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The White Queen

999 replies

ShadeofViolet · 16/06/2013 17:06

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.

OP posts:
Fiderer · 13/08/2013 20:54

Blimey, if ever we needed a spreadsheet Grin

Chubfuddler · 13/08/2013 21:16

I know fiderer. Understanding the wars of the roses is hardcore. It's a massive gap in my history knowledge though I am determined to work it out.

SaggyOldClothCatPuss · 13/08/2013 23:17

Edward IIIs oldest son, the Black Prince was father to Richard II. He was succeeded by Henry IV, grandfather of mad Henry VI who was his nephew, son of Edwards third Son, John of Gaunt. Edwards second son Lionel died young but had a daughter Phillipa who technically would be next in line. Her daughter Anne was Edward IVs grandmother. Edward of Yorks claim is through the direct succession, but Henry IV and Henry V come from the male only line. There is no Salic Law in England, but a female monarch wouldn't go down well. Matilda was the last and she lost the throne to her male cousin.

SaggyOldClothCatPuss · 13/08/2013 23:21

Does that make sense? Grin

Fiderer · 14/08/2013 07:25

Perfect sense, Saggy Grin

I know about Stephen and Matilda from the Cadfael books. Might look it up proper like when I get my head around that lot ^^. Really enjoying this thread.

Liked Gracelo's comment about the last episode being a bit Blackadder Grin

SaggyOldClothCatPuss · 14/08/2013 08:43

I was going to start a spreadsheet too! Blush
I want to work out exactly how many people are ahead of Henry VII in the succession! [very sad person emoticon]

alemci · 14/08/2013 09:53

I found watching the Hollow Crown Shakespeare plays quite helpful last Summer as they set the forefront of this next historical period in some ways.

It does help to read the books. I am reading Red Queen Now and you get more understanding of Magaret's situation with her son Henry. You understand the background of Lord Stafford much more clearly and how Henry was taken as a ward by William Herbert and was treated as a son. I didn't really get that in the series

ShipwreckedAndComatose · 14/08/2013 10:22

Liked this one too.
www.amazon.co.uk/Sunne-Splendour-Sharon-Penman/dp/0140067647

Campaspe · 14/08/2013 19:26

King Richard? Ding dong.

stubbornstains · 14/08/2013 19:50

I wholeheartedly concur. Although the iPlayer crashed at an unfortunate moment last night, leaving Aneurin Barnard's face frozen in mid eye-rolling sneer for 5 minutes, with completely white eyeballs, no sign of pupil. That did rather put me off .Momentarily Grin.

Trigglesx · 14/08/2013 20:32

oooh Shipwrecked I liked Sunne in Splendour as well. Very good book - have it on my Kindle. Just finished reading Kingmaker's Daughter by PG - I have to say it was interesting to see everything switched to Anne Neville's viewpoint. Definitely some food for thought there. (it was 99p on Amazon for kindle last week if anyone is interested).

Trills · 14/08/2013 20:57

I read Wolf Hall and the other one recently and enjoyed them, but had trouble telling who was speaking. A scene would start with a conversation with no introduction and no "said Thomas". Not that it would help. Every bloody person is called Thomas (as noted in book by one of the characters)

Gracelo · 15/08/2013 09:05

I'm 87% through The Sunne in Splendour, I like it a lot but it's so gushing. Also, I find the use of "be" strange but catching. I said to my colleague "your visitor be at reception" the other day. She gave me a funny look but probably just thought it's because I'm forrin.
Love, love, love Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. I so hope the TV version will be good.

AgnesBligg · 15/08/2013 09:16

Gracelo after I read TSIS I was all 'you be having sausages for tea' and 'sweet jesu'. Now watching this prog I refer to dp and dc as 'your grace'.

Gracelo · 15/08/2013 09:23

I might have to try your grace on dp, I want to see his face when I do Smile I like your grace a lot more than your majesty.
Did you notice how all the posh people said Jesu with an accent on the u (don't know how to do that) and all the less posh ones said Jesus?

AgnesBligg · 15/08/2013 10:03

I would definitely been in the jeeeesusss camp Smile. I don't know how to do the accent either. Does it frenchify the jesu? jesoo?

TunipTheUnconquerable · 15/08/2013 10:08

Jesu is the Latin vocative of Jesus, so it does make sort of sense for the posh ones to say that and the commoners to say Jesus. Though actually I think they'd most likely all have said Jesu because their religion would have been so mediated through priests. We need LRD, she will probably know about this because she has studied Books of Hours and stuff.

Gracelo · 15/08/2013 11:33

Ah, I was thinking French rather than Latin but I didn't do Latin at school. I think sometimes the posh ones are using Jesus as well but it seems to be used to indicate proper pissedoffness, like when George sides with Warrick, not sure about this one but I noticed it a few times.
In my Kindle version they must have done a find and replace for the entire text because any word that contains the letters "mere" has it appear as in the French Mere, with capitalized M and an accent grave on the first e.

alemci · 15/08/2013 13:03

reading the Red Queen. She doesn't come across that well in the novel particularly towards Henry Stafford who is a decent sort of bloke it appears. She prays alot but wants God to take revenge and when her DH goes to war on Edwards side she considers him a traitor. She is quite arrogant and thinks the King should have married her.

In the book I didn't come across the bit in the series where Jasper Tudor is with one of her brothers/cousins who goes a bit strange and runs off to Edward's tent and he is stabbed and then her mother being very upset.

BanoffeeSplitz · 15/08/2013 15:54

Just found this rather brilliant précis, if anyone wants a refresher of the earlier episodes Grin.

Apologies if it's already been posted.

nevillfeast.wordpress.com/

MamaMary · 15/08/2013 16:18

Having thought this over now for some weeks, I think it is most likely that Richard III killed the Princes in the tower. As long as the boys were alive they represented a very real threat to his tenuous hold on the throne. After all, they had foremost claim to the throne, being direct heirs. He had seized it unlawfully.

As the series points out, many people remained loyal to the boys and would have continued to remain so as long as the boys were alive. The fact that Richard III declared them illegitimate would have done little to dispel that loyalty. If Richard wanted to make his throne secure, he needed them dead. Simple.

It doesn't make sense that he would have killed them and displayed their bodies. How unpopular would that have made him: two innocent boys? No, far simpler to conveniently quietly get rid of them and the threat they posed and remain schtum.

PG has got a bee in her bonnet about Margaret Beaufort being to blame but it's just a personal theory based on nothing.

Anyway, sorry if I disrupted the conversation, just wanted to say my piece! :)

Chubfuddler · 15/08/2013 16:30

I don't think he would have said "look what I've done" though. He'd have either said oh how sad they died of a fever or ooh evil Lancastrians killed them. As he said in the programme, if he had killed them he'd have done the same thing he did to Henry vi

Trigglesx · 15/08/2013 16:31

The problem with that is that if he wanted them out of the way, secrecy over it was NOT the way to go. And he had to be clever enough (after the death of Henry VI) to know better ways to go about it and show bodies afterwards to dispel any support for the boys, while making it look like an illness.

I think some of it hinges on the "seized it unlawfully" part. Did he actually think he was taking the throne lawfully? Did he believe that Edward IV's marriage was unlawful and therefore his children were bastards and unable to take the throne? If he truly believed that, then he felt what he was doing was lawful. I can, to some extent, see that he might have felt the boys were better protected in the Tower - from both those that might try to start uprisings as well as from his mother who didn't appear to be stepping down even if the marriage was unlawful.

So was the marriage unlawful? Did he believe that? Important questions. After reading Kingmaker's Daughter, I can see things slightly differently as it's written from Anne Neville's point of view. Things that, from the viewpoint of say the mother of the princes, might seem as protective, may seem threatening to someone else. It was really a quite interesting thought process.

RustyBear · 15/08/2013 18:13

I've been catching up on iPlayer (been away the last few weekends) I've just started Ep. 8 and just realised I know the boy playing Richard (Edward IV?s son) - he used to go to the school I work at. He's quite a bit older than Richard was supposed to be, though - he left at least a couple of years ago, so he must be 13 by now.

CookieMonster1980 · 15/08/2013 19:05

Just watched episode 9 and I have a question - how/ why did Buckingham have access to the tower? They seem to suggest he could get in without storming it...
How would he have got in without Brackenbury knowing and condoning it (which given his loyalty would surely need a direct command from Richard?) I know the Tower's a big place but the princes were securely guarded, presumably you can't just wander in...