Alison Weir

They inhabited a lost world of splendour and brutality, a world dominated by religious change, in which there were few saints.

News of the death of James V on 14 December gave even further cause for rejoicing, because his heir was a week-old girl, the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. Scotland would be subject to yet another weakening regency—it had endured six during the past 150 years—and should give no further trouble.