Earlier this month the Los Angeles Times published an interview with Philippa Gregory about her recent novel The White Queen under the promising title “Philippa Gregory on a Tudor Smear Campaign”.   

In this interview Philippa explains “why  she sides with those who see [Richard III] as the victim of an extraordinary propaganda machine”.  The novel is told from the view point of Elizabeth Woodville.  For Philippa it simply does not make sense  that Elizabeth would have let her daughters stay at Richard’s court, if she thought that he had already killed her two sons by Edward.  On the other hand there is good reason to suspect others like the Duke of Buckingham or Henry Tudor.  However, all these possibilities got swept under the carpet by “the absolute triumph of Tudor propaganda”. 

The interview concludes with stating that “Each time a production [of Shakespeare’s Richard III] gets staged, we’re repeating the lesson that Richard was nothing but a hunchback villain. That’s the tragedy”. 

 Thank you, Philippa, for bringing our view across so clearly! 

Read the full interview here.

Tags: Elizabeth Woodville, Richard III