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’s new book on James VI & I was published by Allen Lane/Penguin in August 2025 in the quatercentenary year of James’s death.
The Mirror of Great Britain: A Life of James VI & I
Published by Allen Lane on 28th August
A major reassessment of one of Britain’s most strange and fascinating kings, James I of England and VI of Scotland
‘Clare Jackson’s dazzling portrait of James plunges us not only into his extraordinary political career but into his mental universe… Splendidly erudite and wonderfully vivid in its detail and insights, The Mirror of Great Britain enriches our understanding both of James’s times and of our own’ – Fintan O’Toole, New York Times best-selling author of We Don’t Know Ourselves
Devil-Land by Clare Jackson won the Wolfson History Prize 2022!
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.
Charles II: The Star King’ (2016)
Clare’s book takes full advantage of its irrepressible subject.
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.