That these poems are so little known is itself a scandal. </p>
<p>Mary was not only an extraordinary political figure but also an extraordinary writer. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosalind Smith receives funding from the Australian Research Council as the lead investigator on a Discovery Project (2010-12) on the Material Cultures of Early Modern Women's Writing. </span></em></p>Think Mary, Queen of Scots and a few key facts probably come to mind: she was Catholic, she was imprisoned and she had her head chopped off. But a poet who offers insight into 16th-century women’s writing…Rosalind Smith, Associate Professor School of Humanities and Social Science, University of NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.