Hilda Francis Margaret Prescott, MA, MA, D.Litt, FRSL was born in Cheshire, the daughter of Rev. James Mulleneux Prescott and his wife Margaret (née Warburton).
She was educated at Wallasey High School and subsequently read Modern History at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford where she received her first MA. Later, she studied Medieval and Modern History at Manchester University, from which she earned a second MA. 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 where she researched the life of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.
She is perhaps best known for her historical novel 'The Man on a Donkey;' written in the form of a chronicle, it tells the story of the Pilgrimage of Grace, a popular rising in protest at the Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIII.
Her biography of Queen Mary I of England, 'Mary Tudor' (originally titled 'Spanish Tudor'), won the James Tait Black Prize in 1941 and remains a well-respected biography.
Prescott wrote one thriller, 'Dead and Not Buried,' and this was adapted in 1954 for CBS's Climax! television series under the title 'Bury Me Later.'
Her interests included travel and a love of the English countryside and she lived for many years in Charlbury, Oxfordshire.
We inherited this book from my mother-in-law, and it sat with a mildewed binding and the back coming off in strips, so we weren't handling it. I pulled off the bookcloth and rebound it - and then we were able to read it aloud. It is an interesting and entertaining compilation of the observations of Friar Felix, who made pilgrimages to the Holy Land in 1480 and 1482, and information provided by and about other (near-)contemporary pilgrims and the Venetian pilgrim galley trade. We thoroughly enjoyed it.