Women of the White Queen: Marguerite of Anjou

From the beginning Marguerite of Anjou was a controversial queen. Few queens of England have so divided opinion; few have suffered more from the propaganda spread by their enemies.  Historians over the years have portrayed her as vengeful and ambitious.  In Shakespeare’s trilogy, she is the she-wolf of France, vilifying her as an adulteress and warmonger.  In Richard III, she is depicted as a one-woman Greek chorus.  Marguerite’s marriage was supposed to bring peace with France, but instead England dissolved into civil war during her husband’s reign, due to his mental illness and general unfitness to rule.  She acted with the best of all possible motives, to support first her husband, and then her son. Marguerite has borne the brunt of the responsibility for what went wrong during Henry’s reign. Like Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella, she is seen as an unnatural woman for meddling in affairs of state.

Marguerite was born on March 23, 1430, the daughter of Rene of Anjou and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine. Her father was called ‘the man of many crowns but no kingdoms,’ because he claimed the thrones of Naples, Sicily, Hungary and Jerusalem but he never ruled over said kingdoms despite his best efforts.  For all of his fancy titles, he had authority over only Anjou and Lorraine. We know very little of what her childhood was like apart from the fact that she was raised by strong women.  Her mother, Isabella, ruled as regent while Rene was abroad attempting to regain his lands in Naples.  Later, Isabella led an army to rescue her husband from the Duke of Burgundy who held him captive for several years. Her grandmother Yolande of Aragon was another formidable woman.  She practically raised the French king Charles VII, who became her son-in-law, and she financed Joan of Arc’s army in 1429.  

By the time Marguerite was born, the tide was turning in France.  Joan of Arc inspired and energized the French to not only to fight to regain the territories it had lost to England during the reign of Henry V but also to anoint the rightful king, Charles VII.  While Henry VI had been crowned King of England and France, he was not the dynamic, charismatic warrior his father had been.  At the beginning of 1444, England sought a truce with France to be cemented by a French bride for the young King of England.   Charles VII offered not one of his daughters but the hand of his niece Marguerite as a bride.  King Henry was not only willing to take his bride with no dowry but offered up Maine and Anjou to France, a move that proved to be unpopular with the English who had long occupied the territories.

At the age of 14, Marguerite was married to Henry by proxy but it took another year before she journeyed to England to meet her husband.  She set out for England, accompanied part of the way by her father, her uncle Charles VII and an escort of 1500 people. Marguerite finally arrived in England on April 9, 1445, but it was an inauspicious arrival.  Her ship had been buffeted by storms so severe that it lost both masts. The poor thing had suffered from such severe seasickness on the crossing that the Earl of Suffolk to carry her ashore to a small cottage where she fainted. From there she was taken to a nearby convent to recover.  Her first impressions of England were sickrooms. But before she could meet her husband, she needed to get rid of her shabby clothes. 

The Earl of Suffolk sent for a London dressmaker to make her a whole new fashionable wardrobe. There is a charming story that when King Henry finally arrived, he disguised himself as a squire, and delivered a letter to his new bride.  This gave him the opportunity to observe her as she read.  Having never seen him before, Marguerite had no idea that the King had played Western Union.  When Marguerite found out, she was no doubt embarrassed at having kept the king waiting on his knees.  They were married again a week later at Titchfield Abbey.  Marguerite at this time was described as beautiful, passionate, proud and strong-willed.

Marguerite’s groom was 23 years old at the time of their marriage. Henry had been King since the age of 9 months but he lacked the temperament of a King.  He was monkish and scholarly as well as easily swayed.  He was more concerned with his pet projects, the founding of King’s College at Cambridge and Eton College (Marguerite herself founded Queen’s College at Cambridge). By all accounts, Margaret and her husband were devoted to each other and she became very protective of him.  He was a gentle and compassionate man, eager to please, and to put his new bride at ease.  Her kinsman, the Duke of Orleans wrote that she seemed as if “formed by Heaven to supply her royal husband the qualities which he required in order to become a great King.” She had little time to adjust to her new position before the question of England ceding Anjou and Maine reared its ugly head. The queen was blamed although Henry had been the one to agree to the decision before the marriage. Yes, Marguerite did badger Henry about the situation but she was under pressure from her family.  She wasn’t the first nor would she be the last Queen to be torn between her loyalties to her new country and her old. Her reputation and popularity soon began to suffer.

Although several Queens of England had been French, many of the English nobility were now Francophobes after the long years of war with France.   Marguerite was soon accused of flirting and spending too much time with William de la Pole, later Duke of Suffolk who was almost thirty years older than she was.  Margaret had become friends with de la Pole and his wife when they escorted her to England. When the rumors were brought to her attention, she dismissed them.  Marguerite was loyal to her friends almost to a fault. When the Duke was killed in 1450, Marguerite refused to eat for three days which added fuel to the rumors about them.  Both the King and Marguerite put their faith in not just the Duke of Suffolk but also Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset.  Beaufort and the King were both descended from John of Gaunt, although Beaufort was descended from Gaunt and his mistress, later wife, Katherine Swynford.  Her preference for the Beaufort/Suffolk faction also made her unpopular. Unlike in France where it was common for the King to favor one faction over another, royals in Britain were supposed to be above politics. The Duke of Somerset was sent to France as England’s military commander where he proved ineffectual.  Soon all of the English territories in France apart from Calais were lost.  Again Marguerite was blamed, not only for her support of Somerset but also the news that her father had been part of the French army that conquered Rouen.

Marguerite was also seen to have failed in her most important duty, bearing an heir to throne.  In Marguerite’s case, the fault didn’t lie solely with her.  She was saddled with a husband who was not only pious but prudish as well.  It was 8 long years before Marguerite had her first and only child, a boy named Edward since he was born on the feast day of St. Edward the Confessor.  Rumors soon flew that Henry was not the father of her child, but Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset.  Personally, I don’t believe that Marguerite would have risked having a physical affair until she had given birth to an heir to the throne.  No one will ever know the truth, but there could have been a number of factors for why it took so long for Marguerite to conceive, the biggest reason being that her husband was not exactly an earthy dude.

Unfortunately, at the time that the baby was born, Henry VI had gone into a catatonic state.  Again, no one knows precisely what was wrong with the King.  Some historians speculate that he might have had a stroke, others that he inherited the mental illness of his grandfather Charles VI.  The birth of Marguerite's son was the catalyst for her to become more involved with affairs of the realm.  She had not only her husband’s interests to protect but those of her son as well.  The first thing she did was try to become regent during her husband’s illness, but the idea was rejected.  Not even Catherine of Valois had been included in matters of state as it pertained to ruling England during her son’s minority. The English expected their Queens to be more passive. They still had memories of another French princess, Isabella, wife of Edward II, who had deposed her husband and ruled with her lover.  Instead the Duke of York was chosen as Protector of the Realm. He immediately had the Duke of Somerset set to the Tower for criminal mismanagement of affairs in France.

Henry didn’t snap out of his catatonic state until his son Edward was almost two years old.  When Henry returned to his senses at the end of 1454, he relieved York of the Protectorate and released the Duke of Somerset from the Tower.  A Great Council was called at Leicester from which the Yorkists were excluded. York began raising troops, and in May of 1455 he attacked Henry on his way to Leicester at St. Albans.  It was the first battle in what we now call the War of the Roses.  The Duke of Somerset was skilled and the King was now York’s prisoner.  Marguerite had had no quarrel with York until he took up arms against her husband.  Now he was her enemy.  She began to suspect that the Duke of York had designs on becoming King, and she made it her mission to protect the throne, not only for her husband but also for her son.  However, the more that Henry was seen to be marginalized by her, the weaker his position became. 

York’s nephew, the Earl of Warwick, accused Marguerite of trying to poison him. Warwick fled to Calais where he began raising troops whilst his father, the Earl of Salisbury, began raising an army in the North and York in Wales. Alarmed, Marguerite began to raise troops in her son’s name.  By 1459, Marguerite was acknowledged as the leader of the House of Lancaster. By October, she had a sizeable army, outnumbering York’s.  York fled to Ireland and Warwick and Salisbury to Calais. Marguerite was jubilant, confident that her cause would succeed. However in 1460, York and Salisbury defeated the Lancastrians and Northampton.  Hearing of their defeat, Marguerite and her son fled to Harlech Castle. In October 1460, York formally claimed the crown, stating that he had more of a right then Henry. He was descended from Edward III’s fourth son through his father but through his mother, Anne Mortimer, he was descended from the second son as well.

Parliament however was not too keen on replacing Henry with York so a compromise was made.  Henry could still rule but York and then his sons would succeed after his death effectively disinheriting Marguerite’s son. Marguerite was fit to be tied at this news.  She immediately began raising another army.  In December, the two armies met at the battle of Wakefield.  York was defeated, killed on the field along with his son Edmund.  Marguerite had York and Salisbury’s heads set on poles on over the gates of York as a message. York’s was wearing a paper crown. The Lancastrians won the 2^nd battle of St. Albans.  However the war hadn’t been won.  York’s son, Edward, Earl of March now took up the mantle.

Marguerite now marched to London.  Along the way, her army who had yet to be paid pillaged the villages along the way. Marguerite did nothing to stop them which damaged her cause in the South.  News spread of a blood-thirsty army raping and pillaging its way towards London.  A delegation led by the Dowager Duchess of Bedford, the Duchess of Buckingham, and Lady Scales asked her to spare the city. Marguerite said yes, taking her army back up north.  It was a decision that she would live to regret. A few days later, Edward, the new Duke of York after his father’s death, marched into London where he was proclaimed King. There was still one more battle to be fought, this time at Towton on March 29, 1461 where Marguerite was decisively defeated.

Marguerite fled with her son first to Wales and then to Scotland where she convinced the regent Mary of Guelders to back to her cause.  It meant giving up Berwick to the Scots but there was no price too small to pay to regain the throne.  Bringing a foreign army into England wasn’t going to win her any fans, but Margaret was determined to restore her husband, and her son’s rights to the throne.  She was able to mount small scale raids but nothing substantial.  By 1465, Marguerite was living in poverty at the castle of Keur in Alsace.  She had endured being robbed not once but twice during the war, now she was forced to go hat in hand begging for help from the crowns of Europe.  In exchange for France’s help, Marguerite promised Louis (nicknamed the Spider King and one of the inspirations for Machiavelli’s The Prince), Calais, if he came to her aid. But it was the rift between the Earl of Warwick, and King Edward IV that turned the Wheel of Fortune briefly back in Marguerite’s favor.   The Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence fled to France after being denied access to Calais. King Louis XI brokered reconciliation between the Earl and Marguerite.  It was a bitter pill to swallow for Marguerite, this man who had been her enemy, was now her ally, her only if she wanted to regain the throne for her son. Still very much a Queen even in exile, Marguerite made Warwick kneel for fifteen minutes in front of her, before she accepted his help.  As part of the reconciliation, Marguerite’s son, Edward, the Princes of Wales married Warwick’s daughter Anne. Warwick was initially successful restoring Henry to the throne. 

Edward was forced to flee to the Netherlands, where he hoped for help from his brother-in-law, the Duke of Burgundy.  Things might have turned out differently if the King of France hadn’t pressured the Earl of Warwick to wage war against France’s enemy the Duke of Burgundy, in exchange for Marguerite of Anjou and her forces being allowed to journey to England.  In retaliation, Burgundy decided to supply his brother-in-law Edward IV with ships, men, and money.  Once Edward arrived in England, Warwick delayed in confronting Edward and his army.  This gave Edward time to woo his brother, George, back over to his side. Marguerite, meanwhile, had been delayed by storms from leaving France.  By the time Marguerite landed in England, Warwick was dead, killed at the battle of Barnet.  Her son, Edward, the Prince of Wales was killed at the battle of Tewkesbury on May 4 1471, ending the Lancastrian hopes.

 
With both her only child and her husband dead, Marguerite’s spirit was broken.  Edward decided to be lenient with his old enemy.  After a brief spell in the tower, Marguerite was released to the custody of her friend, the Duchess of Suffolk.  Marguerite was finally ransomed to her cousin Louis IX of France in 1475, with the proviso that she give up all rights to her lands in France.  She lived in penury until her death at the age of 52. She was buried next to her parents in Angers Cathedral.

Sources:

Helen Castor – She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England before Elizabeth, Faber & Faber 2010

Sarah Gristwood – Blood Sisters:  The Women behind the Wars of the Roses, Basic Books, 2013
David Baldwin, Philippa Gregory & Michael Jones – The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother, Touchstone, 2011
Elizabeth Norton - She Wolves: The Notorious Queens of Medieval England, the History Press, 2010
 

Women of THE WHITE QUEEN – Elizabeth Woodville

One could say that the story of Elizabeth Woodville is a Cinderella story.  Young widow meets handsome King; they marry despite opposition and live happily ever after.  Well as happy as one can be when the handsome king cheats on you constantly and eventually runs to fat after a life of indolence, and your brother-in-law is an asshole who keeps trying to depose your husband, and then your other brother-in-law steals the throne from your son and you have to hide in sanctuary until finally another handsome prince rescues you and marries your daughter.  It’s a different kind of fairy-tale, one that could only take place in Medieval England during the reign of the Plantagenets, the world’s most dysfunctional royal family.

Let’s start from the beginning shall we? Elizabeth Woodville was born sometime in 1437, possibly in October, the eldest daughter of Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the Dowager Duchess of Bedford and Sir Richard Woodville.  Her parents’ marriage had been scandalous in their day.  Jacquetta had been a 19 year old widow when she fell in love with Richard Woodville, a mere knight at the time.  The Woodvilles, although an old and respectable family, were not nobility.  Richard had been in service with the Duchess’s late husband, the Duke of Bedford, when they met.   Two years after her husband’s death, Jacquetta and Richard Woodville were secretly married. Since they married without the King’s permission, they were fined £1,000.  The court was scandalized that Jacquetta would marry a man who was beneath her status. Despite the inauspicious beginning to their marriage, the Woodvilles prospered.  Jacquetta was able to keep her rank and dower which provided an income of about £8,000 a year.  They were chosen to help escort the new Queen, Marguerite of Anjou to England.  And in 1448, Richard was raised to the rank of Baron Rivers.

We know little of Elizabeth’s early life because she doesn’t really become important to history until her marriage to Edward IV.  We can speculate that she was brought up to manage an estate, to read but probably not to write, adept at needlework and probably an instrument.  Elizabeth would have grown up enjoying a certain amount of privilege and material comforts.  At the age of 15, she was married to Sir John Grey of Groby with whom she had two sons, Thomas and Richard.  Sir John was killed at the Second Battle of St. Albans in 1461 and it is here that Elizabeth makes her entrance upon the stage.

The myth or fable is that soon after Edward became King, Elizabeth stood under an oak tree in the Whittlebury Forest, clutching the hands of her two young sons, hoping to capture his attention as he rode by. The plan was that she would petition to be granted the lands owed to her under the terms of her dowry.  In this story, the King was immediately smitten with the young widow, so much so that he attempted to make her his mistress.  In a move worthy of Shakespeare, Elizabeth told the King that she was not that kind of girl, she might not have been good enough to marry, but she was certainly too good to be his mistress.  The same move was pulled by Anne Boleyn on Edward’s grandson Henry VIII almost 60 years later.  One wonders if Anne had heard the story and thought, “well, if it worked once…”

Edward, like his grandson, was most persistent as only a horny teenager can be, but Elizabeth held firm even when he held a knife to her throat.  In some versions of the story, it’s Elizabeth who holds the knife on Edward, defending her honor.  Frankly I like that version better! It’s a fabulous story but it’s probably not true.  Elizabeth wouldn’t have needed such subterfuge to meet the King.  Her father, who had fought on the Lancastrian side, had been pardoned by the King soon after the battle of Towton, and was a member of the new King’s Council.  During 1461-1464, Edward’s advisors were working on a foreign marriage for him to which he was amenable (apparently one of the bachelorettes was Isabella of Castile).  Elizabeth no doubt at court met the King where he was taken with her beauty and maturity (she was several years older than the King). 

However they met, sometime in 1464 they were secretly married.  Some romantic chroniclers believe that the happy couple was married on May Day or Beltane.  By August the secret was out and you know what hit the vaulted ceiling.  No one was happy apart from the lovely couple and perhaps the people of England who were pleased to have an English Queen.  And the marriage could be seen as reconciliation between the Yorks and the Lancasters. The Earl of Warwick, the King’s advisor, was pissed because he had been trying to arrange a foreign bride who might bring a dowry and aid if necessary.   And then there was the little fact that Elizabeth wasn’t exactly a virgin bride, she was an older woman with two kids.  The Queen Mother, Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, was particularly livid. She tried everything she could to get Edward to repudiate the marriage.  That must have been fun! Who hasn’t had mother-in-law problems? She brought up the fact that Elizabeth was of low birth, not being even of the nobility, ignoring the fact that her mother Jacquetta had been good enough to marry Henry V’s brother.  Cecily never really resigned herself to the marriage.

For Edward, the marriage signaled that he was his own man.  He had chafed under his mother and Warwick’s thumb since he was crowned in 1462. And love matches were not uncommon even in royal circles.  Edward III had allowed some of his children to marry for love.  John of Gaunt’s third marriage to Katherine Swynford was a love match as was Katherine de Valois and Owen Tudor.  Although the heart wants what the heart wants to quote Woody Allen, one can understand why Warwick & Cecily were upset.  A foreign marriage would have done a great deal to cement and legitimize the new Yorkist dynasty.  Elizabeth’s mother Jacquetta was blamed by both Warwick & Cecily for the marriage. It was later claimed that she had used witchcraft to ensnare the King.

 

Although Elizabeth was beautiful and charming, she also came with baggage in the form of ten siblings, all of whom soon married into some of the noblest families in England.  You can’t fault Elizabeth for wanting to help her family, but the way it was done, left many people feeling resentful.  For example, her sister Katherine married Henry Stafford, the 2^nd Duke of Buckingham, a marriage that he felt was beneath him.  Her twenty-year old brother John was married off to Edward IV’s 60 year old aunt, Katherine, Duchess of Norfolk. Elizabeth’s father was raised from a mere baron to an Earl and also made treasurer. She also married her eldest son Thomas, the new Marquess of Dorset of to the heiress of the Duke of Exeter. The Earl of Warwick was just one of many who were not happy at the prominence of the Woodville clan. He had planned for his nephew to marry the Lady Anne Holland.  Of course, he was eager to his own people rewarded but the King was looking to build his own faction who was loyal only to him.

While all this was going, Elizabeth was busy having babies. We’re talking lots and lots of babies starting with Elizabeth of York (the future Queen of England as Henry VII’s bride) in 1465. Like her mother, Elizabeth was incredibly fertile, eventually giving birth to ten children. Of those ten, there were five daughters who lived to adulthood, Edward, Princes of Wales and his brother, Richard, Duke of York.  When she wasn’t having babies, Elizabeth kept busy doing the usual Queen things of making pilgrimages, obtaining a papal indulgence for those who knelt, distributing alms to the poor, and managing the households of the various royal estates.  Her husband, Edward, was a randy bastard and had several mistresses during their marriage, the most notable being the beautiful merchant’s wife, Jane Shore.  Elizabeth turned a blind eye to her husband’s infidelities although it can’t have been easy.

And then there was the brief hiccup when the Earl of Warwick and the King’s brother George, Duke of Clarence joined forces and rebelled against Edward IV. Both men were resentful of the rise of the Woodville family amongst other grievances.  They eventually joined forces with Marguerite of Anjou to put Henry VI back on the throne.  They succeeded briefly but George soon switched sides again and the whole mess was finally put to an end at the Battle of Tewkesbury where the Earl of Warwick and Marguerite’s son Edward was killed.  Elizabeth who was pregnant with the future Edward V at the time earned the gratitude of the city of London because she fled into sanctuary at Westminster Abbey rather than staying at the Tower where the citizens of the city would have had to defend her. Elizabeth’s stoicism during the ordeal, the fact that she stayed in England rather than fleeing abroad, endeared her to her subjects. 

Elizabeth’s husband, Edward IV, rewarded her by increasingly treating her not just as his wife and consort, but also as his partner in government. She was head of her son’s council when he was created Prince of Wales.  She was also named principal executor of her husband’s will.  Elizabeth also proved an effective money manager, staying with the budget allotted for her household.  And despite her less than noble birth, Elizabeth acquitted herself well at royal gatherings.  Despite her husband’s infidelities, the relationship between the couple stayed warm.  She gave birth to her last child at the age of 43 in 1480. Over the years of their marriage, Edward’s trust in his wife never diminished.

Some modern historians have alleged that she indulged in petty feuds, behaving meanly to those who got on her bad side but there is little contemporary evidence of this during her lifetime. Another accusation is that she became haughty once she became Queen.  No doubt Elizabeth assumed a certain amount of distance but the same could be said of Queen Victoria.  As for feuds, Edward was much more inclined to be petty than Elizabeth was. In fact, it can be said that Elizabeth softened him somewhat when it came to dispensing justice.  Elizabeth also was responsible for saving Queen’s College, Cambridge as well as Eton from dereliction.

In April 1483, Edward IV died suddenly at the age of 40 after a short illness.  He had ruined his health overindulging in food, drink and women.  Elizabeth had very little time to mourn her husband. She needed to fight for a position in her son’s reign, knowing that her family’s enemies would take this opportunity to strike.  Elizabeth has suffered reversals of fortune before, the death of her first husband and the loss of her lands, and then when Edward lost his crown briefly. What she should have done after Edward’s death was to try and reconcile the two factions. Unfortunately her actions were misconstrued, alarming people at court that the Woodvilles would monopolize power, controlling the new King. 

When Richard, Duke of Gloucester took custody of the young king, Elizabeth fled into sanctuary at Westminster Abbey with her second son, Richard, Duke of York and her daughters.  She must have recoiled in horror at the news that her brother Anthony and her second son Richard had been executed by the Duke of Gloucester, accused of causing dissension in the realm, and attempting to rule through the king.  She was finally persuaded to let the Duke of York join his brother at the Tower of London where he later disappeared.  Richard had spent most of his brother’s reign in the North, so Elizabeth knew him only slightly.  When Elizabeth tried to raise an army to defend herself and to free the King, she found a great reluctance amongst the nobles to help. Many openly stated that they thought the King should be with his paternal uncle.  Then came the bombshell that her marriage to Edward was invalid, making her children illegitimate, and paving the way for Richard to take the throne. It must have stung that her mother-in-law Cecily, Duchess of York, seemed to have no problem with her youngest son seizing the crown from her grandson. Elizabeth was also stripped of all the lands that had been given to her during Edward’s reign. She now saw Richard as an enemy.

From sanctuary, Elizabeth allowed herself to be drawn into a conspiracy with Margaret Beaufort to depose Richard and put her son, the Earl of Richmond, on the throne.  As incentive, it was agreed that Henry would marry Elizabeth’s eldest daughter also named Elizabeth (Ironically Edward IV had proposed the very same marriage while he was alive, no doubt as a way to keep an eye on Henry).  This rebellion came to naught but Elizabeth’s part in it came to light.  Elizabeth, who had become used to dealing with adversity, finally decided to leave sanctuary, after Richard publicly swore an oath that they would not be harmed or sent to the Tower and that he would make sure that they made good marriages.  One has to wonder what went through her mind when she heard the rumors in 1485 that Richard, after the death of his wife and son, intended to marry his niece to solidify his throne.  Richard issued a denial to what would have been incest if a marriage had taken place. Elizabeth never mentioned or asked what happened to her sons to either Richard or Henry VII.  Did she perhaps know that at least her youngest son had possibly be whisked away for protection?

Of course, we know how the story ends.  Henry VII triumphs over Richard at Bosworth Field and marries Elizabeth of York in 1486, solidifying the union of the Yorks and the Lancastrians. Elizabeth Woodville was accorded all the honors and titles of a dowager Queen.  In 1487, Elizabeth retired from court to Bermondsey Abbey where she lived until she died 5 years later.  There is speculation that she retired to the Abbey because she either was involved in the 1487 Yorkist rebellion of Lambert Simmel or because she was seen as a potential ally.  It may just be that she and the King’s mother Margaret Beaufort didn’t get along. She received a pension of £400 a year, but it was often paid late if at all. At one point, Henry VII contemplated marrying his mother-in-law off to the widowed King of Scotland, James III but he was killed in battle. Elizabeth lived long enough to see the births of grandchildren, Arthur, Margaret and the future Henry VIII before she passed away in early 1492 at the age of 55. She is buried next to her husband at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor.

Sources:

Sarah Gristwood – Blood Sisters:  The Women behind the Wars of the Roses, Basic Books, 2013

David Baldwin, Philippa Gregory & Michael Jones – The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother, Touchstone, 2011

Elizabeth Norton - She Wolves: The Notorious Queens of Medieval England, The History Press, 2010

 

From Page to Screen - Starz/BBC THE WHITE QUEEN

Well, I hadn’t planned on reviewing THE WHITE QUEEN until I was in England when I could watch the entire series since I don’t have Starz, but the cable channel surprised me by offering up a sneak preview of the first episode this weekend.  So since they were so generous, I couldn’t refuse to watch the show now could I? I’m not going to go into the historical accuracy of the show so much in this review since I have a series of blog posts planned on the women of the War of the Roses planned for the next two weeks.  Instead I plan on focusing on my first impressions of the series and whether or not I think it’s a good adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s novels.  The series is going to be based on three of Gregory’s novels, THE WHITE QUEEN, THE RED QUEEN, and THE KINGMAKER’S DAUGHTER.  It’s going to be 10 episodes and I will recap each episode as I watch it, trying not to get to ahead of the broadcast in the states.  Lucky for me, I have a region-free DVD player, so even when I’m not in England, I can continue to watch along with everyone else!

The series opens up in 1464; Elizabeth Woodville (Lady Grey) wakes her two young sons up and drags them out into the forest to waylay King Edward on his way to somewhere.  It appears that her lands have been confiscated for some reason. The script doesn’t make it clear if it’s the crown who has taken her lands because her husband fought on the losing side during the war, or what really happened which is that the lands were taken by her mother-in-law who feared that the Grey lands would be lost if Elizabeth remarried, the property of her new husband.  Edward is instantly smitten with the young widow, although Warwick, who has accompanied the King, sneers nastily.  The King tells Elizabeth that if she writes up her petition, he will pick it up on the way back.  Elizabeth is pleased as is her mother Jacquetta who practices a little magic to help her daughter win the king.  Her father Baron Rivers and older brother Anthony are not pleased.  

The King returns and immediately makes a play for Elizabeth.  She gives way to a point but refuses the king when he tries to go further, threatening to kill herself in front of him.  He realizes that she means business and tells her that he loves her and wants to marry her.  They arrange to marry secretly in the Woodville family chapel with only her mother as a witness.  They spent their wedding night romping in the family hunting lodge which for some reason has a nicer bed than the ones in the main manor.  Her brother Anthony finds out and is pissed that she’s slept with the king.  Elizabeth confesses that they are married.  Anthony tells her that she’s an idiot, the king has done this kind of thing before, and he will repudiate her just like he did the last woman he married secretly.  Elizabeth queries the King when he returns for a second helping of marital bliss.  She wants to know when he plans on revealing their marriage. Edward admits that Warwick has been planning a French marriage for him. 

All is revealed at a meeting of the court when Warwick believes the King is going to announce the French marriage.  Instead the King announces that he is married to Elizabeth Woodville.  The episode ends with Elizabeth and her family arriving at court.  The King’s mother reluctantly accepts her son’s marriage but only after Jacquetta threatens her. Margaret Beaufort shows up briefly with a sour expression at the end of the first episode.  She and Jacquetta spar a bit, and she introduces her new husband Henry Stafford.  I loved that she was wearing a red dress. What do you want to bet that she continues to wear red during the entire series? You know, just to emphasize that she’s a Lancastrian, in case we forget.

I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed this first episode, despite some rather laughable scenes. Rebecca Ferguson, a young Swedish actress, does a remarkable job with Elizabeth Woodville.  She’s certainly beautiful enough, but you get the sense that she’s holding something back, that she has a secret of some sort, in her scenes.  Many of her scenes are with the always awesome Janet McTeer who plays Jacquetta Woodville.  I enjoyed the interplay between the two of them, Elizabeth’s reluctance to deal in witchcraft and her mother’s insistence that it is her birthright since they are descended from the water goddess Melusine.  Her later visions come as a surprise to her and not a welcome one.  It will be interesting to see how they develop this part of the story.  The supernatural element was actually the most interesting part of the book and I’m glad that they kept it.

Max Irons, who plays Edward, in this episode is a more of a callow king, one who is still learning to flex his muscles.  It will be interesting to see if he grows in the part as the series goes on.  James Frain, who plays the Earl of Warwick, does little more than sneer and make cutting remarks.  The series gets certain elements right.  Elizabeth’s family were living in genteel poverty, bankrupted by serving the Lancastrians who were always slow to pay back the expenses that were shelled out for example during the Woodville’s time in Calais. However, some things that occur in the episode are done for strictly dramatic purposes and are a little odd.  For example, historically by 1464, Elizabeth’s father had been forgiven for fighting on the Lancastrian side, and was part of the King’s Council.

In the series however, Baron Rivers and Anthony Woodville, are quite insulting to the King when he arrives at their manor to receive the petition for Elizabeth.  I found that unrealistic and bizarre particularly since Edward had been on the throne for 3 years by this time.  Also, the idea that it was an open secret that Edward had a secret marriage prior to his marriage to Elizabeth was a little ridiculous. It kinds of ruins the dramatic tension when Richard brings it up years later as a reason for why he’s seized the throne from his nephew.  I found it hilarious that Anthony Woodville was so incensed that Edward had an illegitimate child. As if no one in the 15^th century had had a child out of wedlock before. 

Then there was the scene at court, where Anthony and his father are talking about this so-called ‘secret’ marriage very loudly while waiting for the King. Another scene that made no sense was the French princess Bona’s appearance at court for the announcement of the betrothal.  I’m pretty sure that her father, the King of France, would not have let her travel to England unless it was a done deal with the betrothal or unless she had married the King by proxy.  Also, the idea that Warwick and Edward would argue so loudly that everyone at court could hear them even though they were behind closed doors was silly. I know these things are done for dramatic purposes, but it would have made more sense for the audience to have seen the Duchess of York arguing with her son, along with Warwick, and telling him that if he doesn’t repudiate the marriage that she will tell everyone that he’s illegitimate, than having it occur later when Elizabeth meets Cecily and Jacquetta jumps in, forcing Cecily to accept Elizabeth.

The series doesn’t have the lush opulence that The Tudors has, probably because the series is dealing with a country torn apart by war.  There’s also a lot of sex and nudity in the first episode between Edward and Elizabeth.  I had no problem with it since Edward was known as a lusty King, and since the attraction between the two was at first sexual, it made sense.  It was a lot less gratuitous than it was on The Tudors. Apart from these few niggling things, I did enjoy the first episode and I look forward to watching the rest of the series.