Philippa Gregory Plantagenet and Tudor Novels in Order

Philippa Gregory‘s Plantagenet and Tudor novels are the best-known historical fiction about the women of England’s royal courts. Seventeen novels, published from 2001 to 2026, follow queens, princesses, mistresses and courtiers from the Wars of the Roses to the reign of Elizabeth I, each told by a woman close to the throne. The series is ongoing: Gregory returned to it in 2025 after an eight-year gap, and a new novel followed in 2026.

Every novel can be read on its own, and Gregory did not write them in historical order. That makes the reading order the question most readers ask, so this guide gives both the publication order and the chronological order, with a clear recommendation.

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Quick Series Facts


Author	Philippa Gregory
Number of books	17 novels
First book published	The Other Boleyn Girl (2001)
Latest book	Royal Witch (2026)
Earliest in the story	Royal Witch (opens in 1420)
Setting	England, from 1420 to 1568
Genre	Historical fiction, women’s history
Status	Ongoing

Plantagenet and Tudor Books in Publication Order

The novels came out in four waves. Gregory began with the Tudor court, went back in time to the Wars of the Roses, then wrote the later Tudor novels that tie the two together, and has recently returned with new books.

The Tudor Court Novels (2001 to 2008)

1. The Other Boleyn Girl (2001)

Setting: The court of Henry VIII, from 1521

Mary Boleyn catches the eye of Henry VIII when she comes to court as a girl of fourteen, only to discover that she is a pawn in her family’s plots. When the King’s interest fades, Mary is ordered to help her sister Anne win him instead, and must watch as Anne rises. Beyond the court, one man offers Mary a life of her own, if she has the courage to break away.

The novel that made Gregory’s name won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award in 2002 and has been adapted for both television and film.

2. The Queen’s Fool (2003)

Setting: The courts of Edward VI and Mary I, from 1548

Hannah, a young Jewish girl fleeing the Inquisition, is taken into the service of Robert Dudley and sent as a holy fool to spy on Princess Mary. Instead of the tyrant of legend, she finds a woman waiting for her chance, while her sister Elizabeth waits for her mistakes. Hannah is invented, but Gregory based her on a real female fool who served Mary I, and Gregory says this is the book readers most often name as their favourite.

3. The Virgin’s Lover (2004)

Setting: The court of Elizabeth I, from 1558

The new Queen Elizabeth faces a French threat in Scotland and a more personal danger: her passion for Robert Dudley, who is already married. His wife Amy refuses to set him free, and William Cecil insists the Queen must marry for policy. Then someone acts in secret, and nothing goes as planned for Elizabeth, Dudley or the kingdom.

4. The Constant Princess (2005)

Setting: Spain and England, from 1491

Catalina, Infanta of Spain, is betrothed at four to Arthur, Prince of Wales, and raised to be Queen of England. When the young prince dies soon after their wedding, she is left to make her own future, and the only way to the throne is to marry his younger brother, Henry. Gregory tells the early life of Katherine of Aragon, ending at the height of her triumph.

5. The Boleyn Inheritance (2006)

Setting: The court of Henry VIII, from 1539

Three women at the court of an ageing, dangerous king: Anne of Cleves, his new German bride; Katherine Howard, confident she can follow her cousin Anne Boleyn to the throne; and Jane Boleyn, Anne’s sister-in-law, haunted by the past. The novel won Best Historical Fiction at the RT Awards in 2006.

6. The Other Queen (2008)

Setting: The north of England, from 1568

Mary, Queen of Scots, flees Scotland and becomes the “guest”, in truth the prisoner, of the Earl of Shrewsbury and his formidable wife, Bess of Hardwick. Their home becomes the centre of plots against Elizabeth, and if William Cecil links them to the conspiracy, all three will face the headsman.

The Wars of the Roses Novels (2009 to 2013)

Gregory first published these as The Cousins’ War, telling the story of the houses of York and Lancaster through their women.

7. The White Queen (2009)

Setting: England, from 1464

Elizabeth Woodville, a widow from a Lancastrian family, secretly marries the Yorkist king Edward IV, helped by the ambition of her mother, Jacquetta. As queen she fights for the survival of her family through war, betrayal and murder, and her two sons become the centre of one of history’s great mysteries: the Princes in the Tower.

8. The Red Queen (2010)

Setting: England and Wales, from 1453

Margaret Beaufort, heiress of the red rose of Lancaster, is married at twelve and nearly dies in childbirth. Convinced her house is England’s rightful ruler, she vows to put her son Henry on the throne, and through loveless marriages and secret plots she works towards one of the great rebellions in English history.

9. The Lady of the Rivers (2011)

Setting: France and England, from 1430

Jacquetta, married to the Duke of Bedford, English Regent of France, is drawn into his world of learning and alchemy. Widowed young, she secretly marries the Duke’s squire, Richard Woodville, and serves the Lancastrian court of Henry VI, until she senses an extraordinary future for her daughter Elizabeth: the throne of England and the white rose of York.

10. The Kingmaker’s Daughter (2012)

Setting: England and Calais, from 1465

Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker, has no son, so he uses his daughters Isabel and Anne as pawns in his political games. Married at fourteen and soon widowed, Anne escapes by marrying Richard, Duke of Gloucester, a choice that will set her on a collision course with the royal family. It was Gregory’s first sister story since The Other Boleyn Girl.

11. The White Princess (2013)

Setting: England, from 1485

Henry Tudor wins the crown at Bosworth and must marry Elizabeth of York, the princess of the rival house, to unite a divided country. But his bride still has York loyalties, and a young man overseas claims to be her lost brother, one of the Princes in the Tower. Elizabeth must choose between her husband and the boy who may be the rose of York come home.

The Later Tudor Novels (2014 to 2017)

12. The King’s Curse (2014)

Setting: England, from 1499

Margaret Pole, a Plantagenet heiress whose brother was executed by Henry VII, becomes a friend to Prince Arthur and Katherine of Aragon and later chief lady-in-waiting to Queen Katherine. As Henry VIII grows paranoid about rivals, Margaret must choose between the King and her queen, while hiding her knowledge of an old curse on the Tudors.

13. The Taming of the Queen (2015)

Setting: The court of Henry VIII, from 1543

Kateryn Parr, a thirty-year-old widow in love with another man, cannot refuse when Henry VIII commands her to marry him. She unites the royal family, creates a study circle at court and rules as regent, but her religious reform makes her enemies, and soon the King’s dangerous gaze turns on her.

14. Three Sisters, Three Queens (2016)

Setting: England, Scotland and France, from 1501

Margaret Tudor, her sister Mary and their sister-in-law Katherine of Aragon become the queens of Scotland, France and England. Bound by family and set against one another by politics and war, they find that the bond between them is stronger than any man, even a king.

15. The Last Tudor (2017)

Setting: England, from 1550

Lady Jane Grey is queen for nine days before Mary takes the crown and sends her to the block. Her sisters Katherine and Mary, heirs to the throne by their blood, must survive the suspicion of Queen Mary and then of their cousin Elizabeth, who will not let them marry and produce a rival heir.

The New Novels (2025 to 2026)

16. Boleyn Traitor (2025)

Setting: The court of Henry VIII, from 1534

Jane Boleyn watches from the shadows of the Tudor court, where nothing is more powerful, or more deadly, than a secret. As the Boleyns rise she rises with them, mastering many masks: loving wife, devoted sister and obedient spy. Gregory’s first return to the Boleyns in more than a decade tells the story of a woman who served five of Henry VIII’s six queens.

17. Royal Witch (2026)

Setting: The courts of Henry V and Henry VI, from 1420

Eleanor Cobham arrives at the court of Henry V hoping for nothing more than a good marriage. Pretty but not highborn, she begins to see what a woman can achieve, and to dream of rising higher than any woman before her, even if it means turning to darker arts. They said she summoned the devil and plotted to murder a king.

Chronological Order vs Publication Order

The two orders are very different. Gregory’s own website lists the novels in this chronological order:

Royal Witch (opens 1420)
The Lady of the Rivers (1430)
The White Queen (1464)
The Red Queen (1453)
The Kingmaker’s Daughter (1465)
The White Princess (1485)
The Constant Princess (1491)
The King’s Curse (1499)
Three Sisters, Three Queens (1501)
The Other Boleyn Girl (1521)
Boleyn Traitor (1534)
The Boleyn Inheritance (1539)
The Taming of the Queen (1543)
The Queen’s Fool (1548)
The Virgin’s Lover (1558)
The Last Tudor (1550)
The Other Queen (1568)

The White Queen and The Red Queen cover many of the same years from opposite sides, which is why Gregory lists The White Queen first although The Red Queen opens earlier. The same is true of The Virgin’s Lover and The Last Tudor, whose stories run side by side.

Which Order Should You Choose?

For a first read, we recommend the chronological order. Gregory herself says every novel stands alone, but reading in historical order lets the story pass from one generation to the next, from the Wars of the Roses to the Tudors, and turns a set of novels into one long family saga.

Publication order has its own rewards: you start with The Other Boleyn Girl, her most famous book, and watch the series grow. Readers who only want the Tudor court can start with The Constant Princess and read the Tudor novels in historical order.

About the Plantagenet and Tudor Novels

Gregory’s method is to tell the history of the crown through a woman who stood beside it, usually a lesser-known figure. She has called this her signature style: a first-person view of history from a character readers barely knew, which is how The Other Boleyn Girl turned Mary Boleyn from a footnote into a household name.

The novels are linked by family. Jacquetta of Luxembourg is the mother of the White Queen, whose daughter is the White Princess, whose son is Henry VIII; Margaret Pole is the daughter of a York prince; the Grey sisters are Henry VIII’s great-nieces. Read together, the books follow one extended royal family across a century and a half.

What Makes the Plantagenet and Tudor Novels Special

Women at the centre. Queens, princesses, mistresses, ladies-in-waiting and a holy fool tell the story that history books gave to kings.
Both sides of every conflict. York and Lancaster, Catholic and Protestant, wife and mistress all get their own narrators.
Real history, imagined lives. Gregory holds a doctorate in history, and each novel is built on research into its period.
Standalone novels, one saga. Any book can be picked up first, but together they form a family story from 1420 to 1568.
Proven on screen. Seven of the novels have been adapted for television or film.

Where to Start

Start with The White Queen if you want the chronological story, since it is the clearest way into the Wars of the Roses and the family at the heart of the series. (Royal Witch and The Lady of the Rivers come earlier in time, but both work better once you know where the story is going.)

If you would rather start with the Tudors, begin with The Constant Princess, or with The Other Boleyn Girl for the book that started it all.

Can I Start Elsewhere?

Yes. Every novel stands alone, so any figure who interests you is a fine starting point: The Taming of the Queen for Katharine Parr, The Virgin’s Lover for the young Elizabeth I, or The Other Queen for Mary, Queen of Scots.

About the Author: Philippa Gregory

Philippa Gregory studied history at the University of Sussex and earned her PhD at the University of Edinburgh, where she is a Regent and was named Alumna of the Year in 2009. Her first novel, Wideacre, began the Wideacre trilogy set in the eighteenth century.

The Other Boleyn Girl made her one of the best-known historical novelists in the world, and the Plantagenet and Tudor novels have been her main work ever since. She has also written other historical novels, such as The Wise Woman, set during the dissolution of the monasteries, as well as the Fairmile series and books for children.

For her full bibliography, see our Philippa Gregory author guide, and for news of her next books, see her official website.

Historical Context

The series covers the century and a half in which England’s crown passed from the Plantagenets to the Tudors. In the fifteenth century, the rival branches of the royal family, the houses of Lancaster and York, fought the civil wars later known as the Wars of the Roses. Edward IV of York took the throne in 1461, and his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville divided his own supporters.

When Edward died in 1483, his brother took the throne as Richard III, and Edward’s two young sons disappeared in the Tower of London. Two years later Henry Tudor, heir of Lancaster through his mother Margaret Beaufort, defeated Richard at Bosworth and married Edward’s daughter, Elizabeth of York, uniting the two roses.

Their son Henry VIII broke with Rome to end his marriage to Katherine of Aragon and married six times. His three children ruled in turn: Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I, with Lady Jane Grey’s nine-day reign in 1553 between them. The series ends in the reign of Elizabeth, with her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, as her prisoner.

Gregory follows the known history closely while inventing private scenes, motives and some characters, such as Hannah in The Queen’s Fool. For more novels from these years, see our Medieval Europe hub, our Tudor England hub and our list of the best Tudor historical fiction.

Similar Series You’ll Love

1. Six Tudor Queens by Alison Weir

The closest match. Historian Alison Weir gives each of Henry VIII’s wives a novel of her own, from Katherine of Aragon: The True Queen to Katharine Parr: The Sixth Wife, keeping closer to the record than Gregory does.

2. Alison Weir’s Tudor Rose Trilogy

Weir’s trilogy covers ground Gregory readers will know well: Elizabeth of York: The Last White Rose, Henry VIII: The Heart and the Crown and Mary I: Queen of Sorrows. Reading Weir’s Elizabeth of York next to The White Princess is a fascinating comparison.

3. Wolf Hall Trilogy by Hilary Mantel

The court of Henry VIII seen through Thomas Cromwell. Hilary Mantel covers the years of The Other Boleyn Girl and The Boleyn Inheritance in a denser, more literary style.

4. Wars of the Roses Series by Conn Iggulden

The same civil war as Gregory’s Cousins’ War novels, told through battles and the men who fought them. Conn Iggulden is the natural companion to The White Queen and The Red Queen.

5. Sharon Kay Penman

For readers who want the Plantagenets in greater depth. Sharon Kay Penman wrote long, deeply researched novels about the medieval kings and queens of England, including Richard III.

6. Elizabeth Chadwick

Elizabeth Chadwick goes further back, to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with novels about Eleanor of Aquitaine and the knights of the early Plantagenet court. Start with her William Marshal novels.

Adaptations

Seven of the novels have been adapted for the screen, in four productions:

The White Queen (BBC and Starz, 2013): a ten-part series based on The White Queen, The Red Queen and The Kingmaker’s Daughter, with Rebecca Ferguson as Elizabeth Woodville and Max Irons as Edward IV.
The White Princess (Starz, 2017): an eight-part series with Jodie Comer as Elizabeth of York.
The Spanish Princess (Starz, 2019 to 2020): two seasons based on The Constant Princess and The King’s Curse, following Katherine of Aragon.
The Other Boleyn Girl (2008): a film with Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn, Scarlett Johansson as Mary Boleyn and Eric Bana as Henry VIII. The novel was also adapted by the BBC in 2003.

The series compress events and change details, and the novels give far more of the women’s inner lives. If you watched first, the books will fill in what the screen left out, and the novels the series skipped, such as The Lady of the Rivers, add the story’s beginning.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many books are in the Plantagenet and Tudor series?

There are 17 novels, published from 2001 to 2026. The latest are Boleyn Traitor (2025) and Royal Witch (2026).

What order should I read Philippa Gregory’s Plantagenet and Tudor novels in?

We recommend the chronological order from Gregory’s own website, starting with Royal Witch and The Lady of the Rivers and ending with The Other Queen. For a first taste, The White Queen or The Other Boleyn Girl are both good starting points.

Do I need to read the books in order?

No. Gregory says every one of her novels can be read as a standalone. Reading in chronological order simply lets the family story run from one generation to the next.

What is the first book in the series?

The first book published was The Other Boleyn Girl in 2001. The earliest in the story is Royal Witch, which opens in 1420, followed by The Lady of the Rivers.

What is the Cousins’ War series?

It is the name Gregory first used for her novels about the Wars of the Roses, beginning with The White Queen in 2009. They are now part of the wider Plantagenet and Tudor series.

Is the series still ongoing?

Yes. After The Last Tudor in 2017, Gregory returned to the series with Boleyn Traitor in 2025 and Royal Witch in 2026.

Are Philippa Gregory’s novels historically accurate?

Gregory is a trained historian and bases each novel on research into its period, but these are novels. She invents dialogue, private scenes, motives and some characters, and some of her interpretations, such as her treatment of magic and witchcraft, are deliberately imaginative.

Is The Other Boleyn Girl part of the series?

Yes. It was the first of the series to be published, in 2001, and it sits in the middle of the chronological order, after Three Sisters, Three Queens.

Which TV series are based on the books?

The White Queen (2013), The White Princess (2017) and The Spanish Princess (2019 to 2020) are based on the novels. The Other Boleyn Girl was made into a BBC drama in 2003 and a film in 2008.

Are the books suitable for teenagers?

They are written for adults. Most include sexual content, violence, executions and childbirth scenes, so they suit older teenagers and adults.

How long does it take to read the whole series?

The novels are long, so reading all seventeen is a substantial project. At one book a week, the whole series takes about four months.

Are the books available as audiobooks and ebooks?

Yes. The novels are widely available as ebooks and audiobooks as well as in print.

What should I read after the Plantagenet and Tudor novels?

Alison Weir’s Six Tudor Queens and Tudor Rose trilogy cover the same women with a historian’s approach. Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy and Conn Iggulden’s Wars of the Roses series cover the same years from the men’s side.

Conclusion

The Plantagenet and Tudor novels are the most complete fictional history of England’s royal women, and with two new books in two years, the series is growing again. Whether you read them in historical order or as they were published, you get a century and a half of English history told by the women who lived it.

Start with The White Queen for the saga from the beginning, or with The Other Boleyn Girl for the book that made Gregory famous, and work your way to The Last Tudor and The Other Queen.