You've seen the TV series so now here are the places linked forever to these three very English heroines
It looked a lot nicer on the day that Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville - Grafton hermitage in Northamptonshire
Thanks to Henry, there's no way of seeing the place where Elizabeth died. Bermondsey Abbey was pulled down in the Dissolution of the Monasteries just over forty years after she died there. But the queen consort of Edward IV was given a royal burial next to her king and still rests by his side in St George's Chapel, Windsor. Their graves are clearly marked and Elizabeth, the commoner, is now buried alongside several other kings and queens of England in this most royal of settings.
Windsor Castle by sunset, the last resting place of Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV
(Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0)
Elizabeth's great rival and her ultimate ally, the Red Queen, was born just down the road from the White Queen. And like Elizabeth, Margaret Beaufort's birthplace is hidden now behind the façade of a perfect English village. Maggie was born in Bedfordshire, at Bletsoe Castle.
The village of Beltsoe in Bedfordshire was the site of the castle where
Margaret Beaufort was born in 1443
The medieval castle was incorporated into later buildings and is all but gone now. The building on the site isn't open to the public but the village, about twenty five miles from Grafton, is pretty and filled with history and the local pub is the suitably grand sounding The Falcon. Like Elizabeth's village of Grafton the local church is St Mary's. The two women were far more similar than either would have liked.
Anne Neville was a Warwick girl and that's where her life is remembered and celebrated. She was born at Warwick Castle which is now a major tourist attraction and the story of The Kingmaker's Daughter, not to mention her dad and very wealthy mum, are remembered in their former home.
Warwick Castle is now a major draw for holidaymakers and daytrippers
(photo Gernot Keller)
But the one place that unites all three women is Westminster Abbey. Like all royal women and men they have a link to Westminster. Elizabeth and Anne were both crowned there while Margaret saw the culmination of her ambitions for her son, Henry Tudor, in the abbey when his coronation was held there in 1485. Elizabeth claimed sanctuary there twice - in 1470 when Warwick changed sides and briefly put the Lancastrian king, Henry VI, back on the throne and then again in 1483 after the death of her husband, Edward IV. And both Anne and Margaret are buried there although it took until 1960 for Anne's grave to be marked when a plaque was placed there by the Richard III Society.
Westminster Abbey in the heart of London is linked to all three women who played such a big role in the Wars of the Roses
(photo Christine Matthews)
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