The series finale of The White Princess abandons historical plausibility entirely in favor of sensationalism, depicting Margaret Beaufort as the murderer of the Princes in the Tower, Henry VII as a violent, insecure tyrant, and Perkin Warbeck as the true Richard of York. In doing so, the episode dismantles real Tudor political logic, invents crimes unsupported by evidence, and replaces documented strategy with melodrama. This post examines the fabricated threats, the slander of Margaret Beaufort, the distortion of Henry VII’s character, and the historical reality behind Perkin Warbeck, Edward of Warwick, and the end of the Yorkist cause.

Inside This Post:

• Perkin Warbeck: A Nonexistent Threat
• Henry VII’s Temper Tantrum
• Henry VII: An Insecure Monarch?
• Richard III’s Death
• Margaret Beaufort’s Shameful Secrets
• Warwick & Warbeck’s Escape Attempt
• Why Do Inaccuracies Matter?

Episode 8: Old Curses

Henry discovers the truth about his mother’s murder of the Princes in the Tower and fears the curse Elizabeth Woodville laid upon them will leave him bereft of his sons. Elizabeth of York tries to get rid of the threat her imprisoned brother, Richard of York, poses to the line of succession. But he can go nowhere but the scaffold.

Perkin Warbeck: A Nonexistent Threat

A big deal is made about Scotland readying armies to come against England in Richard of York’s defense, and how the king “should be” marshaling armies to come to his aid. There was no need, because his failed invasion had been a huge public humiliation for Perkin Warbeck. All of his collaborators had been arrested or killed. Scotland and England were at peace.

The episode states that “Burgundy and Ireland wait for the tides to be in their favor,” but they did not try to rescue Richard. The Irish conspirators had been put to death. Nobody would come to rescue Perkin Warbeck. Lady Catherine Gordon, his wife, had not “escaped” to conspire with Margaret of York, who was in Burgundy and not holed up in a house on the Thames.

Henry VII’s Temper Tantrum

Here comes the most cringe-inducing moment in the entire series. Henry believes “Perkin Warbeck” is the actual Richard of York, and that his mother tried to murder the Princes in the Tower. He confronts her with this information, and she says yes, and some deeds are necessary for the greater good. Henry tells her about the curse laid on the murderer of the boys by their witch mother, Elizabeth Woodville, and screams, “You have damned them! Put the mark of death on them! You’re a butcher of innocence, a killer of children, and now you have killed mine! You’re a monster!”

After slamming her into walls and strangling her, Henry drags her by her ankles out of his chamber, hurls her into the midst of his horrified, astonished court, and screams that she does not come near him, speak to him, or for him, ever again. “Nobody listens to her! And if you defy my orders, I’ll have your heads myself!”

This had me spitting tacks the first time I watched it, and I am still grinding my teeth about it years later.

This. Is. All. Bullshit.

Fact #1: Margaret Beaufort never murdered the Princes in the Tower. The two primary suspects by historians are Richard III (the likely one, given his exclusive access to them) and Henry Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, who had a strong claim to the throne and conspired with Henry Tudor to invade.

Fact #2: The Princes were likely both murdered in the Tower. Even though the bones of the two children found buried in the Tower have not been carbon dated or tested for comparative DNA to Richard’s bones, their discovery at the base of the stairs when doing renovations in the 1700s exactly matches what Sir Thomas More wrote about their deaths in the early 1500s, in which he implicates Sir John Tyrell, at the behest of Richard III. (He claimed Richard ordered Tyrell to do it; he hired two assassins whose names appear in court documents who smothered the boys in their beds, then concealed their bodies at the base of the stairs.) Recent evidence has also shown Sir Thomas More was in the same place at the same time as one of the men’s sons, possibly meaning he heard the story from a primary source. (If you want to argue More wrote that to please Henry Tudor, recall he rarely did anything to please monarchs and went to his death for displeasing one. Yet, he still knew where the two boys were buried, which remained unsubstantiated for two hundred years!)

Fact #3: Henry VII and Margaret Beaufort were extremely close. She did not have as much influence over him in real life as she does in the show, because he wasn’t a temperamental, insecure man-child, but he often consulted with her on important matters; she had royal chambers close to his own. Margaret was one of the few people allowed to see him after his wife’s death, and she nursed him back to health when he almost died from grief and a relapse of his consumption (tuberculosis). They were never estranged.

Nor would he have humiliated her, abused her, threatened her, or tried to strangle her, in private or in public, since there are no records to show he had a temper. He was a calm, pragmatic, cunning strategist who invested in long games; they depict him here more like his temperamental, mentally ill son, Henry VIII. Henry VII could be cruel, but it was out of monetary gain, rather than physical assault or abuse.

This fictionalized Henry VII bears zero resemblance to the real one in personality, actions, or mental attitude.

Henry VII: An Insecure Monarch?

Henry is shaken, because if his mother murdered the lost princes (“she killed the rightful king”), that means God hasn’t chosen him to sit on the throne, he is the usurper, and Richard of York (Perkin Warbeck) is the true King of England! Henry thinks if Richard beats him in battle, he will keep his word and let Henry’s two sons live, but his wife is not convinced. (This makes him look really naïve.) He has guilt and remorse as he flashes back to Richard III’s death at the hands of his armies, and has to be reassured by his fierce, powerful wife that he must remain strong.

He says, “I am king in name only. I wasn’t given the right.”

The Girl Boss replies, “The right is taken, not given, by blood, by murder. Where is God in that? The king’s divinity is a tale men tell themselves, but the right is taken by force and held by force; so take the right, Henry. Take it.”

Aka, BE A MAN!!

Sigh. I can’t.

Let’s look at this from two angles for a moment.

One, that monarchs actually believed they were ordained by God to rule, and two (more likely), that this was a convenient lie to keep the populace under control.

It worked like this: if you won the battle, God had chosen you to succeed, and you now had the right of divine rule. If you lost, the other side doubled down on the fact that God has chosen me instead. Just as possession is nine-tenths of the law, whoever took the throne was the king for however long he could keep it.

Henry wanted the throne for the same reasons all men wanted thrones; power, influence, riches, security, and to keep his family safe. Richard became unpopular after he usurped his nephew. Henry recognized that as a weakness and challenged him. His armies defeated Richard, so he became king. All he then had to do was fight off anyone who threatened his rule, which he did. He never doubted he had the “right” to be a king, and learning that his mother was involved in the murder of two children would not change that; he had still beaten Richard on a field of battle and won the throne through conquest.

“God chose me” has been used to justify kingship for centuries; it’s the same reasoning used in the Old Testament to justify the actions of the Israelites (“God told me to march into your land and kill you and take all your stuff, because it’s supposed to be my land!”). Roman Emperors claimed to be gods, even though they knew they weren’t, so anyone who defied them was committing an offense against a deity. Even super pious monarchs in the middle ages still claimed to have a pagan deity in their bloodline to legitimize their claim to the throne. Being aligned with God made it a sin to commit treason against them that carried the threat of eternal damnation. They knew this kind of political and religious propaganda detered casual detractors.

Even if Henry was horrified that his mother killed two kids (an action he would not have taken; he waited until people grew up and committed treason to execute them) … it ultimately would not erase the fact that he had won the battle, ergo was ordained by God to rule. His remorse / grief about this makes it sound like the only reason he invaded was because he thought Richard killed his nephews.

It’s all utter rubbish and I hate it, thanks.

Richard III’s Death

This episode makes Henry despicable. He has a long monologue about how Richard was not beaten to death, like Lizzie thinks. “He had one eye stabbed from his head, while the other still roamed and blinked. He was still breathing, blood bubbling on his lips.” He says the soldiers “violated his body again and again, and I did nothing. I saw that he lived, and I encouraged them to do what they wanted, like animals tearing at him. We rolled him [naked] into a pit, and he was still alive when the dirt hit his face.”

Richard III was England’s last warrior king, a man who went out onto the field of battle and fought for his crown. After his death, almost no king was among the first to crest a hill and ride down into danger’s path, because they could… well, die.

Richard led a mounted cavalry charge against Henry, was cut down, surrounded by Tudor supporters, and killed. He died from “multiple blows to the head,” including one from a halberd at the base of his neck that killed him, delivered by a Welsh lord. He either lost his helmet in battle or someone removed it. And he had almost no defensive wounds. The specialists who examined his bones found several blows delivered after his death, since they were impossible to inflict through his armor.

He was thrown naked onto a horse after his death and displayed in Leicester for three days to prove he was dead before being buried. No, he was not cut apart and assaulted while alive nor buried alive.  

Margaret Beaufort’s Shameful Secrets

Last week, Margaret Beaufort told Lizzie she must not look at children as what they are, but what they must become, and not have mercy on them. This led Lizzie to realize she had murdered the boys in the Tower, and from there, to assume she had also had Lady Catherine Gordon’s son murdered. Because… we haven’t slandered Margaret Beaufort enough. We have to slap her with another dead child on her conscience. But their testy exchange is a verbal setup for what happens later:

Margaret Beaufort: “If you are not shocked by what you will do for your children, if you are not appalled by what actions they will draw out of you while you scream, then you are not a woman worthy of the name.”

This sets up Lizzie betraying and having her brother executed to protect her sons.

Warwick & Warbeck’s Escape Attempt

The episode depicts a fake Perkin Warbeck as being hanged at Tyburn in front of a cheering crowd, to fulfill how the real Perkin Warbeck actually died. It has Margaret Pole trying to help her brother escape, then being arrested and imprisoned in the Tower. She is later pardoned and returned to court. (This never happened to the real Margaret Pole, who was smart enough not to engage in treason.)

Her brother, Edward Plantagenet, Earl of Warwick, is fooled into signing his name onto a confession of treason and of conspiring against the king, so he and Perkin Warbeck can be executed in private to secure the throne, and to fulfill Isabella of Spain’s demands that all Pretenders be killed before she sends Catherine of Aragon to marry Prince Arthur. (Again, this was Ferdinand‘s requirement, not Isabella’s.) In this version of events, Richard and Edward are innocents led to their executions without trial and killed to keep Henry on the throne.

This isn’t how it happened.

Because Perkin Warbeck was not Richard of York, as soon as he went into the Tower, his former supporters lost all interest in him. There were no rescue attempts. Any traitors who hated Henry now turned their attention to the only legitimate heir to Edward IV’s throne: his nephew, Edward Plantaganet, who had been kept in the Tower since childhood. (The Tower was a royal residence, not just a prison. Edward was likely not kept in a bare room, but in a royal apartment.)

In February 1499, a man named Ralph Wilford claimed to be Edward. His attempt to take the throne was over in only a few days; all it accomplished was his conviction and hanging, before his body was displayed for four days as a deterrent, and buried.

That sparked off a new conspiracy, brought about by Thomas Astwood, who had escaped execution for treason four years earlier. He led a small group of rebels that included Edward’s manservant, who put it into Edward’s mind that he and his new friend Perkin Warbeck (kept in the next room) would be rescued and taken abroad. The conspirators were all set to trigger an explosion of gunpowder in the Tower as a distraction, kill the guards, and flee across the Thames, when the king found out about their conspiracy. (Sir Thomas Lovell was involved in exposing them, as the Deputy of the Tower. As Henry’s spymaster, he is one of the main characters in my series.)

The collaborators were arrested and tried, with the King’s Council sitting in judgment, along with all the bishops, the Duke of Buckingham, the earls of Northumberland, Oxford, Surrey, and Essex, various barons, and England’s leading justices. Edward and the others confessed they intended to ‘depose and destroy the King’s person and his blood’ (family). It’s likely the outcome was predetermined, but also proven that Edward and Perkin were collaborators in their escape, and aware of (at least on some level) the intentions of their rescuers.

Why Edward confessed is unclear, but he may not have understood the implications of his admission, or thought admitting it would grant him clemency. Unfortunately, it combined with his royal blood sentenced him to death; Henry could not afford to leave him alive, even imprisoned, any longer, as a figure to be rescued by Yorkists. He received the usual stated punishment for traitors (to be hung, drawn, and quartered) which was then commuted into “beheading.”

In the show, Edward has his head cut off with an ax, while Perkin is beheaded with a sword (as befits royalty; Henry’s acknowledgement that his claim is genuine). They are both tossed into the same coffin.

In real life, Perkin was hanged at Tyburn, and his head was spiked on London Bridge. Edward was beheaded with an axe, but his body was taken to Bisham Abbey and interred near his Kingmaker grandfather at considerable “expense” (£12 then, which is £3,500 now, or $4,100), in honor of his royal blood and status.

Why Do Inaccuracies Matter?

You might wonder why I put so much time and effort into this series, and my other ones on Tudor history. It’s just fiction, after all. How much harm can it do?

A lot.

Since this series came out, I’ve noticed a shift in online spaces based on the claims this fictional series makes about Margaret Beaufort. Suddenly, a woman who was never even considered as a potential murderer of the lost princes is at the top of the suspect list. It’s impossible to source online articles, essays, and blog posts without people insisting she must have done it in the comment section.

No, it’s not just fiction. Stories have power. This one has changed hearts and minds and done these historical figures a disservice. I’ve gone on at length about the character of Margaret Beaufort and how she doesn’t deserve this, as a rape survivor, a young mother, and a benefactress of charitable causes, but her son Henry VII has also been slandered. He had many faults, avarice being at the top of the list. He likewise does not deserve to have accusations of rape thrust upon him, much less demeaned through being depicted with such a pathetic, weak personality. Love him or hate him, he was nothing like this. The real Elizabeth of York was a demure, mild-mannered, gentle soul whom everyone loved, not a ruthless and fierce girl boss who had sex with her uncle. These were real people.

My obsession with Tudor history started when I discovered Elizabeth I at twelve years old. Here was a true feminist icon who never married and ruled England through its golden age! From there, I became curious about her father and Anne Boleyn. Then I got obsessed with Catherine of Aragon. I wrote a novel at sixteen, a mammoth title called Isabella’s Daughter. Ten years later, I came back to it, broke it down into a seven-book series, and fell in love with these historical figures all over again. I care so much about them that anything I write about them that isn’t true is shared with my readers in the last chapter, where I tell them what really happened and why I changed it. That’s what I feel an author of integrity does, and why it bothers me so much that a menial disclaimer showing at the end of each of these episodes for a few seconds doesn’t undo all the historical slander that the story has shared with an audience who may or may not know the truth, and who may spread untruths into popular culture.

I believe people’s actual stories matter and should be told, and we shouldn’t use them as if we made them up. That’s what fictional characters are for, my friends!

I really enjoy the original series, The White Queen, which was well-written, engaging, and has a wonderful fantasy element, despite its being botched history. But I am glad that having finished The White Princess, I need never watch it again.

This article is part of my Historical Accuracy in Historical TV Shows & Movies series, where I break down the real history behind popular historical dramas.

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.