Masterpiece Sets March Premiere Date for 'Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light'
Masterpiece has announced that the highly anticipated sequel series Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light will premiere in March. The six-part drama is a sequel to the Emmy-nominated Wolf Hall and is based on the final installment in Booker Prize-winning author Hilary Mantel's critically acclaimed trilogy of novels.
The Mirror and the Light will conclude the story of one of the most remarkable and influential figures in English history. The son of a blacksmith, the Surrey-born Thomas Cromwell rose to wield tremendous power at the court of King Henry VIII. He was a key architect of the Protestant Reformation in England, playing a major role in Henry's divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and organizing the dissolution of the monastaries, a move that filled royal coffers and destroyed a key social safety net for the poor. He also engineered Henry's disastrous marriage to Anne of Cleves, whose brother was an influential Protestant leader in Western Germany.
The original Wolf Hall adapted the first two books in Mantel’s series — Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies — which ended with Anne Boleyn’s execution. The Mirror and the Light will adapt the third, which is based on the events of the last four years of Cromwell’s life. It's a story that includes everything from political backstabbing to judicially sanctioned murder, all as Cromwell struggles to hold on to the power he's fought so hard to gain. (Spoiler alert: The monster he helped create ultimately comes for him in the end and Henry has Cromwell executed in 1540.)
