White Princess

[lucydogz]

Anyone else watched this? I watched the 1st out of curiousity but have given up as there's only so much of (the actress playing) Elizabeth of York flouncing around in cloisters with a sulky expression I can take, and the weird slant that Phillippa Gregory puts on historical fact is barking.

I have been wracking my brains as to where I’d seen Richard III from “The White Queen” before...

He was Bobby to Sheridan Smith’s Cilla.

That’s weeks of wondering over now. As you were, all.

Well S1 has just got ridiculous as "my Lady the King's mother" has just killed Jasper Tudor!

Surely Henry must have suspected that his mother might be behind the deaths of the young Princes?

Also, was Elizabeth Woodville really always scheming?

If Richard of York was alive & brought back as King then her daughter & GS wouldn't be safe?

I don't remember my lady killing jasper in the PG books?!

In fact she was quite in love with him as he treated her kindly unlike his rapist brother.

How can I watch this? I know it's dross but I'm good at suspending disbelief - I LOVED the tudors for example.

I haven't seen this yet but I stumbled across them filming this at Leigh Woods in Bristol when out with the dog.

I was allowed to carry on my walk but on a different route. I came across lots of people grumbling over shots on video screens under big lights hidden in the trees. The best thing was walking past a group of Tudor soldiers on horses stood around having a coffee and a vape. My dog loves horses and wandered up to them and they said hello .

I often see filming when out and about. It's normally Poldark but I'm always too early or too late and they're setting up/closing down.

"In fact she was quite in love with him as he treated her kindly unlike his rapist brother."

It's because she feared he would tell Henry that she was behind the deaths of the young Princes.

How are you watching didl? I thought we were all watching on the Drama channel where there have only been episodes one and two so far - comes on Saturday night ? The thing you mentioned (sounds crazy) hasn't happened yet.

I will have to stop following this thread if there are going to be spoilers.

Also, was Elizabeth Woodville really always scheming?

I always think EW gets bad press. Even Sharon Penman portrays her as a complete bitch and a bit thick (she wasn’t that daft though, she managed to bag herself a King).

I think it’s just because she’s a woman who dared to have a bit of ambition.

Omg, I'm so sorry, I'm watching on Kodi.

I misread the OP as watched the first Series & somehow thought that you were all talking about the 2nd

No worries diddl I am not actually that surprised at anything weird that happens in a Phillipa Gregory adaptation!

There's a series two? I had no idea. Yeah, I think when the OP said 'I watched the first' she meant series 1, episode 1.

This is the trouble nowadays when everyone is watching TV series at different paces, on-demand etc. I love to see what other people thought, but also want to avoid spoilers. It's difficult.

Maybe we should put it in the thread title, eg 'White Princess, Drama Channel'. Or maybe I should stop looking at threads until the whole thing's over!

No, I don't think that there's 2nd, it was my misreading of the OP that made me think it.

Looking again it's obvious that just the first episode of series 1 is meant!

"I always think EW gets bad press. "

It's hard to fathom isn't it?

You'd think she'd just keep her head down & enjoy being the mother of the Queen.

There seem to be so many claimants to the throne-& each one needing all others dead!

Scheming from when they were young & raising an army on their behalf!

What a bloody miserable life, constantly plotting and fighting. Or being told off for having daughters instead of sons. Or living in exile and having to suck up to the duke of Brittany. Can’t decide if living in a peasant hovel and working the fields would be worse than being an aristocrat during the wars of the roses!

Agreed nettle. I think I'd rather be a mud-eating peasant. It sounds hard but less worrying on the whole!

Re Philippa Gregory I can’t get around how every single noble woman that she features in her books bucks tradition and insists on breastfeeding their child and raising it herself. Everytime I just think ffs here we go again. Also the typos, loads of them!

I always imagine her like that David Williams character from Little Britain, the writer who just churned out book after book of absolute tosh.

I really enjoy reading/watching Philippa Gregory.

It's the kind of tosh that I enjoy.

And I've discovered that UKTV Play has a catchup service, which includes the Drama channel, so I'm off to watch however much is available.

I realise that although I've had The White Queen on my kindle for ages, I haven't actually read it, just thought I had. Maybe I was confused as I watched the series and have read other Phillipa Gregory stuff.

So I am reading it now. Edward IV just said to his mother 'Sorry for your loss'. Previously someone was described as a 'numpty', as a pp mentioned. Blimey Phillipa you are really just not trying are you?

I used to quite enjoy her stuff, but she must have got lazy/careless.

That's the lady who was playing Cersei in the play in Braavos in Game of Thrones. And now Catelyn Stark.

I'm 5 minutes in and this is already a much trashier adaptation The White Queen was. It's a shame they couldn't have continued it with the same scriptwriters and actors and whatnot.

Very disappointed - Jasper Tudor was hot in the other show.

'Re Philippa Gregory I can’t get around how every single noble woman that she features in her books bucks tradition and insists on breastfeeding their child and raising it herself. Everytime I just think ffs here we go again. Also the typos, loads of them! '

Yes, they have completely middle class 21st century mindset. Anne Bolelyn wanted to nurse her daughter, she was told no.

You are a breeding machine. You need to be back in breeding mode ASAP. That is what you are for.

Oh, is that why they didn't breastfeed? Wow. I suppose that ties in with something I read about how in the past the upper classes would have more children than ordinary people. Poor people couldn't support many children/the ones that had often died. The lower classes were replaced by 'failures' from higher up the social scale, if I remember the theory correctly. Quite grim.

Pretty much, and you had to promise to obey your spouse, and were brought up to do so. You were the legal chattel of your spouse. Disobedience was a sin and it was not a secular society. Get uppity and you could be killed, banished, sent to a nunnery.

There is, however, one story of vengeance in an Icelandic saga. A beautiful woman is married off to a chieftan by her brothers. She does something to disobey and displease him, so he beats her. She complains to her brothers, who applaud the husband for striking her.

Years later, the husband's enemies get the better of him and his men, time for a hall burning. The enemies order the women and children out. Her husband tells her to cut off her long plait and give it to him, so he can use it as a rope to escape. She tells him, 'Now I avenge myself for that beating you gave me,' and leaves him there to roast.

It's weird, isn't it? I don't mind The Tudors either for some reason. I think it might be because with their casting of Johnathan Rhys Meyers as Henry VIII, it was never going to be anything other than complete fantasy (although, Anne Boleyn's use of 'OK' did grate a little).

I think PG bothers me because, from watching interviews with her, she seems to think she's uncovered the real truths about these historical characters and is presenting this alternate universe as facts. Whenever there's a documentary with her as the historian, I tend to immediately think 'um, no'

Try The Real White Queen and her Rivals, a 'factual' book by PG, in which she gets quite chippy about criticism of her type of 'history'. She seems to be pretty thin skinned.

The Nibelungenlied also has a good tale of feminine revenge. The beautiful noble woman Kriemhild is married off to Siegfried. The marriage is a success, with the pair falling in love, having a son. Well, her brothers fall out with him and his family. Battle ensues, the hero Siegfried is killed. Kriemhild is sent back to her brothers - women are property of men - minus her children by him, who remain with their father's family. The brothers marry her off again. Years later, she invites them all to visit and feast. A seer warns the brothers, 'Kriemhild still weeps for the hero Siegfried.' The brothers go and she has them all slaughtered.