"Only fools wait when their enemies are coming, to see if they may prove to be friends."
I haven't been on a Philippa Gregory binge in a long, long time, but when I WAS, I always preferred her Plantagenet books to her Tudor ones. The White Queen was the first one of those I read, and I loved it. The story (probably highly fictionalized, so keep that in mind) of Edward of York and the commoner Elizabeth who managed to marry him and become Queen of England during the War of the Roses is probably one of the best known around. And the Queen is even more important because, through her daughter, she becomes grandmother to none other than Henry VIII. So have a look and see what court intrigue looked like in the 15th century!
1464. Cousin is at war with cousin, as the houses of York and Lancaster tear themselves apart, and Elizabeth Woodville, a young Lancastrian widow, armed only with her beauty and steely determination, seduces and marries the charismatic warrior king, Edward IV of York. Crowned Queen of England, surrounded by conflict, betrayal and murder, Elizabeth rises to the demands of her position, fighting tenaciously for her family's survival. Most of all she must defend her two sons, who become the central figures in a mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the missing Princes in the Tower.
(from book jacket)
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*image not mine
