Mary, Queen of Scots at the Palace of Holyroodhouse: A Creative Writing Resource for Teachers – Palace of Holyrood House HMC Calendar of the manuscripts of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Salisbury preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, vol. 1 (London, 1883), p. 333, and in Thomas Wright, Queen Elizabeth and her Times, vol. 1 (London, 1838), pp. 226-235.

It is pleasantly cool in the tennis court but Rizzio is sweating. His clothes are damp and his heart is hitting a steady fast rhythm. He’s still fit and able and gives thanks to God for it. Good health is a rare gift at the age of thirty-two.With a PhD in the bag, she then took the plunge to follow her dream of writing for a living. “I thought that everybody wanted to be a writer but I was never really committed to being an academic,” she recalls, “so I thought ‘try to be a writer, fail and you go and get on with being an academic.” An oral tradition This is an absolutely brilliant book! I am deeply interested in Mary Queen of Scots, yet have never managed to finish any of the many books about her. Denise Mina, who has written a number of crime novels set in gritty Glasgow, was the perfect person to pen the story of the murder of David Rizzio, servant and confidant of the Queen. I loved what Denise Mina did with the insane Henry Yair, and the 'afterwards' section, when we read what happened to Mary in the years to follow and, most interesting of all, what happened to the Queen's apartments at Holyrood Palace. Fascinating. I have to look up more about this! I’m becoming more and more fond of the novella as a form for fiction, and this book is an example of why. Anything longer would be too much, but a short story wouldn’t be enough.

Mina's first Paddy Meehan novel, The Field of Blood (2005), was filmed for broadcast in 2011 by the BBC, starring Jayd Johnson, Peter Capaldi and David Morrissey. [2] The second, The Dead Hour, was filmed and broadcast in 2013. [3] Biography [ edit ]Mary doesn’t know that her Palace is surrounded – that, right now, an army of men is creeping upstairs to her chamber. They’re coming to murder David Rizzio, her friend and secretary, the handsome Italian man who is smiling across the table at her. Mary’s husband wants it done in front of her and he wants her to watch it done… About the Author James Crawford, editor-at-large at Polygon, commissioned the series. He says: “These books are sharp, provocative and darkly comic, mining that seam of sedition and psychological drama that has always featured in the best of Scottish literature.”