From left: Jodie Comer as Elizabeth of York, Essie Davis as Dowager Queen Elizabeth, Jacob Collins-Levy as Henry VII and Michelle Fairley as Margaret Beaufort in The White Princess
Alfred the Great: buys just enough canned food and duct tape to the point where you’re not overly concerned but you are pretty sure he’s a doomsday prepper
Aethelflaed: fills three carts with snack cakes, those church basement paper cups, and generic brand soda because no one can negotiate a surrender on an empty stomach
Athelstan: that is far too much coffee
Aethelred the Unready: just buying every single item on his wife’s list. This is the fourth store he’s been to because Emma is very specific.
Cnut: only came here for all his Special Haircare Products
William the Conqueror: fills up a cart and just leaves without paying. just fucking books it to the parking lot I hate him
Matilda: comes in with three rowdy boys, tells them to not ask for ANYTHING, buys an armload of 5-hour energies, leaves with two rowdy boys
Henry II: walks around the store eating a bag of grapes he has not bought while Eleanor does the actual shopping
Richard I: will find a way to talk about his study abroad last year with the deli guy if it kills him. Is also texting his mom to ask what groceries he needs to buy because he has no idea
John: verbally berating everyone in customer service because they won’t let him return a dented can of peas that expired 7 years ago
Edward I: tries to use a 24 year old coupon to buy lentils in bulk (he doesn’t even like lentils?) and knocks over an elaborate pepsi display in a fit of rage
Edward II: has his card declined and demands to know why the cashier had to be so loud about it
Edward III: says “guess it’s FREE THEN HAHAHA!!!” when an item doesn’t scan right away. several items do not scan. Gets a veteran’s discount.
Richard II: that’s uhhh… a lot of advil there buddy
Henry V: also has his card declined but drops the “DO YOU KNOW WHO MY FATHER IS” line, is dressed like lucky luciano
Henry VI: begins to panic when Margaret leaves him in line for two minutes because she forgot eggs. the line is moving quickly…so quickly
Edward IV: he has one cart filled with wine. Elizabeth Woodville has another filled with kid cuisines.
Henry VII: pulls out the fattest binder you have ever seen and it’s filled with coupons. His transactions usually take 2 hours and he tsks the entire time.
Henry VIII: buys bags of charcoal and dog food just so he can pick them all up and be like “yeah this isn’t even heavy to me I don’t even feel it” also buys condoms and laughs nervously
Edward VI: literally just buying root vegetables even though he’s 9 because he is so weird
Mary I: just coming in for her weekly supply of “praying for you” cards, always gives exact change thank you mary
Elizabeth I (if these even count as medieval anymore): no longer allowed to do her own shopping after the sweet n low incident. Now a personal shopper gets her groceries for her. it is robert dudley
I’m sorry, but this is the most embarrassing fake Q&A I’ve ever seen a novelist publish on their website
I may be a Richard III enthusiast but if I see one more lukewarm take about blah blah Shakespeare forced by Elizabeth I to write RichardIII as evil because of some political ploy I’m throwing them in a lake
This is not the first time I’ve seen them compare Tudor propaganda to fake news and it just makes me wonder whether they know anything about Early Modern England at all? First, there were no big media outlets nor any effective means of mass communication to brainwash the population. Second, why did Elizabeth I even need to blacken Richard III’s name? There were no Plantagenets around to claim the throne, her dynasty was in fact on its way out and all possible successors descended from Henry VII, so it’s not like there were any practical reasons to boost the dynasty’s legitimacy. Thirdly, the usual authors they claim to have been pure Tudor minions, Polydore Vergil and Thomas More, both got in trouble with Henry VIII so they were clearly very capable of expressing their own thoughts and opinions.
They insist on a conspiracy theory that verges on anti-intellectualism and disregards everything about actual Tudor history.
Also, one of the reasons Thomas More left his history unfinished and it only circulated in manuscript among elites is likely due to his fears it was too politically subversive, particularly when discussing a Duke of Buckingham. Not only that, More came from a Yorkist family and may well have met Elizabeth Shore.
One of the last scenes of the Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses, based off William Shakespeare’s play “Richard III”. After winning the crown at the battle of Bosworth on the 22nd of August 1485, he marries the beautiful Elizabeth of York and proclaims: “We will unite the white rose and the red.”
In real life, the battle was won on that day but Henry didn’t marry Elizabeth until January of the following year. The reason for that was that Henry didn’t want to be seen as dependent on his wife to rule. His wife’s claim was stronger than his. Because of her gender she had been overlooked in her uncle and now her future husband’s favor. However, by December, two months after he had been crowned, many of the Edwardian Yorkists who had fought for him were becoming angry. Some of them were suspicious that Henry would not honor the promise he had made two years before on Christmas day at Brittany, when he swore that he would return their fortunes and marry their late King’s eldest daughter. As a result, parliament was summoned and he renewed his vows to marry Elizabeth.
Henry had another reason to delay the wedding. Papal dispensation had been promised some time before but it had not been granted or made official until the end of that year when a copy of it finally reached England.
The marriage was seen as the union of the red and white rose, but unlike what Henry says in Shakespeare’s play and the last episode of the Hollow Crown when he takes Elizabeth’s hand, they weren’t the sole heirs of each house. There were many with stronger claims than theirs. Throughout his entire reign, Henry had to battle pretenders and rid himself of potential threats. His mother, another survivor of the wars of the roses, refused to die until her grandson had outlive his minority and was well-established.
Elizabeth of York was loved by all of her subjects, including her husband. Yet, she wasn’t crowned Queen of England until after she had given him a son whom he named Arthur after the mythical Welsh hero and King whom he claimed to descend from She and Henry were married for seventeen years until her death in 1503. He died six years later. The two remain buried at the Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey.
For more information, I recommend the following books: Tudor by Leanda de Lisle; Henry VII by SB Chrimes; The Winter King by Thomas Penn; The Private Lives of the Tudors by Tracy Borman; Tudor Treasury by Elizabeth Norton and The Tudors by John Guy.
‘Richard III probably killed the Princes in the Tower!!!’
'Henry VII definitely wiped out the male line of the House of York. Which included imprisoning Edward Plantagenet when the boy was only ten, keeping him in the Tower of London for fourteen years (which potentially led to a mental instability in Edward due to being kept in isolation) and then executing him for trying to escape, and also probably to appease Ferdinand and Isabella who didn’t want any threats to their daughter marrying Henry’s son. Your point?’
Preach it. Not to mention there are these bizarre claims I often see from those who like Henry VII, that Henry VII was/is somehow very maligned historical figure (!). And they claim this mainly because he…..eh…..is not super famous or popular historical figure, unlike his son Henry VIII or his granddaughter Elizabeth I. And because he doesn’t have iconic works of art about him or because he got a bunch of not particular flattering novels about him from a bunch of not famous authors and only one from famous one (P.Gregory, who frankly speaking is trashing everybody in her novels most of the time).
Also they conviniently forget that any excessive interest in Richard III that results in overshadowing of figure of Henry VII happens exactly becauseTudors/Tudor historians/Tudors historical fiction writers themselves have made such a huge focus on Richard through the ages. But only they made a purely negative focus, which benefited them/Tudors and it suited them just fine, until alternative interpretations emerged. Then suddenly they began to complain that people were being too harsh on Henry VII and whatnot.
