[5] The drama is set against the backdrop of the Wars of the Roses and presents the story of the women involved in the long conflict for the throne of England.

The story follows three women, Elizabeth Woodville (Rebecca Ferguson), Margaret Beaufort (Amanda Hale) and Anne Neville (Faye Marsay), who manipulate events behind the scenes of history to gain power.

The final episode of The White Queen aired on 18 August 2013 and the drama was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc the following day.

[10] The budget was £25 million and took 120 days to shoot, consisting of 250 sets including: dungeons, palaces, castles, 12 state banquets and at least two coronations.

[42] Historian Michael Hicks commented, "They've fiddled with the chronology" but added, "I can see why they decided to restrict the cast of characters, and play up the rivalry between Elizabeth and the Earl of Warwick", and also said "As with Philippa Gregory's source novels, they've done their research".

[50] Gerard O'Donovan of The Daily Telegraph praised the casting of the supporting characters and the exciting "lust and vengeance" fuelling the drama, but objected to the prettified portrayal of 15th century England.

[51] The Independent's Tom Sutcliffe found it "less historically plausible than Game of Thrones", but concluded that "I’m sure it will give innocent pleasure to many".

[52] Barbara Ellen in The Observer, compared the show to "a strange Timotei advert, featuring fornication, shouting, horses, armour", whilst commenting that the sex scenes, toned down in the British version, "were so vanilla, I ended up fancying an ice cream".

[53] Reviewing the final episode for The Daily Telegraph, Bernadette McNulty stated that the series, "fell between two stools—not serious enough for the scholars nor glitzy enough for the Game of Thrones fans".

"[62] TV Guide writer Matt Roush praised Hale's performance as "intense", and favoured the drama, labelling it as "fun", and on a one to ten scale, ranking it at seven.

[65] However, in October 2013,The Telegraph reported that Starz was planning to develop a sequel miniseries called The White Princess, based on Gregory's 2013 novel of the same name.

[66] Starz CEO Chris Albrecht announced in January 2014 that the network was working with White Queen screenwriter Emma Frost on the project.