Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

From the beginning Marguerite of Anjou was a controversial queen. Few queens of England have so divided opinion; few have suffered more from the propaganda spread by their enemies.   Historians over the years have portrayed her as vengeful and ambitious.   In Shakespeare’s trilogy, she is the she-wolf of France, vilifying her as an adulteress and warmonger.   In Richard III, she is depicted as a one-woman Greek chorus.   Marguerite’s marriage was supposed to bring peace with France, but instead England dissolved into civil war during her husband’s reign, due to his mental illness and general unfitness to rule.   She acted with the best of all possible motives, to support first her husband, and then her son. Marguerite has borne the brunt of the responsibility for what went wrong during Henry’s reign. Like Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine and Isabella, she is seen as an unnatural woman for meddling in affairs of state. Marguerite was born on March 23, 1430, t...

One could say that the story of Elizabeth Woodville is a Cinderella story.   Young widow meets handsome King; they marry despite opposition and live happily ever after.   Well as happy as one can be when the handsome king cheats on you constantly and eventually runs to fat after a life of indolence, and your brother-in-law is an asshole who keeps trying to depose your husband, and then your other brother-in-law steals the throne from your son and you have to hide in sanctuary until finally another handsome prince rescues you and marries your daughter.   It’s a different kind of fairy-tale, one that could only take place in Medieval England during the reign of the Plantagenets, the world’s most dysfunctional royal family. Let’s start from the beginning shall we? Elizabeth Woodville was born sometime in 1437, possibly in October, the eldest daughter of Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the Dowager Duchess of Bedford and Sir Richard Woodville.   Her parents’ marriage ha...

Well, I hadn’t planned on reviewing THE WHITE QUEEN until I was in England when I could watch the entire series since I don’t have Starz, but the cable channel surprised me by offering up a sneak preview of the first episode this weekend.   So since they were so generous, I couldn’t refuse to watch the show now could I? I’m not going to go into the historical accuracy of the show so much in this review since I have a series of blog posts planned on the women of the War of the Roses planned for the next two weeks.   Instead I plan on focusing on my first impressions of the series and whether or not I think it’s a good adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s novels.   The series is going to be based on three of Gregory’s novels, THE WHITE QUEEN, THE RED QUEEN, and THE KINGMAKER’S DAUGHTER.   It’s going to be 10 episodes and I will recap each episode as I watch it, trying not to get to ahead of the broadcast in the states.   Lucky for me, I have a region-free DVD play...