A capricious and cruel autocrat handing out privileges and punishments, women struggling to assert themselves, the populist mob at the gate – and through it all a decent man, we hope, steers a hazardous course. The first two books of Hilary Mantel’s epic Wolf Hall trilogy became a BBC series in 2015, and now the six-part finale, The Mirror and The Light, is airing, covering the last years of Thomas Cromwell, until his downfall at the hands of his tyrannical boss, Henry VIII.
At the locations where the original action took place, and those used in the series, there is rising excitement about a sharp increase in website traffic and visitor numbers. The Tudors, it seems, are still box-office gold. The Tower of London, where both Anne Boleyn and Cromwell ended their days, saw visitor numbers rise by more than a third in 2023. History itself is booming, driven by podcasts such as Empire, presented by Anita Anand and William Dalrymple, and Radio 4’s You’re Dead to Me. Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland of The Rest Is History podcast sold out London’s Royal Albert Hall in October. When a pair of donnish historians get a rock star reception, something significant is happening. According to a survey conducted in May by rail booking agent Trainline, 75% of respondents hoped to visit a historical attraction in the year ahead.
