Cosplaying as Elizabeth Woodville for TudorCon!

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I put together this Elizabeth Woodville cosplay for my TudorCon talk, which is all about the effects of the wars of the roses on Tudor policy. I've actually never put together a historical costume before and this is the most work I've ever put into any costume (my costumes tend to be put together by combining various purchased pieces; I usually don’t actually make any of the pieces!).

It's been thrown together with less than expert skill and frankly would only work for zoom, as lots of things are pinned into place. It all looks a lot worse from the back, but decent from the front, yes?

The base dress is a black Tudor style dress from ArtemisiaDesignsCo on Etsy which is also serving as my Anne Boleyn costume base (for Sunday, when I'm reading questions for Tudor trivia - I’ll post pictures of that later!). I hot glued some pearl beading around the square collar but otherwise haven't altered it; I just unzipped it a little and pulled it down my shoulders to get the Elizabeth Woodville dress collar look. The collar fabric is just pinned into place so I can easily take it off and make it Tudor style again.

I got the yellow fabric free from a friend. I pretty much freehanded the shape, hemmed it, and used black fabric markers to imitate the pattern. The hennin was made from a basket + sewed on and hot glued cloth + fabric markers. The only way I've figured out how to keep it on my head is to first put on a Disney tiara, then position it on top of that.

The veil was actually a prop from a virtual production of Twelfth Night I was in a few months back (it's two tiered but I just turned it around and pinned it into place). I got a piece of thin white fabric that matched the portrait a bit more closely, but it ended up being too opaque to see any of the details on the hennin.

The longer necklace is from Treasuresforaqueen on Etsy. The shorter floral necklace is a pendant I commissioned from Aliciasoddities (she specializes in gorgeous metal flower pendants) hanging on a chain I already owned, which I've looped around and pulled tight (it's normally not a choker). #tudorcosplay #historicalcosplay

Shakespeare English History/War of the Roses Family Tree: Unnatural Deaths

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Taking a quick break from coverage of The Crown season 3 (don’t worry, I’ll have another post up later today!) to get back to Wars of the Roses for a minute. I’ve heard it said before that a lot of Tudor history was influenced by the Wars for the purely practical reason that most of the nobles with a claim to the throne were killed off. Really, Henry VII had a pretty weak claim to the throne, and a big reason Henry VIII’s daughters were allowed to take the crown was because there really weren’t any viable male alternatives. I decided to test this out myself by simply crossing off all the people on my family tree who were killed “unnaturally,” that is, not dying of old age or illness. I may have missed a few side people here, as my history knowledge gets shakier the further back we go or the more Scottish we get, so please let me know if you see anyone I’ve missed!

If you missed seeing the original Shakespeare English History Royal Family Tree, it’s over here.