Hilary Mantel's letter to Thomas More: 'We have to lie about you a little in order to like you'

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'A vulpine genius': Hans Holbein the Younger's 1527 portrait of Sir Thomas More  CREDIT: MICHAEL BODYCOMB/THE FRICK COLLECTION

•  Hilary Mantel 

10 MARCH 2018 • 7:00AM

The Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall author turns her forensic eye on Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor, in a brand new story inspired by Holbein's portrait

My dear More… but here’s the first problem. How do I address you? Sir Thomas? St Thomas? Lord Chancellor? I can’t just call you Thomas. Half the men in England are called that. Anyway, I don’t feel that kind of easy warmth, though one of your modern biographers says that most people who work with you end up liking you. Liking you, disliking you, it shouldn’t matter – not to sober historians. But when we see your portrait we respond to you as a man – sad, distinguished, aging, fiercely clever. It gives us a privileged view, as if we are with...