Royal lives are invariably packed with incident, but few can match the drama and intrigue that marked out Mary Queen of Scots. Forced to flee Scotland at the age of five, she grew up without her mother, was married at fifteen and widowed just a few days before her eighteenth birthday - a pattern of upheaval that was to characterize the rest of her life. Returning to Scotland, she married again (unhappily), gave birth to her only child, who would later betray her, suffered the horror of her secretary and second husband being murdered, endured abduction and rape by a third, and finally captivity and escape from a remote castle in the Highlands. Her last eighteen years as a prisoner in England, while certainly quieter, continued to be marked by conspiracy and intrigue, and a fraught relationship with her cousin Elizabeth I. Perhaps, then, her execution in February 1587 was an inevitable conclusion to a life that had seen her fall tragically from power and splendour into confinement and despair. Susan Doran tells the story of Mary's life in prose that evokes the power struggles and politics of the time. The narrative is illustrated with images of the leading figures and places, and reproduces numerous handwritten documents, many for the first time.