About book Elizabeth Wydeville: The Slandered Queen (2005)
Queen Elizabeth Wydeville, the slandered Queen of England has spent centuries judged to be a greedy and horrid woman, characteristics written by her many enemies. In this volume, Okerlund delves into the preconceptions in order to shed light on the truth - was she truly a vile woman or was she a strong individual who endured where others crumbled?It does appear that Elizabeth Wydeville was indeed a much more complex personality than sources have made out in the past. A deeply pious woman, Okerlund determines that the marriage of Elizabeth and Edward IV was truly a love match and not a result of witchcraft. Here, Elizabeth is described as a pious and charitable woman who rewarded those loyal to her and not the greedy upstart that she is generally seen to be. Indeed, there appears to be much loyalty and respect towards her as a Queen; and Okerlund does present her through her trials and experiences as someone adaptable and strong who survived two husbands, the unjust executions of members of her own family including a son from her first marriage, the disappearance her her two sons the princes in the tower.Upon reading this biography I gained much respect for the woman often deemed a witch, whose reputation has been marred through time, and only recently gaining a more respectable reputation in the light of a reviving interest in the wars of the roses.Elizabeth Wydeville played a key role alongside Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII who has enjoyed a more respected reputation in history; she was the grandmother of Henry VIII, and her blood still runs through the veins of the British royal family to this day. There is likely truth within tales of vanity, as a Queen she represented an image to the people and many nobles were envious of her position and her family's rise to power that this image of vanity and greed has superseded the many other aspects of her life that made her a captivating and admirable woman for her day.I admit that Okerlund's view is biased in favour of Elizabeth, but it is a refreshing view compared with that of historians who decree that she was nothing more than an arrogant, greedy upstart; a view that often translates into fiction as well.It may be time to give Elizabeth Wydeville more credit for her numerous good qualities and strengths that helped her endure in a world ruled by men. This biography offers a good starting point.
My prior knowledge of the slandered queen came heavily from Tudor sources. Okerlund has produced a greatly overdue balance in the appraisal of Edward IV's queen.The author shows that it was not just Elizabeth who was a shining light of the age, but the Wydeville family as a whole produced intellectual, enlightened and chivalric members of the English nobility in the late fifteenth century. Sir Anthony Wydeville (Lord Rivers), being a prime example of this.Elizabeth lived through these turbulent times, suffering the loss of her father and brother, executed by Neville when Edward was deposed, as well as the execution of Sir Anthony, her brother, after Stony Stratford, and the mystery of her two sons, the princes in the tower, after the coup of Richard III.She lives to see the birth of Tudor England and to become grandmother to the future Henry VIII. Elizabeth Wydeville must rank alongside Edward III's wife, Queen Philippa of Hainault, as a great queen, faithful wife and loving mother as well as patron of arts.Brilliant biography.
Do You like book Elizabeth Wydeville: The Slandered Queen (2005)?
I really enjoyed reading this book. It had a very clear objective - to cleanse the name of Queen Elizabeth. Throughout the centuries her name has been slandered, especially in her one lifetime when she was made out be an adulterous woman with 10 bastard children. Arlene Okerlund's method was solid, using both contemporary sources and moderne onces. I feared that, with the goal she had, the book would be one sided, but Okerlund took sources from all sides and debated their credibility. It was refreshing and easy to get into.
—Maja
Although this is supposedly a biography, Okerlund spends most of her time gushing about Elizabeth’s brother or making wild assumptions about historical figures’ state of minds. I hate when authors pretend they knew the thoughts of people long dead, and Okerlund does it *a lot*. She’s also wildly defensive about the Wydevilles—she spends far more time dissecting the arguments of other historians than making her own case. The book also isn’t organized very well. I was glad to read a biography from someone on the other side of the Wars of the Roses (I’ve studied Margaret of Anjou and of course, Henry VII before), but I wish this had been better.
—Wealhtheow
I think the author would've done better to draw her focus out to the Woodville clan overall rather than just Elizabeth, as the material covered doesn't really do much to flesh her out in any significant way (she does a much better job with Anthony, of all people, who she would clearly much rather be writing about). Also, the book goes too far out of the way to pointedly discredit Richard wherever possible--which on the one hand I philosophically don't care about (I like Richard as a character but am no devout Ricardian), but on the other hand, leads to some pretty sloppy leaps in logic. The whole thing doesn't hang together terribly well. Alas.
—Emma
