Not the Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner film, obviously.

I first got introduced to this bit of English history when I had to do a report on Shakespeare's Richard III for English class. Being the thorough sort, I also aquired a biography of the historical Richard III (the one by Paul Murray Kendall) and thus was introduced to the whole Ricardian controversy at the same time. Then I read Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time and promptly became a partisan with all my teenage righteousness. Incidentally, I'm still more Ricardian than not, but the intervening twenty plus years ensured I have a whole lot more time for the non-Yorkist pov.

Of course, Richard III (both historical and fictional versions) only marks the end of the War of the Roses, and while I battled, bad pun inevitable, my way through the three parts of Shakespare's Henry VI, my teenage self was also a Joan of Arc fan and wasn't impressed to find Will S. slandering her in the Henries. Plus his later dramas were far better written anyway. As far as non-Shakespearean presentations of the War of the Roses were concerned, I found the occasional novel which didn't really grip me and more interesting non-fiction books (until, in my early 20s, I came across Sharon Penman's The Sunne in Splendour, and it was love at first sight. I probably would be far more critical of some aspects now if I read it for the first time today, but back then it was a terrific experience. Not least because while York-centric, it was an ensemble piece, with multiple interesting relationships and people whose name I had known before but whose personalities hadn't registered, like John Neville (younger brother of Warwick the Kingmaker). Most of all, it made Edward IV. into the type of morally ambiguous, smart and charismatic figure who couldn't fail to hold my interest, and his relationship with younger brother Richard hit my soft spot for sibling relationships (so rare to be treated as central in historical novels unless they're incestous) massively. The most common criticism I've heard of the novel is that Richard is written as too good to be true, and I can see that, but all the same, the Edward-Richard relationship was my favourite sibling relationship in a novel until Penman tackled Llewelyn and younger brother Davydd in her Welsh Princes trilogy. Speaking of morally ambigous characters, ironically enough I find Sharon Penman's Elizabeth Woodville far, far more interesting than the one from Philippa Gregory's The White Queen. In The Sunne in Splendour, she's a tough as nails ambitious woman who doesn't need magical powers to succeed, and while she's at times an antagonist, she gets enough pov chapters to come across like a three dimensional character to me.

Which brings me to the current most popular fictionalisation. The White Queen tv series, based on three of Gregory's novels, was advertised as the War of the Roses from a female pov, and it is certainly that, but I had been hoping it would transcend its source material. (This happens occasionally: see also, the first season of Dexter versus the source novel, or The Godfather films versus Puzo's novel.) Which it only rarely did (one reason why I never even finished watching the series). The most striking improvement to me in the early episodes I watched before giving up was Amanda Hale as Margaret Beaufort (mother of the later Henry VII). Margaret Beaufort in Gregory's novel The Red Queen was simply an unsympathetic madwoman, but in the tv series she was the most captivating of the female characters, and her early wish to become a saint, coming across as preposterous and vain in the book, came across as ardently sincere. (A power hungry schemer who is also a sincere believer struggling with those contradictions, and getting steadfastly more ruthless? Margaret Beaufort, let me introduce you to Rodrigo Borgia. You're totally my type now!) Hale just radiated intensity in everything, from her need to see her son on the throne one day to her anger at her mother for having married her off as a child. Something else this version of the tale truly brought home to me was how relatively young Margaret Beaufort still was during the last phase of the War of the Roses, due to having been married and immediately impregnated (NOT the norm for child brides) at twelve with the son whom she eventually would see as king. (Otherwise, the tv White Queen is terrible with everyone's ages. When Edward married Elizabeth, his brother Richard and Anne Neville were both still children, for example, but the tv show, not wanting to hire kid actors, one assumes, already lets them be played by the adult versions. And Elizabeth herself doesn't age through all the episodes I've seen.) I had never considered that before, having imagined her as the equivalent of the York family matriarch Cecily Neville. Speaking of whom: poor Cecily is the victim of the usual Phlippa Gregory thing where she can't write about one woman positively without bashing another. (See also: Mary Boleyn versus Anne Boleyn, Mary Tudor and Mary Stuart versus Elizabeth Tudor.) In this case, Cecily Neville draws the short end of the stick and in both novels and series is presented as a harridan who only cares for one of her sons (George) and is horrible to all the other characters. Good grief. And Cecily's daughters don't even show up, including Margaret who was arguably the Yorkist sibling to make the most of her life - loyal to her brothers (and sheltering them when Edward and Richard were in exile) but also a very successful Duchess of Burgundy, trolling Henry Tudor even after the War of the Roses ended and dying in bed. Okay, back to the few things I found positive about The White Queen: Jacquetta Woodville, Elizabeth W.'s mother, certainly gets her due here. (She also gets to have magic. I only rarely like it when historical novels use fantasy elements. Some authors can pull it off, and then I love it. But in two thirds of all the cases, including this one, I don't.)

Leaving aside all fiction: the War of the Roses, thus non-fiction books tell me, was the last gasp of the middle ages in England, the last time the nobilty played such an important role in deciding who was king, and the various provinces, whereas the eventual winners, the Tudors, ushered in the more modern form of absolute monarchy. Whether this was for good or ill is beside the point: it was inevitable. I dimly recall George R. R. Martin saying one reason why he wrote his fantasy novels and not a straightforward rendition of the War of the Roses was the suspense factor: everyone knows who will win going in a War of the Roses novel, so he claimed. (I think he's overestimating the state of historical knowledge in the avarage reader, who can't tell their Henry VI. from their Henry VII, for starters, or, depending on their age, is prone to ask "which one was played by Laurence Olivier/Kenneth Branagh/Tom Hiddleston?") Sometimes I come across the occasional compare and contrast of the Game of Thrones/ASOIAF characters to the War of the Roses characters. I've seen the Lannisters, despite the name similarity to "Lancaster", matched to the Woodvilles, for example, Cersei to Elizabeth and Jaime to Anthony, with Robert as an unflattering version of Edward IV. and Ned Stark as the Richard who doesn't take the crown for himself and thus promptly loses his head; otoh I've also seen it declared that Tyrion Lannister is Richard III (and will end on the throne for a short while before being vanquished by Danaerys-as-Henry-Tudor), with Sansa Stark as Elizabeth of York. Littlefinger's closet match is usually Lord Stanley. But whatever the original inspiration, I think the GoT characters have been far too much their own people for their story to work even as a fantasy AU of the War of the Roses. One actual AU I would dare someone to write, though: Edward IV. doesn't die relatively young but lives into old age. (Which means that when he does die, Stillington is dead as already and thus nobody finds out the marriage to Elizabeth has a certain legitimacy problem. Both of his sons, hopefully without a Joffey among them, are adults and ready to succed.) Richard stays in the North with Anne, which by all accounts he did a good job at and was very popular for. Anthony Woodville, who was patron of the arts, helps rushing in the Renaissance a bit earlier. And Henry Tudor? Was always very good with numbers, knows he'll never get French backing for an invasion under these circumstances and decides to go to Italy, where there's always a market for smart Machiavellian power players.

...otoh, where's the drama in that? On second thought, I can see why no one has written it. Especially not history.