The life and death of Mary I, Queen of Scots (1542-1587) gave rise to competing narratives and rhetorics in British literature and politics throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, argues Staines (English, City U. of New York), who charts these contradictory responses in Mary's "tragic histories" from the Scottish and Elizabethan Reformations through the Revolution of 1688-1689. The readings of the rhetorics concerning Mary serve to show how all sides of the conflicts of the era--whether Protestants and Catholics, republicans and royalists, Whigs and Tories--harnessed the figure of Mary in efforts to mobilize how the British public felt, believed, and acted and "Mary thus helped create the modern British public." Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)