fair analysis…

it is, imv, about the worst way the BBC has spent an enormous wedge of cash in a long time – £25 million might not have provided the best 10 hours of historical drama ever, but the story of the Wars of the Roses is public property, and the BBC did not need to use PG’s story, or pay her, to put a much more historically correct, and much more credble – but no less entertaining – series on the TV.

it also did not need to shoot itself in the foot with regards to credibility by serving up a ‘documentary’ based on PG’s opus starring PG and suggesting that she is a serious historian when she’s not.

Bob the Builder said

fair analysis…

it is, imv, about the worst way the BBC has spent an enormous wedge of cash in a long time – £25 million might not have provided the best 10 hours of historical drama ever, but the story of the Wars of the Roses is public property, and the BBC did not need to use PG’s story, or pay her, to put a much more historically correct, and much more credble – but no less entertaining – series on the TV.

it also did not need to shoot itself in the foot with regards to credibility by serving up a ‘documentary’ based on PG’s opus starring PG and suggesting that she is a serious historian when she’s not.

Bob, you’re right.
TWQ is a Guilty Pleasure for me, I think there is space for everything on tv, it was fun, until the last three episodes anyway. you’re also right that BBC has shot itself in the foot, it is clear that they could have written something better, writers are able to make better or more interesting story, they could have called GRRM (if he was not so busy) ops!
I’m watching Elizabeth R for the first time, the scenarios are poor, terrible makeup, but how good it is!. don’t need greats scenarios or sex scenes to make a decent show, I’d ignore any zipper in clothes since I had a decent story. I know it sounds contradictory, as said I think TWQ it’s fun, but not the quality standard for the BBC.

Bill1978 said …Can anyone recommend a good biography on either Edward IV or Richard III. I feel my collection needs to have a book on each one, to know be complete.

ooh, can of worms…

there is, bizarrely, not much solely on Edward IV – Mary Clive has a biography written in 1973, but personally i found it deeply unsatisfactory for two reasons, firstly that while she refered to sources (which i’m not sure she read properly), she framed those original sourses with her own ‘mood music’ that had had no basis in evidence but was very effective in steering the reader towards the conclusion that MC wanted them to end up at, and secondly that she treated everything from about 1470 onwards as a prelude to the Richard III show.

as for Richard himself, i’ve not found a single very satisfactory biography on him – all i can suggest is reading half a dozen of the offerings and trying to decide for yourself. i’ve read Paul Murray Kendall, Micheal Hicks, Allison Weir, Josephine Wilkinson, David Baldwin, Sean Cunningham and AJ Pollard – and probably many others. some were good, some were bad, most were a mix of the two.

i think the fundamental problem for people trying to decide whether they like him or not is that actually there’s not a lot of him in history until 1483 – he did what he expected to and he did it reasonably well. he didn’t make much noise, he didn’t cause trouble, he just put his head down and got on with it – as well as living 200 miles north of the main political scene and not being anywhere close to the accepted line of succession. unfortunately, biographers, instead of just admitting that and saying ‘theres not much to work on..’, decide that this ‘blank-space’ means he was either plotting since the age of 18 and covered it up well, or that he was Mother Theresa and the eeeevil Tudors have air-brushed his good works from history.

personally, i’m a fan – i think he was conciensous in his duties, brave, and not overly greedy – but i don’t doubt he could be frighteningly ruthless in securing his own interests.

It is difficult to find a book about Richard III which is not either traditionalist or revisionist. The best advice really, is to read a range from both sides of the argument and form your own opinion, based on the sources. Unfortunately, there are not many contemporary sources still in existence. The other problem is that many of the post-Bosworth historians and chroniclers tended to reuse material so you find the same inaccuracies in many different sources. The Croyland Chronicler, for example, is often referred to as a contemporary source, yet he wrote his account of events in Richard’s reign over six months after Boswoth, in April 1486, with the benefit of hindsight. Thomas More is sometimes referred to as a contemporary source, yet he was a small child at the time of Bosworth and although he may have spoken with people who were adults at the time, again hindsight could have played an important part in what they said or how they interpreted events.

as well as hindsight, its worth noting that it was the best part of 200 years before it was politically acceptable to say ‘actually, Richard III was a decent bloke, and he made the Tudors look like saints…’

people like Thomas, 2nd Duke of Norfolk had known Richard fairly well and served under him and then served under Henry VII and Henry VIII, but would have been in very deep trouble had they spoken to a cronicler like Virgil, or any other, and said anything that fell well outside the currently politically acceptable ‘truth’ of Richards reign or the lead up to it.

theres an element here of ‘if you’ve nothing bad to say, say nothing’, and by the time that changed, anyone with anything good to say was long dead.

Well Episode 4 is down and I feel with each episode the story is getting much more coherent. It’s like the writers are finally understanding who is who, which isn’t very good to have to wait 4 episodes to get the gist of who everyone is. Oh that Anjou lady and her son are just terrible news aren’t they? So heartless and cruel. Nice to see in this world, naughty people cannot have any redeeming features. Technically should Anjou have a French accent, I was accepting a French accent when she opened her mouth but all I got was an English sounding one. And I really feel for poor Anne Neville, although I feel they are planting some seeds to justify her becoming cruel perhaps later in the series.

This episode really highlighted that they have adapted 3 of Philipa’s book for the one mini-series. I swear the storyline of the 3 main characters of the books did not really intersect at all in this episode. The only thing that linked them was placing Henry VI back on the throne, but plot wise no interaction what so ever. I am contemplating reading the 3 books though just to see how the events unfold through the ladies eyes.

At the moment, the big issue I am having with the series, is that because the series is based on the books it means we have to see the events through the women’s eyes. which means they have to be present for anything to happen. This means all the battles occur offscreen and I admit it seems like all that happens in the battles, is that someone jumps out of a bush says ‘SURPRISE!!!!’ and who ever gets scared first loses the battle.

And did Rebecca Ferguson lose some bet. All the other women seem to get to keep their clothes on and be all lady like but Rebecca has had graphic sex scenes and I totally wasn’t expecting that birthing scene. It was like I was watching the documentary I show my students on birthing LOL.

Thanks for the book recommendations, at the moment it looks like I will go with the Baldwin book on RIchard based upon the samples on Amazon. It seems to cover what I would like and appears to be very well balanced, plus has the advantage of an added chapter of the discovery of Richard’s graves.

Has anyone read Edward IV and the Wars of the Roses by David Santiuste? Just wondering if it is more about military tactics than about the man himself, or if it covers the man while exploring his military ability.

It is pouring down here (apparently over 75mls in 9 hours when we were expected to have 4mls) so I may be watching more of the White Queen than planned today LOL

Jasmine I don’t think Croyland was entirely influenced by the new regime considering he copied the suppressed Titulus Regius into the chronicle. He did it with a danger to himself quite frankly, parliament made it illegal and it was probably treasonous to do so. And now it is the only copy we have of it, so it’s good that he did of course. That’s just my opinion of course but I think he is a valuable source.
More on the other hand was a definite Tudor historian, I am a bit baffled anyone would refer to him as contemporary. Considering he didnt even bother finishing his book.

Bill the US version of the show if far more graphic than the BBC version. This is a pretty funny article about it, but I’ll warn you guys there is a lot of nudity in this, in case it offends you http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new…..z2iT4ORlTg

I am still in shock it got nominated for an Emmy. It’s the accents I tell you, we all love British accents

tv tropes…..http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmw…..sWarSeries

I always thought Croyland sounded more loyal to Edward IV than anything, but then I would have to read the whole thing to form that opinion Jasmine. I agree he wrote it with the benefit of hindsight, I just don’t agree when he is lumped in (as I have seen others do) with Tudor historians, because I don’t consider him a Tudor historian. As for actual Tudor historians, Vergil wasn’t shy about criticising his patron at times.
I have heard a theory More started writing his book on Richard to mock Vergil actually, but only in passing, Sounds rather intriguing

Sorry Bill, it is a Golden Globe. The acting was very good, but the script was pap. Seriously, I watched it a second time to do episode reviews and it made me want to scream. It actually is much worse on the second viewing, don’t watch it again LOL. I am surprised we got the Starz version here, BBC didn’t have it available on iPlayer so I assumed that is the version we would get. I watched the BBC version, I am glad I did too. If I had seen that poor girl playing Anne Neville starkers I would have cracked it, she looks about fourteen for goodness sakes. Television just gets worse and worse, the girl who plays Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) in Game of Thrones looked so young in the first season (and I think Daeny was only 12 or 13 in the book) and she was naked for most of the season. It really disgusts me seeing girls that young being forced to take their clothes off. Apparently Emilia refused to do any more nude scenes after the first season, they didn’t make her do one until the third season after that.

One episode left, I’m hooked and I can’t stop staring

I thought the way the show/PG presented who killed the princes was very clever. I admit that while I suspect the show wants me to think it was at the order of Margaret we do have the whole Anne scenario. I do think perhaps it was too easy to dismiss Richard as a potential suspect though. But the curse that the Elizabeth cast could apply to both Richard III’s line and Henry Tudor’s line. if I heard and understood the curse correctly. Which is ironic cause young Lizzie, just cursed herself.

Could someone explain the concept of sanctuary to me. I thought it was safety from persecution but the trade off was that you were essentially in a prison within the church. On this show it seems like anyone can come and go as like in sanctuary and its super easy to get past guards and everything. Have I understood sanctuary wrong?