Darnley: A life of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, consort of Mary Queen of Scots

by Caroline Bingham

Genres: History

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Caroline Margery Conyers Worsdell was an English historian and biographer. The only child of Muriel and Cedric Worsdell, she was educated at several schools, including The Mount, York, and Cheltenham Ladies' College, and read history at Bristol University.

In 1958 she married Andrew Bingham and the couple had one daughter in 1961. The marriage dissolved in 1972.

Bingham was a Research Fellow at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College between 1985 and 1987.

Her first book, The Making of a King: James VI and I was published in 1968, and immediately established her as an authority on Scottisg history and culture. Her later books, many on Scottish subjects, confirmed her as an outstanding biographer and historian.

Obituary: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/ob...

Accessed: 10 March 2022

Reviews

[Hettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastically written biography. Extremely readable. Shows a lovely balanced picture of a man so often villianised in Scottish history. Doesn't excuse his faults but shows his accomplishments. Wonderful book which shows Darnley was a victim of false promise and circumstance as much as Mary was.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read Alison Weir's book on the murder of Darnley but have seen some of the negative reviews about her bias towards Mary. What Bingham manages so superbly in this book is to keep her own personal sympathies for Darnley out of her assessment of the evidence. The man who is often a minor figure in the greater tragedy/romance (depending on the writer) of Mary takes centre stage at last, and Bingham is excellent on recreating his childhood and family upbringing and background, particularly around the fascinating Margaret Lennox.

Darnley is handsome, charming, intelligent and yet spoiled by ambition. Using original sources, letters and contemporary accounts but building in and taking account of the slants inherent in such political documents, Bingham weaves a fascinating if inevitable story that moves inexorably towards Danley's death. This is a superb book and one which could usefully serve as a model to some of our more 'imaginative' popular historians of how to write a narrative which is exciting yet doesn't betray the tenets of good historical writing.