MrsE

Of course EoY didn't address the troops - she was never anywhere near a battle. Come to that Henry usually - and wisely - left it to his generals to sort these things out. They also never went to Spain.

Perhaps he'd seen the scripts for the remaining episodes in which Margaret strangles a basket load of kittens just for laughs, stabs Elizabeth Woodeville (who I think was already dead when little Henry was created Duke of York, but hey), and reveals herself as queen of the Lizard People, and just lost the will to live.

The problem is of course that the odd pretender notwithstanding, Henry's reign and his relationship with his queen was fairly uneventful. I don't suppose many people would be ever so interested in the fact that he invested heavily in the development of new technology for water mills, or the consolidation of the alum trade, although there was some nice sleight of hand in a few continental trade deals and of course the famously clever solution to the problem of the Earl of Kildare. Although he did buy a lion for Elizabeth. So there's that.

The problem was of course that Henry had no means of subsistence; his property had been confiscated. And there were also several attempts to get him back to England by fair means or foul (on one occasion he disguised himself as a servant to dodge EIV's men, on another he either genuinely fell ill or feigned illness long enough for his ducal protector to prevent the planned sailing to England. I'm sure he'd have preferred to have been left alone! It's always fascinated me that a man noted for his caution threw it to the winds in 1483 and 1485 in a sort of do or die venture.

In The White Princess she gives Henry brown eyes and red hair; he had blue eyes and fair/brown hair; she makes him small - he was above average height; she writes him as having no style - when he arrived in England he cut an elegant figure in European clothes; she makes him needlessly rude - with no basis at all. And that's just the first time Elizabeth sees him.

Just seen E4 and loved, loved, loved the scrap between Monsieur and the Chevalier, complete with the preamble: "How much?" "400,000 francs" Tight little smile from Monsieur; cut to Lorraine being hurled through the door. And he thought he'd won - until he heard the sword being drawn. "I've seen turkeys with more sense". Brilliant. Come on Philippe, give Madame a go, she's fabulous. Fabien doesn't half get well soon; how many attempts on his life do we think he'll survive. Dear Mme de Montespan - sod off.

I know that the "eight month baby" is the source of speculation that Henry and Elizabeth jumped the gun, and it's not impossible, but I think it's more likely that Arthur was early. Even if they did preempt the actual wedding (and final dispensation) there's nothing at all to suggest either coercion or any kind of "road testing" to ensure that Elizabeth was fertile. The betrothal was a fact and getting out of it and moving on to one of Elizabeth's sisters (how many would he have tried out I wonder?) would just not have washed. Henry would have seriously, if not fatally, undermined his position. Alison Weir's book is good, if a little lacking in substance; that's not really her fault, as there's not that much to go on in terms of, for example, letters from Elizabeth. Certainly records bear out the generally accepted affection and respect the two had one for the other, and they also debunk the idea that Henry was niggardly and that his court was a miserable, joyless place.

I don't know why anyone believes that she slept with RIchard, especially as those that do tend to be the same people who see him as a romantic hero. Sleeping with a woman he can't marry - and who he declared he had no intention of marrying - and leaving her unmarriageable is not at all romantic, never mind the incest. Gregory has him deflowering her the night before a battle in which he could end up dead and unable to give her even the protection he might afford a mistress. It's all nonsense.

Highly questionable I should say! There's no real evidence to suggest that they slept together before they were married.

I've just seen this earlier in the thread: Do you mean a fact in the context of this series or an historically established fact? If the latter, from where does this understanding come?

It makes no sense to have Henry try to get out of the marriage, none whatsoever. He's sworn an oath to marry her. This is why playing fast and loose with facts leads to all sorts of difficulties. He'd spent two years effectively betrothed to the woman; have him regret his decision, certainly, but to depict this as all the mother's and the in-law's fault is daft, and it turns Henry into a fool, and that he most certainly was not. He worked damned hard to learn the business of kingship, he didn't pick it up from his mother. Sorry about the earlier spoiler; I'd supposed that this whole thing went only as far as the end of Gregory's book, so what I posted won't be shown in the series.

Because it's lose/lose. Leave it out altogether and there's no shock horror and "Poor Lizzie!" factor. Put it in as written and Henry is irredeemable and whatever affection develops between them is, as it is in the book, not remotely credible. So instead it just has to be just a bit rapey with Henry seeing it as an unfortunate necessity urged on him by his horrible mother. Gregory queered this pitch for them good and proper.

Henry declaring that he won't marry her is absurd. He'd promised to marry her in 1483, swore a solemn oath on Christmas day in Rennes cathedral. I don't understand trying to depict him as reluctant. And certainly Elizabeth, who had twice been engaged before this to foreigners she'd never met, could have had no expectation of marrying for anything but political expedience. That they developed a relationship of mutual affection and support seems widely accepted; The scene is there because it's in Gregory's book, although it's been watered down to make Henry seem less repulsive - and making Henry repulsive is the aim of Gregory's application of one of her favourite devices. It's ironic that Starz has decided to go with a burgeoning romantic attachment when everything Gregory writes about Henry is very much to his disadvantage. Then again, she can't maintain consistent characterisation from one book to the next, so perhaps she won't notice.

There are a couple of very moving letters sent by Margaret to her father from Scotland in which she tells him how much she misses him and that if she could she'd be with him. The prayer book HVII gave her when she left for Scotland bears a lovely inscription from him. Clearly they were very fond of one another.

Well Gregory would have you believe she's already spread for her own uncle, so perhaps she's not so fussy. The whole RIII liaison and the rape is preposterous - unless of course you want to think very badly indeed of both RIII and HVII equally.

Lincoln also doesn't fit the "Henry butchered all the Yorkists" myth; after Bosworth not only was he not offed, he was given a seat on Henry's council. In fact Henry so often pardoned those who sided against him that his advisors grew increasingly concerned and exasperated with him. I don't see the need to conflate the Simnel/Warbeck threats. Simnel was so obviously just a pawn, and Henry's treatment of him after Stoke so pointed that it merits attention in itself. The Shadow of The Tower will doubtless appear stagey and dated to modern sensibilities but I loved it. James Maxwell as Henry was outstandingly good.

And her brother in law. HVII was no mug though and knew an untrustworthy man when he saw one; the relationship didn't save Stanley's life later in the reign. There is some truth in the Stanleys' intervention having won the day for Henry, but it also seems that they held off until it became apparent that Richard was done for, and of course once he was dead it was all over.

Amanda Hale didn't want to do it apparently.

Not commenting on the series, but the rumours didn't dog her at all. In fact Richard vehemently denied them.

Mantel doesn't really claim to be offering real Cromwell; what she does is more akin to what Shakespeare did - using historical figures to explore universal truths about power, hubris and human frailty. Gregory claims that what she writes is the result of extensive research and "probably what happened". How she can say this with a straight face about royal women practising magic or the gross betrayal that Richard sleeping with his unmarried niece represented I don't know - and I'm a bit surprised that you found that appealing. The problem with what Gregory does with Richard is that he becomes some sort of saintly romantic hero rather than the ruthless medieval king that he was. Men killed to get to the throne and to stay on it and there is no reason to suppose that Richard was any different. He was a man of his time. All Gregory does is throw ordure at Henry VII, and the resulting distortion is every bit as grotesque as anything Shakespeare wrote. I'd also argue that the only Tudor monarchs that have been done to death are Henry VIII and Elizabeth I; Henry VII, Edward VI and Mary I have been largely overlooked.

As they're based on Gregory's books the only way there'd be sequel is if she's written anything other than the awful thing about Anne Boleyn,

I think that the restoration is a completely different kettle of fish. Charles II was invited to return after the Protectorate collapsed following Cromwell's death. , and had not himself been convicted of treason. In order for Clarence's children to have inherited Richard would have had to reverse the attainder passed by Edward IV and he plainly had no intention f doing that.

Arthur did die but Henry VII had another son, Henry, Duke of York, who succeeded to the throne as Henry VIII. The sorcery nonsense has no basis in fact, other than RIII believing he'd been bewitched. although whether he really believed that is doubtful.

Even more disturbing is the idea that she was responsible for the deaths Edward IV's sons; it's part of the "anyone but Richard" take on the matter, but it's not something that, as far as I'm aware, was ever even a consideration until very recently, and I think that Gregory has really stirred the pot on this. If you start from the premise that the lovely, doe eyed hero Richard simply can't have done it you have to look for someone else who was around in 1483 to blame. Margaret Beaufort? Sure, why not. Her son was king 2 years later, makes perfect sense tht she'd off the boys thereby, well, thereby putting RIII n the throne. Buckingham? Him too; Anne Neville? Certainly she might well have egged her husband on (Gregory believes this one). So, even if he did do it it wasn't really his fault. The saintly hero was, apparently, a spineless idiot who would kill a couple of children because his wife told him to. It's as counter productive as the Mills & Boon fantasy of Richard and EoY as lovers. It isn't romantic, it's sordid and inexcusable - deflowering a woman who you can't marry, and that's quite apart from the incestuous nature of it.

I'm not trying to be awkward, but what is your source for her influence on the Warbeck issue? And why do you think he was who he claimed to be? Why, for example, was he brought up by an official in Tournai, (where people had known him as the son of that family since his birth) rather than with Margaret of Burgundy who would have welcomed him with open arms? The letter he sent to the crowned heads of Europe made no mention of how he came to be in Tournai at all. I'm not sure either where the notion that Henry's advancement was all about her comes from. For years she worked to have his titles and possessions restored to him, but she was immensely wealthy in her own right. It wasn't until the death of EIV and RIII's shutting down of negotiations for Henry's safe return that she appears to have even considered him as king. It was observed by a contemporary that though the king listened to his mother he did what he wanted. Why is wearing robes of the same quality as the queen an issue? EoY had done the same when Anne Neville was queen; there is evidence to suggest that Elizabeth and Margaret worked well together, on at least one occasion joining forces to persuade the king to delay princess Margaret's departure for Scotland to join her husband, because they feared that she was too young to risk consummation. It's an odd thing, this recent notion that Margaret Beaufort was a power mad religious lunatic.