Trinity Hall’s Professor Clare Jackson is the winner of the 2026 Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography, beating a ‘formidable’ short-list of works.
Described as a ‘masterwork’ by judges, her book ‘The Mirror of Great Britain: A Life of James VI & I’ was announced the victor last night (June 15).
The annual prize awards historical biographies that combine scholarship and narrative drive. Judges were unanimous in voting for Professor Jackson’s work.
Roy Foster, Chair of Judges, said: “The 2026 short-list was one of the most formidable, as well as varied, that we can remember. But we were unanimous in choosing Clare Jackson’s The Mirror of Great Britain, a masterwork by a historian uniquely equipped to reinterpret James VI and I and his times.
“In short but richly articulated thematic chapters, Professor Jackson subtly but authoritatively recreates Britain on the edge of convulsive change, and shows the extent to which its monarch both precipitated the coming crisis, and held it at bay.
“Her conclusion that James was the ‘most interesting’ of British monarchs is triumphantly vindicated by a biography that combines original research, literary style, political acumen and psychological penetration – exactly the qualities that the Elizabeth Longford Historical Biography prize seeks to reward.”
