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The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday October 09 2024 #MaryQueenofScots
The Scotsman
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09/10/2024
The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday October 09 2024 #MaryQueenofScots
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Lifestyle
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00:00
Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Wednesday. My name is Dale
00:05
Miller. I'm a Deputy Editor at the Scotsman and I'm joined by our heritage correspondent, Alison
00:12
Campsey. Alison, great to have you on. We're going to have a chat very soon about all things
00:19
heritage, but firstly, let's have a look at the Scotsman's front page for today.
00:24
And we're led on S&P Ministers being urged to act in the budget to close the tax gap.
00:30
This was coming directly from a City of London representative just talking about the gap in
00:36
income tax and how they felt it was critical to be bridged further in the coming Scottish budget.
00:43
You can read that story in full at scotsman.com. Also, a beautiful autumn picture on the front
00:51
of the Scotsman as well. We are well into the thick of autumn, as you can tell, looking out
00:55
the window. Alison, there's a great package as well that we've got showcased there on the front
01:01
page. It's about Mary Queen of Scots and some decoded letters or ciphers. Yeah, that's right.
01:09
It's great to see that Mary Queen of Scots on the front page. It's always nice to get the heritage
01:13
stuff up front. And this story is about a batch of secret letters written by Mary Queen of Scots
01:22
and a team of international code breakers. So what's not to like about that? We knew these
01:28
letters had emerged and they were found in the National Library of France in Paris a couple of
01:35
years ago by a team of computer scientists. And the letters were kind of like stashed away,
01:42
they're written in ciphers and they were kind of nobody knew who'd written them. And they became
01:49
of great interest to computer scientists who cracked the codes within the letters and revealed
01:57
that they were actually written by Mary Queen of Scots during a period of her long captivity.
02:04
So they've been working away on the decoding of the letters and they've decoded some 15,
02:11
150,000 symbols to produce 50,000 words written by Mary Queen of Scots between the years of 1578
02:20
and 1584. And what they've done now is they've brought in historians just to give some context
02:27
surrounding the letters. And I spoke to one of the historians, Professor Estelle Parank,
02:34
and she's from Northeastern University in London. And she's been working on guiding the computer
02:38
scientists through what these letters kind of really mean in their historical context.
02:44
And Professor Parank was extremely excited about the letters. Now she can't give too much away
02:50
because the full reveal will be made in a book in 2026, but she was able to give us a good sense
02:57
of really kind of Mary Queen of Scots character and demeanour during this period. And what I
03:03
thought was interesting is that, as the professor said, Mary's often kind of presented as this sort
03:10
of victim and martyr, you know, the kind of doomed monarch who was sort of sliding on this sort of
03:17
extreme downfall, which was being orchestrated by her cousin, Elizabeth I. But what Professor
03:24
Parank says is actually what the letter shows is really the depth of intelligence held by Mary
03:30
and how politically astute she was and how she really understood kind of political and diplomatic
03:36
affairs and language, both in England and Scotland and indeed France. And most of the letters were
03:42
written to a French ambassador. And the letters, as I say, we don't really know the full detail
03:50
of what's in them. That's been kind of kept under wraps. But the letters sort of indicate that Mary
03:57
is very well tuned in to what's happening round about her and knows who her enemies are and know
04:03
who she's got to watch out for and knows the significance of all these events that are playing
04:07
out round about her during the six year period where she's been held in the north of England.
04:12
So I thought it was extremely rewarding to speak to Professor Parank, to hear her sort of excitement
04:19
and her knowledge of Mary and how these letters help develop what we know about Mary. And just as
04:26
I say, to give some insight into her character. And as Professor Parank said, I've written it
04:32
down here, that Mary is someone who speaks her truth and that she had this incredible understanding
04:38
of English and French politics and that really these letters present a new Mary and one really
04:45
that kind of sits slightly at odds with this popular kind of view of her as this, you know,
04:51
this victim and this martyr during this period. So like I say, they were written between 1578 and
04:58
1584, mostly in the north of England when she was holed up in the care of one of her cousins,
05:04
her favourite people, and she was being moved around various properties. So it was so good to
05:10
get this insight and to see how these letters are really advancing our understanding of Mary,
05:16
Queen of Scots. Just on Mary, Queen of Scots, Alison, my daughter's favourite character from
05:22
history. What is it about the sort of the timeless nature of the Mary, Queen of Scots story and
05:27
her background that continues to captivate people so much? I think it's just the extreme
05:34
nature of the circumstances that were kind of coalescing around her. And really, it's kind of
05:41
plays out like some thriller. And when you see, so the strength of the story and the
05:48
power of the story and the power of the circumstances that she is trying to advance
05:52
her claim to the English throne against, I mean, it's just kind of got everything, you know, thrown
05:57
in there. And this was real, you know, this was the way that this woman was living and the way that
06:02
her life unfolded. So, I mean, although Professor Parank says that, you know, she wasn't a victim
06:10
or a martyr, there is something about that which I think still holds true. But what we're seeing is
06:15
Mary was like a really clever, forceful woman who was really, really determined to fight her
06:22
biggest nemesis in chief, Elizabeth I, her cousin. And, you know, obviously, you know, in the end,
06:28
her cousin got her executed. But there's just so many different plots and conspiracies
06:36
surrounding this story that the intrigue just is never-ending. And now you see these letters,
06:42
you know, sort of all these hundreds of years on, we're still talking about her,
06:46
and we're still interested in what happened to her. And we're really always so interested in
06:50
who this woman really was. My lesson from this, Alison, never trust your cousins.
06:56
Yeah, watch your back, you know, watch your back.
07:03
You can read the full story on this from Alison at Scotsman.com. We've got a heritage tab in the
07:11
navigation bar. Everything that Alison's written over recent weeks and months, you'll find there,
07:16
including this fascinating story on Mary, Queen of Scots. Please follow us on Facebook,
07:22
Instagram and X and go out and buy a copy of the paper tomorrow for all the latest,
07:28
including a full wrap of the finalists that will be in the running for Scotland's Health
07:33
Awards sponsored by the Scotsman. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.
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