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Historical person
1512–1542
James V became king of Scots as an infant after his father’s death at Flodden. He escaped the control of the Douglas family in 1528 and built a personal government that relied on royal justice, taxation and church revenues.
His marriages to Madeleine of France and Mary of Guise strengthened the French alliance. After defeat at Solway Moss and a period of illness, he died in 1542, leaving the infant Mary, Queen of Scots, as heir. James V was born in Linlithgow Palace and died in Falkland Palace.
Linda Porter’s Crown of Thistles follows Margaret Tudor, James V, Mary and their English relatives through minority rule, disputed marriages, religious change and competing theories of legitimate succession. In Linda Porter’s The Thistle and the Rose, the marriage was intended to secure peace, but James’s death at Flodden in 1513 left Margaret as regent for the infant James V. Further fictional perspectives on James V can be found in Robert Low’s A Dish of Spurs, Nigel Tranter’s A Stake in the Kingdom, Nigel Tranter’s James, by the Grace of God, and Nigel Tranter’s Marie and Mary. For broader historical treatment of James V, see Alison Weir’s The Lost Tudor Princess.
Series
The Border Reivers trilogy follows fifteen-year-old Mintie Henderson and the one-armed fighter Batty Coalhouse through the violent Anglo-Scottish marches of the 1540s. Beginning after the death of James V, the novels place personal revenge inside the lawless Debatable Lands, where raiding families, soldiers and hired killers exploit the…
All books in this series
Opening with the catastrophe of Flodden in 1513, the James V Trilogy follows Scotland through the long minority, personal rule and final crisis of James V. A seventeen-month-old king becomes the prize of competing noble factions, while England, France, the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy all attempt…
All books in this series
The Simon Danforth Mysteries are set in Scotland during the violent transition from the final weeks of James V’s reign into the minority of Mary, Queen of Scots. The Abbey Close opens around the Battle of Solway Moss in 1542; The Royal Burgh follows the regency crisis of…
All books in this series
The Six Tudor Queens sequence retells the lives of Henry VIII’s wives through six full-length novels. Twelve companion stories shift attention to relatives, servants, artists and courtiers affected by the same events, while Six Tudor Queens: Writing a New Story explains the project’s historical method. In the Shadow…
All books in this series
Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
