The Queen’s Wake: A Legendary Tale

The Queen’s Wake is one of the landmarks of British Romantic poetry. It focuses on the return of Mary, Queen of Scots to Scotland in 1561 to take personal rule of her kingdom after her years in France. In the poem poets and bards hold a poetic competition (a ‘wake’) in Holyrood Palace to welcome the Queen. A key concern of the poem is the state of Scotland in 1561 - a crucial period in Scottish history. The Queen’s Wake looks back to the pre-1560 world of Catholic Scotland and explores the tensions between that old world and an emerging modernity. On publication The Queen’s Wake was an unexpected popular success, placing Hogg for a while alongside Byron and Scott as one of the most admired British poets of that time. Over the next six years Hogg was encouraged to make substantial revisions, to make the poem even more attractive and saleable. It thus exists in significantly different authorial versions, each reflecting Hogg’s circumstances at the time. To best serve the modern reader, this edition presents both the first and fifth edition of the poem.