A Conversation with Flora Carr

 

What was it about Mary Queen of Scots’ story that drew you to her as a character?

Firstly, I knew about Mary Queen of Scots’ long captivity in England, that’s well documented, but I hadn’t ever heard about this period of time when she was in captivity in Scotland at Loch Levan. It was such an action-packed period of her life and also, such an incredible setting – this island fortress in the middle of a Loch. I found it extraordinary that there hadn’t been a stand-alone story told about that period of her life. Secondly, for a long time, Mary’s story has been defined by the men in her life, or else by her relationship with Elizabeth I, who she never actually met in real life. Mary Queen of Scots was this extraordinary figure who was incredibly charismatic, and she inspired incredible levels of devotion in men, yes, but also women. The real-life women who were devoted to her in her lifetime, like Lady Mary Seton, the woman who followed her from France to Scotland to England for decades, have been left out of Mary’s story and I really wanted to redress that when I was writing The Tower.

One of the engaging things about the novel is that because it features multiple narrative perspectives, the reader is presented with juxtaposing interpretations of Queen Mary. Mary, the celestial royal archetype is contrasted with a more vulnerable flesh-and-blood Mary, slave to bodily functions as much as any human. What was your desired effect on the reader in including these myriad representations of such a mythologised woman?

With Mary Queen of Scots, either she is presented as the Jezebel to Elizabeth I or she’s romanticised as a doomed, captive Queen. Having done my research into Mary, I don’t think either of those things really fit, so I wanted to portray her in a way that captured some of her lightning-in-a-bottle charisma. She was very much a person of contradictions – both brave and cunning – she had various interests and passions and she suffered from depressive episodes. In terms of the bodily stuff, I certainly wanted to play with these ideas about the royal body and what it must have meant to be a chambermaid like Cuckoo or Jane who wouldn’t normally have that much access to Mary’s body. During that period, just the hem of the Queen’s cloak was believed to have healing powers. The chambermaids have these ideas about the royal body, but then they come up against the visceral reality of Mary’s body. I think in terms of bodily fluids, The Tower sits within a rising trend of people being more comfortable in presenting the grotesque and the disgusting in relation to women’s bodies. For a long time, women’s bodies were either hidden away or romanticised. Only now, with a film like Poor Things for example, we’re coming to a place where writers and filmmakers are more comfortable with portraying women more authentically and portraying normal bodily functions.

Read the rest here: A Conversation with Flora Carr — nb. Magazine (nbmagazine.co.uk)