[MR] BBC: Mary Queen of Scots

[Groff, Garth (ggg9y)]

Noble Friends, Lovers of Period Soap Operas, and fellow Scots:

Just announced on the BBC, a teen drama about Mary Queen of Scots will air on US TV this fall: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-22652464 . The series will air on the CW network. If your cable doesn't carry CW (I don't think mine does, at least at my minimal subscription level), you can probably count on the boxed set of DVDs being available someday.

And for those of you who have enjoyed other portrayals of the tragic queen, the BBC has a run-down of other TV and film versions of her royal life: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-22652469 .

For those of you history buffs who have followed the sad fortunes of the Stuarts, today in 1503 James IV of Scotland married Margaret Tudor (sister of the soon-to-be king Henry VIII). James was probably the best of the Stuarts, and a pretty good king (as kings go), but a lousy general who died with most of his army at Flodden in 1513. He shouldn't have allowed his French friends to talk him into invading England, the greatest blunder of his otherwise reasonably successful rein. Anyway, this is all pretty important, since it was through this marriage that the throne of England passed to James VI of Scotland on the death of Elizabeth I in 1603.

Wikipedia has a pretty fair summary of James IV: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_IV_of_Scotland .

And for Margaret Tudor, a real formidable woman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Tudor .

Yours Aye,

Lord Mungo Napier, The Archer of Mallard Lodge
Read "The Tale of Mungo Napier":
http://people.virginia.edu/~ggg9y/napier1.html