Alison Margaret Chichele Plowden (18 December 1931 – 17 August 2007) was an English historian and biographer well known for her popular non-fiction about the Tudor period. She was born at Quetta in India, a descendant of Edmund Plowden and, collaterally, of Henry Chichele. Privately educated, she worked for the BBC as a script editor. She wrote the script for the television series Mistress of Hardwick (about Bess of Hardwick), which won her a Writers' Guild Award for the best educational television series, and several television plays, including Sweet England's Pride, and The Case of Eliza Armstrong.