Lady Margaret Beaufort
English noblewoman and politician (1443–1509) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Lady Margaret Beaufort (usually pronounced: /ˈboʊfərt/ BOH-fərt or /ˈbjuːfərt/ BEW-fərt; 31 May 1443 – 29 June 1509) was a major figure in the Wars of the Roses of the late fifteenth century, and mother of King Henry VII of England, the first Tudor monarch.[1]
Lady Margaret Beaufort | |
|---|---|
| The King's Mother Countess of Richmond and Derby | |
 Portrait by Meynnart Wewyck, c. 1510. | |
| Born | 31 May 1443 Bletsoe Castle, Bedfordshire, England |
| Died | 29 June 1509 (aged 66) Westminster Abbey, London, England |
| Buried | Henry VII Lady Chapel, Westminster Abbey |
| Noble family | Beaufort |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Issue | Henry VII of England |
| Father | John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset |
| Mother | Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso |
A descendant of King Edward III, Lady Margaret passed a disputed claim to the English throne to her son, Henry Tudor. Capitalising on the political upheaval of the period, she actively manoeuvred to secure the crown for her son. Beaufort's efforts ultimately culminated in Henry's decisive victory over King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. She was thus instrumental in orchestrating the rise to power of the Tudor dynasty. With her son crowned Henry VII, Lady Margaret wielded a considerable degree of political influence and personal autonomy – both now considered unusual for a woman of her time. She was also a major patron and cultural benefactor during her son's reign, initiating an era of extensive Tudor patronage.
She is credited with the establishment of two prominent Cambridge colleges, founding Christ's College in 1505 and beginning the development of St John's College, which was completed posthumously by her executors in 1511.[2][3] Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, a 19th century foundation named after her, was the first Oxford college to admit women.[4]
She was the daughter and sole heiress of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset (1404–1444), a legitimised grandson of John of Gaunt (1st Duke of Lancaster and third surviving son of King Edward III) by his mistress, later wife, Katherine Swynford, and John Beaufort's wife Margaret Beauchamp. Lady Margaret was born at Bletsoe Castle, Bedfordshire, either on 31 May 1441 or, more likely, on 31 May 1443. The day and month are not disputed, as she required Westminster Abbey to celebrate her birthday on 31 May.
The year of her birth is more uncertain. William Dugdale, the 17th-century antiquary, suggested that she had been born in 1441, based on evidence of inquisitions post mortem taken after the death of her father. Dugdale has been followed by a number of Lady Margaret's biographers; however, it is more likely that she was born in 1443, as in May 1443 her father had negotiated with the king concerning the wardship of his unborn child should he die on campaign.[5]
At the moment of her birth, Margaret's father was preparing to go to France and lead an important military expedition for King Henry VI. Somerset negotiated with the king to ensure that if he were to die, the rights to Margaret's wardship and marriage would be granted only to his wife.[6]
As Somerset was a tenant-in-chief of the crown, the wardship of his heir fell to the crown under the feudal system. Somerset fell out with the king after coming back from France and was banished from the royal court pending a charge of treason against him. He died shortly afterwards. According to Thomas Basin, Somerset died of illness, but the Crowland Chronicle reported that his death was a suicide. As his only surviving child, Margaret was heiress to his considerable fortune and inheritor of his contested claim to the throne. Both effectively rendered Margaret, as her biographers Jones and Underwood write, "a pawn in the unstable political atmosphere of the Lancastrian court".[7]
Upon her first birthday, the king broke the arrangement with Margaret's father and granted the wardship of her extensive lands to William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, although Margaret herself remained in the custody of her mother. Margaret's mother was pregnant at the time of Somerset's death, but the child did not survive and Margaret remained the sole heir. Although she was her father's only legitimate child, Margaret had two maternal half-brothers and three maternal half-sisters from her mother's first marriage whom she supported after her son's accession to the throne.[8]
Margaret was married to Suffolk's son, John de la Pole. The wedding may have been held between 28 January and 7 February 1444, when she was perhaps a year old but certainly no more than three.[citation needed] However, there is more evidence to suggest they were married in January 1450, after Suffolk had been arrested and was looking to secure his son's future by betrothing him to a conveniently wealthy ward whose children could be potential claimants to the throne.[9] Papal dispensation was granted on 18 August 1450, necessary because the spouses were closely related (Lady Margaret and de la Pole being the great-grandchildren of two sisters, Katherine Swynford and Philippa Chaucer, respectively), and this concurs with the later date of marriage.[10] Three years later, her marriage to de la Pole was dissolved, and King Henry VI granted Margaret's wardship to his own half-brothers, Jasper and Edmund Tudor.[11][12][13]
Margaret never recognised the marriage to de la Pole. In her will, made in 1472, Margaret refers to Edmund Tudor as her first husband. Under canon law, Margaret was not bound by her first marriage contract as she was entered into the marriage before reaching the age of twelve.[11]
Even before the annulment of her first marriage, Henry VI chose Margaret as a bride for his half-brother, Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond. This was likely to strengthen Edmund's claim to the throne should Henry be forced to designate Edmund his heir; the king was then without child or legitimate siblings.[14] Edmund was the eldest son of the king's mother, Catherine of Valois, by Owen Tudor.[11]
At nine years old Margaret was required to assent formally to the marriage. Later she claimed she was divinely guided to do so.[14]
At age twelve Margaret married Edmund Tudor, twelve years her senior, on 1 November 1455. The Wars of the Roses had just broken out. Edmund, a Lancastrian, was taken prisoner by Yorkist forces less than a year later. He died of the plague in captivity at Carmarthen on 3 November 1456, leaving a 13-year-old widow who was pregnant with their child.[15]
The Countess always respected the name and memory of Edmund as the father of her only child. In 1472, sixteen years after his death, Margaret specified in her will that she wanted to be buried alongside Edmund, even though she had enjoyed a long, stable and close marriage with her third husband, who had died in 1471.[citation needed]
Motherhood
While in the care of her brother-in-law Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, on 28 January 1457, the 13-year-old Margaret gave birth to a son, Henry Tudor, at Pembroke Castle. As she was not yet physically mature, the birth was extremely difficult. In a sermon delivered after her death, Margaret's confessor, John Fisher, deemed it a miracle that a baby could be born "of so little a personage".[16] Her son's birth may have done permanent physical injury to Margaret; despite two later marriages, she never had another child. Years later, she enumerated a set of proper procedures concerning the delivery of potential heirs, perhaps informed by the difficulty of her own experience.[17]
Shortly after her re-entry into society after the birth, Jasper helped arrange another marriage for her to ensure her son's security.[18] She married Sir Henry Stafford (c. 1425–1471), the second son of Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham, on 3 January 1458, at the age of fourteen. A dispensation for the marriage was necessary because Margaret and Stafford were second cousins; it was granted on 6 April 1457. They enjoyed a fairly long and harmonious marital relationship and were given Woking Palace, to which Margaret sometimes retreated and which she restored. Margaret and her husband were given 400 marks' worth of land by Buckingham, but her own estates were still their main source of income. For a time the Staffords were able to visit Margaret's son, who had been entrusted to Jasper Tudor's care at Pembroke Castle in Wales. [citation needed]
Reign of Edward IV
Years of York forces fighting Lancastrian for power culminated in the Battle of Towton in 1461, where the Yorkists were victorious. Edward IV was King of England. The fighting had taken the life of Margaret's father-in-law and forced Jasper Tudor to flee to Scotland and France to muster support for the Lancastrian cause.[19] Edward IV gave the lands belonging to Margaret's son to his own brother, the Duke of Clarence. Henry became the ward of Sir William Herbert. Again, Beaufort was allowed some visits to her son.
In 1469 the discontented Duke of Clarence and Earl of Warwick incited a rebellion against Edward IV, capturing him after a defeat of his forces. Beaufort used this opportunity to attempt to negotiate with Clarence, hoping to regain custody of her son and his holdings.[20] Soon, however, Edward was back in power.
Warwick's continued insurrection resulted in the brief reinstallation of the Lancastrian Henry VI in 1470–71, which was effectively ended with the Yorkist victory at the Battle of Barnet. Faced with York rule once again, Margaret allegedly begged Jasper Tudor, forced to flee abroad once more, to take thirteen-year-old Henry with him.[21] It would be fourteen years before Beaufort saw her son again.
In 1471, Margaret's husband, Lord Stafford, died of wounds suffered at the Battle of Barnet, fighting for the Yorkists. At 28 years old, Margaret became a widow again.[22]
In June 1472, Margaret married Thomas Stanley, the Lord High Constable and King of Mann. Jones and Underwood have suggested that Margaret never considered herself a member of the Stanley family.[23] Their marriage was primarily one of convenience; marrying Stanley enabled Margaret to return to the court of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. Indeed, Gristwood speculates Beaufort organized the marriage with the sole aim of rehabilitating her image and securing herself a prime position from which to advocate for her son.[24] Evidently her efforts were successful; Margaret was chosen by Queen Elizabeth to be godmother to one of her daughters.
Holinshed, a Tudor chronicler, claims King Edward IV later proposed a marriage between Beaufort's son and his own daughter, Elizabeth of York, intending to force Henry Tudor out of his safe haven on the continent. Poet Bernard Andre seems to corroborate this, writing of Tudor's miraculous escape from the clutches of Edward's envoys, allegedly warned of the deception by none other than his mother.[25]
Reigns of Edward V and Richard III
Following Edward IV's death in April 1483 and the seizure of the throne in June by Richard III from Edward V, Margaret was soon back at court serving the new queen, Anne Neville. Margaret carried Anne's train at the coronation.[26] Seeking her son's return to England, Margaret appears to have negotiated with Richard.
Despite what these negotiations may suggest, Lady Margaret is known to have conspired with Elizabeth Woodville, mother of the two York princes whom Richard confined to the Tower of London, after rumours spread of the boys' murder. It was at this point, according to Polydore Vergil, that Beaufort "began to hope well of her son's fortune".
Beaufort is believed to have initiated discussions with Woodville, via mutual physician, Lewis Caerleon, who conveyed secret correspondences between the two women. Together they conspired to supplant King Richard and by joint force replace him with Margaret's son, Henry Tudor. Their solidified alliance further secured the subsequent dynasty by the agreed betrothal of Henry to Elizabeth of York. They hoped this proposal would attract both Yorkist and Lancastrian support.[27]
As to the fate of the princes, it is widely held that Richard III ordered the death of his two nephews to secure his own reign. Gristwood, however, suggests that another was responsible; Henry Tudor's path to the throne was certainly expedited by their disappearance, perhaps motive enough for his mother – his "highly able and totally committed representative" – to give the order.[28]
Despite this suggestion, no contemporary sources corroborate the implication, whilst most contemporary accounts outline "her outstanding qualities, her courage, presence of mind, family loyalty, and a deeply felt awareness of the spiritual responsibilities of high office," as clarified by Jones and Underwood.[29] Before Jones and Underwood, there was no consensus within the scholarly community regarding Margaret's role or character: historiographical opinions ranged from celebrating her to demonizing her.[30]
It was not until the 17th century that religious retrospective speculations began to criticize Lady Margaret, but even then only as a "politic and contriving woman,"[31] and never anything beyond shrewd or calculating. All things considered, the words of her own contemporaries, such as Tudor historian Polydore Vergil, continue to extol Lady Margaret's noble virtues as "the most pious woman,"[32] further removing her from accusations of wickedness.
Erasmus, in writing about his friend the Bishop, Saint John Fisher, praised Margaret's support of religious institutions and the Bishop,[33] further attesting the simultaneously pragmatic and charitable nature testified in the funerary sermon dedicated by the Bishop himself, as laid out in a following section.
In 1483 Margaret was certainly involved in – if not the mastermind behind – Buckingham's rebellion.[34] Indeed, in his biography of Richard III, historian Paul Murray Kendall describes Beaufort as the "Athena of the rebellion".[35] Perhaps with duplicitous motives (as he may have been desirous of the crown for himself), Buckingham conspired with Beaufort and Woodville to dethrone Richard. Margaret's son was to sail from Brittany to join forces with him, but he arrived too late.
In October, Beaufort's scheme proved unsuccessful; the Duke was executed and Tudor was forced back across the English Channel. Beaufort appears to have played a large role in financing the insurrection. In response to her betrayal, Richard passed an act of Parliament stripping Margaret of all her titles and estates, declaring her guilty of the following:
"Forasmoch as Margaret Countesse of Richmond, Mother to the Kyngs greate Rebell and Traytour, Herry Erle of Richemond, hath of late conspired, consedered, and comitted high Treason ayenst oure Soveraigne Lorde the King Richard the Third, in dyvers and sundry wyses, and in especiall in sendyng messages, writyngs and tokens to the said Henry… Also the said Countesse made chevisancez of greate somes of Money… and also the said Countesse conspired, consedered, and imagyned the destruction of oure said Soveraign Lorde...”[36]
Richard did, however, stop short of a full attainder by transferring Margaret's property to her husband, Lord Stanley. He also effectively imprisoned Margaret in her husband's home with the hope of preventing any further correspondence with her son. However, her husband failed to stop Margaret's continued communication with her son. When the time came for Henry to press his claim, he relied heavily on his mother to raise support for him in England.[37]
Margaret's husband Stanley, despite having fought for Richard III during the Buckingham rebellion, did not respond when summoned to fight at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, remaining aloof from the battle, even though his eldest son, George Stanley (styled Lord Strange), was held hostage by Richard. After the battle, it was Stanley who placed the crown on the head of his stepson (Henry VII), who later made him Earl of Derby. Margaret was then styled "Countess of Richmond and Derby".[38] She was invested as a Lady of the Order of the Garter (LG) in 1488.
