H. F. M. Prescott
Encyclopedia
Hilda Frances Margaret Prescott, more usually known as H. F. M. Prescott (22 February 1896 – 1972), was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...

, author, academic, and historian.

Biography

She was born in Cheshire
Cheshire
Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

, the daughter of Rev James Mulleneux Prescott and his wife Margaret (née Warburton). She was educated at Wallasey
Wallasey
Wallasey is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, in Merseyside, England, on the mouth of the River Mersey, at the northeastern corner of the Wirral Peninsula...

 High School. She read Modern History at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

, where she received her first M.A.
Master of Arts (Oxbridge)
In the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin, Bachelors of Arts of these universities are admitted to the degree of Master of Arts or Master in Arts on application after six or seven years' seniority as members of the university .There is no examination or study required for the degree...

. Subsequently she was awarded a second M.A.
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 at Manchester University, where she did research under the direction of Thomas Frederick Tout
Thomas Frederick Tout
Thomas Frederick Tout, F.B.A. was a 19th- and 20th-century British historian of the medieval period.-Early life:...

, professor of Medieval and Modern History. She was awarded an honorary D.Litt. by the University of Durham. In 1958 she was elected Jubilee Research Fellow at Royal Holloway College in the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

, where she worked on Thomas Wolsey.

H F M Prescott is best known however for her historical novel The Man on a Donkey. Written in the form of a chronicle, the book tells the story of the Pilgrimage of Grace
Pilgrimage of Grace
The Pilgrimage of Grace was a popular rising in York, Yorkshire during 1536, in protest against Henry VIII's break with the Roman Catholic Church and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, as well as other specific political, social and economic grievances. It was done in action against Thomas Cromwell...

, a popular rising in protest at the Dissolution of the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

 by Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

. Her biography of Mary I of England
Mary I of England
Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...

, Mary Tudor (originally titled Spanish Tudor), which won the James Tait Black Prize in 1941 remains one of the leading works on Mary I's troubled life and reign and is named by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as the best biography of the monarch.

H.F.M. Prescott wrote only one thriller, Dead and Not Buried, and this was adapted for CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

's Climax! television series under the screen title of Bury Me Later in 1954.

As the daughter of a clergyman, H.F.M. Prescott was a committed member of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

 and her wide-ranging interests included travel and a deep love of the English countryside. She was a woman of refined but simple tastes, and lived for many years quietly with her dogs in the Oxfordshire village of Charlbury
Charlbury
Charlbury is a small town and civil parish in the Evenlode valley, about north of Witney in West Oxfordshire. It is on the edge of the Wychwood forest and the Cotswolds.-Place name:The origin of the town's toponym is obscure...

. She died in 1972.

Works

  • The Unhurrying Chase (1925). Published by Constable & Co
  • The Lost Fight (1928). Published by Constable & Co
  • Son of Dust (1932). Published by Constable & Co
  • Dead and Not Buried (1938)
  • Spanish Tudor (1940). Published by Constable & Co
  • The Man on a Donkey (1952). Published by Eyre & Spottiswoode
  • Jerusalem Journey (1954). Published by Eyre & Spottiswoode
  • Once to Sinai: The further pilgrimage of Friar Felix Fabri
    Felix Fabri
    Felix Fabri - often erroneously referred to as Faber ["Erroneously referred to" is incorrect. "Faber" is the Latin nominative singular form of his surname. He is often referred to as "Fabri," the Latin genitive singular, i.e...

    (1957). Published by Eyre & Spottiswoode

Translation

  • Flamenca (1930). Published by Constable & Co (Attributed to Bernardet the Troubadour. Translated from the Thirteenth-Century Provençal by H F M Prescott)
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