The Amateur Editor

The opening paragraph of Lady Antonia Fraser’s MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS:

“The winter of 1542 was marked by tempestuous weather throughout the British Isles: in the north, on the borders of Scotland and England, there were heavy snow-falls in December and frost so savage that by January the ships were frozen into the harbour at Newcastle. These stark conditions found a bleak parallel in the political climate which then prevailed between the two countries. Scotland as a nation groaned under the humiliation of a recent defeat at English hands at the battle of Solway Moss. As a result of the battle, the Scottish nobility which had barely recovered from the defeat of Flodden before, were stricken yet again by the deaths of their leaders in their prime; of those who survived, many prominent members were prisoners in English hands, while the rest met the experience of defeat by quarrelling among themselves, showing their strongest loyalty to the principle of self-aggrandizement, rather than to the troubled monarchy. The Scottish national Church, although still officially Catholic for the next seventeen years, was already torn between those who wished to reform its manifold abuses from within, and those who wished to follow England’s example, by breaking away root and branch from the tree of Rome. The king of this divided country, James V, having led his people to defeat, lay dying with his face to the wall, the victim in this as much of his own passionate nature, as of the circumstances which had conspired against him. When James died on 14 December 1542, the most stalwart prince might have shrunk from the Herculean task of succeeding him. But his actual successor was a weakly female child born only six days before, his daughter Mary the new queen of Scotland.”

How I would have written it:

In December of 1542 the king of Scotland lay dying with his face to the wall. Snow fell heavily on the English border, with a savage frost that in a month would have Newcastle’s ships frozen into the harbour. James V had recently led the nation’s nobility, which had barely survived Flodden a generation before, to another English rout at Solway Moss. Many prominent lairds were dead or prisoners in England; the rest, putting their own interests before the troubled monarchy, turned to quarrelling among themselves. The national Church was also torn: some wanted to reform its manifold abuses from within, while others looked to England’s example and wished to break away root and branch from the tree of Rome, a move the Church would finally make seventeen years later. Circumstance had combined with the king’s passionate nature to produce crisis. James V passed away on the 14th, leaving a Herculean task for any successor. His weakly six-day-old daughter Mary became queen of Scotland.