[In Mary Queen of Scots], Antonia Fraser has diligently compiled and sifted everything that is known of [Mary], trying to reach the truth behind contemporary slanders and later legends. She has given particular attention to Mary's medical history, and is able to show that she was subject to periods of nervous collapse under stress, in which her vitality and her judgment forsook her and she fell into a kind of apathy. One such collapse (naturally enough) followed the shock of Darnley's murder. Antonia Fraser interprets her marriage to Bothwell … as being performed in a state of almost tranced acquiescence….

Antonia Fraser sees Mary as essentially of a maternal disposition. She loved the sickly little Dauphin with a motherly solicitude. Darnley, too, was younger than she was, and she fell in love with him when nursing him through an illness. Furthermore, though she remained to the end an attractive...