Mary Queen of Scots, engraved by
George Baird Shaw after an unknown artist (1844)

From: Sir Walter Scott, The Abbot (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1877)

Scott's The Abbot (1820) revolves around the imprisonment and escape from Loch Leven Castle, Fife, of Mary, Queen of Scots. Scott also treats her reign at length in his historical works Tales of a Grandfather, First Series (1828) and The History of Scotland (1830). The engraving by George B. Shaw is based on an earlier engraving by James Thomson which appeared in Edmund Lodge's Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain. The original painting by an unknown artist is known as the Morton or Dalmahoy Portrait.