After attending school in Edinburgh, Professor Jackson read History at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge and researched an MPhil in History at the University of Aberystwyth in Wales. She returned to Cambridge to complete a PhD on royalist ideas in late-seventeenth century Scotland at Sidney Sussex College, where she was later a Research Fellow before moving to Trinity Hall in 2000 where she was served the College’s Senior Tutor from 2013 to 2023.
A historian with particular interests in the rich and complex history of Tudor, Stuart and Georgian Britain, Professor Jackson 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. She edited The Historical Journal from 2004 to 2011
Professor Jackson’s most recent book The Mirror of Great Britain: A Life of King James VI and I is published by Allen Lane/Penguin (2025) on the quatercentenary of James’s death.
