Hilda F. M. Prescott

Hilda Frances Margaret Prescott (1896-1972) was an English historian, novelist, and academic renowned for her historical novel The Man on a Donkey (1952), which chronicles the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion against Henry VIII, and her biography Mary Tudor (1940), acclaimed by the Encyclopædia Britannica as the best on Mary I and winner of the James Tait Black Prize in 1941. Educated at Oxford and Manchester, she held academic posts including Vice-Principal at St Mary's College, Durham, and Jubilee Research Fellow at Royal Holloway College, London, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She authored several other historical works and one thriller, blending rigorous scholarship with engaging narrative.