My Heart Is My Own

"The thing I admire so much about John Guy’s work is his ability to go into the archive and bring an extraordinary forensic eye to bear on documents which have already been pored over by generations of historians – and yet to bring something new to it. He re-examined the Casket Letters, which are the letters on the basis of which Mary, Queen of Scots had been accused of responsibility for the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley. Yes, and the Casket Letters are the documents that supposedly prove her guilt. But what John Guy did was to go back and unpick them and not be satisfied with transcripts. Instead he looked at the physical documents in order to construct a new argument that suggested that Mary had been framed. It was the forensic skill with which he did that which was so good. I did find it compelling. I’m no expert on the life of Mary, Queen of Scots – but I think there is so much excitement in history when someone can go back to the original evidence and express their detailed findings in a book aimed at a wide readership. Again, I’m interested in different ways of writing history and that seemed to me to be a phenomenally interesting combination of things."