Crowned at nine months, married at sixteen, widowed at eighteen, implicated in the murder of her second husband, and executed for treason, Mary Stuart lived a life that could not have been better imagined by any Hollywood screen writer. Mary, Queen of Scots, lived during one of the most fascinating periods in history. Graham's epic work paints a unique picture of this controversial woman, showing her to be neither a Catholic martyr nor murdering adulteress but an innocent young woman caught up in the ruthless sea of sixteenth-century politics, someone who lacked the shrewdness and empowerment of her contemporaries: Catherine de Medici, Diane de Poitiers and Elizabeth Tudor. Instead, she relied on her beauty and charm and tragically allowed herself to be a victim of circumstance. When she did finally attempt to control her future, she set in motion the events that would lead her to the executioner's block, sentenced to die by none other than her cousin Queen Elizabeth.