John Alexander Guy (born 16 January 1949) is a British historian and biographer specialising in the early modern period.

Biography

Born in Warragul, Victoria, Australia, Guy moved to Britain with his parents in 1952. He was educated at King Edward VII School in Lytham St Annes in Lancashire, and Clare College, Cambridge, where he read history, achieving a First in 1970. At Cambridge, Guy studied under the Tudor specialist Geoffrey Elton. He was awarded a Greene Cup by Clare College in 1970 and the Yorke Prize by the University of Cambridge in 1976. He was appointed a Research Fellow at Selwyn College in 1970, completing his PhD on Thomas Wolsey in 1973. During his academic career, Guy has held posts at St Andrews University (where he is Honorary Professor and was sometime Vice-Principal for Research), Bristol University, UC Berkeley, University of Rochester and Johns Hopkins. Guy currently teaches at Cambridge University, as a fellow of Clare College, where he teaches part-time so he can devote more time to his writing and broadcasting career. Guy specializes in the history of Tudor England and has written extensively on the subject including juvenile books. His books have been critically acclaimed, with My Heart is My Own: the Life of Mary Queen of Scots, being awarded the 2004 Whitbread Biography Award. This book and Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart served as inspiration for the 2018 film Mary Queen of Scots. He is the author of A Daughter's Love: Thomas More and his daughter Meg, 2008, and Elizabeth: the forgotten years, 2016. Guy's style is one of re-assessment and evaluation; his works often involve him re-telling and re-evaluating history from a novel viewpoint.

Personal life

He is married to author Julia Fox, a former history teacher, who wrote Jane Boleyn: The Infamous Lady Rochford.