The White Queen

[ShadeofViolet]

Anyone else ridiculously excited?

I know Philippa Gregory's books tend to be a bit Barbara Cartland in places, and I hope the BBC havent increased it, but I still cannot wait to watch it.

Is it me or is Margaret of Anjou wearing a dress with a paisley pattern? Like, what was popular out of India in the 18th century?

I'm enjoying it but all the clothes look wrong this episode.

I was very gripped by tonight's prog. I don't know about dress patterns or whether concrete steps and chrome handrails had been invented yet, so none of these details bother me .

I also love the Anne Neville actor. She plays it very naturally ime.

I started to watch last night's episode and fell asleep part way through. I woke up when Jaquetta was being tried for witchcraft, but hadn't a clue how it had ended up like that. Is it worth watching again on i-player to find out what happened in the middle?

I never understand why they were all so keen on becoming king/queen or for their children to be king/queen. If that were me I'd try to keep right out of the way of history and the battles and the beheadings and the awful awful strategic marriages. Poor Anne.

LOL, yes. I had it on in the background, glanced up at the screen and saw said handrails.

I was going to read The Kingmaker's Daughter because I would like to know more about her (and we were in Middleham yesterday) but if PG does Richard III as a caricature of evil in the book I think it'll just annoy me too much.

Ah thanks, I might get it then

It's not a bad castle.
When we went last year my 2yo was convinced the tower thing on a Victorian building in the town was the tower where the Princes were killed.
The older 2 are very Ricardian as a result of the Horrible Histories song and went up to the statue and earnestly told it they didn't think it was him that killed the princes.

Am I just not paying attention or has Lord Hastings also gone AWOL?

PG doesn't play Richard as evil IIRC. Quite 'normal' but with a few unanswered questions. is that vague enough?

Personally I'm a great Ricardian. I think he took the rap for a lot and wasn't to blame for most of it!

I suppose the feudal system meant you didn't always have the choice to stay out of things. If the person you owed loyalty to told you to fight you had to even if you thought it was a terrible idea. Like when you have a useless boss and you're convinced you could do the job better.
At least if you were king you would get to make those decisions.

We never really had much of a feudal system anyway, even earlier on. I think it was definitely pretty weak by the fifteenth century, but I think there were other pressures on people to seek protection.

I think what perhaps helps to explain it is just looking at normal life. We're all familiar with the horrible things that happen to kings and queens but you could lead a very unambitious life and still find horrible things happened. So perhaps the relative danger wasn't so great?

Saw a brilliant TV trial a few years ago, BBC I think! Not Sure? Presided over by the present day duke of glocester in which they did a mock trial set in the present day putting forward all the evidence fore and against Richard being Guilty and it was found that in all probability he was not responsible for the death of the Prince's.

Much of his reputation comes from Shakespears play and he would not have wanted to offend the Tudors by presenting Richard as any thing other than a villain and many other things just didn't add up[hhm]

Laqueen I have been wondering about John Neville too. I thought he took the lead in rebelling against Edward?

I don't really believe a lot of this series I'll admit as the characters are drawn quite differently from what I have read about them before. Eg Cecily as a cold old crone, Margaret B as a frothing beserker etc And Max Irons is all wrong for this. But I still like the Anne Neville actor.

Sunshinenanny, I'm reading Josephine Tey at the minute where a detective sifts through all the known facts to piece together a credible story of what happened to the princes. Similar idea.

aah ok thanks LaQu.