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Clare Hunter

Wednesday 6th April 2022

Venue
Topping & Company Booksellers of St Andrews, 7 Greyfriars Garden, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9HG
Doors Open
7.30pm
Start Time
8pm
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Community textile artist, textile curator and Radio 4 book-of-the-week author of Threads of Life, Clare Hunter, joins us to celebrate the release of her new book Embroidering her Truth.

At her execution Mary, Queen of Scots wore red. Widely known as the colour of strength and passion, it was in fact worn by Mary as the Catholic symbol of martyrdom.

In sixteenth-century Europe women’s voices were suppressed and silenced. Even for a queen like Mary, her prime duty was to bear sons. In an age when textiles expressed power, Mary exploited them to emphasise her female agency. From her lavishly embroidered gowns as the prospective wife of the French Dauphin to the fashion dolls she used to encourage a Marian style at the Scottish court and the subversive messages she embroidered in captivity for her supporters, Mary used textiles to advance her political agenda, affirm her royal lineage and tell her own story.

In this eloquent cultural biography, Clare Hunter exquisitely blends history, politics and memoir to tell the story of a queen in her own voice.