Dame Hilary Mantel, the author of the best-selling Wolf Hall trilogy, died Friday at the age of 70, her publisher confirmed. Mantel was regarded as one of the greatest English-language novelists of the twentieth century.

The author, who was born in the United Kingdom, is one of only a few writers to have won England’s Booker Prize twice. Mantel received awards for the first two books in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, Wolf Hall in 2009 and Bring Up the Bodies in 2012.

Also Read| Wolf Hall author Dame Hilary Mantel dies at 70

The Wolf Hall series is one of Mantel’s most-loved novels worldwide. The Wolf Hall Trilogy is a magnificent, riveting historical saga of Thomas Cromwell’s rise and fall in Henry VIII’s court, starring Anne Boleyn, Thomas More, Jane Seymour, and other political and royal players from Tudor England.

Wolf Hall (2009), Bring up the Bodies (2012), and The Mirror and the Light (2013) comprise the Wolf Hall trilogy (3 March, 2020). It is also known as the Thomas Cromwell series, but Hilary Mantel refers to it officially as the Wolf Hall trilogy. The books should be read in the order in which they were published.

Also Read| Wolf Hall to The Mirror and the Light: All Hilary Mantel books

Who was Thomas Cromwell?

Thomas Cromwell, briefly Earl of Essex, was an English lawyer and statesman who served as King Henry VIII’s chief minister from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on the king’s orders, which he later blamed on false charges.

Cromwell was a leading proponent of the English Reformation and the founder of true English governance. He assisted in the annulment of the king’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, allowing Henry to legally marry Anne Boleyn. In 1533, after Henry failed to obtain Pope Clement VII’s approval for the annulment, Parliament endorsed the king’s claim to be Supreme Head of the Church of England, granting him the authority to annul his own marriage. From the unique positions of Vicegerent in Spirituals and vicar-general, Cromwell charted an evangelical and reformist course for the Church of England.

Also Read| Wolf Hall author Hilary Mantel: Age, net worth, illness

Cromwell’s new ideas and lack of nobility earned him many enemies, including Anne Boleyn, during his rise to power. He did, in fact, play a significant role in her downfall. He was deposed after arranging the king’s marriage to the German princess Anne of Cleves. Cromwell hoped that the marriage would revitalise the English Reformation, but Henry found his new bride unattractive, and the marriage was a disaster for Cromwell, ending in an annulment six months later. Cromwell was tried under a bill of attainder and executed on Tower Hill on July 28, 1540, for treason and heresy. The king later expressed regret over the death of his chief minister, and his reign never recovered.