Given how interested I am in history and especially the Wars of the Roses, it was inevitable that I would eventually get around to watching The White Queen.

It’s based on a series of books by Phillipa Gregory and I’d heard her on Women’s Hour way back when the first book (The White Queen) came out, historical fiction is tricky, (I love Alison Weir’s fact books but really don’t like her fiction stuff and I love Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell but I don’t expect them to be accurate in every detail. For better or worse the series was part funded by Starz, so I wasn’t expecting it to be a bit rock’n’roll. So, I’ve watched it but I haven’t been too much attention, generally I put it on the iplayer while I’m doing something else.

However, last night I hit my limit. I could forgive how clean everything looked, how stupid Edward VI was in this adaption, how innocent Elizabeth Woodville was supposed to be, the ridiculous hairstyles (Richard’s hair has more product in it than any human head should hold!), the depiction of Elizabeth in sanctuary as if she was camping and the way time is racing by and no-one appears to be ageing at all. All of these things I could deal with. What did for me was Anne Neville having just married Richard, telling her sister, Isabel, they (she and Richard) were going to live at Warwick Castle.

Warwick Castle. Warwick Castle for God’s sake…

Warwick Castle is a fine castle, I’ve visited it. However, Warwick Castle is in, well Warwick. Warwickshire in in the Midlands, the middle of the country. Richard held the North of England for his brother.

The middle of the country is NOT the North. To add further insult to injury, it was Richard’s brother George, the Duke of Clarence  (and Isabel’s husband) who took Warwick Castle and the title Earl of Warwick when Anne and Isabel’s father was died, even though technically it should have gone to their mother as they were part of the Beauchamp lands that she brought to her marriage. So basically, we have Anne telling Isabel that she is going to live in the wrong castle, in the wrong area of the country, in a castle that her husband didn’t even own.

It’s wrong, it didn’t happen. There are things you can alter to make things clearer to the audience but why get this one wrong, there’s no reason for it. Things are complicated, history was complicated but this isn’t even that difficult and it’s insulting to the audience to think that it is.

I now have a visions of people, mostly American wondering around Warwick Castls thinking that Richard III lived there, when the actual castle he lived in was Middleham.

This castle in fact (and you can see a statue of Richard III in the bottom of this photo, cause it’s the castle he’s most associated with)

Anyone who’s been around a while knows how much I love that castle (and why) and I am very unhappy and I may have to stop watching it because having seen the error, I can’t unsee it and I’m going to be looking for the others now…