Summary

Hilary Mantel begins her speech, “Royal Bodies”, by telling the audience about a question she was asked a year before, which involved her choosing a famous person and a book to offer that person. Mantel tells the audience that she chose Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, and she explains that she would have given her a book about Marie Antoinette’s fashion choices. Mantel explains that, for her, Kate Middleton is only a mannequin on which clothes are skilfully placed so that Kate has become a royal body to admire and stare at. Even though Mantel acknowledges Kate’s beauty, manners and perfection, she compares her to Marie Antoinette, who was also criticised and started at by the public, as if she was a body with no soul.

Then Mantel compares Kate Middleton to her late mother-in-law, Diana, whom she thinks was accepted by the British royal house because of her physical perfection and because of her capacity to adapt. Kate Middleton is then compared to a romantic novel by Catherine Cookson,...