The Tudor-Stewart rivalry

Crown of Thistles is the story of a divided family, of flamboyant kings and queens, cultured courts and tribal hatreds, blood feuds, violent deaths, rape and sexual licence on a breath-taking scale. Here are some of the greatest rulers in our history. At its heart is the greatest prize of all - the joint sovereignty of two kingdoms.

Reviews of Crown of Thistles

It also brings alive a neglected aspect of British history - the blood-spattered steps taken by two small countries on the fringes of Europe towards an awkward unity that would ultimately forge a great nation. Beginning with the unlikely and dramatic victories of two usurping kings, one a rank outsider and the other a fifteen-year-old boy who rebelled against his own father, the book will shed new light on Henry VIII, his daughter, Elizabeth, and on his great-niece, Mary Queen of Scots, still seductive more than four hundred years after her death.

"Stunning - an epic journey through the turbulent history of two nations, engagingly written and showing a masterly balance of politics and vivid personal detail"

Alison Weir

"Linda Porter has found a fresh approach to her biography, and told it with grace and humanity."

Leanda de Lisle

The Mail on Sunday, 18 August 2013

"Linda Porter's evocatively titled new history of the Scottish and English power struggles from the mid 15th century to the 1603 accession of James VI and I of Scotland and England is impressive.

Phillipa Stockley

Country Life, 18 Septemberr2013

"Porter's magnificent account of Scotland's feuding factions"

Giles Tremlett

The Observer - Sunday, 25 August 2013

Linda Porter has finally responded, crafting the national histories into a genuinely 'British' interpretation of the long century from the 1450s until Mary Stuart's flight across the Solway Firth to exile in England in 1568."

John Guy

Literary Review August 2013

"Whoring, killing and plotting: why we all love the Tudors - A racy tale of Mary, Elizabeth and the dawn of a dynasty grips Melanie Reid . . . Into all this phwoar and war steps the historian Linda Porter, coolly crafting the authentic story of how Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I came to be, rather than simply who they were . . . Her writing is bold, insightful and vivid."

Melanie Reid

The Times Saturday, August 10, 2013

Linda's third book is

Crown of Thistles: The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots

It is now available in paperback from Pan Macmillan.

In the US it is Tudors Versus Stewarts; The Fatal Inheritance of Mary Queen of Scots