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Historical Elizabeth & Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens by Jane Dunn $30.00 / Alfred A. Knopf / 2004 First appearances are often deceiving and the initial impression that author Jane Dunn, in Elizabeth & Mary, shows a preference for the former is, on closer reading, disproved. There is no bias of emotion in this book, only the unavoidable trajectory of historical evidence and recorded results. Yes, one can argue (as Dunn eloquently does) that most of Mary's political and practical missteps can be blamed on an adolescence lived in a carefree, pampered French court, where the adored little Scottish queen was required to do nothing more onerous than parse Latin verbs. But this fact does not change Mary's probable complicity in her husband Darnley's murder, her connivance at her own kidnapping, her obsession with Bothwell, or her unceasing insistence on recognizing Elizabeth as her heir, to the point of her own undoing. Sometimes Mary seems a little mad while at other times she sounds rather like Elizabeth without that queen's fundamental groundedness, or without a Cecil to curb her impulses. Dunn points out that Mary was never trained to rule, but only to be the decorative consort of her young husband, the Dauphin François, and few thought she would ever return to her native shores, much less be called upon to master the intricate manipulations required of a Scottish monarch. One can even argue that much of what Mary did in Scotland was the result of a laudably liberated self-knowledge. Today, we might applaud her loyalty to family, her physical stamina, her courage, her wit, her initial bent toward religious tolerance, and her refusal to play the game of love by established court rules. But from the standpoint of 16th-century politics, what was required was political and cultural ken. According to Dunn, Mary's expectations of unconditional love and acceptance were based on an idyllic world which did not exist in Scotland. Nor did those expectations prepare her to outwit the wily Elizabeth, who broke all the rules of the marriage game and the traditional role of women. Despite being labeled as outrageous and iconoclastic, Elizabeth managed to exercise her whims within the accepted framework of European politics. Mary, however, broke both the rules and the framework. Dunn constructs a tennis-match of comparative narratives between the stories of Elizabeth and Mary without once giving the reader whiplash. Elizabeth's preparation in the world of her Tudor upbringing, juggled between cherished heir and bastardized outcast, imprisoned traitor and wildly popular successor these experiences, Dunn demonstrates, left Elizabeth purified and, despite her mood swings and irrational indecisiveness, fundamentally the pragmatic ruler. Indeed, Elizabeth is every bit as arrogant and self-centered as Mary, but her egocentric, passionate nature is constrained by the wisdom learned during a youth lived in fear and humility, by the will and intellect of a devoted coterie of brilliant advisors (Cecil, Leicester, Walsingham) and by the single element which makes a monarch: Elizabeth is first and foremost pledged to England while Mary is first and foremost pledged to herself. Nature or nurture? A bit of both, perhaps, and Dunn raises both angles for each queen, finally reaching the conclusion that hardy blood flowed in both sets of veins. But Mary's was channelled from birth toward her own cocooned self while Elizabeth's flowed out to her people above all else. We can argue who was the more fulfilled woman, but Dunn demonstrates irrefutably which was the more successful queen. —Anjuli MacDonald of Clanranld

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