Imprisoning Mary Queen of Scots

The fascinating biographies of the band of aristocrats who held the embattled monarch prisoner in the wake of her infamous rivalry with Queen Elizabeth.

Imprisoning Mary Queen of Scots covers the lives and careers of the men and women who ‘kept’ Mary Queen of Scots when she was a political prisoner in England, circa 1568-1587. Mary’s troubled claim to the English throne —much to the consternation of her ‘dear cousin’ Elizabeth I—made her a mortal enemy of the Virgin Queen and set them on a collision course from which only one would walk away.

Having no choice but keep Mary under lock and key, Elizabeth trusted this onerous task to some of the most capable—not to mention the richest—men and women in England; Sir Francis Knollys, Rafe Sadler (of Wolf Hall fame), the Earl of Shrewsbury and his wife, Bess of Hardwick, and finally, the puritanical nit-picker Sir Amyas Paulet.

From Carlisle Castle to Fotheringay, these men and women all but bankrupted themselves in keeping the deposed Scots queen in the style to which she was accustomed, while fending off countless escape plots of which Mary herself was often the author. It was in fact a honeytrap escape plot set up by Elizabeth’s ministers that finally saw Mary brought to the executioner’s block, but what of the lives of the gaolers who had until then acted as her guardian?

Imprisoning Mary Queen of Scots details what became of Mary's keepers and how their fates have kept simmering the legend of this most misunderstood of monarchs.