Mary Queen of Scots fled her country in fear of her life. But over 420 years on, the Scots want her back.
As a Scottish Parliamentary motion to move Mary's body from Westminster Abbey to her homeland begins, local historian David Templeman reflects on Mary's 14 captive years in Sheffield and Derbyshire
There are three people in her marriage, but Anne Templeman is the tolerant sort...
The other woman who besots her husband so? A legendary beauty, a strong, charismatic woman adept at wrapping men around her little finger.
But David Templeman's fascination is entirely innocent. It has to be; the other woman is long dead.
The spell that Mary Queen of Scots is said to have cast over every man who knew her has certainly got Dronfield former Whitbread sales rep and bookie David in her thrall.
David retired four years ago so he could concentrate on finding out more about the Elizabethan era's most tragic figure.
The former Queen of France and Scotland, Mary became little more than a prisoner for the last 20 years of her life.
And as many a Sheffielder knows, 14 of those years were spent in and around South Yorkshire.
"But historians and novelists often pay little attention to her time here.
"Most of the records of her captivity are kept in Sheffield and at Chatsworth and the biographers rarely seek it out.
"Consequently little of it has been made public," says David, whose other hat is that of chairman of the Friends of Manor Lodge
He is determined to change all that.
After painstaking research, David has become something of an expert on Mary's time under the watchful eye of local Elizabethan heroine Bess of Hardwick and her wealthy husband, the Earl Of Shrewsbury.
"The archives are a mine of information about one of the most fascinating women in history," he says.
"Mary had everything and lost it all – her throne, her husband, her child and her freedom.
"And, I believe, all because she listened to her heart, not her head."
His informative talks on Mary's years in Sheffield and Derbyshire are always booked solid.
His next, to be staged as part of the city's Off The Shelf Literary Festival at the Quaker Meeting House tomorrow (Thursday) is also a sell-out... it seems David is not alone in his fascination for Mary.
Film-makers are also intrigued by the woman who could so easily have become England's Catholic Queen and changed the face of the country. According to David, a new movie is soon to be made, starring Scarlet Johansson, fresh from her role in the Tudor costume drama The Other Boleyn Girl.
Henry VII's great-neice, Mary had fled to England in 1568 in fear of her life.
She believed her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, would protect her.
But instead, fearing her presence might threaten her own life, Elizabeth banished Mary to live under the watchful eye of her best friend, Bess.
From 1569, her homes became those of the Shrewsburys – South Wingfield Manor near Chesterfield, Chatsworth, Sheffield Castle and Manor Lodge on what is now the Manor housing estate.
Although she was kept in the manner in which a queen would expect, Mary called Sheffield Castle, the Earl's main residence, "my wretched prison".
She was kept in virtual solitary confinement there from 1571 to 1573, when she was moved to Manor Lodge under guard so heavy that, according to Shrewsbury's son Gilbert, "unless she could transform herself to a flea or a mouse, it was impossible to escape."
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