Sir Mark Rylance’s secret role as King’s speechwriter
Sir Mark Rylance’s secret role as King’s speechwriter
Hannah FurnessSat, August 29, 2026 at 7:30 PM UTC
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The King’s address to the US Congress went down a storm - Henry Nicholls/Getty
The King consulted leading British cultural figures including Sir Mark Rylance while writing his acclaimed US state visit speeches, The Telegraph can reveal.
A keen student of the Bard, he asked the advice of the Wolf Hall actor who is a former artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, on speeches he gave during his trip to Washington earlier this year.
In a speech at the White House, where he honoured Donald Trump with the gift of a Royal Navy bell, the King quoted from Henry V, among numerous literary and historical flourishes.
Sir Mark Rylance has been a friend of the King’s since they met in 1995 - Karwai Tang/WireImage
The King and his team are understood to have consulted with a range of “external partners”, as well as taking advice from the Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office and the British embassy in the US.
He counts Sir Mark as a friend and has consulted him on matters from Shakespeare to their mutual interest in crop circles since they first met in 1995.
Sir Mark has called the King “one of the most sincere, devout lovers of Shakespeare I’ve ever met in my life” and “one of the most far-seeing and intelligent leaders in the world”.
The King delivered two major speeches during the US state visit, one at a White House dinner and the other to a joint session of Congress.
Both were widely praised by guests and the international media. The King “worked the House chamber like a stand-up comedian”, wielding his British humour “like the most genial of sceptres”, said The New York Times.
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Mr Trump described the speech to Congress as “great”, adding: “I was very jealous.”
It included quotes from Oscar Wilde, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln and a joke about the shared history of the US and UK being what “Charles Dickens might have called ‘A Tale of Two Georges’.”
At the White House dinner, the King spoke of Washington being “home of more Shakespeare Folios than anywhere in the world”.
“At this time where the search for peace in the world, is more crucial than ever,” he said, “I can only turn to Shakespeare’s genius to remind us of the plea for peace, spoken by the Duke of Burgundy at the conclusion of Henry V: ‘my speech entreats, that I may know...why gentle Peace should not...bless us with her former qualities’.”
The King’s team of speechwriters included Sir Clive Alderton, his private secretary and most senior aide at Buckingham Palace, Tobyn Andreae, director of communications for the King and Queen, with input from Sir Christian Turner, the UK’s ambassador to the US.
It is understood that academics, writers and historians were also consulted in line with the King’s determination to make the speeches and visit a success.
Since his accession, the King has received praise for his speeches to parliaments overseas, often speaking in the host language after practising his pronunciation in advance.
He makes frequent references to Shakespeare. Upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II, he used a line from Hamlet in his first television address, saying: “May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
