If you love Tudor history, brace yourself. Episode 1 of The White Princess may be dramatically entertaining, but historically accurate? Not even close. From portraying Henry VII as a weak-willed rapist to suggesting Elizabeth of York had an incestuous romance with Richard III, this first episode is riddled with myth, speculation, and outright slander. In this post, I break down what Philippa Gregory’s The White Princess got right and where it went completely off the rails, with full historical context, receipts, and rage.

Note: I moved this post over from my previous blog, and updated it, but haven’t made time to do fact-checking posts for this entire series yet. If this page gets tons of hits, I’ll move reviewing the complete series up on my schedule.

How do I put this nicely?

I am in love with the historical romance between Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. They were passionately devoted to one another, and Henry remained faithful throughout his marriage, unheard of when it comes to medieval royal marriage beds. It enrages me, what Philippa Gregory does to these people in her novel, and what Emma Frost did to them in the Starz miniseries. They turned Henry VII into a mamma’s boy and a rapist, Elizabeth into a controlling, neurotic bitch, Margaret Beaufort into a murderer and a hypocrite, and… I just can’t.

So, here I will hack the first episode to pieces so you’ll know what’s true and what’s outrageous slander.

INSIDE THIS POST:

• Reel Talk: What They Actually Got Right
• Lizzie & Richard? Nope. Just… No.
• The Princes in the Tower: What Really Happened
• Perkin Warbeck Was Not a Prince
• Margaret Beaufort: Pious, Not Poisonous
• The Fertility Plot Line: Fictional Trash
• The Rape Scene
• Humble & Penitent?
• Henry VII Deserves Better
• Elizabeth Woodville: Dumbed Down

Episode 1: In Bed With the Enemy

As Elizabeth of York mourns the death of Richard III, her lover and uncle :P,  Henry VII arrives in London, and his mother, Margaret Beaufort, tries to broker a marriage between them to end the War of the Roses. But can these two overcome their rampant hatred for each other, to make the union work?

Reel Talk: What They Actually Got Right

• Henry did take the throne from Richard Plantagenet at the Battle of Bosworth Field. His mother’s husband, Lord Stanley, turned against Richard’s forces and with the help of his Welsh and French army, Henry defeated Richard, who was killed in a final charge down the field’s center and died within yards of the new king.
• He was “descended from a servant.” Henry’s legitimacy was tenuous, but he had royal blood on both sides, and a legitimate claim to the throne.
• Henry cracked down on his enemies in his first years on the throne. The Plantagenets had tons of children, which meant hundreds of potential usurpers, so he back-dated his reign to the day before the battle to keep the nobility in line. But unlike the series implies, Henry was reluctant to execute people and offered pardons to most of his “enemies.” (Others, like Thomas Howard, he kept in the Tower indefinitely, until they proved loyal.)
• Margaret Beaufort took the queen’s apartments, and insisted on being called “Her Grace, the King’s Mother.” She thought it her due, and considering she gave birth to Henry at thirteen and nearly died in the process (it ruined her from any further children), I ain’t got a problem with that. But I doubt she was as demanding and unlikable about it as they depicted her as here.
• Margaret Beaufort was devout. Her speeches about God placing her son on the throne, a greater destiny for Lizzie, and so on, are very in character and keeping with the real Margaret, who was so devout she took a vow of chastity within her marriage to Lord Stanley later in life.
• Teddy. After Richard’s death and the princes’ disappearances, one of the last direct male descendants to the Plantagenet line was Edward, only son of George (brother to Kings Edward and Richard), and younger brother to “Maggie” (Margaret Plantagenet and later, Pole). In the series, she argues for her brother’s life because his mind is “off”; in real life, people commented that Teddy seemed mentally unstable during his fourteen-year stay in the Tower.

Fiction: Oh, Hell No They Didn’t!

Now that we’ve gotten what the series didn’t screw up out of the way, let’s get into what it gets wrong. *cracks knuckles* I’m going to refer to the show’s Elizabeth of York as “Lizzie” and the historical figure as Elizabeth, since I don’t want you to confuse the two.

Lizzie & Richard? Nope. Just…No.

This series references Lizzie having been her uncle’s lover, and her being in love with him, which builds her resentment toward Henry for killing him and taking his throne. The previous series, The White Queen, actually showed her and Richard in bed together the night before he went off to battle.

Richard III had his faults, but “doing” his niece was not one of them. Those who did not support Richard spread malicious rumors about him, knowing that incest and the “murder of his wife” (rumors about Richard poisoning her to be with Elizabeth) would increase his lack of popularity. Richard adamantly denied wanting to marry his niece when confronted with these allegations, while anything Elizabeth said about her devotion to him was to curry royal favor. Since the Church did not allow incest, they could not have gained a Papal dispensation to marry her, which means they would never have considered it anyway.

The Princes in the Tower: What Really Happened

The series claims Perkin Warback is the legitimate Richard, Duke of York. It says his mother the queen smuggled him out of the Tower before his brother and the imposter were murdered, and she sent him overseas to live with the Warbeck family, in the hopes he would return to claim the throne one day. It’s a nice plot twist, but unlikely given the historical events.

The Princes in the Tower disappeared in 1483, after being placed there for “safekeeping” by their uncle, Richard III, who then claimed their throne. The princes were seen numerous times for a few months and then vanished. Their fate remains a mystery, but many historians agree that they were murdered and their bodies disposed of within the Tower. Sir Thomas More wrote in 513 that Sir James Tyrell murdered them, acting on Richard’s orders, and claimed he confessed to it before his execution for treason in 1502. More said the princes were smothered in their sleep and removed to a secret place.

In 1674, workmen remodeling the Tower of London dug up a wooden box containing two small human skeletons buried under the staircase leading to the chapel of the White Tower. Two previous children’s skeletons were also found in a chamber that had been “walled up,” but these bodies matched more closely what More said had become of them (buried at the foot of the stairs). But the staircase had not yet been built at the time of their disappearance.

Perkin Warbeck Was Not a Prince. Let It Go.

Now, about Perkin Warbeck. He claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, one of the two Princes in the Tower who disappeared. Had he been the real thing, he would have been the rightful claimant to the throne. Because no one knew what happened to the princes, his claim gathered some support from those who either believed him or simply wanted to overthrow Henry VII.

After being arrested, Warbeck wrote a confession in which he said he was Flemish and born in Tournai around 1474. He admitted that his mother was Katherine de Faro, wife of John Osbeck), and moved to Antwerp at ten years old to learn Dutch. He migrated to Ireland while working for a merchant. He claimed that at seventeen, the Yorkists who had fled to Cork, Ireland said he bore a resemblance to the missing Prince Richard. They hatched a plot where he would claim to be Richard, but found it difficult to enlist support against Henry VII until he managed to get Margaret of York, the aunt of the missing Princes in the Tower, to recognize him publicly as Richard. Margaret tutored him in the ways of the York court, so he could answer all the questions put to him in truthful ways.

After several attempted invasions, Perkin landed in Cornwall but was captured and imprisoned. Henry initially treated him well, even allowing him to move freely about the court, until he attempted to escape, then was imprisoned, told to read out a confession, and hanged.

Historians do not fully believe this account, since it was obtained under duress, but he also named various important citizens in Tournay which could possibly confirm that he grew up there with connections.

Margaret Beaufort: Pious, Not Poisonous

This has become a popular internet theory, thanks to Philippa Gregory’s fictional novels, but no credible historian believes she was responsible for the murdered Princes.

The most likely candidate for their murder is their uncle, Richard III. He benefitted because with them dead, he became the York claimant. The boys were under his direct care, as their Regent (he would rule England until the older boy came of age). Richard first dismantled their claim to the throne by challenging their legitimacy, then claimed the throne for himself. All he had to do to legitimize it was to get rid of them—and they disappeared. It is probable that he ordered Sir James to dispose of them, and they were either smothered or poisoned, then buried inside the Tower.

There’s no historical record of Margaret Beaufort planning for her son, Henry VII, to become king until after a series of pivotal events in the 1480s, including the death of Edward IV, the kingship of Richard III, and the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower. That destabilized the Yorkist regime and potentially opened a path for her son’s claim, but Margaret was nowhere near them when they disappeared, and had no influence to get at them. It’s possible the rumors about their death at the hands of their uncle encouraged her to present her son as a possible alternative to an unpopular monarch whom people believed had murdered two innocent boys.

The Fertility Plot Line is Fictional Trash

I loathe this plot line, which Gregory wrote into the book to have an excuse for endless hate-sex scenes. Henry demands Lizzie prove she is fertile before he agrees to marry her, so he insists on knocking her up before he’ll legalize their relationship. Not only does this turn Henry VII into a monster, forcing sex on a woman who doesn’t want it and taunts him throughout, it’s not remotely historically plausible.

The real Henry VII knew he had a tenuous claim to the throne, and his enemies would use any excuse to delegitimize him. If we pretend he had no moral objection to taking mistresses whenever his wife fell pregnant (as most kings did during this time period), he also had a logical reason not to have a mistress: it might lead to the creation of illegitimate children, which could threaten his legitimate children’s claim to the throne and result in a civil war. Henry came to power amid countless pretenders, claimants to his throne, and attempts to undermine or murder him and his children. He had to do everything right in his marriage with Elizabeth of York. Obtain the right dispensations, secure the right legal contracts, etc.

The Plantagenets were one of the most “prolific” families in England at producing heirs, which is one reason he had so many traitors in his court. Elizabeth of York’s mother had twelve children. He had no reason to suspect Elizabeth would be infertile.

To conceive a child with her before the wedding might give his enemies reason to suggest his wife had conceived the baby with someone else, destabilizing that child’s claim to his throne. Henry would have known this; he was so careful in all aspects of his reign that he would not have taken chances, certainly not for something as stupid as “prove you can get pregnant.” Prince Arthur was born nine months after his parents’ wedding, but conceiving on the marriage night is not unheard of in history, and his mother got pregnant seven times.

The Consent Issue Isn’t Subtle. It’s Rape.

Let’s pause for a moment to discuss the scene I detest the most.

In the novel, Lizzie is a lot more emotionally unstable and fearful. She waffles almost constantly about her feelings toward Henry VII. In one chapter, she hates him and hopes he dies; in another, she is in love with him. It got super annoying, but here, she hates him from the first minute she lays eyes on him. Frost also had to “Girl Boss” her by making her strong-willed, so she can go toe-to-toe with the equally bitchy Margaret Beaufort. She also makes Henry “weak,” dependent on his mother to tell him what to do, and emotionally immature.

In truth, the real Elizabeth was mild-mannered, easygoing, and got along with everyone. The real Margaret Beaufort was opinionated and strong-willed but also devout. And Henry VII was incredibly cunning, intelligent, and shrewd. He took a bankrupt country and turned it into a respected European super-power.

When you “Girl Boss” a character, you can’t have her be “raped,” which means the script does an insanely stupid thing of insisting that it’s not rape, because Lizzie consents and mocks him throughout. It doesn’t make it okay. That she mocks how quick it was after is not a feminist statement; since she had no choice but consent, she did not consent. He is still a rapist, she is still a rape victim, and to call it anything else is rape apologetic bullshit.

I loathe this plot line.

I hated it in the book, and I despise it here.

Elizabeth and Henry had one of the more loving marriages in British royal history. Her death devastated him and he almost died of grief. (I am not kidding.) Reducing their love affair to rape is sick, repulsive, and slanderous. Henry was enough of a paranoid bastard to be a decent antagonist; he doesn’t need to be a rapist too.

“Humble & Penitent,” Huh?

In the series, Lizzie chooses “Humble and Penitent” as her motto. Penitent means “Repentant” or Contrite,” presumably in reference to her affair with her uncle?

The real Elizabeth chose “Humble & Reverent.” The change is noticeable; Reverent means Respectful or Worshipful, which probably referenced her faith in Jesus and her reverence for the Church. But in this series, no one’s religion really makes much of a positive difference in their lives.

This episode also shows Margaret Beaufort as very controlling in how she tries to dominate Lizzie. The real MB was very forward in what she wanted and not afraid to organize the household to get it; but the real Elizabeth was an amiable, quiet personality type who seemed altogether willing to let her mother-in-law be “in charge.” Elizabeth never left behind any written testimony about what she thought of her mother-in-law, so we don’t know what resentments she harbored or if she felt relief to have so many duties and responsibilities left in the capable hands of someone else.

Henry VII Deserves Better Than This Character Assassination

For whatever reason, Philippa Gregory hates Henry VII, which means she always writes him as an ass. Here, he is a repulsive, emotionally abusive “mama’s boy” who does whatever his mother tells him, because he is a feminist’s idea of a man: an abusive and emotionally immature “man-child.”

Henry VII was a ruthless and intelligent monarch who allowed financial atrocities during his reign, but who had such a nose for business, his own mother had to purchase property for him to use for charitable purposes. That does not sound like a henpecked king. He could be calculating and ruled with an iron fist, but also was a loving father and faithful husband. As king, he pardoned more people than he should have and paid for it.

Elizabeth Woodville: From Political Genius to Plot Device

I am struggling to understand the reasons behind making Elizabeth Woodville oppose the royal marriage instead of one of the people who brokered it in the first place. Historically, she helped Margaret Beaufort arrange her daughter’s marriage, realizing that with her male heirs dead (murdered by their now-dead uncle), the only way to stabilize England and protect the rest of her children would be to form a new alliance with Henry.

But in the show, she establishes Lizzie as his wife, then plots against him to put Perkin Warbeck on the throne. What does she think is going to happen, that her “son” will execute Henry but allow any children of this union to live? She had proof in the deaths of her own two boys that kings kill royal claimants to the throne to protect their own line of succession, so she would be pitting her own future grandchildren against each other, and endangering the life of her daughter. This is a dumb mistake that the intelligent Elizabeth Woodville from the previous series would never have made.