A lot has changed since early 2015, when Wolf Hall was last on our screens. The UK has been through six prime ministers. President Trump came and went (and may come again before this second series even airs). And Hilary Mantel – who died in 2022, two weeks after Queen Elizabeth II – wrote and published a third novel in her acclaimed historical fiction series about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell. At long last, we have Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (BBC One), six more rich hours of whispered conversations in candlelit, tapestry-draped rooms.