“The White Princess” - Philippa Gregory
👑 Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth takes up the story here. Elizabeth, her sisters, and most crucially, her cousin Teddy (the son of George Plantagenet and Isabel Warwick), and the phantasm of her vanished brother Richard, are the remaining York heirs. Margaret Stanley and Henry Tudor are focused on neutralizing their threat from within.
👑 Pining for her lost lover King Richard III (also her uncle…) she wilts away over the course of this book. We shall see further evidence of this in “The Constant Princess”. What happened to the spitfire who exchanged words with Margaret Beaufort with her head held high in “The Red Queen”? It seems life (or rather, her mother, Marge, and Henry Tudor) colluded to drive the haughtiness right out of her. Elizabeth is every bit the pawn that Anne Neville was, but she is unable to change allegiances readily due to the machinations of this trio. It is her love for her missing brother Richard, the true Yorkist heir, pit against her love for her son, Arthur, the Tudor next-in-line.
👑 The cliffhanger from book 2 continues here. Readers will be on edge to learn the fate of Richard, the younger prince locked away in the Tower by his uncle King Richard III. Elizabeth Woodville knows, but she is biding her time and isn’t telling. There are many points of interest in the plot of TWP (i.e. permanently uneasy relationship between Henry and Elizabeth), which I’ll unpack below, but be warned that this novel has a plodding pace; it’s a much slower read than the prior novels in my opinion.
👑 The hypocrisy of Margaret Stanley and her son King Henry VII is on full display. They clawed to power through her constantly shifting alliances and (despite her piety) her own order to murder the York princes in the Tower. The merest hint that she could have been outwitted by Elizabeth Woodville, sends mother and son into self-righteous rage.
Like her mother before her, Elizabeth makes wry observations of Margaret’s piety; i.e. she appears to be instructing God in her prayers. I kept hoping for an all secrets out blow out between Margaret Stanley and Elizabeth in which she confronts “my Lady the King’s Mother” about the deaths of the Tower princes. She comes close, but doesn’t quite pin their deaths on Margaret - she is after all, her incredibly powerful MIL. Elizabeth does call out Margaret’s failure to secure the love of the English people for Henry. She lays his essentially unloveable nature at the feet of Margaret.
Marge shows many instances of cracking under pressure. Oddly, though she is terrified of the curse that could end the Tudor line, she isn’t haunted by her primary role in the deaths of the Tower princes. And this point is never brought home, though from book 3 in her POV, we know she made the fateful decision.
👑 Gregory ratchets the tension on and off based on the very rumor of Richard’s existence. Dead or alive, he is a constant threat to the reign of King Henry. It coincides with what is actually known about the two Tower princes or rather, the murkiness of their ultimate fates. We don’t know for sure when or at whose hand they died. Even if you know very little about the Yorks and Tudors coming into these novels, you likely know what definitely never happens for the tower princes. Elizabeth Woodville and Elizabeth of York’s curse (issued in book 2), that the family responsible for the fate of the Tower princes, would ultimately result in a barren virgin queen. That was an almost poetic touch.
👑 Although the pace of this novel is slow, there are few battles and attacks, the tension arises in other ways. Gregory does a great job of painting a full picture of Elizabeth’s untenable position. Her self-confidence has all but vanished as she lost her great love. Though she still has an opportunity to become Queen by way of marriage to Henry, it is no longer on her terms, nor is it a given.
Elizabeth Woodville does love her daughter, but for the family’s survival, they must all play their parts. She must marry the killer of her lover. Unsurprisingly, they treat one another as enemies, and Margaret ensures that Elizabeth is utterly humiliated before the marriage takes place. Even after, Marge assumes most queenly duties, and certainly all of the power. It is made clear to Elizabeth regularly, that she is a nothing and a nobody in the Tudor court, though she is titled Queen. The only shred of power left to Elizabeth appears every time new rumors of Richard of York (the young Tower prince and Elizabeth’s own brother) begin to circulate, Marge is practically shaking Elizabeth down for information.
Elizabeth Woodville wishes to shield her daughter from any real knowledge (beyond the exchange she participated in at the Westminster Abbey), so she does not have to lie to her husband. Thus, Elizabeth is totally in the dark but for that one secret she harbors from her childhood, which could spell doom for the Tudors.
While Elizabeth Woodville is openly scheming against the Tudors (though her own daughter is Queen, and her grandson is the heir), Elizabeth remains in their court. After all, she loves her son dearly.
👑 While this novel lacked in fast-paced palace intrigue, the relationship of Elizabeth and Henry was the most interesting aspect. I felt that the portrayal of their uneasy alliance was very realistic. They have fleeting moments of tenderness, possibly even love, but those are shattered by many instances of open suspicion. They were bred to mistrust one another, and now they find themselves wed.
Gregory hints that they could have had a happy marriage, eventually. She certainly shows signs of their deepening regard for one another. But his inability to stabilize his power, and his fears of Yorkist rebellions, insert a permanent hostility between Henry and Elizabeth. Henry is never accepted by the masses and his reign is ever unsteady. Whispers of Richard’s existence dog him from the beginning, and cast him as a pretender though he has fought, won, and been crowned King of England.
👑 The end of TWP is anticlimactic though it again underscores Elizabeth’s impossible position. She ends up being a nonentity because she is pulled by her York side, but also her husband and more to the point, her children. Observing the house of York vanishing bit by bit, she knows she, her sisters, and cousin Margaret are all that remains of their line, and she knows she is powerless to do anything about it.
Comments
Post a Comment