Customer Reviews

Elizabeth: England's Slandered Queen (England's Forgotten Queens)

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What a studied and fascinating work this book is! We've heard many versions of the presumed accounts of the 2 missing princes who dissapeared from London Tower...but what of their mother, the first Queen Elizabeth? Although we've heard much smattering of slander about her in the past, now we have a new story to consider in this lavishly researched, footnoted and indexed work reviewing the Queen's life. Although you will feel the good weight of research that the author poured into the book, you will be able to read the Queen's fascinating story without needing to be a Rhodes Scholar to delve into it.

We even get to sigh a romantic sigh as we imagine the meeting of (24 year old) Elizabeth when she met with the King (age 19) at the time he likely fell madly in love with her: "At Grafton, Elizabeth was on home territory. The Wydeville manor lay within a mile of Whittlewood Forest where the King was hunting. Having grown up here, Elizabeth knew the course that the hunters would take, the fields where the deer would be chased for the kill, the grassy spots ideal for picnics. Choosing a large oak tree, she stationed herself and her two small sons beneath it and waited. Hard in pursuit of prey, Edward saw the beautiful young mother with her children, pulled his horse up short, and marvelled at the bucolic tableau." See what I mean? We really get a feel for the romance, the hardship, and the tragedy to follow.

The ancestor of Mary, Queen of Scots and of Lady Jane Grey, this slandered queen's grandson will be Henry VIII, her great-grandaughter will be Queen Elizabeth I. In her time, she will become a widowed mother of two children but then secretly marry the King of England (the younger Edward IV), thus being crowned Queen of England in 1465, her father will be beheaded, her husband the King will become exhiled leaving her alone while pregnant with many young children in tow, she will give birth to the future King of England (Edward V), her brother will be executed, her son (Sir Richard Grey) will be murdered upon order of Richard III, her two sons (King Edward V and Prince Richard of York) will dissapear from the Tower of London with tragically uncertain fate, her 19-year-long marriage will be declared adulterous and their 10 children will be declared illegitimate, and she will be accused of witchcraft and sorcery.

An amazing life, worth of the re-defining richly presented by this author.

For a year or two I put off reading this biography of Edward IV's consort because I had recently read David Baldwin's biography of the same person. Now, having finished Okerlund, I have decided that there is room in the world for both biographies of Elizabeth and would encourage anyone interested in the Wars of the Roses, or the queens of England, to read both of them.

Arlene Okerlund is more enthusiastic about, and sympathetic toward, her subject than David Baldwin. Her book is longer and in most respects fuller than Baldwin's. Whether all that has to do with Okerlund's being female I don't know. Unlike Baldwin, Okerlund believes that Elizabeth had a good relationship with her son-in-law Henry VII. She makes the small but excellent point that the queen's family name should be spelled "Wydeville," since that is the version used by Caxton, the first printer in English history, who knew Elizabeth's brother Antony.

Yet, as I was reading Okerlund, I sometimes missed Baldwin's more straightforward approach, and more specifically his summary of Elizabeth's portraits and other "artefacts."

Neither author has the last word on the subject. I am not convinced that Elizabeth was excessively cold-blooded, or meddling, or selfish; neither am I convinced that she was innocent of all such charges. As in the case of Richard III, the jury is still out. Other readers should definitely read both Baldwin and Okerlund and reach their own judgments.

This was a very well-written history of Elizabeth Wydeville- wife of Edward IV, mother of the Princes in the Tower, and mother of Elizabeth of York, Queen Consort of Henry VII.
History has not been kind to the Wydeville family. Both Elizabeth and her mother Jacquetta have been accused of Witchcraft, and of scheming to control the King. Elizabeth has been portrayed as a woman obsessed with raising her family to the highest heights and thus alienating members of the nobility- notably Warwick 'the Kingmaker'.
Okerlund shows how this is an unfair view of Elizabeth. Her brother, Anthony Wydeville, made his advantageous marriage to Lady Scales BEFORE Elizabeth became Queen! Plus, Anthony himself was a very loyal advisor of Edward IV. He was loyal to Edward until his death (unlike Warwick). Consequently, we can see that Elizabeth did not need to influence the King regading her brother- her brother was naturally talented enough for the King to notice his worth. Those historians who credit with Elizabeth with such immense influence over the King obviously do not think very highly of Edward IV.
I do not believe that this is a feminist history of Elizabeth Wydeville. Okerlund defends the Wydeville family as a whole, and not just Elizabeth. She is merely trying to point out how easy it is for lies to become historical truth when reading primary sources. One must assess WHEN the accoun t was written, WHO wrote the account, and WHY they wrote the account. Context is everything. That is something that is taught in even the most basic history class, and yet in the past it has been ignored in regards to sources about Elizabeth.
I enjoyed reading this book, and it contained a lot of primary sources to back up Okerlund's claim. It was not merely opinion, as I feared it might be.

This book really opened my eyes to the enduring qualities of Elizabeth Woodville. It was so well written that you hoped for just a moment that history would change! The one person in Elizabeth's life I was made aware of through this book is her brother Anthony. My heart ached for his story. What an accomplished man...and his story really makes you despise Richard III even more.

The history is well told, the story line is easy to follow. You will want to study more of the characters who make up the War of the Roses.

Working from original sources, Arlene Okerlund takes the case of Elizabeth Wydeville: the Slandered Queen and presents it as if in court. Dr. Okerlund employs considerable research with great care. At last, we have a book that considers the source of the slander and recognizes that contemporaries can not necessarily be trusted to tell the truth, even if they know it.
This biography also brings in colors from Elizabeth's life and times making this an interested read even for those who aren't particularly into English history.