Before I start today's episode, I'd like to remind you all once again about the best ways to keep in touch.

There's my website, queens of englandpodcast.com, the Facebook page, Queens of England podcast,

and the Twitter page at Queens Podcast. If you have any questions about anything brought up in the show,

or if you have anything you'd like to add, then these are the places to go. On my website,

there's a contact form that you can

use to email me, and please do, I do love hearing from you all. Finally, don't forget to leave a review

on iTunes if you haven't already done so. It fuels that narcissistic part of me that really

enjoys being praised, but it's also an altruistic act on your part, as it rises to the

shirt at the rankings, bringing in new listeners.

What you're about to hear is part one in what I'm planning on being another three-part series

on a famous English queen.

When I ask my history-enthusiast friends about who their favourite queen from the middle

ages is, the ones who don't look at me with pitying eyes

usually plump for one of two candidates. Some go for Eleanor of Akitaine, for her general

badassery, but most I find ignore the French she-wolves, Isabella and Margaret, and go for

Philippa Gregory's troubaet, Elizabeth Woodville. Elizabeth is one of history's great survivors, but she was also the most

left-field choice of a queen in English history. Yet her impact was in as much about who she was

as what it was that she did. I find her absolutely fascinating, and I'm sure you will too. This is a

period that has proved hugely fertile for historical fiction writers,

most famously of course, Philippa Gregory. And these writers seek to emotionalise the story,

making you root for characters rather than weighing them up dispassionately. That's the business

that they are in, but it's not the one I am in. Elizabeth Woodville was no character in a story.

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