David Farnor | On 06, Apr 2024

Wolf Hall will return to BBC One for a second season, subtitled Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light. Based on the final novel in Hilary Mantel’s trilogy, the series follows the original Wolf Hall, which aired in 2015 and was based on the first two entries in Mantel’s trilogy.

Mark Rylance will reprise his role as Thomas Cromwell, after the first series followed his rapid rise to power in the court of Henry VII through to the death of Anne Boleyn. We pick things up in May, 1536. Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second wife, is dead. As the axe drops, Thomas Cromwell emerges from the bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour.

Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to back him, and no private army. Navigating the moral complexities that accompany the exercise of power in this brutal and bloody time, Cromwell is caught between his desire to do what is right and his instinct to survive. But in the wake of Henry VIII having executed his queen, no one is safe. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and religious reform. But as fortune’s wheel turns, Cromwell’s enemies are gathering in the shadows. The inevitable question remains: how long can anyone survive under Henry’s cruel and capricious gaze?

Reuniting the creative team from the BAFTA and Golden Globe-winning first series, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light is directed by Peter Kosminsky (The Undeclared War, The State), adapted for television by Academy award nominee Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Frank) and produced by Colin Callender’s Playground (The Undeclared War, All Creatures Great and Small) and Company Pictures (Van Der Valk, Blood).

In front of the camera, Rylance will be joined by Damian Lewis as King Henry VIII, Kate Phillips as Jane Seymour, Lilit Lesser as Princess Mary, Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Wolsey, Harriet Walter as Lady Margaret Pole, Harry Melling as Thomas Wriothesley, Thomas Brodie-Sangster as Rafe Sadler, Timothy Spall as the Duke of Norfolk, Alex Jennings as Stephen Gardiner and Charlie Rowe as Gregory Cromwell.

You can see the first images of the cast below, as filming has wrapped on the six-part series.

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