Kate studied her BA at Somerville College, Oxford where she was a College Scholar and received the Violet Vaughan Morgan University Scholarship. She then took her MA at Queen Mary, University of London and her DPhil at Oxford, where she received a graduate prize.
 
Her second book, Becoming Queen, about the passionate youth of Queen Victoria and Princess Charlotte, the Queen who never was, was published in September 2008. It was serialised in the Sunday Telegraph Stella Magazine, and a Book of the Year in the Tatler and Spectator. Kate discussed it on Woman’s Hour, the Guestlist on Classic FM and the Simon Mayo programme on Radio 5. 
 
'Becoming Queen showcases an outstanding talent', Matthew D'Ancona, Spectator, Books of the Year.  
 
'Kate Williams has excelled herself. She has perfected the art of historical biography...her pacy writing is underpinned by the most impeccable scholarship.' Alison Weir

Kate's BBC 2 Timewatch special on ‘Young Victoria’, based on Becoming Queen, was shown on Saturday 18 October 2008 and 19 April 2009. Acclaimed by the Guardian as 'telly history at its best', the Times as 'excellent', and by the Radio Times as 'superb', it received over 2.2 milllion viewers and has been shown around the world.
 
She appears regularly on radio and television, most recently as a panellist on Newsnight Review and discussing history on Woman's Hour and More4 News. Her Radio 4 documentary, 'Samuel Smiles: Grandfather of Self-Help', exploring the legacy of Self Help, 150 years after its publication, was broadcast on 2 July 2009.
 
Her first book, England's Mistress: the Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton was published in 2006, after five years of research in archives across the world. It was Book of the Week on Radio 4, a Book of the Year in the Times and the Independent and shortlisted for the Marsh Prize for Biography. 'A wonderful, sparkling biography', Amanda Foreman.
 
England's Mistress is being developed for film by Picture Palace, www.picturepalace.com. The producer and director is Malcolm Craddock and the script has been written by Sarah Williams, writer of Becoming Jane. Kate is the historical consultant on the film.
 
The stage musical of England's Mistress is also in development, with script and songs by Alison Clarkson, Cliff Jones, Joe Stretch and Kate Williams.
 
Kate writes features and comment pieces for various newspapers and magazines, including the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Telegraph, the Independent, the Spectator, Time Out, BBC History Magazine and History Today. She reviews history books for History Today and fiction for the Financial Times. 

She is a judge for the 2010 Tony Lothian Biographers Club Prize for the best proposed biography by a first-time writer. The award will be announced at a dinner on 21 October 2010.

Kate gives lectures to societies, events and dinners regularly in England and Europe, and literary festivals, including the Guardian Hay Festival and Dartington Ways with Words. She has appeared on many television programmes as a talking head. Her ‘Camilla’s Family Secrets: Edward VII and his mistresses’ was shown on Channel 5 and the History Channel in July and she is developing further TV projects. She lives with her partner in London. She is writing her third biography and a historical novel.