Episode 3 of The White Princess pushes the Starz Philippa Gregory adaptation even further from historical reality, doubling down on fabricated conspiracies, distorted motivations, and character assassinations. As Henry VII attempts diplomacy with Margaret of York in Flanders, the series vilifies Margaret Beaufort, invents treasonous schemes for Elizabeth Woodville, and reshapes Tudor childbirth, faith, and politics to suit modern drama. This analysis breaks down what happened in Tudor England and why the show’s version misunderstands the people it portrays.

Inside This Post:

• In Defense of Margaret Beaufort
• Prince Arthur’s Birth
• Christenings & Churching
• Elizabeth Woodville: Retiring From Public Life
• Bonding Over Lost Choices
• Mary of Burgundy’s Death

Episode 3: Burgundy

Furious over Richard III’s death, his sister Margaret of York is still pirating English ships from Flanders. Henry VII sends his uncle, Jasper Tudor, to act as an envoy and negotiate peace. Meanwhile, the locked-up Elizabeth Woodville is still begging Margaret to invade England and dethrone “the usurper.”

In Defense of Margaret Beaufort

Lizzie is struggling so much with the birth that the midwives want to “toss her in a blanket” (up and down to jostle the child), but Margaret Beaufort forbids it. This is the only time the fictional Margaret lines up with the real Margaret, so I want to take a moment to talk about it. She talks about being a girl when she gave birth to her son, and almost dying from the pain, but she says, “I knew it was my destiny, that my child if it lived would be king of England, because God willed it.”

The real Margaret Beaufort was thirteen when she gave birth to Henry VII. Her husband, Edmund Tudor (twenty-four) slept with her when she was twelve years old. This upsets me more than anything else about the vilification of Margaret Beaufort. You’re picking on a woman who was sexually molested as a minor. People married young in the 1400s, but they rarely had sex until they “came of age” and their parents or guardians deemed it safe (at sixteen or seventeen years old). Parents exercised caution because alliances depended on the success of the marriage, and if a too-young girl died in childbirth, the alliance was over.

Margaret getting pregnant and bearing a child so young shocked people. Either Edmund wanted an heir off her as soon as possible, or did not care at all about her mental or physical health. This young pregnancy and traumatic childbirth damaged her body so much, she could not bear other children (she had no subsequent pregnancies, despite her marriages to Henry Stafford and Thomas Stanley). It must have been emotionally traumatic for her, since in her later years, she negotiated marriages for herself that got her access to lands and armies for her son (the Stanley family) but that did not include sexual activity. And she advocated hard for Henry VII not to send his daughter and her namesake to live with her future husband in Scotland until she came of age.

I HATE, LOATHE, and DETEST Margaret in this series being pro-“let’s impregnate Lizzie before the wedding,” because it is sanctioning rape, and as a girl who went through rape, I doubt she would inflict the same trauma on anyone else. For shame on Philippa Gregory, who wrote this tripe in the first place, and on Emma Frost for going along with it. I hope her ghost haunts you from the afterlife!

Prince Arthur’s Birth: Drama vs. Tudor Reality

A big deal is made of Elizabeth Woodville not being allowed to see her pregnant daughter, Lizzie, because on this show she is a traitor to the throne. As mentioned in earlier episodes, she never opposed Henry coming to the throne and planned his arrival in advance, so of course, she was not prevented from seeing her daughter or attending the birth of her first grandson.

Elizabeth tells her, about Arthur, “Guard your heart, my Lizzie, the child is not your own, he belongs to the throne, and never forget what the red in that rose stands for; your family’s blood, your lover’s blood.” As if she forgot that the “lover” was Lizzie’s uncle. 😛

She has a stupid exchange of threats with Margaret Beaufort, in which Margaret says Prince Arthur is the only Tudor, and son and heir to England (duh). Elizabeth retorts that there is always doubt of his succession; since there were two boys destined for the throne and both are now presumed dead. Historically, Elizabeth knew her sons were dead even without evidence, and her blaming Richard for their fate is why she arranged her daughter’s marriage to Henry.  

Christenings & Churchings

When the child is born, Margaret demands to hold him and then tries to keep Henry from visiting Lizzie and the boy, since she believes Lizzie has influence over Henry, which is no good for her, since it weakens her hold over him. (Never happened.) She wants to christen him at once, rather than wait until Lizzie has been “churched” (removed from her confinement, and declared pure after childbirth), so they can prove to everyone Henry has an heir. They choose to christen Arthur in Winchester Cathedral, so Lizzie cannot attend.

In Tudor times, babies were christened quickly because infant mortality was so high and no one wanted their child to languish in Purgatory without being protected. Highborn ladies did not attend the christening, since they were recovering from childbirth. The christening happened within a few days (or hours, if they thought the baby would not live), while their mothers did not return to public life for 40 days. The facts are rearranged to make Margaret look mean and controlling, rather than just being an accepted part of life (The Tudors did this much better).

Historically, the Tudors chose Winchester Cathedral for the Christening because it linked Prince Arthur to Arthurian legends. Henry was building up lore around his son being the “new” King Arthur, who would restore “Camelot” to England. Lore that continued well into his son’s life, including in the public theater performances that surrounded his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

The show has Henry commission a red and white rose badge for his son to use; but he was using it prior to the birth of his son, and merely included it in his heraldic banners. It symbolized the union of the White and the Red House of Lancaster, and the peace his marriage to Elizabeth of York brought.

As seen in the series, Elizabeth Woodville attended the christening as his principal godmother, and placed him on the altar for the blessing. This was one of her final public appearances.

The show briefly shows Lizzie being “churched” (purified) before she can return to court life. After a birth, a highborn woman remained in her rooms for 40 days, time enough for her milk to dry up (queens could not breast-feed their children; instead, a midwife who had given birth to a boy was found). The ritual of blessing a woman after childbirth relates to the “Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary” mentioned in Luke 2:22, which came from Leviticus 12 (a ceremonial cleansing for the mother, and a sacrifice). Why? In ye olden times, people believed a woman became ritually unclean by giving birth owing to all the blood and/or other fluids of childbirth. Most women did not mind this time, because it gave them two months to recover, spend time with their female friends, enjoy their new baby, and not engage in sex.

Elizabeth Woodville: Retiring From Public Life

Because Henry knows Elizabeth Woodville conspired with Francis Lovell to kill him, he has her thrown into an Abbey along with her three youngest daughters and restricts her visitors and habits as punishment.

It’s true she retired to an Abbey, but it was not because the king did not trust her. She and Henry agreed it was time for her to “fade” in the public consciousness so her grandson could become the focus of England’s future. This would have been expected of her when she supported Henry’s bid for the throne. Dowager Queens did this because it removed them from the public eye and allowed them a peaceful time in their older years. It was her way of telling everyone at court she had no desire to engage in politics.

Elizabeth was not imprisoned there, and seems to have come and gone as she pleased (she is recorded as being present at various public events and diplomatic visits up through 1488/1490). Contrary to what is shown, she lived in relative luxury and comfort. Abbeys of the period had expensive rooms where royalty and nobles would stay while traveling; they ‘hired out’ these chambers in exchange for donations or with someone ‘retiring’ there permanently, for property deeded over to them (this is how the Catholic Church became such an enormous landowner in the Middle Ages). In exchange, the Abbey provided for all the person’s needs, including cooking special meals. She was not subsisting on bread and water, not prevented from writing to anyone, and not allowed to leave, or to entertain visitors.

It’s also possible she only went to the Abbey when she knew she was dying; rich people retired from public life toward the end of their life, and they thought a proximity to those who would pray for them aided them in the afterlife. (One could include a request for prayers before and after death as part of one’s financial arrangement with the Abbey.)

Bonding Over Lost Choices: A Modern Projection

Lizzie and Henry bond over the realization that neither of them chose their life, but had it decided for them by their parents from a young age. Our modern concepts of free will, marrying for love, choosing a profession, etc., was not something people thought about in Tudor times. You knew from childhood you would inherit this property, marry that person, or be expected to advance your family’s holdings, and that’s how it was. Nobody else had choices either, so you would not even think that this was being “imposed on you.”

Henry saying, “I didn’t get to choose” would not have been his mindset. Kings thought they were chosen by God to rule. He saw his escapes from his enemies and his ability to win against Richard III as a divine confirmation that he was supposed to rule England and bring about a lasting peace. He would not whine about it to his wife, because he would have felt chosen for his role. Henry could have said no, and lived a boring life in exile, but he CHOSE to challenge Richard III for the throne out of ambition, and because his mother’s negotiations paved the way for his success.

Mary of Burgundy’s Death

The show reminds us that Margaret of Burgundy is a York by blood, daughter of Duchess Cecily and sister to Richard III. A lot of the situations in this episode are fabricated, but based on the actual personalities involved.

Margaret of York, who is in Flanders with her stepdaughter Mary and Mary’s husband, Maximilian, is boastful of harassing Henry VII, looting his ships, and causing him trouble (did not happen). When Jasper Tudor arrives, she is hostile to him at first, then softens toward him, but sneers at his idea Henry could rule, since “He spent his life in brothels and in cowsheds; what would he know of politics?” This is a simplification of Henry’s life, which was spent in neither; he was well-educated and lived a comfortable life in England, Wales, and in exile, before he became king.

The series implies Margaret of Burgundy is the ruler of the Netherlands, but it was her stepdaughter, Mary, who co-ruled with Maximilian of Austria.

Negotiations improve with the English until Mary challenges Jasper Tudor’s co-envoy, Lord Strange, to a horserace only to fall, break her back, and die. Margaret is so angry at this, she kicks the English out of her court and says she will wage war.

Mary fell from her horse and die in 1482, but it wasn’t in a horse race against an Englishman, but in a hunting accident. She went on a falcon hunt. Her horse tripped, threw her into a ditch, and landed on top of her. It took her several weeks to die from her injuries (time enough that she made a detailed will). She was pregnant.

Court politics at the time did not involve public meltdowns; Jasper Tudor would not have been struck by Margaret of York. That would have been unseemly behavior. (It is, however, in keeping with writer Emma Frost’s tendency to make European nobles from the 1500s act like moody, irresponsible teenagers in all her adaptations.)

Minor Inaccuracies:

• Jasper Tudor was not sent to Burgundy to negotiate peace.
• Duchess Cecily never went to Burgundy to stir up strife.
• The tension over Teddy is realistic; he was someone their enemies could use against them, but Henry did not like to execute people for no reason, so his keeping him in the Tower where nobody could kidnap him was a valid choice. I doubt he had a completely bare room, though. The Tower was not just a prison, but a royal residence with lavish apartments in it.
• Why is Henry Tudor beating the crap out of his servant, with whom he is practicing swordplay? He does not need to punch the guy in the face “just because” (it’smeant to make him seem like a jerk, as usual).

About the Author: Charity Bishop writes historical fiction, historical fantasy, and suspense novels that explores the darkness in human hearts, and the light that refuses to be extinguished. Discover her books.