Imagine, for a moment, today's tiresome conflicts settled on the field of honor:Martha Stewart and U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White facing off with rapiers at dawn.
Later mythologizers would try to legitimize the family's regal pretensions by claiming descent from the Banquo of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" which was nonsense, as Mr. Massie explains: The name "Stewart, " as it was rendered before Mary Stuart adopted the French spelling, indicated the family's original status, as stewards of the royal revenues.