Linda Porter (historian)

Porter was born in Exeter, Devon in 1947. Her family has long-standing connections to the West Country, but moved to the London area when she was a small child. She was educated at Walthamstow Hall School in Sevenoaks and at the University of York, from which she has a doctorate in History.^[1] On completing her postgraduate work, she moved to New York and lectured at Fordham University and the City University of New York.^{[citation needed]}

Porter moved back to England, and has worked as a journalist and been a senior adviser on international public relations to a major telecommunications company. In 2004 she won the Biographers Club/Daily Mail prize.^[2] Her first book, Mary Tudor: The First Queen was published in 2007. It was a biography of Queen Mary I of England presented a view of Mary as a decisive and clear-headed ruler, and a skilled political and diplomatic operator.^[3]

In 2010, her second book Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr was published.^[4] This biography of Katherine Parr detailed her life as a queen and stepmother.^[4]

Her third book, Crown of Thistles: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots, was published by Macmillan in 2013.^[5][6] It tells the story of a divided family and how Scotland and England because one nation.

In 2014 Dr. Porter continued to do public speaking and published articles and book reviews^{[7][8][9][10][11]} as well as doing research for a fourth book.

Porter's fourth book, Royal Renegades: The Children of Charles I and the English Civil Wars follows the lives of Charles I’s family.^[12]

The author’s fifth book, Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II, was published in the UK on 16 April 2020.

Porter is married and has one daughter. She lives in Kent.

• Mary Tudor: The First Queen (2007) ISBN 978-0-7499-5144-3
• The First Queen of England: The Myth of "Bloody Mary (2008) ISBN 978-0-312-36837-1
• Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr (2010) ISBN 978-0-230-71039-9
• Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, the Last Wife of Henry VIII (2010) ISBN 978-0-312-38438-8
• Crown of Thistles: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots (2013) ISBN 978-0-230-75364-8
• Tudors Versus Stewarts: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots (2014) ISBN 978-0-312-59074-1
• Royal Renegades: The Children of Charles I and the English Civil Wars (2016) ISBN 978-1-4472-6754-6
• Mistresses: Sex and Scandal at the Court of Charles II (2020) ISBN 978-1-5098-7705-8