Mary, Queen of Scots biography reveals world of spies, conspiracy, and treason

A new biography of Mary, Queen of Scots taps into a freshly decoded trove of letters from the imprisoned monarch that reveal her complicity in a number of cloak-and-dagger schemes meant to win her freedom.

Jade Scott’s Captive Queen is a unique success, Allan Massie wrote in The Wall Street Journal, in that, as far as 16th century biographies go, it breaks genuinely new ground: Mary’s letters demonstrate far deeper involvement in espionage than was previously known.

And unlike other treatments, it is fair to both her and Queen Elizabeth, whose spymaster implicated Mary in a plot to kill the English monarch, thereby sealing her execution. “A horrible business,” Massie wrote. “But that’s high politics.”