Something about Mary: A podcast interview with the co-directors of “In my End is my Beginning”

Today’s blog showcases the recent interview by our project’s co-directors Dr Steven Reid and Anne Dulau-Beveridge for the popular The Tudor History and Travel Guide website. The interview was conducted with Dr Sarah Morris over the phone during the most recent Covid-lockdown and is now a podcast entitled Mary, Queen of Scots: The Making of an Icon with Dr Steven Reid and Anne Dulau.

Whether you are new to the ‘In my End is my Beginning’: The Memorialisation and Cultural Afterlife of Mary Queen of Scots, 1567-2019 project or you have been following it over the past five years, the recent podcast interview with our co-directors gives a broad overview of the project and some of its central questions: What is it about Mary that fascinates people? Why has Mary been remembered and her story told and re-told in so many different ways over the past centuries? What happens when we shift away from questions of historical accuracy and start to think about the ways in which people have taken liberties with Mary’s story or played with its narrative? How has Mary been remembered and fictionalised and what does this tell us about the societies telling her story? Listen to the podcast here and find out more about the the project’s efforts to go in search of Mary and to uncover the memorialisation and cultural afterlife of the Queen of Scots.

Mary has been memorialised in different ways and in different media over the centuries. You can see a range of the objects that Steven and Anne discuss in the podcast below, so listen to the podcast and follow along!

For more on the wide range of topics mentioned within the interview (from the iconography of Mary as a Catholic martyr to the fictional meetings of Mary and Elizabeth in opera and plays), check out the past blogs on this website.