Ideal reading for the average boy or girl aged 10 to 14.

The clatter of hoofs in the courtyard, a hurried passage down long corridors and steep stone staircases, a cloak hiding rich robes, and a mad ride in the dark—this was the pattern of life of one of the most famous and tragic queens in history.

All her life Mary Stuart new fear and flight. Her father, defeated in battle by the English, lay dying, away from home, at the time of her birth. In 1548, when she was six, her French mother sent her to the court of Henry II.

She was betrothed to the Dauphin of France as a child, and reigned with him for a brief time. Widowed before she was twenty, she returned to her kingdom of Scotland, only to meet opposition from her own people and antagonism from her cousin across the border, Elizabeth, Queen of England.

Here is Mary as she was—impetus, romantic, ambitious, greatly daring, with faults as well as virtues—until the end, when she went bravely to the scaffold.

This story of her life, written with sympathy yet with scrupulous regard for authenticity, gives an unforgettable picture of the Scottish Queen and of her role in sixteenth century history.

From the dust jacket