A Goodreads user asked Philippa Gregory:

the marriage between Henry Tudor & Elizabeth of York is generally accepted as happy and respectful -and facts tend to support this statement. he was faithfull, even after her death and she was respected & trusted. So why did you choose to depict this union as violent & hateful in The White Princess? A political union turning into love would have been a nice conclusion after years of Wars between York and Lancatsers?

Philippa Gregory I am sorry that you read this is 'violent and hateful'. I was trying to write a realistic description of a marriage which started after a really terrible battle but ended with a genuine union. I thought that Elizabeth of York – raised as a princess of England who knew her mother-in-law as a lady-in-waiting and then realised that she was a treasonous plotter, in love with Richard III and thus opposed and fearing his enemy and killer, would have genuine issues with marrying him. We know that he delayed the wedding so that she would not be crowned with him, which I think she would have found very insulting. We know that he was prepared to marry her sister instead of her – since for him it was a political marriage and any York princess would do. And all of the records that we have of their married life (and that is very little material) mention that it was his mother and not his wife who had the adjoining rooms, his mother who advised him. Elizabeth of York seems to have been short of money, and her own mother was under house arrest. Enough here for trouble in any marriage of love and theirs was definitely not a marriage of love in the beginning. Later, I think they came to be on good terms, as many arranged marriages end up, but he was unfaithful to her during the marriage and he proposed to a number of women after her death. I don't doubt that he felt her loss very painfully, I am certain she was a good wife. I believe that wars rarely have nice conclusions, and the Tudor murder of their rivals which went on till the line ended would suggest that the wars did not end.

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