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King Charles III

‘Wolf Hall’ author Hilary Mantel receives damehood from Prince Charles

Bestselling author and two-time winner of the Man Booker Prize, Hilary Mantel was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire by the Prince of Wales at Buckingham Palace earlier today. Ms. Mantel, who is best known for her historical novel Wolf Hall, received the damehood for her service to Literature.

After the investiture ceremony, Hilary Mantel revealed what she and The Prince had discussed while she received her honour. “We talked about the television series of Wolf Hall, which he’s enjoying very much,” she said.

The meeting between the two comes less than a week after excerpts published from the latest biography about The Prince of Wales, Charles: The Heart of a King reveals that the Prince’s household, which is apparently rife with conflict and disputes, has been nicknamed ‘Wolf Hall’. The name is a nod to the cutthroat Tudor court described in Mantel’s books.

But according to Hilary Mantel, “there may be an element of exaggeration there.”

Dame Hilary, as she is now, is a successful English writer, who has won a plethora of literary awards, including the Man Booker Prize which she won twice – once in 2009 then again in 2012 – making her the only woman to have done so.

Her most famous works, Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies, revolve around the life of Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to King Henry VIII, and his meteoric rise to power in the Tudor court. A third book, The Mirror and the Light, about Cromwell’s eventual fall from grace and execution is currently in the works, and expected to be published later this year.

When asked about the third book in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, she said: “I haven’t got a finishing date yet because I’ve been very busy with the theatre versions and novels are unpredictable anyway. But it’s going well and we’re hoping in the course of time there might be a third play and maybe a TV series as well.”

Both books have been adapted for the theatre and, mostly recently, for television. The first episode of a six part television adaptation based on the first two novels in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy aired in the UK on the 21st of January to critical acclaim. The miniseries is currently halfway through, and the continues next Wednesday on BBC Two.

Featured photo credit: BBC / Company Productions Ltd