Vincent Archibald Patrick Cronin FRSL was a British historical, cultural, and biographical writer, best known for his biographies of Louis XIV, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great, and Napoleon, as well as for his books on the Renaissance. Cronin was born in Tredegar, Monmouthshire to Scottish doctor and novelist, A. J. Cronin and his wife May Gibson, but moved to London at the age of two. He was educated at Ampleforth College, Harvard University, the Sorbonne, and Trinity College, Oxford, from which he graduated with honours in 1947, earning a degree in Literae Humaniores.... During the Second World War, he served as a lieutenant in the British Army. In 1949, he married Chantal de Rolland, and they had five children. The Cronins were long-time residents of London, Marbella, and Dragey, in Avranches, Basse-Normandie, where they lived at the Manoir de Brion. He died at his home in Marbella on 25 January 2011. Cronin was a recipient of the Richard Hillary Award, the W.H. Heinemann Award , and the Rockefeller Foundation Award .
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