In the footsteps of a doomed queen

THIS is a Scottish book, through and through.

- Kate Green

The publisher, Birlinn, which is named after a Hebridean and West Highlands long boat, focuses on books with Scottish and UK general interest. Its author, Rosemary Goring, was born in Dunbar, studied at the University of St Andrews and now lives in the Borders. She was literary editor of two Scottish newspapers and has written a study of the nation’s history by the women who lived it.

Exile: The Captive Years of Mary, Queen of Scots Rosemary Goring (Birlinn, £20) follows the same format as her 2022 Homecoming, which charts the Queen’s Scottish years through the locations and settings where the historic events of her life took place. The present book deals with Mary’s years of incarceration in England, from her arrival in Cumbria in 1568 to her eventual beheading in 1587 at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire.