Book: Mary, Queen Of Scots, And The Murder Of Lord Darnley by Alison Weir

Pages/Format: 720/hardcover

My Thoughts: Reading Alison Weir after finishing the David Starkey book was such a relief!  She’s so easy to read.

I was definitely expecting something quite different when I what I read.  I was expecting more of a biography of Mary, Queen of Scots and the events that led up to Lord Darnley’s death.  The book turned out to be more about his death, and the aftermath of it, with an overview of both Mary and Lord Darnley.

It’s not my favorite Alison Weir book, but it was still an interesting read.  I didn’t really know too much about the murder of Lord Darnley, and quite frankly, I didn’t know too much about Mary either, except in reference to Elizabeth I.  It was nice to get background on both of them, but there was something different about this book.  I don’t know if it’s because I finished the David Starkey book recently, which was a beast of a book, or if it’s because the book is more about a series of events than an actual person or what.  I definitely want to read a biography of Mary.  I guess it is a biography, focusing on her life in relation to her marriage to Darnley, and in relation to the aftermath of his death, but I wanted more information about her childhood and the events leading up to her death.

One of the things that was really helpful was the list of different lords at the very beginning of the book, because it helped me keep track of the different people.  The prologue definitely made it seem super interesting, and the book was interesting, but not the page-turner that I was expecting after reading it.  It was a good account of some of the events leading up to his death, who killed him, what happened to those involved in his death, and what happened in the years afterwards.

There’s some speculation throughout the book, which wasn’t a big surprise, as it’s a seemingly unsolved mystery.  It had a lot of information and the attention to detail that I’ve come to expect from Weir.  The pictures and illustrations were also interesting- it’s always nice to see that place and the people mentioned.  And the map was slightly interesting as well- it is nice to see Scotland as it was during Mary’s reign, and while I didn’t compare it to a current map, it’s always interesting. 

Rating: 3 out of 5.  Very informative and well-written, but not one of my favorites by Weir.