The life of Mary Stuart was full of unprecedented drama and contradictions. Having become Queen of Scots at the age of nine months, and Queen of France at sixteen, she ascended to the throne, which was her birthright, at eighteen. As the head of one of Europe's most troubled countries, torn apart by religious conflict and power struggles, Mary led armies to victory and defeat; she survived the murder of her second husband and married the one who was called his murderer. At twenty-five years old, she was captured by another queen, Elizabeth Tudor, who signed Mary’s death sentence after nineteen years of imprisonment. Celebrated historian and biographer John Guy examines the labyrinthine conspiracies that Scottish lords hatched to seize power and the efforts of Elizabeth's ministers to exclude Mary as the rightful heir to the English throne. It offers completely new interpretations of a famous story that has inspired writers, poets, composers, artists and directors for many centuries. The book formed the basis of a film made in the UK in 2018 with Saoirse Ronan as Mary and Margot Robbie as Elizabeth.

“I decided to write a new biography of Mary. I wanted to get to the core: to see a woman whose choices were understandable and whose decisions were logical, and not a collection of stereotypes or convenient and poorly consistent myths. I wanted to tell the story of Mary Stuart, giving the floor to her as much as possible, and at the same time to show why other people's accounts of the same events are strikingly different from her point of view." (John Guy)