Rizzio: Darkland Tales

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Yair hates everyone here and he especially hates tennis. Tennis is what is wrong with people. Yair is very pale, his eyes rimmed red because he hasn’t been sleeping. He’s watchful, sees plots everywhere. He thinks in binaries: good/bad, man/woman, Calvinist/Catholic, for God/ against God. Once fervently Catholic, he is now ferociously Calvinist. When he saw the Truth, he embraced it, and he hates those who don’t, those Catholic hold-outs: how can they hold on to these broken old ideas? How can they defend a church so corrupt, so murderous, such a betrayal of the one true faith? They disgust him. He doesn’t know how they can live with themselves.

Fraser, Antonia (1994) [1969]. Mary Queen of Scots. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. p.236. ISBN 0-297-17773-7. 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.A Drunk Woman Looks at the Thistle (2007), inspired by Hugh MacDiarmid's modernist poem, A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, and first performed by Karen Dunbar.

Rizzio (whose name appears in Italian records as Davide Riccio di Pancalieri in Piemonte) went first from Turin to the Court of the Duke of Savoy, then at Nice. However, finding no opportunities for advancement there, he found means in 1561 to get himself admitted into the train of Carlo Ubertino Solaro, Count of Moretta, who was about to lead an embassy to Scotland. [7] The Count in Scotland had no employment for Rizzio, and dismissed him. He ingratiated himself with the Queen's musicians, whom she had brought with her from France. James Melville, a friend of Rizzio, said that "Her Majesty had three valets in her chamber, who sung three parts, and wanted a bass to sing the fourth part". [8] It's Saturday evening, 9 March 1566, and Mary, Queen of Scots, is six months pregnant. She's hosting a supper party, secure in her private chambers. She 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, Lord Darnley, wants it done in front of her and he wants her to watch it done ... Bibliography [ edit ] Denise Mina signing books at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2007 Novels [ edit ] Garnethill trilogy Thomas Finlayson Henderson, Mary, Queen of Scots: Her Environment and Tragedy, 2 (New York, 1905), p. 654 Joseph Stevenson, The History of Mary Stewart: From the Murder of Riccio Until Her Flight Into England by Claude Nau (Edinburgh, 1883), pp. ciii, 11, 16, 227.

When the Queen says her husband is a drunk or a waste of space Rizzio doesn’t nod or roll his eyes the way other servants do. He’s experienced, a professional. He knows that those he serves may deign to treat him as a friend or an equal, but he isn’t. He’s here because he’s useful, not because he’s welcome. David Rizzio makes himself incredibly useful. Rizzio's brother, Joseph, arrived in Scotland with Michel de Castelnau and was appointed secretary in David's place by 25 April 1566. Joseph and an Italian colleague, Joseph Lutyni, had some trouble over coins taken from the queen's purse, and in April 1567 he was accused and acquitted with Bothwell of Darnley's murder. [39] Legacy and memorial [ edit ]

Ruthen, Lord (1815). Some Particulars of the Life of David Riccio, chief favourite of Mary Queen of Scots. London: Triphook. The political motivations are complex, and further weighted by animosity between Calvinists and Catholics. Poisonous rumours suggested Riccio was too close to the Queen, but the physical intimacies he shared were with her bisexual English husband, Lord Henry Darnley. Part of a specially commissioned series reimagining stories drawn from history, myth and legend, Denise Mina’s Rizzio tells the visceral tale of one of Scottish history’s bloodiest murders. This is an edgy, provocative and thrilling classic in the making, and we are delighted to feature an extract from the book ahead of its publication in September 2021. Rizzio: Darkland Tales The story of Mary, Queen of Scots, so often characterised as a romance, was notably violent and grim. Visitors to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh who would like to sense the brutal reality should pay attention to a very small room off the royal bedchamber – it was here, on 9 March 1566, that David Rizzio, Mary’s private secretary and favourite, was murdered. He was stabbed 56 times. The queen, pregnant with a future king, is said to have had a pistol aimed at her belly. This, then, is a crime scene, and so it is appropriate that a crime writer should take up the tale. Thomas Finlayson Henderson, Mary, Queen of Scots: Her Environment and Tragedy, 2 (New York, 1905), p. 654, modernised hereRizzio was considered a good musician and excellent singer, which brought him to the attention of the cosmopolitan young queen. Towards the end of 1564, having grown wealthy under her patronage, he became the queen's secretary for relations with France, after the previous occupant of the post had retired. Rizzio was ambitious, controlling access to the queen and seeing himself as almost a Secretary of State. Other courtiers felt that as a Catholic and a foreigner he was too close to the queen. [9] Relationship with Darnley and with Mary [ edit ] A Narrative of the Minority of Mary Queen of Scots by James Maitland (Ipswich, 1842): W. Park, 'Letter of Thomas Randolph to the Earl of Leicester, 14 February 1566', Scottish Historical Review, 34:118 Part 2 (October 1955), pp. 135-139 at 138: National Library of Scotland MS 3657. All of that is known and familiar to anyone who has ever seen the movie version. This novella is an imagined depiction of that night and the following days, written with a crime-novelist's eye for details and motivations. Denise Mina (born 21 August 1966) is a Scottish crime writer and playwright. She has written the Garnethill trilogy and another three novels featuring the character Patricia "Paddy" Meehan, a Glasgow journalist. Described as an author of Tartan Noir, she has also written for comic books, including 13 issues of Hellblazer. [1]

I’m becoming more and more fond of the novella as a form for fiction, and this book is an example of why. Anything longer would be too much, but a short story wouldn’t be enough. 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] Anyway, Rizzio is the first I've read by Denise Mina but it definitely won't be the last. It's a riveting retelling of a particularly sinister night in Scotland's history that expertly blends bloody murder with the glitz and intrigue of court life. Mina's writing creates a real sense of immediacy that takes the reader right into the centre of the action as if you are watching the events unfold in real time around you. The tension is beautifully crafted and even although I know how events played out, Mina had me on the edge of my metaphorical chair throughout. 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.I saw this book in Waterstones as the Scottish book of the month and decided to give it a go without knowing anything at all about it. It seems to have been a mistake as I also don't remember much about Scottish history (not a proud moment for me) and it seemed like this book expected me to have this knowledge as I felt lost at times.