15th-century spin for feisty yummy mummies

The White Princess is confusingly similar in personality and voice to The White Queen (heroine of an earlier book in the series). But why fix what isn’t broken?
Programme Name: The White Queen - TX: n/a - Episode: n/a
Ed miller/ BBC
Lucy Worsley25 July 2013

The White Princess
by Philippa Gregory
(Simon & Schuster, £20)

It seems Philippa Gregory divides people almost as deeply as the Wars of the Roses did themselves. My review copy of The White Princess was almost dragged from my hands by her faithful fans, desperate for a new fix of the 15th century. Others had only to glance at the lady on the cover, in her cheap-fancy-dress-hire, nylon version of a Tudor lady’s outfit, before hooting derisively.

And I’m divided myself. I admire Gregory’s power to pull people into the world of late medieval derring-do, and to make them, through entertainment, swallow a good dose of historical narrative. Gregory excels in taking the historical record and then subjecting her characters to those switchback turns of fate beloved of Hollywood scriptwriters, which are actually quite realistic for the turbulent 1400s.

The constant roller-coaster reversal of fortunes certainly carries you along. A clever example of this is the confinement of the White Princess herself — Elizabeth of York — for the birth of her first son with with her husband Henry VII in 1486. This will be Prince Arthur, elder brother of Henry VIII. Hurray, we think, an heir! Success for Elizabeth. For this event, her mother-in-law Margaret Beaufort decreed (in real life) the conditions in which royal women should give birth: shut into their tapestried chambers for six weeks, windows closed, no men allowed. The intention was to make a warm, pleasant and healthy place to be, although to us it sounds claustrophobic. In The White Princess, though, Margaret (a bossy baddie) writes her instructions down in order to get Elizabeth out of the way, imprisoned in her childbirth chamber, so that she cannot complain about the sending of her cousin to the Tower. It’s a clever piece of invented context for a real historical document.

But the point of fiction is surely to convey wisdom, rather than knowledge, and here I’m less convinced. In a hundred years’ time, these books will provide a rich source of information about Gregory’s readers’ dreams in the year 2013. In this world, women are, on the whole, terrifically beautiful. They have lovely long hair, which they keep pinned up for their lovers to let down in a sexy manner. They have an awful lot of children, whom they love unconditionally. They are strong and feisty, with the odd crisis of confidence dealt with by a go-girl pep talk from a sister or mother. It’s as if some 21st-century yummy mummies with a healthy sense of entitlement have been kidnapped at the school gate and hurled back into the past.

I also found The White Princess confusingly similar in personality and voice to The White Queen (Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward VI, heroine of an earlier book in the series). But why fix what isn’t broken? There’s also the same use of the present tense, the lists of rhetorical questions, the simple, rhythmical language of a fairytale — which does create the illusion of a time far distant from our own.

I admire these books, I’m glad that they exist, I’m delighted that the 15th century has become so prominent in popular culture. But my own holiday reading will include books like Sarah Gristwood’s Blood Sisters, the non-fiction version of the story.

Go to standard.co.uk/booksdirect to buy this book for £15, or phone 0843 060 0029, free UK p&p

Lucy Worsley will present Tales of the Royal Bedchamber on BBC4 in the week of August 5

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