Let's start with the good bits. This book contains a really well thought out picture of the Scotland Mary returned to from France in August 1561. Wormald traces way back to explain Scottish society and the types of ties which bound Kings and Lords, and lords to eachother, dealing with feuding and the emergence of the political 'bond'. She also discusses the nature of Scottish kingship and the frequency of minorities and how they were handled. In particular she emphasises the differences between the way the Scottish and English or French monarchies worked.
What I was particularly impressed with were some pieces of information which she highlights that are not discussed elswhere, such as Mary's poor attendance at Parliaments, the strange meeting with Nicholas de Gouda and such. Whilst I differ in interpretation of these events, her mentioning them at all is unusual.
Her description of the Reformation is particularly easy to read, and manages to be concise but clear. In fact, the whole book is well written (grammar aside), and her tone appropriate - she certainly was a joy to read after the horrors of GR 'smug' Elton.
However (didn't you just know there would be a 'however'?), she has preconceived ideas about Mary and makes them known from the outset, without backing up why she says things. Her stated intent is to look at Mary from a different point of view to other books which she feels discuss her as a personality and as a woman. Wormald intends to look at her ability as a ruler. From hereon in, she does that - at the same time making clear her unsubstantiated opinion of Mary as a personality and a woman.
Within the first few pages she brands Mary as an 'hysteric', 'subject to the fatal political weakness of collapsing in time of trouble'. No mention of porphyria, gastric ulcers, or any other medical condition which may have caused Mary to come close to death even at one point. Not usual in 'hysteria' - which I doubt even exists as a medical entity post-Freud. Not that Wormald is gifted with psychiatric insight - towards the end of the book she thunders that 'Moray's seizure of [Mary's] jewels in the summer of 1567.... was a grievance which rankled with her to the end of her life; she seemed to regard their loss as seriously as the loss of her kingdom.' She thus misses the point that the jewels were for Mary personally symbolic of Moray's political actions.
Her opening contention is that Mary didn't understand enough about the country she was ruling. Fair comment. But she cannot confine herself to that - she has to prove that this was Mary's own fault - that she should have been able to find out about Scotland before her arrival, perhaps by some kind of political osmosis. For an historian who wishes to take a rational view of Mary, she has what can only be described as a psychic connection with her, able over the centuries to pick up her motivations and emotions with remarkable ease - 'it was indifference, even a degree of antagonism, as much as available information, which dictated her approach'. Assuming this to be true (and we are given no choice since there is no justification offered for this opinion), could it not perhaps have something to do with these people attempting to wrest power from Mary of Guise, Mary QoS mother and representative?
But there are to be no mitigating factors for this Queen. Scotland was used to minorities, she should be able to pick up where her father left off - even if her minority had been the longest in the country's history. So what if she wasn't trained to rule? Neither was that paragon of virtue, Elizabeth I - who just happened to grow up in the vipers' nest that was the English court at the time, and with an education which Wormald herself describes as far more 'demanding'. Elizabeth also provides reason to discount problems associated with ruling as a woman - and if she acted like a man, then this had to be a good thing. And why didn't Mary restore Catholicism? After all, Mary Tudor did it - a few burnings and general misery all round is a small price to pay. Of course, we should completely ignore her returning to a country divided by religion and recently ripped apart by civil war.
Another of Mary's problems, according to Wormald is that she didn't trust her nobles enough (I've mentioned vipers' nests already, haven't I?). But also that she didn't take enough interest in affairs of state, and maintained the existing officers of state. This is but the first of many contradictory stances she takes within the book, and I shall spare you all the tedium of a huge list.
Wormald takes great pains to excuse the behaviour of the Protestant Lords, and hers is certainly a most convincing defence of the Earl of Moray, a poor put-upon Protestant, who only wants to do what his conscience says is right. Strange religion, that would condone killing your half-sister and her hubby, even if they are Queen and King. But of course, he had the oh-so-popular-with-Tudorites attitude that a schism with France and alliance with England was a good idea - for the good of his country, not himself, you understand. So much for the declaration of Arbroath.
So far as religion goes, there is again to be no approval for Mary. '...the suggestion that Mary Queen of Scots showed the attractive virtue of tolerance in an intolerant age emerges as wholly anachronistic. Her indifference .... was not attractive; it was extraordinary, and it was profoundly irresponsible'. So there.
Sometimes she makes laughable declarations in her haste to condemn Mary. For instance, 'If she was not [involved in the murder of Darnley], then she must have been almost the only member of Edinburgh political society who managed to know nothing about it.' Well presumably at least Darnley and his close family were a tad uninformed too.
And not all is accurate in the Wormald world. We hear that Bothwell has been in exile in France between 1562 and 1565. That's not to mention her depiction of said Earl, but of course, if he's not the pantomime bad-guy then Mary can't be so utterly stupid for marrying him. More bizarrely, she casts nary a doubt on the veracity of the Casket Letters, yet feels no need to justify flying in the face of academic opinion.
For an author who describes Mary as 'undoubtedly of far less intellectual a cast of mind' than Elizabeth I or Lady Jane Grey, it must be somewhat embarrassing to have written a book which contains rather unconventional grammatical constructions within the text. The most arresting being the persistant use of such phrases as 'there was only a handful of dissident voices' and 'there was still a large number of Catholics'. She also has an idiosyncratic use (or un-use) of capitalisation.
From her bibliography it is fairly clear (to a person who has read the books) where she has taken particular ideas from, but this is not always apparent in the narrative, which isn't referenced.
But the underpinning problem with this book is Wormald's central premise that everything Mary did was purely to gain the English throne. Even when she herself can see that the facts don't fit this theory, she can't resist twisting them: 'If the English would not accept her willingly, then they might be forced to do so; and that could be achieved by a marriage which would threaten them. There is, it must be said, a difficulty here. It is clear enough that a marriage alliance between Mary of Scotland and one of the two great Catholic powers would menace England. It is considerably harder to make the imaginative leap from that to Mary's position on the English throne. But such a leap did exist in Mary's mind.' How grateful we should be that Wormald has powers unknown even to the great Uri Gellar.
Almost from the outset of this book, one can be sure that whatever Mary does wrongly will be all her own fault, and any prudent decisions will be 'luck and gun-barrel vision.... not the independent judgement of a ruler making her own well-thought-out political decisions.' As such, I recommend it as an invaluable work for the bookshelf of all anti-Marians or Elizabeth I fans. Not a bad buy for anyone else either.