Linda Porter & Jade Scott (12:00 BST)

Leading historians throw new light on two queens who shaped Scotland’s destiny

The Thistle and the Rose focuses on the misunderstood and underestimated monarch Margaret Tudor - child-wife to the king of Scotland, James IV and sister to the king of England, Henry VIII - here convincingly reconfigured as a skilled and ambitious power player in her own right. Widowed in 1513 she goes on to successfully manage disastrous marriages and sibling rivalry constructing a powerful position in her adopted Scotland as she fights for the rights of the child king, her son, James V.

In contrast, Mary Queen of Scots, successor to her father James V, spent almost two decades as a prisoner before her death at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587. From her chambers of captivity, she wrote countless letters, many encrypted using complex ciphers to prevent her communications from being intercepted. More than 400 years after Mary’s death, the recent discovery of further encoded letters has allowed historian Jade Scott to paint a vivid portrait of one of history’s most compelling figures in Captive Queen.

In conversation with Anna Groundwater

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