Linda Porter

The general perception of Katherine Parr is that she was a provincial nobody with intellectual pretensions who became queen of England because the king needed a matronly consort to nurse him as his health declined. This is a biography of Parr who was, in fact, one of the most influential queen consorts in English history.

Margaret Tudor, the elder sister of her more famous brother Henry VIII, is the single most important Tudor figure of this era that historians have consistently overlooked. Married at thirteen to the charismatic James IV of Scotland, a man more than twice her age, she would learn the skills of statecraft that would enable her to survive his early death, and to construct a powerful position in her adopted country of Scotland as she dealt with domestic issues as well as navigating international relations with England and France.

Drawing on Margaret's extensive correspondence, and contemporary poems and literature, Linda Porter fashions a compelling story of a misunderstood and underestimated Tudor monarch, whose determination to fight for the rights of her son, James V, is at the core of her dramatic life and indeed laid the groundwork for a future British state.