The Afterlife of Mary, Queen of Scots

Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587) was active as monarch of Scotland for just six years between 1561 and 1567, but her impact as a ruler in Scotland is much less important than her subsequent role in popular culture and imagination. Her story has enjoyed perpetual retelling and reached a global audience over the past four and a half centuries. This collection surveys the exceptionally varied range of objects, literature, art and media that have been produced to commemorate Mary between her own time and the present day. Why is her story so enduring, pervasive, and of such interest to so many different audiences? How have the narratives associated with these objects evolved in response to shifting cultural attitudes? The collection offers a much-needed novel perspective on the Queen of Scots, using an approach at the intersection of early modern, gender and cultural history, museum and heritage studies, and memory studies.

Steven J. Reid is Professor of Early Modern Scottish History and Culture at the University of Glasgow. He has published widely on intellectual, religious and political culture in the reigns of Mary, Queen of Scots and James VI and I. His books include Humanism and Calvinism (Ashgate, 2011), which won the Senior Hume Brown Prize in Scottish History, and The Early Life of James: A Long Apprenticeship 1566-1585 (Birlinn, 2023).