Born in 1930 in Reading (Berks, England), he is professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford -in Oriel College, a chair which carries the title "Regius Professor" as it is filled by the Queen´s appointment-. Educated at Eton College, he is Doctor in History by the University of Cambridge (Trinity College, 1952) and he was, for seventeen years, a lecturer in the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies (United States). He is held to be one of the most important Hispanists in the world, specialising mainly in the 16th and 17th centuries in Spanish History -especially in the figure of the favourites and, more specifically, that of the Count-duke of Olivares, in the Catalan social conflicts and comparative study of the Spanish and British colonisation of America.

As well as his extensive teaching career, both in England and as a guest lecturer in the most exceptional universities in the world, he is the author of, among many other books, of "Imperial Spain, 1469-1716" (1963), "The Revolution of the Catalans" (1963), "The old world and the new, 1492-1650" (1970), "A study of the decadence of Spain" (1982), "Richelieu and Olivares" (1984), "The Count-duke of Olivares" (1986) and " Spain and her world" (1989).

Corresponding member of the Real Academia de la Historia de Madrid (Royal Academy of History of Madrid), and member of the British Royal Academy of History, he also belongs to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophic Society. He is doctor "honoris causa" by the Universities of Barcelona, Autónoma de Madrid, Portsmouth, Warnick and Brown. Amongst other distinctions he has received the Grand Cross of Alfonso X the Wise, the order of Isabel la Católica, the medal of honour from the Universidad Internacional Menéndez y Pelayo, the gold medal for Fine Arts and prizes such as the Wolfson for History and Biography (1986), the "XVIIe siècle" (1992) and the "Eloy Antonio de Nebrija" (1993).