The Philippa Gregory Trilogy on Starz -- 2

On April 27, I published on this blog an article about The Philippa Gregory Trilogy on Starz. That article had nothing to do with the movie Dirty Dancing, beyond my opinion that the people who like this movie would like also that historical-fiction series. Now, however, I can relate the substance of the two works.

The current episode of the Philippa Gregory series -- The Spanish Princess, Part 5 -- deals with the abortion issue. One of the characters has become pregnant, and so an abortion method of the early 1500s is depicted.

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The trilogy's first part was The White Queen -- ten one-hour episodes -- which Starz broadcast in 2013. The second part was The White Princess -- eight one-hour episodes -- broadcast in 2017. Now Starz is broadcasting  The Spanish Princess -- eight one-hour episodes.

The White Queen and The White Princess are the best shows I ever have watched on television. To prepare to watch The Spanish Princess, I recently re-watched the entire 18 hours of the first two parts.

I have watched the first five episodes -- the only episodes broadcast by now. I was critical during the first episodes, but now this part, too, is growing on me.

Yesterday, the Lionsgate company, which produces the series (and which owns the rights to Dirty Dancing), announced that it will produced eight more episodes of The Spanish Princess.

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The Philippa Gregory trilogy tells Britain's royal history that took place in the late 1400s and early 1500s. The so-called Wars of the Roses were resolved by the marriages of men from the House of Lancaster (the Red Roses) to women from the House of York (the White Roses). The intermarriage of these two "Houses" established the Tudor Dynasty. The trilogy features that history's women:

* The White Queen is Elizabeth Woodville, who became the wife of King Edward IV.

* The White Princess is Elizabeth of York, who became the wife of King Henry VII.

* The Spanish Princess is Catherine of Aragon, who became the first wife of King Henry VIII.

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This history -- focusing on the male characters -- is told by William Shakespeare's series of plays:

Richard II

Henry IV, Part I

Henry IV, Part II

Henry V

Henry VI, Part I

Henry VI, Part II

Henry VI, Part III

Richard III

Henry VIII

I have read each of those plays at least three times, and I have read also a bunch of history books about that period. Therefore, I can say that Philippa Gregory's trilogy tells the actual history rather well and also provides plausible explanations for the gaps and mysteries in the actual history. Also, her trilogy portrays the female characters who have been largely ignored by historians.

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One narrative thread that continues through the entire trilogy is sorcery. A few of the female characters practice sorcery, and essentially all the female characters believe in sorcery. Elizabeth Woodville and her daughter Elizabeth of York use sorcery to cast curses on their enemy's future male heirs, and these curses seem to explain subsequent events.

This narrative thread remains realistic. No special effects are used to depict the sorcery. The women who use the sorcery even express skepticism about whether their curses actually have caused the apparent consequences. Basically, the characters (female and male) do believe in sorcery and witchcraft, and their belief motivates some of their actions.

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Another narrative thread that continues through the trilogy is the disappearance of two princes -- ages 9 and 12 -- from the Tower of London in about 1483. The boys were the sons of Elizabeth Woodville and the brothers of Elizabeth of York. Those disappearances caused the two women to cast particular curses.

Richard (age 9) and Edward (age 12)

The disappearances of the two princes is a historical mystery that will be debated forever. The most common explanation is that the two princes were murdered by their Uncle Richard so that he could occupy the British throne. For example, that explanation is depicted in Shakespeare's play Richard III.

Another explanation is that Richard III was innocent of the disappearances and that he was framed by his political enemies. The debates about the culprits are complicated that in later years there was a series of young men who claimed to be one of the princes, who had managed to escape from the Tower of London and so remained the rightful heir to the British throne.

The Gregory trilogy explains that Elizabeth Woodville managed save her younger son Richard by substituting another boy who looked similar. The boy Richard then fled from Britain. Years later, the adult Richard returned with a French army to Britain to reclaim the throne. This is a plausible explanation that has been defended by various historians.

Gregory depicts that explanation plausibly and vividly, and it connects her trilogy's three parts. That Richard's fate continues to motivate characters' actions still in The Spanish Princess.

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As I began to watch The Spanish Princess recently, I was annoyed by various moments in the first episodes. However, now that I have watched five episodes, this series has grown on me. The series has given me new insights and understandings about Catherine of Aragon -- the daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain -- the wife of Britain's Prince Arthur Tudor and then of his brother Prince Henry Tudor, the future Henry VIII.

One of the historical mysteries about Catherine is whether she ever consummated her marriage to Prince Arthur. He died four months after the wedding. Since she claimed that her marriage to Arthur was not consummated, her subsequent marriage to Henry was allowed by the Pope. Years later, however, King Henry VIII came to believe that her first marriage actually was consummated. Therefore Henry had sinned by marrying her, and God had punished his marriage to her by killing all their male sons.

Gregory's explanation is that the marriage of Arthur and Catherine actually was consummated, but she denied it in order to marry Henry and that she maintained that lie for the rest of her life. That explanation is plausible.

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The abortion issue comes up in The Spanish Princess because several of the minor characters are members of her entourage who accompanied her from Spain to England. These minor characters are fictional characters created by Gregory, but they enrich the story.

So, Catherine's entourage includes two ladies-in-waiting. One is a black Moor whose family converted from Islam to Christianity after the Moors were expelled from Spain at the end of the 1400s. The other is from a Gypsy family, which was nominally Christian. These two ladies-in-waiting accompanied Princess Catherine to England with the understanding that they eventually would be married to English noblemen after Catherine became the Queen of England.

The Spanish Princess and her two ladies-in-waiting
arriving in England

The Spanish Princess and her two ladies-in-waiting
at her marriage to Prince Arthur Tudor

Soon after their arrivals in England, however, both ladies-in-waiting fall in love with inappropriate men. The lady-in-waiting from the Gypsy family becomes pregnant, and to the lady-in-waiting from the Moorish family finds out how illegal abortions were done in London at that time. She finds out from an abortionist in a brothel, and she buys and takes the necessary stuff to the pregnant lady-in-waiting. It's quite interesting.

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Watch the Starz trilogy from the beginning. The entire trilogy is available on demand on the Starz cable channel. For several years, The White Queen and The White Princess  were not available on demand, but they are available again now because The Spanish Princess is being broadcast now.