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Prime time Cressida: In big new Sunday night TV drama, Harry’s ex is denied romance with aristocrat...who gave them that idea? (Anthony Trollope of course!)

Cressia Bonas to appear in adaptation of Anthony Trollope's Doctor Thorne
Her character, Patience Oriel, is too poor to marry an aristocrat
In real life Cressida wants to make her own money instead of marrying up
The new Sunday night series is set to be screened next month

Published: 00:25 GMT, 21 February 2016 | Updated: 11:14 GMT, 21 February 2016

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She's always said she would rather be Hollywood royalty than the tiara-wearing kind – and here’s proof that Prince Harry’s ex-girlfriend Cressida Bonas is set for stardom.

The actress, who dumped Harry in 2014, is about to appear in her first prime-time role on ITV in Julian Fellowes’s adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s classic 1858 novel Doctor Thorne.

Cressida, 27, appears as Patience Oriel, who in the book is described as a ‘very pretty girl’ and ‘good humoured, lady-like and belonging to a good family’.

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Cressida Bonas, who dumped Harry in 2014, is about to appear in her first prime-time role on ITV in Julian Fellowes’s adaptation of Anthony Trollope’s classic 1858 novel Doctor Thorne

But she is dismissed as a potential bride for an aristocrat due to her ‘moderate’ rather than large fortune.

In real life, however, Cressida seems determined to make her own money instead of marrying a rich man.

Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, who produced the BBC’s recent smash-hit adaptation of War And Peace and co-produced Doctor Thorne, is already a fan.

Cressida makes her Hollywood debut in his film Tulip Fever this year alongside Judi Dench, Alicia Vikander and Cara Delevingne.

It was her two-year relationship with Harry that made Cressida a household name, and at the time she was tipped to become his bride.

But her pursuit of ‘challenging’ roles – she received rave reviews last May after writhing apparently naked under a sheet in the one-woman play An Evening With Lucian Freud – clashed with the decorum of Royal life.

Doctor Thorne, which also stars Harry Richardson and Stefanie Martini (pictured left), is Fellowes’s first costume drama since Downton Abbey

She became the face of Mulberry for its spring/summer 2015 collection, wowed in a blue sequin mini-dress for Dior’s show in Cannes last May, and this month looked every inch the Hollywood starlet in a little black dress at a pre-Bafta party.

Doctor Thorne, which also stars Harry Richardson and Stefanie Martini, is Fellowes’s first costume drama since Downton Abbey.

The new Sunday night series is set to be screened next month.

Cressida wowed in a blue sequin mini-dress for Dior’s show in Cannes last May (pictured), and this month looked every inch the Hollywood starlet in a little black dress at a pre-Bafta party