154 thoughts on “Top Five Ways The White Princess Gets History Wrong

  1. But—but—according to The Black Adder, Richard survived and reigned as Richard IV! Which is a piece of fake history I’ll take over Philippa Gregory’s crap any day!

        1. I liked the show, but I don’t watch it to be historically accurate either. Let’s be honest – sometimes reality can be boring. As entertainment, I wouldn’t call it tripe – I‘d save that term to describe reality garbage tv.

      1. I enjoy the show as a source of entertainment. I wish they showed the four children (that lived) from the marriage, instead of the three. I understand the focus was on the heirs- Arthur and Henry VIII, but it was wrong not to have any focus on Margaret and Mary. I love history and I do wish more people had a genuine interest in history. I would hope maybe people who watch this program will interested in discovering the real history, and come away with a better understanding of the War of the Roses and the reign of Henry VII and Queen Elizabeth.

        1. Thank god another person thinks this – just watched the whole series and was dictating to the Hubbie, oh well they actually had 6 children – two of which died but they glossed over that, too busy designing lurex costumes which wouldn’t have been possible back then, and why are they shifting the nasty ass family deaths onto Elizabeth in this series? Aah
          – all women are c&nts. The ending also was ridiculous. At least in the book she used the idea of the curse as a desperate attempt to stop her husband killing her brother – in this she was the instigator. 😩 Was this supposed to be a women rights view of history, as it actually came across as a historically massive fail and perpetrated the view of women as weak spokespersons for their husbands views. Plus on the costume side, the Burgundian dress they kept using was like something from the Georgian period – all dresses from the period in question had a bodice pointing downward to emphasise the slimness of the wearer, and also the French hood she kept wearing was ridiculous. She would either have been wearing the headdress with the roll of fabric around the face or the gable hood. And whats with Elizabeths plunging cleavage throughout? Where’s the kirtle neckline?And just as the limit to my disgust – Maggie as a spy, countess of burgundy as an agent in London? Aaahhh!!! That’s why they trusted Maggie to care for Arthur in wales, and the countess of burgundy spent her life in BURGUNDY. Also additional annoyances – Tudor royals never went to Spain, Catherine Gordon/Huntley never left court and Catherine Gordon/Huntley was not taken from Bealieu but St Michaels Mount in Cornwall – 200 miles from Beaulieu!! St Michaels Mount was also supposed to be the seat of king Arthur – the once and rightful king which must have especially pissed off the tudors!

          1. They actually had seven children and three died – Elizabeth, Edmund (or Edward) and baby Catherine).

            The Duchess of Burgundy didn’t live in Burgundy, which was in French hands by then, she lived in Flanders. She never went to England to skulk around, and her step daughter died years before this show depicts.

      2. At the end of The White Princess the novel, Gregory says that Elizabeth Woodville sent money to “Prince Richard” so she must have believed it was Richard. I find this weird given that she never saw him as far as I know. I also hated it that they portrayed Margaret Beaufort as being this overly pious woman who refused to have fun or forgive. Didn’t she also share more blood and common relatives with the Yorks than she did Lancaster? Also, the idea of a woman killing children is not too far off these days but back then it was unthinkable especially for Margaret who was God fearing and a mother herself, I just don’t see it.
        Margaret may not have wanted Henry to be King in the first place. It seemed that what she really wanted was to have his lands and title restored to him so he could return home and she spent about 20 years trying to do just that and Edward did agree to it as she had become a well respected lady at their court and a friend too as she spent time with the his children. It seems that it was only after Edward died, Prince Edward being locked up, Richard making himself King is when she finally had enough.
        She seems more diplomatic than a war eagle Gregory makes her out to be. Margaret of Burgundy seems to be the one who really pushed it because she was pissed about her brother even though he did become a bit of a tyrant and was blind to any misdeeds by her family that put things in motion and Richard did that to himself because it seems the people of England were just fed up. The crown changed hands a number of times and I wonder if the English people were just sick of it all.

        1. Exactly right, Shannon. All evidence indicates that Margaret Beaufort’s sole ambition was to see her son restored to his rank and lands and able to live in England again. She didn’t even consider higher things until after Edward IV’s death and Richard’s usurpation disaffected not only Lancastrians who had accepted the former but Yorkists dismayed at the disappearance of the rightful heirs.

    1. Uncle-niece marriages were not so uncommon as you’d think in the noble families of Europe (look up Avunculate marriage on Wikipedia) because the bible did not ‘expressly’ forbid it, and papal dispensation could be granted in Catholic countries. The Hapsburgs were the most famous only because they continued to marry among themselves for multiple generations, to the detriment of their genetic line :)

    2. Or, I believe a Sforza, a Borgia (for a Cersei/Jamie bro/sis). But gossips are usually wrong.
      Btw the last pretender Person Warbeck actually had some convincing supporters, like Margaret Plantagenet Dowager Duchess of Burgundy, the Scottish King, James IV, who married his cousin, Lady Katherine Gordon to him.

      1. I think AutoCorrect got you, Susan. That should be Perkin, not Person, Warbeck.

        There’s a reason I’ve disabled AutoCorrect.

  2. oh boy, you’ve apparently bought the “evil Richard” line put out by the Tudor apologists. Richard didn’t accuse Elizabeth it was done by the bishop that presided Edwards marriage bans (pre-wedding) to another woman. thus making Elizabeth and Edwards children bastards. He didn’t “disappear or kill” her brothers, they were put in a royal castle (the tower) for their own safety. The Woodvilles, Elizabeths family, was attempting to kidnap them and run the country. if anyone killed them it would most logically be Henry Tudor. his claim was VERY tenuous at best and their marriage was needed for him to have any legal claim to the throne. He and his children made it a policy of their reign to slaughter off EVERYONE with a better claim to the throne than he. also when he took over the country after committing regicide, he never charged Richard with their murders. Henry was a sick twisted creep. Richard was known for is compassion, skill and fidelity to his brother and family.

    1. Not necessarily evil, just not a dreamy romantic partner. Really, it doesn’t make sense for Elizabeth of York to be mooning over the guy who just ruined her family’s lives in countless ways. Totally a stretch on Gregory’s part!

      1. Fully agree, I believe Richard was the machevellian shit that every one believes him to be – but having studied this period in depth,I do not believe he was responsible for the deaths of his nephews. He held them in the tower and had power over their family and inheritance. People in England hated Elizabeth Woodville and family for her social climbing – Richard passed a law stating that Edward their father was married legally before he offered marriage to Elizabeth (Eleanor Butler – Check it out). He had ultimately bastardised the boys and nobody supported them at Richards coronation – he just took the opportunity he had before him. Plus Elizabeth immediately immobilised against him the minute her husband died set the navy against him, stole all the money from the treasury and had taken it into sanctuary at Westminster crypt to start wars against him – put yourself in his shoes!! Once the boys were bastards they had no legal claim to the throne – plus he was holding them against insurrection.

        1. The boys disappeared in Richard’s keeping and on his watch and he never did zilch to find them or avenge their deaths. Actually it is downright weird that he never put out any kind of explanation or picked a scapegoat. I don’t know what he was thinking.

          Richard could cry ‘bastard’ all he wanted. He never presented a case to a church court and got a verdict. The fact is Elizabeth was queen for nearly two decades and her son was accepted as the heir. Why did Eleanor Butler’s family not bring up the precontract back when the marriage to Elizabeth was made and everybody was going ballistic over it? The fact is those boys were a threat to him and to his own heirs. Once he usurped the throne he had no choice but to eliminate the competition.

          1. There is no proof that the boys disappeared on his watch. There’s no hard evidence about the way they died or when. Nothing except one account by an unreliable witness. If there were other accounts and speculations, then maybe. But that one account was copied and repeated when Henry won the throne, and eventually accepted as truth.
            I think Buckingham did it, because he had done something similar before – and there is more than one account of that.
            It just doesn’t make sense for Richard to kill the boys at that time.

            1. They were last seen in the late summer of 1483; never seen again. They literally disappeared on his watch. Where were they?

              There were plenty of people who were revolted by his taking of the throne, and a great many of those would have been glad to oust him and restore EV; plenty more people were deeply disturbed that the boys were nowhere in sight and rumours of their deaths at Richard’s hands were circulating during his lifetime, and were responsible for previously loyal Yorkists turning against him. If those boys were alive and well why did he not produce them? HVII displayed Warwick when Simnel purported to be him – why did not Richard do the same?

              If Buckingham did it then they were dead by the end of 1483; why did Richard have nothing to say on the matter? Did he not notice they’d gone missing? Did he not care?

              1. Richard said nothing because he knew he’d be accused of the childrens’ murder. The Woodvilles were not yet defeated. If the children died during the late summer of 1483, Richard was away from London – but nobody says he did the deed himself. In the Ricardian version, if Buckingham did it, Richard would be accused of it so chose to remain silent, in the traditional version, the deaths would have weakened his political hold. That’s the bit a lot of people overlook. He had the boys as hostages against the Woodvilles. Without them he had nothing, and that plays well with the medieval practice of taking hostages and monetising prisoners, rather than doing away with them.
                Also, we only have one independent account of when the boys were last seen – Mancini’s. The only rumours that the boys were dead that we know about came from abroad, notably from England’s adversaries.
                That’s because, once Henry VII came to the throne, he gave Bishop Moreton (he of Moreton’s Fork) the archives. Moreton burned the lot, so indiscriminately that for and against accounts done by English people all perished.
                This is pre-universal literacy, the movement that began in Elizabeth’s reign. The Paston Letters are so valuable because there are so few of those things.
                Basically, just because we have found no proof of it, because of Moreton’s depradations, that doesn’t mean the boys weren’t still alive. The evidence is too flimsy to know for sure.
                The era I mainly work in these days, the eighteenth century, has the opposite problem, because literacy had well and truly kicked in. There’s so much written down that nobody can read it all in one lifetime. But in the fifteenth century, literacy was not considered anything but a specialist requirement. The evidence of one person (Mancini) who was a double agent for Spain and Italy cannot be trusted.
                Basically, we simply don’t know, and there is no proof one way or the other. I think, because there is proof that Richard was an intelligent person (from accounts of his work in the north, which he ruled for 11 years, and Moreton never got to, and accounts of his legal interests) I think that Richard would not have done anything so stupid at that juncture.
                The boys could have died naturally, of plague for instance, they could have been murdered by someone else – Buckingham being the prime suspect, so he could blacken Richard’s reputation before his rebellion that October, or Richard could have ordered it done.
                I just don’t think it makes sense for Richard to have done it then. They were more valuable as hostages, and if he’d wanted to do it, later would have made far more sense. And yet he kept the Poels around him, and they had a strong claim to the throne, and other relatives that Henry, who wanted to legitimise his conquest, subsequently had done away with.
                Leading to the constitutional crisis in Henry VIII’s reign, when it appeared there would be no son to succeed him. The marriage to Anne Boleyn was as much expedience as it was a love match. Queen Katherine, who was older than Henry, had reached the menopause (there is evidence of that in the royal inventories – this is my period and I’ve seen it). So he had to do something. It could have been anybody, but as it happened, it was Anne. She was not the prime mover of that particular decision. That was Cromwell.
                Anyway, I digress.

          2. right – so where is the absolute proof that the boys disappeared? Where were the rumours that they had been done away with, and where did those rumours come from? Once you delve a bit deeper, it becomes a bit murkier and far less certain.
            Lady Eleanor’s family didn’t come forward because she was a single lady and the King seduced her. She was no longer a virgin. Do you think her family wanted that known?
            And she wasn’t the only one. Elizabeth Woodville was the only one clever enough to take Edward’s infatuation and force him to pay up.

            1. There is no record of them having been seen after 1483; Richard’s failure to his brother’s marriage tested before a church court, the proper place to do that, is, I think, telling. And I’m sorry, but I find it difficult to believe that there was no whisper whatsoever of a precontract – and can see no reason why, if it failed to come to light during the 20 years of the marriage, it should conveniently surface when it did. It came to light coincidentally in much the same way that the boys just happened to die or disappear.

              Richard wasn’t averse to a spot of extra-judicial execution; I find it hard to believe that he’d be bothered about being accused of this if he hadn’t actually been responsible for it.

              There is no smoking gun and there never will be. However, to my mind, what evidence there is points to Richard.

              1. My point is, that there is no evidence about the boys, period. Nothing concrete, nothing that isn’t biased, nothing but rumours. So we can’t know for sure. The only record
                They could have lived until Henry came to the throne for all we know for sure.
                Edward often seduced aristocratic women by using a pre-contract. The Butler one was handy, because the Butlers came out on Richard’s side against the Woodvilles. The Woodvilles made a lot of enemies.
                England was in a fix, and needed a strong leader, but Lord Protector wasn’t going to cut it. That doesn’t mean that Richard suddenly changed from the just lord described by the York Chronicles into a monster.
                The fact that Richard executed Hastings doesn’t mean he’s a recidivist. In fact, what records we have of him show he was an adherent of the law, and started the reform of the law that Henry later completed and took credit for.

                1. Last seen 1483; where were they? It comes down to that for me. Where. Were. They?

                  Oh and Hastings wasn’t the only extra-judicial execution for which Richard is responsible, was he?

                  In any case you seem to be shifting your argument to justify the suspicious Butler pre contract and shoving aside the children he’d promised to protect on the grounds that England was in a fix. Why would Lord Protector not cut it?

                  And Henry has been given credit for reforms h evidently thought sensible, he didn’t take it.

            2. Eleanor Talbot was a widow when she met Edward, not a “single lady” and almost certainly no virgin.

      2. Actually it does make sense for Princess Elizabeth to be mooning over Richard III. It’s called Stockholm Syndrome. Might be the same reason Anne Boleyn loved Henry VIII.

    2. And you have apparently bought the Ricardian revisionist version. The Princes were put in the Tower for their own safety and never seen again after the summer of 1483. If Henry killed them when did he do it? If after Bosworth where were they in the intervening two years? If before then why did Richard not notice that they’d disappeared? Why did he not produce them when rumours of his having killed them were circulating during his lifetime? If Henry killed them he could have produced the bodies when the Tower was searched in September 1486 and laid the deaths at Richard’s door; he didn’t.

      The very best that can be said about Richard and the princes is that he failed to keep them safe as he was honour bound to do. DId someone else kill them while he was king? Possibly- but he did nothing about it if so.

      Henry did not “slaughter” everyone with any claim to the throne; RIII’s heir, the Earl of Lincoln was given a seat on his council; other Yorkists were left alone and several were still alive at Henry’s death. Of the 29 attainders passed after Bosworth most were reversed during the reign.

      “Henry was a sick twisted creep” is not a valid historical viewpoint and puts your opinion on the same level as “Richard III was an evil monster”. Richard was no saint; his supposed loyalty to his family didn’t stop him accusing his own mother of adultery or mislaying his brother’s sons; his apparent compassion isn’t much on evidence in his treatment of the Countess of Oxford whose property he extorted from her; he murdered Hastings, Grey and Rivers. The fact is that he was as much a ruthless medieval king as any other.

      1. See, here’s the problem with Phillipa Gregory — she fucks around with history so much for funsies, that it gets ppl’s knickers in a twist. And the weird thing is, she doesn’t seem to be totally taking sides one way or the other. She’s got a mishmash of both, which is satisfying to neither.

      2. THIS

        No matter which way mad Ricardians try to twist it fact remains that the prime suspect in those kids disappearances will always be Richard, that’s not something simply made up by the Tudors when he pretty much brought it on himself. Not to mention that it’s pretty likely that the so called pre-contract was fake, he didn’t even seek the approval of the church (and a supposedly pious man at that!) which was the denomination that judged whether a marriage was null or not, NOT the parliament. And it’s very true that nothing stopped him from being responsible of many executions and shameful acts, like not allowing poor Hastings to have a proper trial, accusing his own mother of adultery and shaming Elizabeth Woodville and her mother Jaquetta as ‘witches’. People trying to romanticize this jerk are something else, he was a man of his time.

        1. Ah, the Shakespearian version! That came from Thomas More’s version, and his version came from Moreton’s account of Richard’s reign, and Moreton was working for Henry VII

      3. Exactly and not to mention that Priest who claimed the children bastard didn’t came out of nowhere, he was protected and produced by Richard’s allies. You cannot wash away the fact that this priest comes forward with a document months later by Richard about an unfulfilled betrothal to challenge and invalidate the church performed, god sanctified, well consummated , long standing marriage! and he didn’t even produce this papers to the Church or even Pope but to Parliament which clearly proved that Richard knew his claim to throne is flimsy and would not work.
        Initially his keeping the princes as Lord Protector in tower could be seen as a measure of protection but from whom? those children’s own uncle? Sure lots of men in Edward IV asked him to be Lord Protector but NOT king. the thing is Richard was an elitist and couldn’t stand the fact that some “smaller” nobility like Woodwilles would outclass him in power through bloodline of the future king. Then this whole debacle of Priest and paper came out by Richard himself and he still kept the children locked away instead of giving them to church or lawful imprisonment like any “legal” monarchy should do. He knew that he is wrong and that is what happened.

        The only thing which was ever happened unfairly to him was this slanderous campaign of equating him to some devil just because he has sclerosis. That was very unfair. whether he ever killed his nephews unfortunately could never be determined after so many years even if we somehow confirm that the recently found skeletons under the Tower indeed them( the royal trust or something is refusing permission) . But the rest are just verifiable facts. It is not about who is Richardian or Tudorian or whatever.

        1. The remains were found in 1674 by workmen carrying out alterations to a staircase. Interestingly, More’s account of the murder has them buried … underneath a staircase.

          Richard had scoliosis, not sclerosis.

          1. More’s account also then says THEY WERE LATER MOVED BY A PRIEST. Actually, we have no proof they were found under the staircase, it was 1674, no archaeologists, no attending coroner or police, no photos, not even an in situ drawing. In fact, the bones were dumped on the spoil heap for 2 days. Human remains are frequently found around the Tower; not surprising, because there is a Roman cemetery mere feet away and the Tower in on the site of a Basilica…There has never been modern analysis of the bones (which are mixed with animal bones, suggesting a Roman midden)–so we don’t know WHAT date they are from or WHAT SEX they are. (Several modern osteologists examining photos of the bones think the elder may have female characteristics; only DNA would tell us 100%) BTW a child’s skeleton, same age as the elder 12-13 years approx, turned up in the 70’s–it was dated, & it was 2000 years old. Found a hundred years ago and someone might have been saying it was a ‘prince.’
            As these bones were also found 10 feet down; again, you are into the Roman or even earlier level. This huge excavation was supposed to have been dug in ONE NIGHT? In secret? Yeah, right. There were well over 100 people living at the Tower.
            Whatever happened to the ‘Princes’ it seems unlikely, from an archaeological standpoint, that those bones are theirs.
            Re; Elizabeth and Richard III. Although state documents still existing in Portugal show that Richard planned to marry Princess Joanne and Elizabeth was set to marry Duke Manuel (so the idea of romance is pretty unlikely) , Elizabeth actually did seem to have affection for her uncle. Her rather florid letter to him may have been ‘buttering him up’ if she thought the marriage plans for Manuel weren’t going as swiftly as she’d have liked, but when he gave her some of his books, she doodled in her name and motto under his.

            1. Interestingly, if those plans had gone through, she would have wound up Queen of Portugal. Duke Manuel de Beja was second or third in line for the throne – and the heirs ahead of him kicked off, so he wound up with the whole enchilada.

        2. Oh, I LOVED his series. Dan Jones does a great job at looking at things with no prejudice. Have you heard or listening to any of his novels? I really would like to meet him one day and tell him how much I enjoy his work.

    3. Read Alison Weir’s books The Princes in the Tower and Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World. Unlike Philippa Gregory’s trash, Weir’s books are history books complete with sources to back up her research. Weir thoroughly proves that not only did Richard III order his nephews’ murders (who benefited the most and who had the means to get to them in the Tower?) but also that Elizabeth of York WAS NOT attracted to her uncle, neither prince survived (though were pretenders/IMPOSTERS) and pretty much everything else Gregory tries to pass of as fact is a load of bullshit.

      1. Weir isn’t any better than Gregory. She employs people to do her research for her, and she is strongly biased toward the Tudors, and lets it show in her books. I don’t know any educational institution that uses her as a source, because her history is shaky and edited. She works from her prejudices rather than coming to the sources with an open mind. The contemporary accounts she cites are post-1485, and we all know how much Henry VII and his henchman Morton twisted history. She doesn’t make that clear, in fact she tries to claim that the sources are contemporary with the Princes’ deaths, which they weren’t.
        It was probably necessary to twist history at the time, to try to stabilise the country, but these days we don’t have to swallow it all. That book, especially The Princes In The Tower, proves nothing.
        If you want an opposing view, which is no more or less accurate than the Weir, read Bertram Fields’ Royal Blood. At least he points out her faults, although he is an unabashed Ricardian.
        Then try to find an unbiased account. Good luck with that!
        Having met Weir, I can’t say my opinion has changed. She doesn’t have the flexibility of the true historian, or the carefully analytical approach. Neither does Fields, for that matter, but at least reading both will give a more balanced view.

        1. Agree about Weir. As far as I’m aware she doesn’t not actually have a historian’s qualifications; she dropped out. She writes well, which is what makes her books compelling. Her research is sometimes slipshod; at one time she listed Richard III as having 7 bastards! What?? One of them, it turns out, was only made Richard’s son in an early 20thc novel! (She did later admit she’d been wrong about this.) In another instance she added an extra child to the children of the Duke of York and Cecily Neville. When queried she admitted she got the information from ‘someone’s own family tree in the 1960’s.’ Again, seriously?

          1. Weir did a little bit of history as part of a teacher-training BEd degree.
            Gregory studied 18C English Literature.
            Neither is a historian.

      2. Weir is pretty decent, I agree. But this is he second time I’m reading her book, and she definitely thinks that Elizabeth wanted to marry Richard and had a thing for him shudders

        She believes in the Buck letter (meanwhile I’m of the belief that Elizabeth was referring to her father as her “only joy and maker,” used obviously in affectionate family terms, but that’s another issue).

        I give credit to Weir for bringing up that Arthur was very likely a premature baby. It makes a lot of sense and trashes PG’s belief that Henry raped Elizabeth into the dust (aside from the fact that it’s common sense to realize that’s not true lmao).

        1. Personally I see no reason to accept Buck’s letter, apparently never seen by anybody else, as evidence.

    4. And How henry accessed at the tower? you know to could access the tower was needed an express order signed by the KING The princes were probably murdered in the summer of 1483. Most likely late July or sometime in August. If this is the time frame of their murder then it is unlikely that Tudor had anything to do with it. There would have been no point as Richard III was crowned King of England and his son, Edward of Middleham is still alive and well. It would not benefit Margaret Beaufort or Henry Tudor to have the two Princes murdered with richard and his line of succession intact. It would only benefit Richard III really and further his claim. Also, Beaufort’s husband did not have access to the Tower at this time. He was not Constable. Buckingham was Constable. Of course the two princes could have been murdered later but it seems that Buckingham told people the two princes were dead prior to his rebellion. Sooooo…. How did Buckingham know and why does he rebel against Richard III after that? Odd to say the least.

      Again Stanley was not Constable of the Tower when the two boys most likely disappeared. This is an often told lie about Stanley. He only became Constable after the Duke of Buckingham led a rebellion in late 1483 against Richard III. During the summer of 1483, when the boys disappeared, when they were last reported to be seen. The Duke of Buckingham was Constable and in no way an ally of Henry Tudor. In fact he was very dependent on King Richard III being King because he had supported him against the Woodvilles and did his bidding. So what happened to the Duke of Buckingham? After the two Princes in the Tower disappeared he led a rebellion against Richard III. It was probably Buckingham that told people that the princes were dead and he no doubt implied that Richard III was behind it. Buckingham was married to Katherine Woodville. He had no wish to be associated with Tudor until October of 1483 and it was because when the rebellion was forming people wanted to break the two boys out of the tower. Buckingham said there is no point because they were dead and it was better to focus on Tudor. Stanley does not become the constable until after all this happened.

        1. The only “evidence” or “proof” were basically rumor and when the boys were last seen.
          One thing is that like Teddy, Earl of Warwick was used by those who wanted to claim the crown for themselves and use him as a puppet. Buckingham might have supported Henry Tudor thinking the same thing. The Rivers wanted the same thing with the Princes. It seems that these kids and even young men were being used as pawns.

        2. There is no “proof” of course or this “debate” wouldn’t still be going on. There are however facts that implicate Richard and no facts that implicate Margaret.

    5. Henry Tudor could not have killed the boys because he wasn’t in England at the time. The killing of children, especially royal children was especially horrendous even back then and the idea that Margaret Beaufort would have anything do to with something like that has little to no evidence. He probably heard about it through rumors like everyone else did, rumors which were conflicting.
      Maybe Richard didn’t kill them. I’ve wondered about that and though this is a bit out there, they were heavily guarded deep within the Tower, royal apartments or not, and only Richard knew where they were at exactly. You’re gonna say that Henry managed to bribe the guards who were sworn to serve Richard and they would lose their heads if they disobeyed, but allowed a group in there just to kill the Princes? I don’t think so.
      One theory could also be that no one murdered them at all. There were illnesses that were around back then that are mysterious to this day. The “sweating sickness” seemed to effect the high born and anyone who served them. It could be they both died from that, their keepers saw that and had their secretly buried.
      It could also be true that they were smuggled out, lived as a commoner and found they liked that better than being King because they were less restricted and no one was out to get them to kill them so they just remained as common people because the preferred it. That’s a bit out there.
      Henry also did not have a hate for the Yorks as portrayed in the series, but it was a cloud over his head. True, he was in exile however it’s not a far stretch that he realized why he was. Edward IV didn’t hate him and actually gave him a noble upbringing until Warwick put Henry VI back on the throne and he was summoned to the court. After Warwick’s defeat, Edward was not forgiving as he had been which meant Henry VII had to get the hell out of England until things settled down. Edward signed papers allowing him to return so why would Henry want to kill them. I don’t think he ever thought he would be king, just have his lands and titles back. That was a big thing back then. Today, it’s not so much.
      But, I would like to hear HOW Henry or his mother would’ve been able to get in the Tower find out where they were, bribe those guarding him just to kill them.

      1. the Tower was a palace, so anyone royal could get in fairly easily.
        However, nobody is saying that Richard personally or Henry personally killed them. “Have them killed” is probably more accurate. Margaret or Henry could have done that. However, there is no definite date of the boys’ deaths. If the skeletons found in the Tower are of the boys, which is unlikely, they would have been older. How do we know the boys didn’t survive until Henry won the Battle of Bosworth? And then found them alive in the Tower?
        The trouble is, so much was deliberately destroyed from the records that there is little left, and we only have one person’s account, and he is an unreliable narrator. So it’s all up in the air, really.
        Ironic, because the life of Queen Elizabeth, a century later, is almost completely recorded, through royal inventories, letters, accounts and so on. If Moreton had left those alone, we’d know a lot more.

        1. What would they gain from killing them? Richard becoming king. His heir in good health at that time. The princes being dead wouldn’t put Henry on the throne. If they were alive until September 1485 why did no one see them? If they did pay to have them killed why did Richard apparently not notice?

          What records were “deliberately destroyed”?

          And it’s not Moreton, it’s More.

          1. It’s Moreton. Bishop Morton (in some accounts, Moreton) was the mentor of Thomas More, who wrote the book. Morton also wrote an account. They are both the tale told by the victors, and considering the way Morton (the bishop) set fire to the royal library, or as many papers concerning Richard as he could get his hands on, I wouldn’t trust his rewriting of history for a minute.
            You can find the records of the destruction in the contemporary records, and the Chronicles Morton didn’t get his hands on. There’s a reference to it in the Chronicles of London, for instance.
            During the Reformation many more records were destroyed, since they were kept by monks and nuns. Which is a huge shame.
            The two men said to have killed the Princes were only indicted by Henry VIII, after a dispute with them. They worked for Henry VII, so the indictment was probably a ruse to get rid of them.
            I like the Henry VII theory because it’s so neat, but I don’t really believe it. It’s a possibility, that’s all. However, since you ask, the Act that made the boys illegitimate covered their sister Elizabeth, too. And Henry married Elizabeth to cement his shaky claim to the throne. If the boys were re-legitimised, then so was she, and she had a greater claim to the throne. And how do we know nobody saw them, since the records from that time are mostly gone?
            Buckingham, on the other hand, had ample motive, prior (he’d done the same thing to the Bishop of Lincoln – blamed him for a murder he hadn’t done, and turned people against him), and it would help to explain why Richard turned on Buckingham so suddenly. He knew the murder of the princes would be heaped on his shoulders.

            1. And I ask again – where were they for two years? Their mother was alive and set about engineering a marriage between her daughter and Henry Tudor – why? Is it really likely that absolutely every record of them being alive was destroyed? That no one at all saw them and mentioned the fact in private papers? If Buckingham was responsible they were dead by the end of 1483 – no mention of them being seen at all. There were rumours that the king had done away with them; the obvious way to dispel those rumours was to produce them. He didn’t.

              Henry was probably convinced that the boys were dead. He carried out a search of the Tower and found nothing. He may not have known precisely what happened but he could infer enough to feel confident that legitimising EIV’s children presented no real threat to himself.

              The idea that Elizabeth of York could have been Queen Regnant, whilst obvious to modern sensibilities, would have been distinctly unappealing to late medieval ones. The last time it had been tried was a disaster. Marrying her put everyone’s eggs in one basket and made sound political sense, especially as Henry had taken a solemn vow to do it on Christmas Day 1483. Did it strengthen his position? yes; would anyone have taken Elizabeth seriously as queen in her own right? No.

  3. OK! THREE things…
    1. There is evidence that he princes did not die and were in fact fostered/married into Thomas Moore’s family. There are versions of the sketches in Holbein’s hand with two “mysterious” gentlemen in the doorway at the back. There are other clues – fashionable for the time – that allude to their heritage. (How do I know this? Check the last name. Kids very proud to be able to trace back to 1066.)

    WTF is Margaret wearing on her head from week to week!
    WOULD THEY STOP WEARING THEIR GOWNS BACKWARDS! Recycled obs, but you don’t make it “new” and “edgy” by putting it on backwards!

    /rant
    breathe

    1. I think those evidence are so easily dismissed since if her brother was alive then EoY would have never let them languish with some other noble family and would have revolted from her husband if he refused to give them the crown because a) law and b) His claim to the throne is basically zero and EoY wouldn’t want to be seen as a wife of a man whose descent is from a chamberservand of Edward III.
      Why would any noble family would just keep quite if they have real heirs of the throne with them when they could use them and be the top man of the kingdom? just like Neville was doing with Edward IV?
      Those princes being alive like that makes zero sense and frankly requires number of anachronistic explanations to make it float.

      1. The More family theory has no credible evidence at all, but that aside, kings didn’t relinquish the crown if a more eligible claimant showed up; also, Henry’s claim was not through his father but through his mother, and, contrary to widely held – and repeated – belief, that line was not barred from the succession, Henry IV’s addition to Richard II’s original act never having been ratified by Parliament (in fact a whole new act would have been required) and therefore having no legal standing at all.

    2. There is no such evidence, just a very silly theory.

      You’re one of those Tyrrells???? Color me impressed!

    3. I’m not sure what they called it, what she was wearing on her head, but it was fashionable for the time for high born ladies. There is a drawing of Elizabeth of York wearing the same thing. Check out Shadow of the Tower on Youtube. It’s a very old, from 1972, version of the story of Henry Tudor’s reign.

  4. For the record, in the book and on the show Henry raped Elizabeth before they got married to make sure she was pregnant first before they married. Otherwise you’re spot on.

    1. This.

      There’s articles out there on how it’s not rape, how she turned it around, how feminist empowering it was, etc.

      Yeah. It’s still rape. He locked the door and forced her onto the bed. He told her she had no choice. She consented because it was that or be held down. Sorry, Frost. Still rape.

      1. Correct! and can you imagine that they wanted us to swallow the fact that staunch christian Henry and Margaret would sanction out of wed lock sex? last time i checked everyone knew fertility was determined how they used to with breeding animals back in middle ages( i know yuck!) :- if women of the family had lots of children then the daughter will have too. That is why the real Kathyrine of Aragon’s multiple stillbirth and miscarriages was so bewildering since her own mother and sister had multiple healthy children who managed to live past age 5. Elizabeth of Woodwille had some whooping 12 children within her two marriage with 10 alone with Edward IV.
        Gregory can’t even stick true to her own quasi-fake-medieval setting.

        1. Yes, and even leaving the evidence aside (all the children of the Woodvilles, not to mention the DOZENS of cousins in the same family line), Henry could not afford to risk any of his children being deemed a ‘bastard.’ His claim to the throne was tenuous, so he needed legitimacy; knocking up Elizabeth of York outside of wedlock would have further undermined his claims. (This is why the stupid subplot in the book about his affair with Cathy Gordon is also absurd; any affairs might result in illegitimate children to threaten his children’s line of succession. And in case anyone gets inventive about how they could avoid having children, the Church forbade a lot of sexual practices — and Henry was pious. Since the Church preached “HELL” at the time, anyone pious wanted to avoid anything that would gain them extra condemnation after death. This is probably why Henry hesitated so often to execute even his enemies; he handed out a great many pardons that came around to bite him in the butt later, no doubt for “fear for my immortal soul.”) Many non-historian-inclined readers would not realize the complete irrationality of either one of these plot lines; that Gregory chooses to use them shows either a lack of understanding for the period, or a deliberate IGNORING of the morals and beliefs of the period (more likely).

          Someone mentioned below that Gregory seems to use every nasty slander she can find in the history books against the women; but not the men. I think she shows certain strong favoritism toward certain men, but not others — in the case of Richard, she leaves out a lot of his flaws and his scolioisis; but she invents awful things about Henry VII (a rapist, a mamma’s boy, a fool) and King Edward (who also tries to rape Elizabeth Woodville). She goes out of her way to malign Margaret Beaufort — although the ridiculous murder of Jasper Tudor is pure Emma Frost. And have you read her book about Catherine Parr and Henry VIII? Never thought I could feel sorry for the old bastard, but she makes him a driveling, letcherous old slob who literally ‘gets off’ on SPANKING Catherine Parr. So, I think if it’s “there,” she uses it; if not, she invents it.

          1. oh i was the one who mentioned the “which sex gets the most unfavorable treatment by gregory”. I actually thought about including Edward and Henry but then i felt like both these men were slandered not especially to make them controversial for themselves but were basically happy accidents of using “hated then loved” trope . Trite. I never heard of this new book of hers but if it paints Henry VIII as anything less than a sociopath then it is inaccurate. Henry was less lecherous and more of a braggart. His mistresses were few and he preferred the my way or highway approach to marriage wherein the doomed wives have to comply with his delusional games of romance like Katheryn of Aragon used to do or get out of his way when they refused him anything whether it was complying with his ideas of romance, religion, ego stroking etc
            here: http://under-these-restless-skies.blogspot.in/p/the-real.html

            1. Henry was delusional, narcissistic, and had psychopathic traits — anyone or anything who threatened the public perception of his delusions was targeted and eliminated, even if it caused a political crisis as a result (such as Sir Thomas More).

              I read your post; I see that someone in the comments mentions the jousting accident. If you study Henry VIII’s younger life, he already had problematic traits. As early as a couple years into his first marriage, he was ‘punishing’ Katharine of Aragon for objecting to his flirtations with other women, by picking out her FAVORITE lady at court and sending her away. The weird thing is… how charismatic he was. And how generous he started out. I guess he gave away all those castles just to earn favor from his courtiers. :P

              1. It’s very common for people with sociopathic tendencies or any other emotional disorder where the person often abuses and manipulates the people around them to be very charismatic and charming. I imagine Henry VIII was no different in this regard.

                I’ve read a lot of things where he started out as a mild mannered King just eager to live up to his father’s wishes of him. Somewhere down the line, he devolved into a monster.

        2. I believe Arthur was born a month earlier than expected, which is probably the reason for some of the stories about Henry and Elizabeth getting it on early. Not sure if the rumors and stories are contemporary, though, or a later edition.

        3. Not sure Margaret and Henry were staunch Christians either. We know that being pious was a part of life back then, but Margaret did like having fun and the way Gregory has her, she’s in a constant depressed and sullen mood, is blindingly supportive of Henry VI even though I wonder if even the Lancasters did not think that Edward was the better King.
          Check out Dan Jones’s The War of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudor Dynasty” because he’s pretty good at researching the subject. He also did a series of “Britian’s Bloodies Crown” and “Britian’s Bloodiest Dynasty” on YouTube. His take is a bit different than most Historians want to put it while also having facts that are historically true and known.

  5. I decided enough was enough when Margaret of Beaufort killed Jasper Tudor. I despise Phillipa Gregory. A novel doesn’t have to be a historical treatise but at least stick to the facts. It’s not hard.

    1. I have always avoided her material. I sussed her out right away. She stands right beside Dan Brown in my opinion. DB didn’t claim to write history. His biggest problem was not being able to write at all.

    2. Historical fiction novels should put in facts when available and then create scenarios based on what minimal information is left. Writers owe that to history.

    3. As someone mentioned earlier, the killing Jasper Tudor wasn’t Phillippa Gregory. It was Emma Frost’s. I was a little surprised too since it wasn’t in the book.

  6. Gregory is fun to read, but despite her claims, she is not much of a historian. You could say she writes historical fantasies with all that magic and goddess Melusine’s intervention.I liked the White Queen better. Characters were nicer, better acting. Here even veteran actors like Michelle Fairley and Essie Davis are annoying but there is one thing I learned in this show, Henry VIII’s weirdness came from his parents. Lizzie was abused, Henry was paranoid, and those scheming grandmothers are the pits.
    The only character I’m investing in this series is Maggie, she is so sweet, and when you think of all she went through afterwards, you hate the Tudors.
    One correction, uncle-niece fucking was uncool in England, not in the continent. Or Colonial America. It was outlawed for the first time in the States in Ohio, the 1850s.
    What historical incoherence bugs the shit out of me? The quasi romance between Jasper Tudor and Margaret of Burgundy. He was never sent to her court so having them make goo-goo eyes at each other was embarrassing. I was so pleased to see Marie of Burgundy, and she did die on a riding accident, but it had nothing to do with the English diplomatic efforts. The whole thing was so idiotic.
    I dn’t mind My Lady, The King’s Mother murdering Jasper. She looks like a black mantis in that kookie headdress, so it was befitting she killed her mate.

  7. Just saying as a Spaniard that I am still screaming about the inaccurate meeting between Henry VII and EoY and the Catholic Kings complete with a flamenco flash mob lead by Catherine of Aragon. (Like way to ram the point that yes IT IS SPAIN WE KNOW THAT. Despite the fact a courtier wouldn’t be caught dead dancing like that, let alone an Infanta)

    (Then again shame on me because I know what I was getting into)

    1. ACK! the fact that Catherine of Aragon like 4 or 5 and Flamenco was not danced until the 1700’s as part of the mantilla movement.

      1. My goodness way to make her ahead of her time XDXDXD

        (I am no dance expert -yeah not all Spaniards- so I thank you for that tidbit! )

        1. Why it’s so hard for producers to accept that Isabella and Catherine of Aragon were red-headed? Those creatures in “The White Princess ”looked more like Lola Flores’ family than Trastamaras

          1. Catherine is often depicted as brunette, even borderline swarthy (see Anne of the Thousand Days for example) since the popular notion is that Spaniards are dark/swarthy/brunettes/ How else would she look? /s

            The old BBC Six Wives of Henry VIII had it right, at least.

            1. Yess, Anette Crosby, she was a strawberry blonde. I remember poor Irene Papas, her Greek looks had nothing to do with the real Catherine. But even in Spanish miniseries they look wrong. In “Isabel”, the queen was blonde. The one that got the right auburn hue was Rachel Weisz in “The Fountain.”

    2. Lil Catharine of Aragon’s version of the “Coming to America” dance added 10 years to my life! That little girl saved the episode bc she had me doubled-over crying laughing 😂. Whatever part of the witchcraft, wizardry, and medieval motherfuckery game this is…I fully support. That scene was so weirdly wonderful I just gave in to the ridiculousness on display.

      1. Maybe the writers included little Catalina’s dance performance because the princess was supposed to be an accomplished dancer? Though I found it hard to believe that the Catholic King and Queen would display their daughter as a performer in an entertainment to her prospective in-laws. If you totally ignore the historical context, it was a cute scene, the little girl seemed to be quite a good dancer.

        1. Maybe they just wanted her to be adorable and charming and the dance was the one way they could distinguish her from other monarchs of the time. I thought that little girl was just too cute.

    3. Spaniard too. and I’m not screaming. I’M FUCKING FURIOUS! Spain in those ages danced salterellos, saltatios, ronderellas, bransles and pavanes. JUST LIKE ANY OTHER EUROPEAN FUCKING COUNTRY( If you go to crica 1650 a new dance begins to appear, called Canarios, the Origin of the jota and other dances alike) I give you a link about a canarios dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh-94sxuduI )

  8. Thank you for the shout-out about the real Henry Tudor. I’m sick of the rampant modern hatred toward him in favor of romanticizing Richard III.

    Look, both had their issues. Both committed moral crimes. Get over it.

    Also, here’s a radical thought: you can like them both.

    Either way, can we agree Gregory screws them all over? And that she has a serious hatred of the Tudors in general?

    I whined about the historical inaccuracies in the first episode on my blog; but it has gone way beyond the pale, as it progressed. Here’s a handful of LOL WUT? that comes to mind:

    Margaret Beaufort murdered the princes, and then murders Jasper Tudor to keep it quiet. Yes, because smothering a guy is so easy when you weigh 90 pounds. It’s really just leaning over him slightly and applying pressure. Sure.

    Elizabeth Woodville sure looks good for being dead a few years. And yet, she’s still showing up at family events to scream about her lost princes being the true rulers. Nice, Grandma. Real nice. Also, the series conveniently forgets she brokered her daughter’s marriage to Henry Tudor in the first place. So… like, she wouldn’t hate it? Woops.

    Why is Emperor Maximilian’s wife still alive? She’d been dead… awhile…? OH yes, so a stupid competition with the English envoy can kill her (she falls from a horse) and give Margaret of Burgundy yet ANOTHER reason to hate the Tudors!

    So, Perkin Warbeck comes fresh off his wedding (where the King of Scotland is present, because apparently this is Serious Business) and decides to invade England; and Henry is all — but this would be a great time to TRAVEL TO SPAIN AND MEET FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. And so they do, never mind that they’re, you know, leaving their country unguarded and going on a journey that could take weeks; and then when they get there, a little brown-eyed, olive-skinned, dark-haired Katharine of Aragon flash mobs them with a fiery Latin dance (I can’t make this stuff up) and then… walks off with a little flounce. And then Head Bitch!Isabella shames them in public and talks down to them, while Ferdinand is just LOLZ, my wife rules this roost. I can’t even.

    Best part, though, was Margaret Beaufort collecting Perkin Warbeck from the Abbey after the battle because apparently “Yeah, God told me you should give him to us, Sanctuary doesn’t apply” … works?

    My friends keep asking me why, as a 1500’s amateur historian, I watch this crap.

    Because it’s FUN to hate-watch things.

    1. Maybe we need a “hate-watch” category — we tend to just come down on “yay, this is great bec. it’s historically accurate” or “snark the shit out of everything that’s wrong.” Admittedly, since we’re trying to watch & review, we don’t have as much luxury to hate-watch anymore (I know, woe is us, hahahaha).

    2. This is the best post ever. I feel like sending it to everyone who thinks TWP is historically accurate.

    3. Hate-watching is a good description for why I’ve watched this series twice. (well, that and the actor playing Henry VII is simply adorable and can act, too) I cringed when Elizabeth Woodville comes to court and starts screaming about her son Prince Richard coming back to claim the throne – Elizabeth Woodville was not an idiot. If she had believed that Warbeck really was Richard, the last thing she would have done was trumpet his coming; she’d have kept her mouth shut until he’d arrived and defeated Henry and taken the throne.

      I did enjoy little Katherine’s dance recital; even though I had to shut down all reference 15th century royal etiquette to do so, and just think of it as very pseudo-historic and rather surreal.

    4. Charity, that was great and funny. There were so many liberties taken with this series. I get the idea of Historical fiction, but that is what it is, FICTION and so many people just suck it up and take it for truth. Gregory got paid a lot of money for things she hadn’t researched as well as she claimed to think she has.
      The Tudors gave us Elizabeth, one of the most renowned and celebrated English Queens in history and a formidable female leader during a time when it was not common.
      Where did you say your blog was again?

      1. At least I haven’t seen Gregory lately in any of those English ‘bios’ about the Tudors (but I have seen actual historians) so maybe her moon is waning. :P

        I blog at charitysplace.wordpress.com, but not often. Most of my stuff is at charitysplace.com. :)

  9. In the book(Which I hate!) it was supposed to be ambiguous whether the pretender really was Richard. In the show they gave it away that Richard did survive in the 1st preview! WTF, Starz do you think we’re stupid! It was one of the few things about Philippa’s book that I could respect! Also I will say a positive: The made Elizabeth of York (Fuck that Lizzie shit!) at the very least a little bit less of an all encompassing Twit! Yes I was throwing the White Princess a bone to be nice!

  10. And while I this is, comparatively speaking, a minor point — is there NO HAIR DYE AVAILABLE to the show-makers? I mean, “Lizzie’s” supposedly blonde hair has constant brunette roots. I also feel that turning one of history’s most famous redheads (the future Henry VIII) into a brown-haired boy is…let’s just say irritating, and leave it at that. As for the “Let’s pop over to Spain” thing, and the Infanta of the most etiquette-bound court in Europe doing a flamenco dance, words are failing me here. (PS: Catharine of Aragon had red-gold hair. Portraits of her indicate this clearly.) (Arrggh!)

  11. That’s the show where they even get the plants wrong, right?
    Well, the kids are cute, at least.

    But what with the dress fabric and the unfortunate boobage?

  12. Point 6. It’s written by Philippa Gregory, which renders points 1-5 superfluous. How she has the stones to call herself a historian boggles my mind.

      1. Philippas Langley and Gregory and John I don’t really have a huge crush on Richard III Ashdown Hill are like an unholy trinity of revisionist horror on anything connected to RIII.

      2. Right? I saw her in some documentary that also had David Starkey and I was like “…how?”

        1. There’s nothing wrong with historical revisionism – no judgement on a person is set in stone, but Gregory isn’t a historian and Starkey is a Tudor specialist, not a 15th century expert. Gregory suffers very badly from an inability to distinguish between proper history based the considered interpretation of primary sources and the writing of historical fiction, where liberties of interpretation and character are permitted – she’s as bad as Alison Weir in that respect. The one star demolishing of The Other Boleyn Girl on Amazon are highly entertaining.

  13. I like King Richard the third I think he was kind to his wife and children maybe the power went to his head a bit but where is the proof that he did in the young princes it is possible that someone else did it Margaret Beaufort didn’t murder her friend Jasper Tudor I know that she owed him for looking after Henry

    1. Richard of Gregory’s maybe kind but real one was famous for his temper and rages and he also fathered at least one known bastard so he was not especially faithful to his wife as well. The way i saw it , his sudden production of those betrothal papers which Edward IV never fulfilled and used to declare a church sanctified , consummated marriage as invalid does look like Richard was actively using any loophole he can to climb up the throne. First as a Lord Protector and then as King himself. Maybe he didn’t murder those princes but they were in a position of such vulnerability was because of him and they were out of line for throne and in a tower when their supporters were being killed is really damning for Richard as it is without murder charges on top. I do hate the ableism his reputation suffered though due to tudor propaganda. He didn’t deserve that.

      1. I think that Richard III sired his illegitimate children (he had two) before marrying Anne Neville; so there’s no proof that he was actually unfaithful to her.

    2. Richard had the means, motive and opportunity; he did not account for them when it was rumoured he’d killed them; if he didn’t order it himself then either he failed to notice they’d been killed or it suited him to keep quiet about it.

      There is nothing at all to suggest that Beaufort was guilty of it, and she’s only really become a suspect as part of the Anyone But Richard movement.

  14. Philippas Gregory and Langley and John Ashdown Hill show up like the Three Weird Sisters of some revisionist Ricardian nightmare. Ugh.

  15. This article is perfect! but i would also like to add a perspective of a women who comes from a country were arranged marriage is not uncool – You mentioned Elizabeth of York may have possibly hated her husband in real history but i don’t think so the mere possibility of it is even possible. The guy basically saved her life by killing the man who declared her a religious and social pariah and made her a queen she was raised to be and was expecting to be if not her own country then of some other European country for sure. I can see her feeling a little hesitant but not animosity for a man who saved her life from “damnation” due to her supposed bastardy . But i can see why Gregory included the hate element because “lovers starting as enemy” is a dry as a dust but workable trope and using tropes is a sign of a average to poor writer especially if even doesn’t makes sense. blech!
    P.S: have you guys noticed that Gregory as this habit of including every slanderous rumor about famous queens she writes about but none for her kings or male characters? example of EoY and Richard III. EoY slept with her uncle was a slandering rumor while Richard’s bastard, his sclerosis and his temper tantrums which are verifiable facts are all missing! it is like she is determined to paint every one her women as a evil witch to get more readers as possible .

  16. Y’know, I could deal with nicknames for Elizabeth of York if they got one that would have been more accurate for the time period.

    Like oh, I don’t know….BESS and BESSIE.

    As far as Richard and Elizabeth…I don’t believe it on Elizabeth’s side. Not one bit. She was renowned for her piety, and why the hell would she be pining for a man that screwed the future of her mother and sisters by calling them bastards AND was the chief suspect in the disappearance of her brothers?!

    Richard, however….isn’t it true that untreated sclerosis can warp the brain? And I’ve read that Richard’s advisors had to really fight to get him to announce he wasn’t going to marry Elizabeth.

    There’s a letter that’s based on the mutual incest claim where supposedly Elizabeth calls Richard “her only joy and maker.” Funny thing is, we’ve got no proof that she said such a thing about RICHARD. We just know she’s writing to the intended receiver to speed up something for her and calls someone unknown her, “only joy and maker.”

    I’ve got my own theories on that; I believe she’s referring to her father as her only joy and maker. And she’s asking for the matter of her marriage to whomever (NOT RICHARD), to be sped up to secure her future and her family’s futures.

    And who knows, perhaps she was requesting that her marriage to Henry Tudor himself was sped up and resolved. Because Edward IV DID seriously look into marrying Elizabeth and Henry during his own reign; it was his move to establish an official end to the War of the Roses and bring peace. He looked into it after it was clear Elizabeth wasn’t going to be marrying the Dauphin of France.

  17. Oh yes, I’ve found my sisters!
    Actually, I’m a Ricardian, but having been born in Leicester on August 22nd, I didn’t have much choice. I don’t think he was blameless, but I do think that Buckingham did it, in order to cast aspersions on Richard, and he did it just before his rebellion. Richard didn’t produce the bodies, either because he didn’t know where they were, or because the damage was already done, and he would have been accused of killing them anyway. He had no reason to kill them. He was King by acclamation. Killing them at that time was stupid, and Richard wasn’t stupid. I think that by Bosworth he had a death wish anyway. His wife and son were dead. If he did have a hand in killing the boys, then he might have seen it as retribution. Who knows, since Henry VII’s minions had a lot of bonfires after he got to the throne.
    In any case, I’ve been avoiding Gregory’s version of history since she did That Stuff to Mary Boleyn. Utter nonsense.
    I’ve met people who think Gregory writes real history. For realz. Drives me demented. When you’re writing historical fiction there are things that Could Have Happened, and that’s where we play, and Things That Couldn’t Have Happened, which is crossing the line.
    In this instance, the Carry On team could have done a better job. And it would have been funnier, too.

    1. He didn’t have sclerosis, he had scoliosis; it does not affect the brain or mental capacity.

  18. What happened to the Tudor red with those kids? We can keep Elizabeth I as a redhead and she was passionately proud of looking like her father (ie, red hair and fair skin). I’m guessing the boy next to the little girl is Henry, right?

    I really hope you talk about this dress: http://qweenmakers.tumblr.com/post/160885633181. I couldn’t make head nor tails of it!

  19. Am I the only person who does not blame either Richard III or Henry VII for the death of the princes?! look at the times and the lack of medical care. My personal belief is simply that the boys died of plague or sweating sickness both which were prevalent at the time. To prevent their deaths being used against Richard, they were buried in secret.

    1. That’s interesting! It’s known from a brief contemporary reference that the older boy had a “diseased” jaw, though whether it was a bad tooth or cancer or something else is not known.

      1. Abscesses are a very real danger in the absence of dental care. If someone didn’t get a rotten tooth pulled in time, there was (is!) a real danger of death.

        I like Josephine Tey’s take on the Richard III thing, where she presents the evidence at hand, but while she comes to the conclusion that he was innocent of their murders, she spends the whole book talking about how it’s really easy to accept the lies about history and hard to find the truth because of lack of real evidence. (That book also has the protagonist claim the (1950s) medical “knowledge” that “All outsized women are sexually cold. Ask any doctor.” It makes me snicker “Any male doctor raised in a generation immediately following one in which female sexuality was seen as a medical disorder; of course they’d believe that.”)

    2. I am friends with a couple that cannot talk about who was responsible for the death of the Princes in the Tower without getting into a MASSIVE fight. We all know to steer clear of the topic when they’re around (because, yes, we all do sit around talking about history almost all the time) unless all sharp objects are put away.

      As for me, I don’t have a pet theory one way or the other.

  20. Please, may you write about the mistakes they did regarding Spain?? Firstly. They showed The Royal Alcazar of Seville as the Alhambra of Granada. Later, the entrance of Katherine of Aragon dancing a weird kind of flamenco is just outrageous. Finally, Queen Isabella the Catholic dressed as a queen of cards is extremely funny. If you want to find an accurate representation of her, look for the series “Isabel”.

    1. And in the finale, Señor de Puebla’s hat! Was he an envoy of the Sultan? Right, Natalia Rodriguez had the correct coloring, but Michelle Jenner was a bit too blonde. Isabel de Castilla had red hair.

  21. If you knew anything about the Tudors and Yorks, you would know that Elizabeth of York was the older than her York brothers. She was 4 years older than her brother Edward and 7 years older than Richard. Also, if you knew the story behind the names of White Princess and White Queen you would know that Elizabeth of York was called the “White Rose of York” for her beauty and her family name. Also, the white rose was the York Symbol. Her mother was the York Queen and there for the White Queen.

    I will agree about issue with regards to Richard III.

    However, with Henry the VII, their marriage we can not say it started out happily. What we do know is, Elizabeth of York was pregnant when she and Henry married. Their son Arthur was born less than 9 months after they were married. We also know thanks to records, that Henry and Elizabeth were, at least by the time she died, deeply in love.

    Can’t say about the feud between Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort as there are no published diaries or similar papers.

    1. I don’t think we “know” that Elizabeth was pregnant when she and Henry were married. A lot of babies were (and are) born early. It is a rumor that she was pregnant. As someone pointed out earlier, I can’t see pious Henry or his mother going for that.

  22. Lot’s of minor details, apart from the obvious historic inaccuracies.

    Women of that time would not be swanning about in their night clothes, nor have their hair down. Depending on the circumstances it would either be covered with a cloth, or be sewn into a style.
    ‘Lizzie” would not have checked for pregnancy a day after the rape, women at the time would not known they were pregnant until the baby “quickened” ie they felt it move.

    The former Queen would not be readily offering to pour Henry a drink regardless of their feud, and she would still have had the status albeit mentally to expect others to cater to her.

    Margaret, Henry’s mother was only 12-13 years older than her son, but here they have made her appear far older than him.

    The “witch craft” thing is greatly overplayed, and was more accurately used as a means to discredit the former Queen rather than actually being something she did, or as the series suggests was successful in manipulating and traumatising people.

    “Lizzie” did not sleep or love the slain Richard, once again another attempt to smear the Yorkists that is taken as historical fact.

    The two younger sons of Elizabeth Woodville are generally said to have been murdered in the tower, either on the orders ofRichard who disinherited then and of which there are confessions from the supposed man who helped smother them , or Henry, nothing to do with Margaret.

    The idea that one escaped and became the imposter “Perkin” is pure fantasy.

    The whole sulky, envious sister depicted by Suki Waterhouse is also just nonsense.

    1. I don’t believe there’s any credible evidence to suggest that Henry did away with the boys. The went missing in 1483 when Henry was a penniless exile with no access to them and no means of getting anyone else to do the deed. Margaret’s husband is often cited as being Constable of the Tower as a way to explain how the Tudors could have done it, but he was in fact Constable of England, a purely ceremonial position.

  23. I read the Prince Richard plot point as ambiguous. This Dumb ass Fuck Fest( I refuse to justify this tripe by calling it a TV Show!) just gave us the answer outright, that yes he did survive the tower, why would Elizabeth logically marry her daughter to Henry Tudor if she had a living boy she could prop up as Queen?! Also there was a claimant who proclaimed to be a 2 year old girl named Lorraine Allison who reportedly died on Titanic with her mother Bessie and father Hudson in the 40’s when Lorraine would have been in her 30’s

  24. I find this hatred about the inaccuracies all very hilarious, if we’re going to witch hunt writers taking liberties lets start with Shakespeare first.
    It’s entertainment based on real people, from Macbeth to Braveheart, their reliance actual facts is tenuous to say the least.

    1. The attitude of the Tudors to history was very different to the way it is viewed now. Check your historiography.
      If an author today claims accuracy for her work, then these days we expect all the major events in the book to be historically correct. Gregory makes stuff up. If we were in Shakespeare’s time she could do it with impunity.
      But it’s not the sixteenth century any more.

    2. The difference between Shakespeare and Gregory is that he didn’t claim to be an historian who had done extensive research and come to the conclusion that “this is probably what happened”. Richard III isn’t even presented as a history but as “The Tragedy of King Richard III”.

      But let’s say you’re right and Shakespeare was slavishly churning out propaganda to fluff the Tudors (you’ll have to overlook Richard II of course) – what’s Gregory’s excuse? She appears unblushingly in documentaries as an historian when she’s nothing of the sort and she just makes things up. One might forgive her were her writing on a par with Shakespeare’s but it’s as crappy as her “history”.

  25. I think I can clock in with the nerdiest objection EVER to the White Princess! The method of church bell-ringing you can hear in several episodes is called “change-ringing” and it wasn’t invented until the early- to mid-17th century! As a ringer, it drives me mad to hear it nearly 200 years before it existed! There, is that the nerdiest snark ever, or isn’t it?

    1. My husband was introduced to the concept of change-ringing in the mystery “The Nine Tailors” (DL Sayers) and thinks your comment is awesomely nerdy!

      (I’ve seen varying critiques of that book that both praise and condemn the author’s description. If you’ve read it, I would love your opinion!)

  26. This article is so wrong in so many ways! First of all Gregory’s books are generally very close to the actual facts so the Title of the article is wrong! The five points raised in this article are about the details that are unknown to anyone and no proof can be found as to whether rumors, thought are actually true or not. First of all Elizabeth in the book does love Henry even if not from the beginning. No one can say if she was raped or not so the author of this article is claiming that it did not happen and Gregory the opposite. No screwing history here. Incest was not common practice in those days? The Hapsburgs were doing it all the time! Mary of England was supposed to marry her half-brother Henry Henry VIII’s illegitimate son so the idea definitely was not out of the question (Mary queen of Scots was thought as a bride for Edward VI). So possible that Richard and Elizabeth were having sex even though i believe those were rumors to slander Richard still my point of view and Gregory believes something else. The battle between the Kingsmother and Dowager Queen Elizabeth is one of dispute surrely but you provide no proof why it would not exist and the reason Margaret Beufort was always seen as a pious saint woman is because the Tudors won and if anyone is interested in history knows that the winners always are shown as the glorious heroes and the losers as sick corrupt villains (the Tudors claimed that the Earl of Warwick was simple, Richard a monster, Anne Neville unstable just like the Yorks claimed that Henry VI and Henry of Westminster were not sane and there are only “proof” for one of all these people mentioned). Gregory believes Perkins to be Richard. Again no bodies were found no one knows and he had a lot of European supporters. How can all these be historical inaccuracies? This terms is something completely different from the what you are trying to say in this article. These are the events that have been always disputed with no proof for or against it only evidences. An example of historically inacurancy in the books and series is that Isabel had a stillborn daughter and not a son when she was aboard the ship.This was documented and known and since Gregory wrote it was a boy this is a mistake. None of the five points you mention can be considered as getting history wrong.

  27. Oh dear; can you explain to me why, in the absence of anything to suggest it, writing a rape into this story is OK? Perhaps I could write a book saying that Richard III secretly ate new born kittens. I mean, there’s nothing to say he didn’t is there?

    No, incest in the English royal lines was not at all common, regardless of what the Hapsburgs were doing – but in any case, sleeping with the niece you’ve just made pretty much unmarriageable and vehemently denying that you intend to marry her yourself isn’t quite the same thing as marrying your cousin, is it?

    Margaret Beaufort’s reputation is not just the product of Tudor hagiography; her reputation as an evil harridan is relatively recent and there is absolutely nothing to back it up.

    Perkin Warbeck was pretty much certainly not who he claimed to be and it makes no sense that, had he been smuggled out of the Tower (why? Did no one trust RIII?) he’d have been sent to a nobody in Tournai rather than his Aunt of Burgundy in Holland where he’d have been safe and had status. He never mentions, in his letter to the crowned heads of Europe, who got him out or what happened to him after that.

    Taken all in all, look at the things that Gregory knowingly falsifies; look also at the fact that you are arguing as though she’s just taking creative liberties but then getting all of a doo-dah about history. If you enjoy her febrile rape fantasies fine; do not though try and justify them historically.

    1. Gregory is true to the actual facts? Have you ever read The Other Boleyn Girl? It’s twisted history at the best, but she actually changes ages and known facts. Since more contemporary records survive of the Tudor era than the late Plantagenet, it’s a better test.
      Compare that to Wolf Hall, where Mantel changes nothing known, but manages to put her own opinions and interpretations. There’s a huge difference there.
      Gregory does to the White Princess what she did in The Other Boleyn Girl. Twists and distorts. Which is fine, as long as you don’t start believing it. Where facts in The Other Boleyn Girl can be definitively proved, because of the paucity of reliable contemporary evidence for the late Plantagenets, it’s mostly non-proven.
      The spy Mancini, working as a double for both the Pope and for France, obviously changed a few facts to suit his masters, or only reported to them what they wanted to know, but he is the only primary source outside the court.
      But if there was even a whisper or rape, or if Richard showed more than ordinary fondness for his niece, you bet he would have written about it. Did he? No.
      Oh yes, and all that floppy hair? Sigh. No, just no.

  28. I watched and enjoyed The White Princes, HOWEVER, I viewed it knowing that it was historical fiction and NOT as everything being true and just having some elements of maybe truth such as Elizabeth in labor and Henry’s response to seeing his first born for the first time, some discontent that still went on with York v Lancaster.

    Yea, it makes no sense that Henry would destroy anything York especially when he was wanting to bring peace to England and want the “white rose” destroyed considering he was marrying one and his children would also have York blood in them. Also, though Margaret was a Lancaster, she was more related to the York. Margaret did not hate Edward and neither did Henry. Edward made sure he was educated and was given things because he was considered High Born, so why would Henry hate him?

    And poor Margaret. The Crown changed hand several times in her life before Henry won the crown and I guess the men involved never thought about how difficult it would be esp with a high born woman because it seems that the “low” born had it better in other ways regarding freedom and who they could marry and were not expected to show up at court and pledge herself to whomever was on the throne on any given day. Sometimes, I wish I could invent a time machine and ask her myself of who she thought was the better King. I also feel bad for “The Mad King” because he seems to have suffered from a form or either Autism or early onset Dementia but they had no way of knowing that at that time, or the royal’s curse” as it has been called. Too many cousins marrying cousins, etc.

    Also, it is not hard to think that (I am calling her Lizzie to distinguish her from her mother) Lizzie and Henry grew to love each other. When he became King, he had to petition the Vatican to have Elizabeth and Edward’s marriage declared legal and Lizzie as a legitimate child and that took some time, which is why I believe he was crowned first because it could have carried more of an urgency to it. He also didn’t announce it to the world that he had to do this. People probably knew, but he seemed quiet about it to his advisors who I know bugged him about when the wedding would be announced. It’s like they wanted him to announce publicly “HEY, my betrothed has been deemed a bastard and I have to wait to get that fixed, in the meantime, go about your day as if you didn’t hear that.” So, I would imagine that they got to know each other, talked and she and Elizabeth may have taught him things he would need to know for court and formal functions, you know, fun stuff.

    Instead, Philippa has Margaret being super, ultra pious, rigid and strict, not having a sense of humor who goes around judging everyone and assassinating two boys which is something as a mother seems very strange to do at the time and busting in on Henry and Elizabeth without knocking. And Elizabeth as constantly conspiring against her own daughter’s husband who she helped arrange to get rid of Richard.

    I did like both series because they had actors/actresses that I really liked and I wanted to see what they would do and how they would portray their parts. It’s a bit of escapism by some very talented people and I like to see the actors and how they do and everyone was excellent, for both series. I really liked seeing Jodie and Jacob portray Elizabeth and Henry. They had great chemistry and Jacob knew his history.

  29. Why did the call King Henry Vll second son Prince Harry in the show? Isnt that supposed to be Prince Henry Tudor Vlll?

  30. “but it’s a key plot point in Gregory’s book. She has Elizabeth of York’s (I refuse to call her Lizzie, UGH) older brother Richard alive, having not died in the Tower of London.”

    Richard was seven years younger than Elizabeth.

  31. So.. I study history and usually enjoy historic drama series like “the Tudors” and “The White Queen”, “Borgia”, “Versailles” and stuff and I know that it’s impossible to be 100% accurate for a series but at least I research before I start watching one and inform myself what the series did wrong. Tbh the changes for example in “The Tudors” were pretty okay for me. Yes the timeline was messed up for drama reasons and the costumes were pretty instead of accurate but hey at least you got a nice overview over the time. Same was for me while watching “The White Queen”. Yeah, witchcraft is no prooven thing but have you prooves against it? But apart from that and the Princess ElizabethxRichard III thing there was nothing that really disturbed me. So this review of “The White Princess” is pretty..bad? I ahevn’t seen it though but it looks like the author doesn’t enjoy historical fiction in general. So, is it really that bad? Or do you consider “The White Queen” just as bad as “The White Princess” so that the series for people who like “The White Queen” and still appreciate accuracy still might enjoy it? This is no hate or critisism I just want to know :)

  32. Not sure if someone has tackled this subject yet, as I had to give up trying to read the comments because mobile site doesn’t like this site’s format and made it hella difficult ANYWAY, my comment is on this assessment of uncle/niece marriages. While it’s true that a papal dispensation was needed in order to ‘keep it in the family’, all one needs to do is merely take a glance at the Hapsburg family tree (and paintings) to see how easy it was for the pope to thumbs up incestuous matrimony. There’s even a couple of uncle/niece marriages, and [Spain] was quite pro-papacy. And while Henry VIII was related to every one of his wives, he was actually closer in relation to Catherine of Aragon than his English wives!
    (I have way too much fun studying royal genealogy and what I like to call, – ‘the six generations of separation of Henry VIII’)

  33. While all of your are bitching about how untrue these series and the books are I rather enjoyed them. Knowing none of these are based on truth I watched with interest of just getting away in my mind of everyday life and relaxing. If this type of stuff pisses you all off so much then don’t watch it. Its negative people like you that continuously bring down people in this world. Get over yourself and your feeling of having to prove a point of this is not real shit. If people want the facts they will research it all and get what they need. No one needs snooty ass idiots like you all downing the actors and story writers because you feel it’s all horrible because its far from the truth. Get over yourselves and grow up it just a set of series, idiots.

      1. or to put it another way, the writers should have some fucking respect for the people they are pretending to represent. If you want to make it up as you go along, don’t dump all the crap on somebody who actually existed. Make up a character, have fun.

    1. I so agree lol these kinds of posts/articles are just people needing to validate some personal superiority. Joke is on them …we just like it for the romp. Never has it been marketed as a documentary. And if you’ve ever read some of PG’s earlier works she clearly dabbles in fantasy. I – educated history and anth major – enjoyed it as the entertainment it was intended to be. Pretty sure no school board is using it as a history lesson haha

      1. Do you see the title of the thread? Do you? What is it, educated history and anth major, that would lead you to expect anything other than people bitching about historical inaccuracies? If you think people watching this and complaining is silly, how much sillier is looking at a thread with a title like that and coming over all superior about it doing exactly what it says on the tin?

    2. Agreed, J. Personally, I think the blogger is just jealous because she can’t laugh all the way to the bank the way Gregory is doing. Gregory doesn’t pretend her works are actual history; they’re clearly labeled historical fiction and the shows should be taken the same. If that chaps people’s ass, well, there’s a simple solution. Don’t watch it.

  34. I don’t like The White Princess, Reign, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Tudors etc either, but I’ll give the fiction writers a pass on #4 Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville’s battle.

    Elizabeth Woodville’s retirement to the abbey was probably forced, her properties were transferred away, she was given little to live on and a cheap funeral. There are quite a few historians who come to mind that have argued that she was not treated fairly by the Tudors after Henry VII’s accession like Susie Higginbotham, David Starkey and David Baldwin. I don’t think Beaufort and Woodville not liking eachother is a farfetched possibility for a screenwriter or novelist to explore

  35. There’s nothing to suggest that her retirement was forced; of course her property was transferred – she had no use for it, and the “cheap funeral” was specified by her in her will.

    David Starkey also states that Margaret Beaufort was “the mother in law from hell”, but there’s no basis for that opinion either.

    And the problem with Gregory is that she represents herself not as a writer of fiction but as an historian who has done extensive research and come to the conclusion that “This is probably what happened” – including the pre marital rape for which there can literally be no evidence at all.

  36. All excellent well reasoned and well researched comments, unlike the drivel in Gregory’s books. If she claims to be a historian, I would say that it is a good thing she did not write her thesis on the War of the Roses and Tudor periods or she would never have been able to defend it.

  37. FYI, Richard was not Elizabeth of York’s older brother. He was her younger brother. Elizabeth was the eldest child.

    If you’re going to throw rocks…

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