With My Own Hand

Absolutely mesmerising, Douglas’s meticulously detailed research reveals a fascinating story that’s been lost for centuries – Sara SheridanThough a work of non-fiction, this is a teasing and tantalising historical drama, beautifully written by Douglas – Sass MacDonaldWith My Own Hand is a necessary act of queer historical reclamation. In recovering Marie Maitland from the margins of manuscript culture, Ashley Douglas does more than reconstruct a life: she demonstrates that women’s same-sex desire was part of the lived and articulated reality of the early modern world. At a time when the legitimacy of queer lives is again contested in public discourse, this return to a sixteenth-century woman who loved women feels not antiquarian but urgent. The power of the book lies in its archival seriousness, in its patient reading of documents, contexts and silences, and in its refusal to allow women’s desire to be footnoted or euphemised out of history. This is not simply biography; it is the restoration of a lineage. Douglas reminds us that queer history survives not by accident, but because someone chooses to look for it. An important and timely contribution to the history of women who loved women – Christopher Stephens, author of The Light of DaySet against the backdrop of one of the most turbulent periods in Scottish history, this is the story of forbidden but enduring love, of the strength of the female spirit in a world dominated by men, and above all of an extraordinary woman far ahead of her time. It held me captive from the first page to the last. Utterly breathtaking – Tracy BormanEngaging, evocative, enthralling: Ashley Douglas shines a light on a part of Scotland’s history - and a fascinating Scotswoman - too often overlooked or not even written in – Steven Veerapen, author of The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and IThe joy of this book, for me, is its vivid evocation of a secret love story - a love story between women in the sixteenth century. It has all the drama and complexity of the best romances. Ashley Douglas has created a clear and accessible narrative that takes us right into the thoughts and feelings of Marie Maitland, allowing us to see and experience as she did, over a gap of hundreds of years. The academic rigour with which Ashley Douglas has researched her story clearly establishes a truth too often obscured by the ignorance and biases of earlier historians. Women have always loved other women, romantically and sexually. Queer love has been part of human history as long as humans have existed. But centuries of homophobic assumptions mean that truth is still disputed. Ashley Douglas uses original source material, without speculation, to demonstrate a love that cannot, now, be denied or argued out of existence. By the end we feel certain that this is only the tip of an iceberg of untold historical love stories that might be found if others looked with the same energy and meticulous care – Rona MunroA really thrilling discovery - a sixteenth-century woman writing, and she’s a professional clerk, and she’s a poet, and she’s writing love letters to another woman and she’s Scots. This is a real extension of our knowledge of women of the period, engagingly told – Philippa GregoryBeautifully written and meticulously researched, With My Own Hand immerses the reader in Marie Maitland’s sixteenth-century world from the very first page. By reconstructing Marie’s exceptional life through in-depth and careful analysis of a range of legal and literary records housed in archives across Scotland and the UK, Douglas challenges dominant narratives that have rendered stories like Marie’s invisible and forgotten for centuries. What emerges is an utterly fascinating account of a sixteenth-century woman who loved other women, and who bravely defied the limits placed upon her within the patriarchal world of early modern Scotland for much of her adult life. Thanks to Douglas’ passion and ingenuity, Marie Maitland will no doubt be restored among the great historical figures who shaped early modern Scottish history – Dr Rebecca Mason, expert in early modern Scottish women’s legal historyA remarkable exploration of a little-known, sixteenth-century manuscript which reveals the secret life of Marie Maitland who inserted, amongst the poems of her father, her own verses as erotic and sensual declarations of her illicit gay love. Using the manuscript as her map, Ashley Douglas leads us through the social and political upheavals of a Reformation Scotland to tell the story of a defiant and independent woman who insisted on having a voice – Clare Hunter, author of Threads of Life and Embroidering Her Truth

Ashley Douglas is a Scottish historian and translator with two master’s degrees: one in Scottish Historical Studies from the University of St Andrews and another in Archaeology from the University of the Highlands and Islands.

Since graduating in 2016, Ashley has developed a national profile and successful freelance career as a translator, historian, speaker, and consultant, specialising in LGBT history and the Scots language. She has worked with and written for a range of national heritage, literary, and educational organisations, including the National Library of Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland, Time for Inclusive Education, and Scottish National Galleries.

In 2023, Ashley was named one of the ‘15 most influential women in culture’ in Scotland. In 2024, she consulted on Katherine: James V, the latest instalment in Rona Munro’s acclaimed The James Plays series, and is currently consulting on James VI, which will be staged in 2027.

Ashley is the author of the essay My Sapphic City, published as part of the anthology who will be remembered here (2025). She is also the author of The Lass and The Quine (2025), the first ever original LGBT inclusive children’s book in the Scots language.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.