Mary Queen of Scots. Tim Vicary

VICARY

      Mary, Queen of Scots

      MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS

      Scotland in 1561 was a wild country. When the young Queen of Scots returned from France, at first her people were pleased to see her. Her husband, the King of France, was dead, and now she wanted a new husband. But Mary, Queen of Scots, was a Catholic Queen, and most of Scotland was now Protestant. There was also a Protestant Queen in England – Elizabeth I. And in those times, men were happy to fight and die for their church.

      Who could the young Queen marry? Who were her friends, and who were her enemies? Mary was beautiful and clever. She loved life, she loved adventure, and she loved men. Too many men, perhaps. People said that she was ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know’. But was that really true?

      It is 1587, and Mary sits, a tired unhappy woman, in Fotheringhay Castle in England. She is a prisoner of Queen Elizabeth, and soon she will be dead. She takes a pen and begins to write a letter to her son, James, now King of Scotland. It is the story of her life …

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of OxfordIt furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countriesThis edition © Oxford University Press 2008The moral rights of the author have been assertedDatabase right Oxford University Press (maker)First published in Oxford Bookworms 19922 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1No unauthorized photocopyingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirerAny websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only. Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the contentISBN 978 0 19 478909 7A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of Mary, Queen of Scots is available on audio CD ISBN 978 0 19 478844 1 Illustrated by: Gay GalsworthyWord count (main text): 6540 wordsFor more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/bookwormswww.oup.com/bookwormse-Book ISBN 978 0 19 478717 8e-Book first published 2012