The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday October 09 2024 #MaryQueenofScots
The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday October 09 2024 #MaryQueenofScots
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Wednesday. My name is Dale
00:05Miller. I'm a Deputy Editor at the Scotsman and I'm joined by our heritage correspondent, Alison
00:12Campsey. Alison, great to have you on. We're going to have a chat very soon about all things
00:19heritage, but firstly, let's have a look at the Scotsman's front page for today.
00:24And we're led on S&P Ministers being urged to act in the budget to close the tax gap.
00:30This was coming directly from a City of London representative just talking about the gap in
00:36income tax and how they felt it was critical to be bridged further in the coming Scottish budget.
00:43You can read that story in full at scotsman.com. Also, a beautiful autumn picture on the front
00:51of the Scotsman as well. We are well into the thick of autumn, as you can tell, looking out
00:55the window. Alison, there's a great package as well that we've got showcased there on the front
01:01page. It's about Mary Queen of Scots and some decoded letters or ciphers. Yeah, that's right.
01:09It's great to see that Mary Queen of Scots on the front page. It's always nice to get the heritage
01:13stuff up front. And this story is about a batch of secret letters written by Mary Queen of Scots
01:22and a team of international code breakers. So what's not to like about that? We knew these
01:28letters had emerged and they were found in the National Library of France in Paris a couple of
01:35years ago by a team of computer scientists. And the letters were kind of like stashed away,
01:42they're written in ciphers and they were kind of nobody knew who'd written them. And they became
01:49of great interest to computer scientists who cracked the codes within the letters and revealed
01:57that they were actually written by Mary Queen of Scots during a period of her long captivity.
02:04So they've been working away on the decoding of the letters and they've decoded some 15,
02:11150,000 symbols to produce 50,000 words written by Mary Queen of Scots between the years of 1578
02:20and 1584. And what they've done now is they've brought in historians just to give some context
02:27surrounding the letters. And I spoke to one of the historians, Professor Estelle Parank,
02:34and she's from Northeastern University in London. And she's been working on guiding the computer
02:38scientists through what these letters kind of really mean in their historical context.
02:44And Professor Parank was extremely excited about the letters. Now she can't give too much away
02:50because the full reveal will be made in a book in 2026, but she was able to give us a good sense
02:57of really kind of Mary Queen of Scots character and demeanour during this period. And what I
03:03thought was interesting is that, as the professor said, Mary's often kind of presented as this sort
03:10of victim and martyr, you know, the kind of doomed monarch who was sort of sliding on this sort of
03:17extreme downfall, which was being orchestrated by her cousin, Elizabeth I. But what Professor
03:24Parank says is actually what the letter shows is really the depth of intelligence held by Mary
03:30and how politically astute she was and how she really understood kind of political and diplomatic
03:36affairs and language, both in England and Scotland and indeed France. And most of the letters were
03:42written to a French ambassador. And the letters, as I say, we don't really know the full detail
03:50of what's in them. That's been kind of kept under wraps. But the letters sort of indicate that Mary
03:57is very well tuned in to what's happening round about her and knows who her enemies are and know
04:03who she's got to watch out for and knows the significance of all these events that are playing
04:07out round about her during the six year period where she's been held in the north of England.
04:12So I thought it was extremely rewarding to speak to Professor Parank, to hear her sort of excitement
04:19and her knowledge of Mary and how these letters help develop what we know about Mary. And just as
04:26I say, to give some insight into her character. And as Professor Parank said, I've written it
04:32down here, that Mary is someone who speaks her truth and that she had this incredible understanding
04:38of English and French politics and that really these letters present a new Mary and one really
04:45that kind of sits slightly at odds with this popular kind of view of her as this, you know,
04:51this victim and this martyr during this period. So like I say, they were written between 1578 and
04:581584, mostly in the north of England when she was holed up in the care of one of her cousins,
05:04her favourite people, and she was being moved around various properties. So it was so good to
05:10get this insight and to see how these letters are really advancing our understanding of Mary,
05:16Queen of Scots. Just on Mary, Queen of Scots, Alison, my daughter's favourite character from
05:22history. What is it about the sort of the timeless nature of the Mary, Queen of Scots story and
05:27her background that continues to captivate people so much? I think it's just the extreme
05:34nature of the circumstances that were kind of coalescing around her. And really, it's kind of
05:41plays out like some thriller. And when you see, so the strength of the story and the
05:48power of the story and the power of the circumstances that she is trying to advance
05:52her claim to the English throne against, I mean, it's just kind of got everything, you know, thrown
05:57in there. And this was real, you know, this was the way that this woman was living and the way that
06:02her life unfolded. So, I mean, although Professor Parank says that, you know, she wasn't a victim
06:10or a martyr, there is something about that which I think still holds true. But what we're seeing is
06:15Mary was like a really clever, forceful woman who was really, really determined to fight her
06:22biggest nemesis in chief, Elizabeth I, her cousin. And, you know, obviously, you know, in the end,
06:28her cousin got her executed. But there's just so many different plots and conspiracies
06:36surrounding this story that the intrigue just is never-ending. And now you see these letters,
06:42you know, sort of all these hundreds of years on, we're still talking about her,
06:46and we're still interested in what happened to her. And we're really always so interested in
06:50who this woman really was. My lesson from this, Alison, never trust your cousins.
06:56Yeah, watch your back, you know, watch your back.
07:03You can read the full story on this from Alison at Scotsman.com. We've got a heritage tab in the
07:11navigation bar. Everything that Alison's written over recent weeks and months, you'll find there,
07:16including this fascinating story on Mary, Queen of Scots. Please follow us on Facebook,
07:22Instagram and X and go out and buy a copy of the paper tomorrow for all the latest,
07:28including a full wrap of the finalists that will be in the running for Scotland's Health
07:33Awards sponsored by the Scotsman. Thanks for joining us. Thank you.