#thepretender

The White Princess Season 1 Episode 4

“The Pretender” (SPOILER ALERT)  It's a tough competition, but if forced to decide who is a more terrible mother-in-law, I'd have to go with Margaret Beaufort.  Elizabeth may be out for Henry's head, but it's not really personal. It wouldn't (and didn't) matter who was on the throne, as long as she had even the faintest hope that her son was alive, she'd be planning a coup.  Had Richard III lived, he'd be the one she was unseating. It makes her a terrible mother, since her plan was always to marry Lizzie to the winner of Bosworth, but as a mother-in-law generally, she's almost tolerable. If Lizzie's husband wasn't on the throne, she'd have no problem with him.

But Lady Margaret was always going to butt heads with her daughter-in-law. Lady M's long separation and just-this-side-of-creepy attachment to her son doomed any woman he married to a hellish relationship with her.  The fact that Lizzie is a York only makes things worse for her. Margaret has long blamed the York's for every evil in her life, as erroneous as that may be. Certainly the Yorks had nothing to do with her marriage at twelve years old, and can only be partially blamed for her initial separation from Henry.  Throw in a Margaret's not so secret desire to wield the power of Queen, and things were doomed. If you thought having to listen about to passive aggressive housekeeping or child rearing tips was bad, at least your mother-in-law isn't plotting to have your mother killed.  You know, after she already had your brothers murdered. 

One of the things that intrigues me about this portrayal of Margaret Beaufort is that her scheming so often has the opposite effect of what she intended. She gets what she wants eventually, but she doesn't always get there by the most direct route.  Take the whole situation with Teddy. What, really, would have been the harm of keeping him at court? It actually seems like it would have been the smart move; not only would it prevent an impersonator leading an army, but it would be clear to all that he wasn't capable of taking the throne.  And with his kind of simplicity, kindness towards him would earn unending loyalty. It doesn't seem like it's be so hard to convince him that he doesn't want to be king.

So Lady Margaret's "plot" to incite a riot gained her nothing, and actually put Henry in an even weaker position. And she only did it to spite Lizzie. She's really just so terrible at playing the long game.  She's just as bad in her personal life -- she gave up the eventual possibility of marrying Jasper Tudor for the more expedient option of Lord Stanley.

Poor Lizzie is the one currently bearing the weight of Lady Margaret's impulses, with Teddy imprisoned, her sisters and cousin auctioned off, and her mother turning against her.  While Cecily has always felt slighted by Elizabeth, Lizzie was her favorite (of the girls), her coconspirator, the carrier of hopes and dreams. With her mother's betrayal, she has lost her anchor, she is suddenly left to survive on her own.  Jodie Comer is owning every scene she's in because she's able to portray Lizzie's internal conflict so well. It helps that, as the protagonist, she gets the best lines, but she brings them to life, and conveys so much with just a look.

It's a little ridiculous how thick Henry is, how blinded he is by his paranoia. Honestly, I don't know how Lizzie could come to feel anything for him when faced with his unrelenting suspicion and constant accusations. Stockholm syndrome, perhaps?  It's baffling to me how he could show compassion to Lambert Simbal but not to Teddy. It seems the kings of England are constantly trying to find the balance between being too forgiving of traitors and too harsh on them, and they never quite get it right.

At least Henry seems to finally be coming around to taking charge of his own life. Maybe it's fatherhood, maybe its being faced with damning other children the way he himself was damned.  Maybe he just wants to be able to get it on with his wife without his mother walking into the room.  Whatever it is, our story is on an upswing -- for now. And it seems that Lizzie and Henry will have a few years of respite before their lives are upended by their mothers once again. But does a longer calm mean a bigger storm is headed their way?