#Margaret plantagenet

[catalinadearagonsblog]

Katherine of Aragon & Margaret Plantagenet

They had known each other since Katherine first came to England. Margaret’s late husband, Richard Pole, had been Prince Arthur’s Lord Chamberlain, and she had accompanied him to Wales during the brief five-month marriage of Katherine and her first husband. Royal by birth, Margaret Pole was one of the most important ladies of high rank in the kingdom and one of the last Plantagenets at the Tudor court.

There a bond seems to have been forged between the two women, despite the fact that Katherine spoke little English and was 12 years younger than Margaret. The Spanish princess soon learned that her father had demanded the execution of Margaret’s brother before she arrived in England, and she was horrified. Feelings of guilt over the Earl of Warwick’s unjust execution pushed Katherine to seek Margaret’s friendship. Many years later, Margaret’s son, Reginald Pole, recorded that Katherine was “very much bound to recompense and requite us [the Pole family] for the detriment we had received on her account (although she was not in the least to blame for it), and to show us every kindness, having found by experience that in all her sorrows and afflictions, from no family of the realm had she ever received greater consolation than from ours, although for her sake we had received so many injuries”

Arthur’s premature death at Ludlow parted them, but they continued to correspond until Henry VIII’s accession rescued Katherine from penurious widowhood and made her the queen consort she had always expected to be. Margaret had also known financial distress during this period (her husband died in 1504), but her loyalty and friendship were not forgotten. She came to court with her eldest son to attend Katherine’s coronation and was soon appointed one of the queen’s chief attendants. In 1512, possibly at his wife’s behest, Henry VIII granted Margaret’s petition for restoration of the earldom of Salisbury and she became a countess in her own right.

Katherine chose Margaret to be the governess of her daughter, Princess Mary. Margaret had formed a close bond with Katherine and treated her daughter with the same warmth. Katherine would gladly have seen a marriage between her daughter and her friend’s son Reginald. The Pole family fortunes crashed after Anne Boleyn became the second wife of Henry VIII. Not surprisingly, Margaret had sided with Katherine and Mary during the divorce struggle. Lady Salisbury was known for her devout Roman Catholic beliefs. When Princess Mary was declared a bastard in 1533, Margaret refused to give Mary's gold plate and jewels back to Henry VIII. When Mary's household was broken up at the end of the year, the sixty-year-old Margaret Pole asked to serve Mary at her own cost, but was not permitted. Five years after the death of Katherine of Aragon, Lady Salisbury was executed on the scaffold. Her death is one of the most tragic events in Henry VIII's reign.

Sources:

Linda Porter, Mary Tudor:The First Queen Sylvia Barbara Soberton, Great Ladies: The Forgotten Witnesses to the Lives of Tudor Queens

[henryfitzempress]

Favourite medieval princesses (2/10):

Margaret of York, Duchesse de Bourgogne.

[dontdenymeshakespeare]

The Perfect Prince

A historian I met once told me that there are two types of Tudor fans: those who go forward into the Stuarts and those go back to the Plantagenets. I am the latter. Just as I’ve been obsessed with the Tudors, I’m also obsessed with the Plantagenets. The women are strong, the men are constantly at war and the age they were living is fascinating; also there’s approximately 300 years of Plantagenet…

[eve-to-adam]

Elizabeth of York, fashion character design, c. 1481.

[thomascromwelll]

The White Queen — 'Poison and Malmsey Wine'

[blueberry-bubbles130]

We are back for another historical hypothetical folks!

And this time it is:

Think of it as a Midsomer Murders/Clue style thing.

I don’t have an answer for who the victim is. You can choose anyone you want, for the victim.

[austin-friars]

Philipa Gregory going out of her way to demonize Margaret Beaufort, who was 100% a victim of child marriage and rape, while in the same breath romanticizing Edward and Richard will always be jarring to me. In the show, Edward attempted to rape Elizabeth to the point where she had to threaten suicide to get him to back off, but she still portrayed him as genuinely 'good' guy. Richard was behind the death of his nephews historically, but she made that vague, and then had him with his niece (????), but for the majority of the show he was portrayed as a 'nice guy'. IDK it's weird. It's weird when female authors have the ability to impact how historical women are seen in their literature, and instead of being kind to them, they are cruel. Gregory's writing has negatively impacted the portrayals of Margaret and how she is viewed in a lot of historical literature circles.

Sis you had ONE job!!

[cesareeborgia]

↳ richard iii of england + alphabet

[teen-spirited-away]

F&B CHARACTER MOODBOARDS AS HISTORICAL FIGURES THEY REMIND ME OF:

Alicent Hightower as Margaret Beaufort

Rhaenyra Targaryen as Empress Matilda

[rosemarytales]

Clothing colour symbolism in The White Queen

So. I was looking at this image and wondering why Richard stands out so much in terms of colour and what it might mean, which led me down a rabbit hole. I discovered that there's one too many coincidences to be casual.

So, here's my theory about each character and what their clothing says about them and their motives.

Richard Duke of Gloucester

Richard, throughout the first episodes of the show, is mostly seen wearing either blue or Edward's trademark colours (cream, white). Blue signifies loyalty, a trademark of Richard ("Loyaulté me lie") and that loyalty is to Edward.

After Edward's death, he is seen wearing a darker shade of blue (blue + black = loyalty and grief). He is wearing full black after the deaths of Edward his son and of Anne.

Edward IV

Edward wears mostly cream or beige. It could be interpreted as white (purity), in some cases even as yellow (generosity). I haven't found much about cream: maybe it was normal nobility clothing, even though the most common association with nobility is royal purple.

The most interesting thing about his outfits is when other characters match him to show their loyalty to him, most notably Elizabeth and Richard, but also George after his betrayal of Warwick.

Sometimes, him and Elizabeth alternate, with one scene where one is wearing cream and the other light blue and viceversa, which may represent their loyalty to each other. I think, but I am not sure, that the one who is wearing cream is the main focus of the scene, whereas the blue-wearer is showing their support. But I don't remember the context of the scenes, so this is just conjecture.

His colours are always light though, be it yellow or blue.

George Duke of Clarence

I would have expected George to wear a lot of green, considering it is the colour of envy, so I was quite surprised when I realised he didn't so much (he still does sometimes, though). I had noticed, however, that in his introduction scene, while both his brothers are wearing cream/beige (matching), he stands out with orange clothes.

What does orange represent? "Worthwhile ambition". Checks out.

He sheds the orange definitively by the time he joins Edward's side again (as shown in the top picture) and he wears progressively lighter clothing, possibly showing his redemption? By the time of Isabelle's death and his own, he is only wearing a white chemise. He is visibly wearing the chemise under black clothes (grief) at the masked party.

But, do you know who wears a lot of green?

Richard Earl of Warwick

Do I need to explain this one? He envies both Edward and the Woodvilles for the power they hold.

He wears some yellow, which represents generosity, so long as he is keeping up friendly appearances and up until his betrayal of Edward. He does not, however, wear white, because the last thing he wants is peace. He is just acting like it for what he thinks is Edward's sake.

Queen Elizabeth

White is the colour of peace (in the first scene she is trying to make peace with Edward). We also see specks of blue (loyalty), probably to her dead husband.

However, she is most often seen wearing yellow (generosity), most notably at her coronation, white (purity) and light blue (loyalty). Much like Richard, she often matches with Edward.

Queen Anne

Anne is quite funny. She changes colours quite a lot, sometimes matching Richard, her sister or her father, other times not matching anyone else.

I think it shows her loyalty is to the people she loves and not to loyalty itself, unlike her husband. However, she is also ambitious and follows her own agenda, but she's always careful not to step on any toes.

She is loyal, generous, reliable and sometimes envious, which all shows in her clothing throughout the show.

Literal Queen.

Margaret Beaufort

Say what you want about her, but I am in love. Her strength of character is incredible and she is so funny, but this is unrelated to the post.

Black = the colour of grief. Her character arc is loss and gain, but the latter only comes into play in the literal last minute of the show. So loss of everything and subsequent grief.

Red = the colour of martyrdom. She is the most pious and self-sacrificial character in the whole show.

Blue = undying loyalty to the House of Lancaster, despite the risk it poses to her life and that of the people around her.

Jacquetta Woodville

Blue all the way down. Her loyalty is not to a house, or to a King, but to her daughter.

Isabelle Neville, Duchess of Clarence

Lots of green, like her dad, but mostly in a lighter shade, showcasing innocence.

She is also quite envious of Elizabeth, but not to the point of starting a war about it, so less envious (therefore, less green) than her father.

In her case, green might even represent youth.

Anthony Woodville

Brown, the colour of honesty, stability and reliability.

He is not afraid to speak his mind to Elizabeth ("your marriage was fake"), but he is also her rock throughout the show.

[bstag]

What do you feel about the house of york

I feel like it's a medieval dynasty that one a war. That's about it.

I also think that Richard Duke of York was nothing more than a jealous cousin that saw the perfect opportunity to climb the ladder and took it, justly paying the price. Edward IV's anger over his and his brother's death is understandable and so were his actions. Too bad that he didn't saw that the Duke of York's ruthless ambitions had trickled down to his sons Richard and George before they tried it with him. I think the Woodvilles were overtly greedy and took too much of the hand that fed them making the nobility hate them, and they also paid for it. I mean, arranging prestige marriages for every single Woodville? I get it, one of them was the Queen, but come on now, they clearly overplayed.

On the whole, I find this representation of the Yorks as this typical Good HeirsTM that took their rightful place on the throne and stepped up through harsh times that persists so much to this day lame and reductive. The truth of the matter is, they were never more just and GoodTM than the Lancasters. The Lancasters successfully organized a coup and sat the throne, the Yorks did the same, demonizing Henry VI and Queen Margaret of Anjou through propaganda as a freak and an overly ambitious femme fatale respectively, while casting their teenage son as a cruel bastard. All for defending fiercely what was by right theirs (we have Shakespeare to blame for that as well).

[isabelleneville]

[juanatrastamara]

the white queen ten year anniversary: twq characters + ruelle songs

[historicconfessions]

[eve-to-adam]

Elizabeth of York, fashion character design. Mourning outfit, c. 1482.

[blueberry-bubbles130]

Alright everyone here’s a very stupid question!

Also yes. I have personally read fanfiction about every single one of these figures listed in the poll.