Jump to content
Main menu
Main menu
move to sidebar
hide
Navigation
Main page
Recent changes
Random page
Help about MediaWiki
Special pages
Niidae Wiki
Search
Search
Appearance
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Create account
Log in
Pages for logged out editors
learn more
Contributions
Talk
Editing
Lady Margaret Beaufort
(section)
Page
Discussion
English
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
Tools
move to sidebar
hide
Actions
Read
Edit
View history
General
What links here
Related changes
Page information
Appearance
move to sidebar
hide
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Early years== 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 of England|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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tallis |first=Nicola |title=Uncrowned Queen: The Fateful Life of Margaret Beaufort, Tudor Matriarch |publisher=Michael O'Mara Books Limited |date=2020 |isbn=978-1-7892-9258-9 |location=London |pages=9 |language=English}}</ref> As Somerset was a [[tenant-in-chief]] of the crown, the wardship of his heir fell to the crown under the [[Feudalism in England|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 [[House of Lancaster|Lancastrian]] court".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jones & Underwood |first=Michael & Malcolm |date=1985 |title=Lady Margaret Beaufort|journal=History Today |volume=35 |page=23 }}</ref> 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.<ref>Jones & Underwood, 33β36.</ref> [[File:Edmund Tudor St David's Cathedral.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|[[Monumental brass]] of [[Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond]], the husband of Lady Margaret Beaufort, in [[St David's Cathedral]], Pembrokeshire]] Margaret was married to Suffolk's son, [[John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk|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|reason=It is not clear where the theory that she was married at age 1 to 3 comes from|date=January 2020}} 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gristwood |first=Sarah |title=Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses |publisher=Basic Books |date=2013 |location=New York |page=27}}</ref> Papal [[Dispensation (canon law)|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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gristwood |first=Sarah |title=Blood Sisters |date=2012 |page=36}}</ref> 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 Tudor|Jasper]] and [[Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond|Edmund Tudor]].<ref name="Jones & Underwood, 37">Jones & Underwood, 37.</ref><ref name="Richardson">{{Cite book |last=Richardson, Henry Gerald |first=Sayles, George Osborne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iVVK-yrcTdUC&q=Lady+Margaret+Beaufort+dispensation+John+de+la+Pole&pg=PA189 |title=The English Parliament in the Middle Ages |publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group |date=1993 |isbn=0-9506-8821-5 |access-date=25 July 2009}}</ref><ref name="Wood">{{Cite book |last=Wood |first=Diana |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jhApAAAAYAAJ&q=%22securing+a+dispensation+for+a+marriage+which+was+within+prohibited%22 |title=Women and religion in medieval England |publisher=Oxbow |date=2003 |isbn=1-8421-7098-8 |access-date=25 July 2009}}</ref> 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 12.<ref name="Jones & Underwood, 37"/> 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.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Gristwood |first=Sarah |title=Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses |publisher=Basic Books |date=2013 |location=New York |page=32}}</ref> Edmund was the eldest son of the king's mother, [[Catherine of Valois]], by [[Owen Tudor]].<ref name="Jones & Underwood, 37"/> At nine years of age, Margaret was required to assent formally to the marriage. Later, she claimed she was divinely guided to do so.<ref name=":0"/> At the age of 12, Margaret married Edmund Tudor, who was 12 years her senior, on 1 November 1455. The [[Wars of the Roses]] had just broken out. Edmund, a [[House of Lancaster|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.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bevan |first=Richard |title=The Kingmaker Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty |url=https://www.history.co.uk/articles/margaret-beaufort-the-kingmaker-and-mother-of-the-tudor-dynasty |access-date=6 December 2021 |website=A&E Networks}}</ref> The Countess always respected the name and memory of Edmund as the father of her only child. In 1472, 16 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|date=January 2017}} ===Motherhood=== [[File:Pembroke Castle 1.jpg|thumb|left|upright=1.2|[[Pembroke Castle]] in 2007, the Norman castle where Margaret gave birth to Henry Tudor in 1457]] [[File:A young woman, believed by some to be a young Margaret Beaufort.jpg|thumb|19th-century portrait, perhaps intended as Lady Margaret Beaufort, [[National Portrait Gallery, London]]]] 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 VII of England|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".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gristwood |first=Sarah |title=Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses |publisher=Basic Books |date=2013 |location=New York |page=49}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gristwood |first=Sarah |title=Blood Sisters: The Women Behind the Wars of the Roses |publisher=Basic Books |date=2013 |location=New York |page=48}}</ref> Shortly after her re-entry into society after the birth, Jasper helped arrange another marriage for her to ensure her son's security.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tallis |first=Nicola |title=Uncrowned Queen: The Fateful Life of Margaret Beaufort, Tudor Matriarch |publisher=Michael O'Mara Books Limited |date=2020 |isbn=978-1-7892-9258-9 |location=London |page=58}}</ref> She married [[Sir Henry Stafford]] ({{Circa|1425}}β1471), the second son of [[Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham]], on 3 January 1458, at the age of 14. 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|date=January 2021}}
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to Niidae Wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see
Encyclopedia:Copyrights
for details).
Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Search
Search
Editing
Lady Margaret Beaufort
(section)
Add topic