25 MARCH 2006, Page 24

Height of majesty

From Pamela Hill

Sir: I wonder where Paul Johnson got his measurements for Mary Queen of Scots of only 5ft 10in (And another thing, 18 March)? She may possibly have lost height with ageing, as we all do, but in active life she was 6ft tall like her mother, who easily overtopped James V even in his hat. Nor, at that, was Mary ‘taller than all three of her husbands’. Her first, Francis II, was an undersized invalid. But her second, Darnley, from recent measurement of his probable femur and inspection of his long legs from two portraits with his much younger brother by Eworth in the Royal Collection, was 6ft 3in.

Pamela Hill

Radlett, Hertfordshire