Customer Reviews
Queen Consort to King Edward IV., mother of the Princes in the Tower and grandmother of the Tudors - By: K. van Amelorde, 20 Feb 2007 
Elizabeth Wydeville: The Slandered Queen is the first book of a series on England' s forgotten Queens, a series edited by famous royal biographer Alision Weir. And the series got an excellent start!!
Elizabeth Wydeville was Queen Consort to King Edward IV., is mostly known as the mother of the Princesin the Tower & she was - through her daughter, another Elizabeth - the " maternal grandmother" of the Tudor dynasty. However, there is much more to her than just being wife, mother or grandmother of. Her general historical reputation is however one of a clever & beautiful woman which is marrying above her station, clever & greedy for herself & her family. Not particuarly a good reputation.
Arlene Okerlund clearly states what the purpose of her biography is: to set the record straight on this Queen. She feels that Elizabeth was slandered by her adversaries. The subtitle "The Slandered Queen" leaves on doubt about this. And she has a point! Arlene Okerlund put things into perspective, shows motivation for slandering her, shows precedences how important females were treated at the time, sweps certain historical myths away. One starts to understand where Elizabeth Wydeville came from, learns about her background, her interest, her role as Queen & her legacy to her children & grandchildren. This is extremely interesting to read & understand. However, I feel that Arlene Okerlund does a bit too muchin this direction. It is a bit of a whitewash, a bit too unbalanced. But maybe that is necessary because the historical reputation is unbalancedin the other direction. It is - as Alison Weit statesin the introduction - provocative, but it is openly done & the reader can easy form its own opinion.
Allin all I did enjoy reading very much this biography. I learned a lot & my views on this Queen Elizabeth has changed.
A Wydeville Whitewash - By: Mrs. D. J. Smith, 09 Feb 2007 
Elizabeth Wydeville. I suspect that many today wouldn't recognise her name, although her blood flows through the veins of our current Queen Elizabeth. She was, of course, the consort of the Yorkist King Edward IV & the Mother of the so-called Princesin the Tower.
Okerlund's study concentrates as much on the Wydeville family as on Elizabeth herself. Traditionally portrayed as a cold, grasping, greedy woman (and family!), Okerlund sets out to refute these charges. The trouble is, she seems to want us to believe that actually the Wydevilles were all sweetness & light & never did a thing wrongin their lives! In some cases, Okerlund decides to conveniently ignore facts if they don't show her Wydeville'sin a good light, for example there is absolutely no mention of the fact that Elizabeth failed to inform Richard of Gloucester of the death of his brother the King! We know this for a fact, & there could be no honourable motive, so Okerlund ignores it!
There are also claims made that are not satisfactorily backed up with hard evidence, such as the claim that Elizabeth was very pious. Yes, as queen she would have given money to religious charities, but this was expected of her public role, there is no evidence presented here that she was, either particularly or personally, exceptionally pious.
Not altogether a bad book, but as you can tell, I do have some reservations.
