“The account of Princess Elizabeth’s affair with her uncle was mostly written out of histories dominated by a Tudor bias,” says The White Queen author Philippa Gregory.
“My story is based on a letter she’s supposed to have written to the Duke of Norfolk, asking him to persuade King Richard to go ahead with plans to marry her.” The letter, reportedly once part of a private collection, is now lost.
“This was an extraordinary thought to me,” says Gregory. “I’d assumed that the chastity of a royal princess would be pretty near unassailable. It was also extraordinary since it suggested that Princess Elizabeth of York had fallen in love with the man that the traditional history believes was the murderer of her young brothers, the princes in the tower.”
“Could a young woman be so heartless, or so ambitious, or so perverse that she could engage in an adulterous affair with a man, while his wife was dying, when she knew that he had murdered her little brothers aged fourteen and ten?” says Gregory. “Or, and this was just as surprising a thought for me, if the love affair took place, did it not suggest that she believed him innocent of the murders? And if not him, then who?”
The White Queen is the story of Elizabeth Woodville. She catches the eye of the newly crowned boy king Edward. They marry in secret. A very capable woman, Elizabeth makes sure her family is around her and her husband. Her two young sons by Edward disappear after being taken to the Tower on the pretext of it being their safety in preparation for the elder son, Edward, to be crowned king. Where are their bodies and who killed them? Her eldest daughter Princess Elizabeth plays a part in this story, too.
“I started to think about writing of the royal family that preceded the Tudors some years ago when I was researching for The Constant Princess, my novel about Katherine of Aragon,” says Gregory. “In order to write about her early married life I needed to know something about her in-laws, Henry VII and his wife Elizabeth, Princess of York. To my amazement, I found that there had been a long-ago scandal at the royal court. The Princess had been in love and had an affair with her uncle, Richard of Gloucester, by then Richard III.”
The White Queen is written in the present tense and makes you feel like you’re there. The repeated description of Melusina and her ascent from the water got to be a bit much. Gregory is outstanding at revealing how her characters feel, but the description needed to help keep you in the story is missing. The type of thing I’m talking about are: “how cold the walls of the Tower are” or “how soft the touch of velvet is in the Queen’s hands”. Where historical facts are scant, Gregory uses her imagination to piece together an engaging story.
Rating: ***
The White Queen by Philippa Gregory. Hardcover, 432 pages, Publisher: Touchstone, August 18, 2009, Language: English ISBN: 9781416563686
