‘ Nusquam Audita’ : Mary, Queen of Scots, the Hawthornden Manuscripts, and the Union of the Crowns

Abstract: This article focuses on a collection of short texts commemorating Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587) and found in the last five volumes of the ‘Hawthornden manuscripts’. Most of these texts can be attributed to the Scottish Petrarchist writer William Fowler (1560–1612). Textual evidence allows for considerations regarding the circumstances of composition and circulation of the material constituting the Marian corpus in the Hawthornden manuscripts. Using this evidence, this article outlines a literary community engaged in textual exchange. active during a significant period for the definition of British identity, immediately after Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland in 1603. The accession of King James VI of Scotland on the English throne as James I fostered a significant re-evaluation and re-negotiations of Anglo-Scottish positions regarding Mary’s vicissitudes, which is reflected in the literature (especially Scottish) produced in the first decade of James’s British reign.