Rizzio: Darkland Tales

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The book seems like it is trying to be fiction and biographical account at the same time but succeeds in neither.

Mary remains one of the most intriguing & divisive characters in royal history. There was no shortage of drama in her short life but one of the most compelling incidents was the murder of her private secretary David Rizzio. Maybe because one of the ringleaders behind the plot was her snivelling weasel of a husband, Henry Stuart (Lord Darnley). Gordon Donaldson, Thirds of Benefices (Edinburgh, 1949), p. 155: William Barclay Turnbull, Letters of Mary Stuart (London, 1845), p. xxxvi. Polygon, an imprint of independent Edinburgh-based publisher Birlinn, is launching a new series of dramatic fictional retellings of stories from history, myth and legend written by Scottish authors, called the Darkland Tales. It has also made two new signings to its poetry list. Rizzio became an ally of Lord Darnley, and helped with plans for his marriage to Mary. [10] George Buchanan described Rizzio gaining Darnley's favour. As their familiarity grew, Rizzio was admitted to Darnley's chamber, bed, and secret confidence. [11] [12] [13] David Calderwood later wrote that Rizzio had "insinuated himself in the favours of Lord Darnley so far, that they would lie some times in one bed together". [14] Fraser, Antonia (1994) [1969]. Mary Queen of Scots. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. p.236. ISBN 0-297-17773-7.

Vengeance, skulduggery and a touch of farce: Rosemary Goring reviews Rizzio by Denise Mina

Lord Darnley and David Rizzio don’t like each other but only one of them can afford to show it. Darnley sneers and looks Rizzio up and down. Rizzio keeps his expression neutral and ignores the slights. Darnley is married to the Queen and Rizzio is her servant. It’s not an equal match. This novella is a fictionalised re-telling of the real-life murder of David Rizzio, a favourite of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1566. The event is well known in Scotland and most tourists to Edinburgh will have shivered over the “bloodstains” in Mary’s chambers in Holyrood Palace. However the reasons for the murder were murky even at the time and different theories have been put forward ever since. One of the many rumours was that Rizzio was Mary’s lover and that the child with which she was pregnant, who later became James VI of Scotland and I of England, was Rizzio’s rather than her husband, Darnley’s. Mina absolves Mary of this charge (I’m no expert, but I think most historians agree that it was a false rumour), and weaves a political conspiracy that the murder was done by the Protestant Lords to usurp power from the Catholic Mary and set Darnley up as a puppet King in her stead. I’d think that’s more likely than the jealous lover theory, myself. Mina also goes along with the theory that in fact Darnley and Rizzio had been lovers, a theory agreed to, I believe, by eminent historian and biographer of Mary, John Guy. Underneath that sloping roof is a man called Henry Yair. He’s watching the game, sitting on a bench built into the wall of the indoor court. He’s Lord Ruthven’s retainer, here to keep an eye on Darnley for the boss. Pirmohamed is a Canadian-born poet based in the UK who won the 2020 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. She is the co-founder of the Scottish BAME Writers Network and is a postdoctoral creative writing fellow at the University of Liverpool, where she is working with the Ledbury Poetry Critics programme. Her début collection Another Way to Split Water meditates on how we inherit the lived experiences of our ancestors and employs figurations of the natural world to reflect on themes of womanhood, belonging, inheritance, loss, beauty and spirituality.

Lord Ruthven wanted him killed during this tennis match but Darnley said no. Lord Darnley wants it done tonight. He wants his wife to witness the murder because David Rizzio is her closest friend, her personal secretary, and she’s very pregnant and Darnley hopes that if she sees him being horribly brutalised she might miscarry and die in the process. She’s the Queen; they’ve been battling over Darnley’s demand for equal status since their wedding night and if she dies and the baby dies then Darnley’s own claim to the throne would be undeniable. They’re rivals for the crown. She knew that from the off. He wants it done in front of her. There is a modern-take to “Rizzio” with some contemporary literary devices, descriptors and even an omnipresent narrator but this ‘works’, as well. Mina’s writing is intricately-woven and perfectly-balanced allowing her to get away with more than the typical author.

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I loved what Denise Mina did with the insane Henry Yair, and the 'afterwards' section, when we read what happened to Mary in the years to follow and, most interesting of all, what happened to the Queen's apartments at Holyrood Palace. Fascinating. I have to look up more about this! In fact, Rizzio has more to hide than Darnley. At one time Rizzio shared Darnley’s bed, lay at his feet and called him master. He loved Darnley then and he still loves him. This yearning is his great secret, the one thing he will never tell anyone. He can hardly admit it to himself because Darnley is handsome and rich and charismatic, but he’s also a braggart and a liar, a hoormaister, a weak, weeping, drunken fool who screams demands at the Queen in public. Once he hit her at a dinner, served her a smarting slap across the face as if she were a maid come late with the wine. But Rizzio loves him. He would have served him for ever but Darnley got used to him, came to trust him and grew disinhibited in front of him. He let Rizzio see who he really was. It pains Rizzio to admit it, but Darnley is a poor prince.

Having said all that, it’s interesting enough and well written, and if treated with caution as to its historical accuracy, it is a tense and vivid account of the event. For that reason, I’d still recommend it, with reservations. 2½ stars for me, so rounded up. James Crawford, editor-at-large at Polygon, commissioned the series. He says: “These books are sharp, provocative and darkly comic, mining that seam of sedition and psychological drama that has always featured in the best of Scottish literature.”It’s a sort of Horrible Histories for adults. For those, like me, whose knowledge of the history of the day may have fallen away somewhat since schooldays, it is a thoroughly entertaining couple of hours of reading. What fictionalised true crime can do … David Oluwale, who was found dead in the River Aire near Leeds in April 1969. Photograph: PA Peter Anderson, Robert Stewart, Earl of Orkney Lord of Shetland (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1982), p. 48. This breathtakingly tense work is a tale of sex, seduction, secrets and lies, one that looks at history through a modern lens and explores the lengths that men – and women – will go to in the search for love and power. George Buchanan wrote in 1581 that David was first buried outside the door of Holyrood Abbey, and then Mary arranged for him to be buried in the tomb of her father James V and Madeleine of France within. Buchanan described this circumstance as reflecting badly on the Queen. Fearing that Mary's son, James VI, would suppress his book, Buchanan's friend James Melville tried to get Buchanan to rewrite the passage while the book was at the printers. Buchanan asked his cousin, Thomas Buchanan, a schoolmaster in Stirling, if he thought the story was true, and the cousin agreed. The story was published. [40]

Mina's first Paddy Meehan novel, The Field of Blood (2005), was filmed for broadcast in 2011 by the BBC, starring Jayd Johnson, Peter Capaldi and David Morrissey. [2] The second, The Dead Hour, was filmed and broadcast in 2013. [3] Biography [ edit ] Mary doesn’t know that her Palace is surrounded – that, right now, an army of men is creeping upstairs to her chamber. They’re coming to murder David Rizzio, her friend and secretary, the handsome Italian man who is smiling across the table at her. Mary’s husband wants it done in front of her and he wants her to watch it done… About the AuthorRizzio was played by John Carradine in the 1936 RKO picture Mary of Scotland; by Ian Holm in the 1971 movie Mary, Queen of Scots; by Tadeusz Pasternak in the BBC mini-series Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot; by Andrew Shaver in The CW network television show Reign; and by Ismael Cruz Córdova in the 2018 film Mary Queen of Scots. Told from the perspective of several of the characters involved, the story focuses on a 1566 plot to kill Mary, Queen of Scots’ friend and private secretary David Rizzio. Denise captures the dramas of the sixteenth century intrigue but is glad to link to more contemporaneous themes. “There are so many resonances,” she points out. Not least that, “there is no justice that can reach you if you are rich.” Bury, Liz (19 July 2013). "Denise Mina steals Theakstons Old Peculier crime novel award". The Guardian . Retrieved 14 September 2018. Gordon Donaldson, Scotland's History: Approaches and Reflections (Scottish Academic Press, 1995), p. 63: Charles Rogers, History of the Chapel Royal of Scotland (London, 1882), p. lxiv: Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, vol. 19 (Edinburgh, 1898), p. 338. Overall, I absolutely loved Rizzio - much more than I was expecting to - and I would have happily kept reading forever if it had continued into the next part of Mary's life.