ABSTRACT
This chapter inspires by two workshops and a conference held at the University of Stirling between June 2011 and August 2012 considering Representations of Authority, first in Scotland prior to 1603 and then broadening to Scotland and her European neighbours to 1714. It uses four key events, the coronation of the infant Mary in 1543, Marie de Guise's return via Protestant England from France in 1551, her 1554 accession as Regent and the celebrations of Mary's marriage to the Dauphin of France in 1558, analysed through chronicles, financial materials and state papers to discuss how the dowager used ceremony to portray her daughter's royal authority. The chapter considers how qualities such as justice, temperance, bravery, martyrdom, self-sacrifice and the image of the Christian soldier, were manipulated by the queen in her rhetorical representations of warlike female kingship. The main stage for craft development and commerce was the burgh, which included a complex system of merchant guilds and craft incorporations.
