Sir John Huxtable Elliott was born in Reading, England, on 23 June 1930. After winning a scholarship to Eton, and national service, he graduated with first class honours in history from Cambridge and then earned a doctorate in history from Cambridge in 1955. He remained at Cambridge, first as a fellow of Trinity College (from 1954) and later as a university lecturer in history, until 1967 when he became Professor of Modern History at King's College, University of London. In 1973 he left King's to become professor in the School of Historical Studies at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study where over the next seventeen years he welcomed and inspired scholars from all parts of the world. In 1990 he was named Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University.

A complete account of Professor Elliott's scholarly publications and a list of his awards and honours would fill many pages. To mention but a few, he has received honorary doctorates from several universities (including the Autonomous University of Madrid, the University of Genoa and the University of Barcelona). In addition, he is the recipient of Spain's Order of Isabella la Católica (1987), the Grand Cross of the Order of Alfonso the Wise (1988) and the Gold Medal of Fine Arts (1990). His prizes include the American Historical Association's Gershoy Prize for his book, Richelieu and Olivares (1985), the Wolfson Prize for his monumental biography, The count-duke of Olivares: the statesman in an age of decline (1986) and the Antonio de Nebrija prize for the Spanish edition of this same work (1993). In 1994, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.