Queens' College, part of the University of Cambridge, was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou, wife of the inept and ill-fated Henry VI. The first of its 40 Presidents to date was Andrew Doket, an ambitious Catholic priest, while the latest, the eminent economist Dr. Mohamed El-Erian, was installed in 2020, in the midst of the Covid pandemic.

This account traces the history of the College through the lives and times of each of the 40 Presidents in chronological order. Their varied careers, (which encompass the martyrdom of Saint John Fisher, incarceration in a prison ship in the Civil War and preaching at the burning of heretics on Cathedral Green at Ely), illustrate the interactions between the academic community and the social, religious, cultural and political life in Britain, over five and a half centuries.