The White Princess (75 page)

Henry VII was a spy master, the greatest that England had seen until then. His son increased the surveillance network and Cecil and then Walsingham under Elizabeth created a fully fledged secret service. This was not new–Edward IV had a series of watchers and Richard III had spies watching Henry Tudor. Henry VII’s surveillance of his own court and even his own family proved to be essential in defending his throne against the York conspiracies.

At many points in the novel, characters refer to the irresistible charm of the Yorks. Why were the Yorks so beloved by their subjects?

It is that mysterious human trait: charm. Edward IV was famously handsome and engaging, taking the throne by public acclaim and recapturing it with popular support. His brother George was also famously attractive. Richard III was adored in the lands where he spent most of his time: the North of England. The women of the family tended to be beauties and Elizabeth of York was very popular. Henry VIII perhaps inherited it, his father Henry VII could not learn it.

In
The White Princess
you contend that Elizabeth would have despised Henry Tudor as the murderer of her uncle, King Richard III. How compelling is the historical evidence that Elizabeth and Richard were in fact lovers?

The most compelling piece of historical evidence is missing: a letter from Elizabeth to the Duke of Norfolk begging him to assist her marriage to Richard, which makes clear that she is in love with him and that they are lovers. The letter was copied but the original lost. Other suggestive evidence is the record of gossip at the time, and perhaps most persuasive–Richard had to deny in public that he was intending to marry Elizabeth–so many people thought that was his intention.

In the novel, you examine the rise of pretenders: lookalikes like Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck who sought to gain political advantage through tenuous or false connections to the royal family. To what extent was the mysterious disappearance of the princes in the Tower the explanation for this upsurge of imposters? Were pretenders always a problem in this era?

There was a surge of imposters against the Tudors and also a lot of potential rival heirs. Henry Tudor was the last most likely heir of the Lancastrian side but the Yorks were very fertile and there were many possible heirs that could claim the throne and show a better claim than the Tudors. Henry’s fear of rival claims was rightly strong. His inability to produce the bodies of the princes or explain how they died made his problem even worse since anyone could coach a pretender. Personally, I think that “the boy” the youth that Henry said was Perkin Warbeck probably was Richard of York, and this opinion is shared by several historians whose books are listed in the bibliography at the end of the novel. It’s a fascinating mystery–we certainly don’t yet have a definitive answer.

This is your twenty-fifth book. How did the experience of writing
The White Princess
compare with some of your earlier books? Which one has been your favorite book to write?

The White Princess
was one of the most controversial books, I think. My view of Henry Tudor was not common when I started the novel but during the writing a very fine biography by Thomas Penn was published that tended to share my view of him as suspicious verging on paranoid. Imagining what this would be like for his wife–herself the daughter of a phenomenally popular king–was also new. But while the material was new and difficult, the writing was very fluent. I really loved Elizabeth of York and her mother Elizabeth Woodville and some of the central characters of the books were great favorites that I had worked on through several previous novels.

Before becoming a novelist, you were also a journalist and historian. Do you ever think of returning to either of these professions?

Of course, I am still a historian. Mostly I present my research in fictional form so I am a novelist as well, but my book
The Women of the Cousin’s War,
written with fellow historians David Baldwin and Mike Jones, was published as a popular history book. I enjoyed telling the history of Jacquetta Duchess of Bedford, without fictional devices but I enjoyed writing
Lady of the Rivers,
my novel based on her life, even more.

The White Queen TV series will be airing in spring 2014 on BBC One in the UK and later in the year on Starz in the US. How involved were you with this production? What do you think viewers have to look forward to most in this small screen adaptation?

It’s a real epic, ten hours based on three books:
The White Queen, The Red Queen
, and
The Kingmaker’s Daughter
, beautifully shot with fantastic performances. I think it’s going to be completely absorbing for viewers and introduce them to an historical period that few people know well. I am particularly pleased the way the dramatization has kept the heart of the piece based on the women and on their battles for power and supremacy. I was executive producer and focused most of my attention on the scripts, which reflect the books very closely.

What’s next for Philippa Gregory?

I’m really enjoying researching and writing my new novel about Margaret of Warwick, who goes on to be chief confidante and best friend of Katherine of Aragon. She’s a most interesting character, on the edge of the court, a royal but a woman who chooses to keep a distance from the throne. The challenge has been to move on and away from Elizabeth of York, who has been a most engaging heroine, but Margaret’s eventful and courageous life is keeping my attention.

GARDENS FOR THE GAMBIA

Philippa Gregory visited The Gambia, one of the driest and poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa, in 1993 and paid for a well to be hand-dug in a village primary school at Sika. Now, nearly 200 wells later, she continues to raise money and commission wells in village schools, community gardens, and in The Gambia’s only agricultural college. She works with her representative in The Gambia, headmaster Ismaila Sisay, and their charity now funds pottery and batik classes, beekeeping, and adult literacy programs. A recent deep well paid for by the Rotary Club of Temecula provides clean water to a clinic.

GARDENS FOR THE GAMBIA
is a registered charity in the UK and the United States and a registered NGO in The Gambia. Every donation, however small, goes to The Gambia without any deductions. If you would like to learn more about the work that Philippa calls “the best thing that I do,” visit her website,
PhilippaGregory.com
, and click on
GARDENS FOR THE GAMBIA
, where you can make a donation and join with Philippa in this project.

“Every well we dig provides drinking water for a school of about 600 children and waters the gardens where they grow vegetables for the school dinners. I don’t know of a more direct way to feed hungry children and teach them to farm for their future.”

Philippa Gregory

TURN THE PAGE FOR AN EXCERPT FROM PHILIPPA GREGORY’S

The White Queen

NOW AVAILABLE FROM TOUCHSTONE

AND DON’T MISS THE STARZ DRAMA SERIES, BASED ON HER BEST-SELLING COUSINS’ WAR NOVELS, PREMIERING IN 2013

SPRING 1464

My father is Sir Richard Woodville, Baron Rivers, an English nobleman, a landholder, and a supporter of the true Kings of England, the Lancastrian line. My mother descends from the Dukes of Burgundy and so carries the watery blood of the goddess Melusina, who founded their royal house with her entranced ducal lover, and can still be met at times of extreme trouble, crying a warning over the castle rooftops when the son and heir is dying and the family doomed. Or so they say, those who believe in such things.

With this contradictory parentage of mine: solid English earth and French water goddess, one could expect anything from me: an enchantress, or an ordinary girl. There are those who will say I am both. But today, as I comb my hair with particular care and arrange it under my tallest headdress, take the hands of my two fatherless boys and lead the way to the road that goes to Northampton, I would give all that I am to be, just this once, simply irresistible.

I have to attract the attention of a young man riding out to yet another battle, against an enemy that cannot be defeated. He may not even see me. He is not likely to be in the mood for beggars or flirts. I have to excite
his compassion for my position, inspire his sympathy for my needs, and stay in his memory long enough for him to do something about them both. And this is a man who has beautiful women flinging themselves at him every night of the week, and a hundred claimants for every post in his gift.

He is a usurper and a tyrant, my enemy and the son of my enemy, but I am far beyond loyalty to anyone but my sons and myself. My own father rode out to the battle of Towton against this man who now calls himself King of England, though he is little more than a braggart boy; and I have never seen a man as broken as my father when he came home from Towton, his sword arm bleeding through his jacket, his face white, saying that this boy is a commander such as we have never seen before, and our cause is lost, and we are all without hope while he lives. Twenty thousand men were cut down at Towton at this boy’s command; no one had ever seen such death before in England. My father said it was a harvest of Lancastrians, not a battle. The rightful King Henry and his wife, Queen Margaret of Anjou, fled to Scotland, devastated by the deaths.

Those of us left in England did not surrender readily. The battles went on and on to resist the false king, this boy of York. My own husband was killed commanding our cavalry, only three years ago at St. Albans. And now I am left a widow and what land and fortune I once called my own has been taken by my mother-in-law with the goodwill of the victor, the master of this boy-king, the great puppeteer who is known as the Kingmaker:
Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, who made a king out of this vain boy, now only twenty-two, and will make a hell out of England for those of us who still defend the House of Lancaster.

There are Yorkists in every great house in the land now, and every profitable business or place or tax is in their gift. Their boy-king is on the throne, and his supporters form the new court. We, the defeated, are paupers in our own houses and strangers in our own country, our king an exile, our queen a vengeful alien plotting with our old enemy of France. We have to make terms with the tyrant of York, while praying that God turns against him and our true king sweeps south with an army for yet another battle.

In the meantime, like many a woman with a husband dead and a father defeated, I have to piece my life together like a patchwork of scraps. I have to regain my fortune somehow, though it seems that neither kinsman nor friend can make any headway for me. We are all known as traitors. We are forgiven but not beloved. We are all powerless. I shall have to be my own advocate, and make my own case to a boy who respects justice so little that he would dare to take an army against his own cousin: a king ordained. What can one say to such a savage that he could understand?

My boys, Thomas, who is nine, and Richard, who is eight, are dressed in their best, their hair wetted and smoothed down, their faces shining from soap. I have tight hold of their hands as they stand on either side of me, for these are true boys and they draw dirt to them as
if by magic. If I let them go for a second, then one will scuff his shoes and the other rip his hose, and both of them will manage to get leaves in their hair and mud on their faces, and Thomas will certainly fall in the stream. As it is, anchored by my grip, they hop from one leg to another in an agony of boredom, and straighten up only when I say, “Hush, I can hear horses.”

It sounds like the patter of rain at first, and then in a moment a rumble like thunder. The jingle of the harness and the flutter of the standards, the chink of the chain mail and the blowing of the horses, the sound and the smell and the roar of a hundred horses ridden hard is overwhelming and, even though I am determined to stand out and make them stop, I can’t help but shrink back. What must it be to face these men riding down in battle with their lances outstretched before them, like a galloping wall of staves? How could any man face it?

Thomas sees the bare blond head in the midst of all the fury and noise and shouts “Hurrah!” like the boy he is, and at the shout of his treble voice I see the man’s head turn, and he sees me and the boys, and his hand snatches the reins and he bellows “Halt!” His horse stands up on its rear legs, wrenched to a standstill, and the whole cavalcade wheels and halts and swears at the sudden stop, and then abruptly everything is silent and the dust billows around us.

His horse blows out, shakes its head, but the rider is like a statue on its high back. He is looking at me and I at him, and it is so quiet that I can hear a thrush in the branches of the oak above me. How it sings. My God,
it sings like a ripple of glory, like joy made into sound. I have never heard a bird sing like that before, as if it were caroling happiness.