About Clare Jackson

Clare Jackson is Honorary Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Cambridge and Walter Grant Scott Fellow in History  at Trinity Hall.

A historian with particular interests in the rich and complex history of Tudor, Stuart and Georgian Britain, Clare is the prize-winning author of ‘Devil-Land: England under Siege 1588-1688’ (2021) and also presented the landmark TV series on ‘The Stuarts’and ‘The Stuarts in Exile’ on BBC2.

Clare is currently writing a book about James VI & I which will be published by Allen Lane/Penguin in March 2025 on the quatercentenary of James’s death.

Devil-Land by Clare Jackson won the Wolfson History Prize 2022!

Clare Jackson shortlisted for Wolfson History Prize

Now Available in Hardback and Paperback

Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688 (2021)

Clare Jackson

Devil-Land tells the story of a nation in a state of near continual crisis. To many foreigner observers, seventeenth-century England was ‘Devil-Land’: a country riven by political faction, religious difference, financial ruin and royal collapse.

Starting on the eve of the Spanish Armada’s descent in 1588 and concluding with a not-so ‘Glorious Revolution’ a hundred years later, Devil-Land is a spectacular reinterpretation of England’s vexed and enthralling past.

‘The Stuarts’ and ‘The Stuarts in Exile’ are now available as a boxed set on DVD:

The Stuarts & The Stuarts in Exile

In this BBC series, Dr. Clare Jackson argues that the Stuarts, more than any other, were Britain’s defining royal family.

This DVD set contains the series The Stuarts and The Stuarts in exile.

Available from Amazon

Charles II: The Star King’ (2016)


Charles II has been one of the most recognisable British kings – both in physical appearance, and in his complicated mix of lasciviousness, cynicism and luxury.

Clare’s book takes full advantage of its irrepressible subject.

Available from Waterstones

TV & Radio

The Stuarts

Presented by Dr Clare Jackson of Cambridge University, this three-part series argues that the Stuarts, more than any other, were Britain’s defining royal family.