When the Starz series The White Princess premieres on Sunday night, lovers of costume drama will find themselves caught up in the life of Elizabeth of York, a woman who was perhaps best known as the mother of Henry VIII. As this series begins, the young Princess Elizabeth (Jodie Comer) is not yet married to Henry VII (Jacob Collins-Levy), the new king of England—and she is by no means sure she wants to be. The man she’s being pressured to marry, who won his crown in battle, is of the House of Lancaster, her family’s enemies.

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Many say that George R.R. Martin based Game of Thrones on the real-life Wars of the Roses in medieval times, and that war was one of blood and betrayal as the two houses, York and Lancaster, fought for the throne. (Fittingly, Henry’s scheming mother, Margaret Beaufort, is portrayed by Michelle Fairley, who played Caitlin Stark in GOT.)

Elizabeth’s life is a fascinating one, with some saying it’s high time she took the spotlight. “Elizabeth is often unfairly overshadowed by her successors, the wives of Henry VIII, but she was a more successful queen than any of them,” wrote historian Alison Weir in BBC History magazine.

What better time to look at the “facts” about The White Princess and decide which are true, and which are false?

Princess Elizabeth of York was the catch of Christendom: TRUE.

Everyone agrees: Elizabeth was ravishing. Which is not surprising, considering her gene pool. The Plantagenet princess was the oldest child of King Edward IV (the head of the House of York) and Elizabeth Woodville, both of them famed for their good looks and sexual charisma. Her parents’ marriage was actually the scandal of its time. Edward was under pressure to marry a fellow royal, but at age 22 he fell passionately in love with Elizabeth Woodville, an impoverished young widow, and tried to seduce her. The Widow Woodville refused to become his mistress, drawing a knife and threatening to kill herself if he raped her. This led to the king’s proposal of marriage. (Bear in mind, this was the 15th century.)

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Elizabeth of York was blonde and blue-eyed, “the fairest of Edward’s offspring,” says historian Alison Weir in Elizabeth of York, a Tudor Queen and Her World. She was also praised for her fine character as a child, being “learned and wise,” with “an unbounded love for her brothers and sisters.”



Princess Elizabeth had an affair with her uncle, Richard III: (PROBABLY) FALSE.

Time to unpack one of the biggest controversies of English history. Did Elizabeth have sex with her uncle, the man whom many at the time—and up to this day—suspected had her two younger brothers killed? Richard III usurped the throne after the death of his older brother. His two young nephews, Edward and Richard, ended up in the Tower of London. After the boys disappeared from public view, Elizabeth and her four younger sisters were invited to court by Uncle Richard, 14 years Elizabeth’s senior and married to Queen Anne Neville. Rumors roamed throughout Europe that Richard was paying his beautiful niece special attention.

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The strongest basis for the truth of an incestuous affair is the infamous “Croydon letter,” in which Elizabeth wrote to the Duke of Norfolk pleading with him to support her marriage to Richard, “her only joy and the maker in the world.” This alleged letter was discovered more than a century later and while several people said they read it, the letter itself was “lost.” In Gregory’s earlier series The White Queen, the affair is very much on, with Elizabeth and Uncle Richard having sex in his tent the night before the Battle of Bosworth. Since Elizabeth was beyond doubt residing in a castle in Yorkshire, many miles from the battle, this would have been quite a feat.

Princess Elizabeth collaborated in the poisoning of Queen Anne: FALSE.

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After the only son of King Richard and Queen Anne died, and it was clear that the queen was too sickly to have more children, some people at court speculated that Richard would marry his niece—if Queen Anne were to conveniently die. In Shakespeare’s Richard III, the “Crookback” is a terrible, possibly murderous husband (“I’ll have her, but I will not keep her long”), a characterization that “Ricardians” furiously dispute. There is no evidence that Anne’s death in 1485 was caused by anything other than tuberculosis or some nasty disease all too common in the medieval period. The king did not murder her, with or without Elizabeth’s help. After his wife died, King Richard publically denied “in a loud and distinct voice” he had any intention of marrying his niece. Elizabeth was sent from the court and Richard opened up negotiations to marry the king of Portugal’s sister.

King Henry VII was a bad husband: FALSE.

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In Gregory’s novel The White Princess, King Henry VII, while engaged to an unenthusiastic Princess Elizabeth, forces himself on her, calling her a “slut” and saying, “We are going to become better acquainted.” He is not guided by loving desire. “You are to be carrying my child on our wedding day or there will be no wedding day.” There is no historical basis for Henry VII treating Elizabeth so brutally. The couple were married for 17 years, without reports of any infidelities.

Elizabeth gave birth to seven children, four of whom lived into their teenage years: Arthur, Mary, Margaret and the future Henry VIII. When Elizabeth died in childbirth at the age of 36, Henry VII was devastated, and some historians feel he never completely recovered from his depression over losing her. He didn’t remarry, which was unusual for the time. What does seem the case is that Elizabeth had little to do with ruling the country. The king turned to his mother, Margaret Beaufort, when he needed that sort of advice. Elizabeth’s life revolved around her children. It’s possible that, witnessing the murder and mayhem of the Wars of the Roses from the front row, she wanted nothing to do with politics.

Henry VIII was a Mama’s Boy: TRUE.

Jason Bell/Starz

Elizabeth’s oldest son, Arthur, was set apart: He had his own royal household from an early age, he was betrothed to a Spanish princess when he was 10, and he was the focus of his father’s loving attention until he died tragically at 15. The second son, Henry, spent much more time with his mother and sisters, and was devoted to the queen, by all accounts. Interestingly, Henry resembled his grandfather, Edward IV, in looks—both men were over six feet all—and in character more than Henry VII. Elizabeth’s death when he was just 11 years old was a terrible blow to her son. He rarely spoke of his mother. Years later, he wrote the scholar Erasmus that the death of his “dearest mother” was “hateful intelligence.” It’s possible that no woman could live up to her memory. In Henry VIII: The Life and Rule of England’s Nero, author John Matusiak wrote, “He invested his mother with all the perfections that he later sought from his wives and in expecting heavenly bliss from union with them, he would more often encounter hellish disappointment.”

Queen Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of Elizabeth of York: TRUE.

The present queen of England’s ancestry traces back through the Hanovers of Germany to the Stuarts through a daughter of James I. Scottish King James VI had become James I, the successor to the English throne, after the death of the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I.

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And the reason that the Stuarts possessed this right to the succession is that Scottish King James IV married an English princess, Margaret, the oldest daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and they had children. And so a 15th century queen, Elizabeth of York, is the vitally important connection between her birth family, the Plantagenets, the Tudor family she married into, and the Stuart family her daughter married into. She is the matriarch of it all.

Elizabeth of York is the face of the Queen of Hearts: (MOST LIKELY) TRUE.

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Sources agree that playing cards were invented in Europe in the late 14th century. In France the four suits—spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds—were invented some time around 1480. We don’t have the original playing cards used in the court of Henry VII but later copies show a queen who strongly resembled Elizabeth of York, particularly the Queen of Hearts with the pointed gable hood she wore. Indeed, the playing card queen looks like her even today. The story goes that his wife loved games, and so after she died, the grief-stricken Henry VII ordered that every playing card’s Queen of Hearts would show the face of Elizabeth of York.

Nancy Bilyeau Contributor Nancy Bilyeau, a former staff editor at InStyle, Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly, has written a thriller set in the 18th century art and porcelain world titled 'The Blue.' For more information, see www.nancybilyeau.com.

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