Mary Peebles, or “False Mary” as she came to be known, is one of the most unusual figures of Scottish sixteenth-century history. She was the daughter of an Edinburgh merchant, a man who had prospered sufficiently to be noticed on the fringes of the Holyrood court of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. This court, of course, was a hotbed of intrigue, a dangerous place for anybody, including a young queen, to be. The Scottish nobles, a bickering and ruthless group, thought nothing of murder as a means of securing their goals, and were not above bringing their murderous schemes into the heart of the Queen’s household.

Imagined Lives of Unknown People

False Mary by Alexander McCall Smith

Their wretched wives were both obliged to see husband and brother at war, a predicament cruelly underlined by Cumnor's calling out, on seeing his brother-in-law in the thick of the fighting, 'There goes my Lord Dorchester. Kill him now, I beg you, for I may not. Methinks my wife would mislike it.'

The Biography of William Wrightson, 2nd Viscount Dorchester by Julian Fellowes

Sir Joshua Easement, of Easement Manor, Shrewsbury, was, in his own estimation at least, one of the last of the old Elizabethan seadogs – an ambition that was somewhat thwarted by a total lack of a grasp of the principles of navigation. Documents in the National Maritime Museum reveal that Sir Joshua’s navigational method mainly consisted of variations on the theme of bumping into things, and this was exacerbated by his absolute blindness to the difference between port and starboard.

The Tale of Joshua Easement by Terry Pratchett

He wears a very fine doublet, beloved mother, dull violet in colour, striped in a velvet ribbon with picot edge, and his ruff is well stiffened and of a good whiteness, indicating good laundresses at Newton Hall, which pleases me. And in his hand, he holds two pinks, one white, one crimson, which he tells me he had painted to show me he is in earnest about this marriage, for my own person, as well as because his land and that of my worshipful father do march together so conveniently.

A Letter from Catherine Hartshorn, A.D 1587, February 2nd by Joanna Trollope

My dear Sister, ...You say I have no sympathy for your plight, but I do. Father made bad matches for both of us and I go to sleep at night wishing him in purgatory. You are married to a libertine and I to a fortune-hunter who has squandered my marriage settlement on cards and dice.

A Mathilda’s Letter by Minette Walters by Joanna Trollope

Nicholas Colthurst: scholar, swordsman and sometime privateer; a composer and musician – a player of games. The portrait was painted in 1601 when Colthurst was forty years old and at the height of his career. He is a striking, handsome man with a waxed moustache. His face expresses a guarded intelligence, confidence and ambition, but he is also something of a dandy. A pleasing jauntiness colours his calculating, masterful air.

The Life of Nicholas Colthurst by Sarah Singleton

...I have always flushed easily – from physical exertion, from wine, from high emotion. As a boy I was teased by my sisters and by schoolboys – but not by George. Only George could call me Rosy. I would not allow anyone else. He managed to make the world tender. He said it described not just my cheeks, but my lips as well, smooth and crimson as rose petals.

Rosy by Tracy Chevalier

Eight internationally acclaimed authors have invented imaginary biographies and character sketches based on fourteen unidentified portraits. Who are these men and women, why were they painted, and why do they now find themselves in the Collection of the National Portrait Gallery? With fictional letters, diaries, mini-biographies and memoirs, Imagined Lives creates vivid stories about these unknown sitters from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Courtesy of the National Trust.

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Imagined Lives of Unknown People

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