Hillary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall has been criticized by British Prime Minister David Cameron for remarks she passed regarding Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge. Mantel is reported to have called Middleton “machine made” and “designed by committee.”

Mantel, during a public lecture at the British Museum made suggestions that Middleton’s sole purpose was to give birth to a royal heir.

Her comments included:

..she described the future Queen as a ‘machine-made’ princess, ‘designed by a committee’.

But where the author described her as a personality-free ‘shop window mannequin’ with a ‘plastic smile’, thousands of Britons leapt to her defence saying the Duchess is a warm, intelligent woman.

Mantel, 60, compared Kate unfavourably to both Anne Boleyn – one of her historical heroines – and to Princess Diana, insisting both had more personality.
She said Kate had gone from being a ‘jointed doll on which certain rags are hung’ to a woman whose ‘only point and purpose’ was to give birth.

Mantel said Kate ‘appeared to have been designed by a committee and built by craftsmen, with a perfect plastic smile and the spindles of her limbs hand-turned and gloss-varnished’.

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While on a trip to India, Cameron slammed the remarks:

I think she writes great books, but I think what she’s said about Kate Middleton is completely misguided and completely wrong. What I’ve seen of Princess Kate at public events, at the Olympics and elsewhere is this is someone who’s bright, who’s engaging, who’s a fantastic ambassador for Britain. We should be proud of that, rather than make these rather misguided remarks.

Mantel is an accomplished author in Britain, having won the Booker prize twice.

An unfased Middleton appeared in public yesterday, showing off her baby bump.

[Source: Telegraph, TIME]