Although their Beaufort claim was dubious, Henry VI had apparently considered making Edmund Tudor his heir before the birth of his own son & so there was a possibility that Henry Tudor could stake his claim. The only possible candidate left on the Lancastrian side was Margaret Beaufort & her son, Henry Tudor. ![]() Henry VI had been imprisoned in the Tower of London by the Yorkist King Edward IV & after his son’s death, he was quietly murdered. As Henry VI slid into periods of madness & the Duke of York pressed his claim to the throne, Margaret & Stafford tried to stay clear of trouble.Įventually, after the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471 when Henry VI’s only son, Edward, Prince of Wales, was killed, the Lancastrian cause seemed lost. Her son, Henry, was in the care of his uncle Jasper Tudor, & Margaret kept in contact with them both. Margaret’s marriage to Stafford seems to have been happy. Everyone is called Richard, Edward, Elizabeth, Henry or Margaret & it’s very confusing! I’ll concentrate on what Margaret was doing rather than who won which battle. I’m not going to go into the machinations of the Wars. Margaret & the Tudors were firmly in the Lancastrian camp & with the rise of Richard, Duke of York, the Wars of the Roses were about to begin. Margaret’s next husband, Henry Stafford, son of the Duke of Buckingham, was chosen by Margaret & her brother-in-law, Jasper Tudor. This is a possible portrait of Margaret as a young woman (from ). Although she married twice more, she had no more children, & it was said at the time that this was due to the physical trauma she suffered giving birth at such a young age. Her son, Henry, became the focus of her life. At the age of 13, she was a mother & a widow. Margaret almost immediately became pregnant & six months into her pregnancy, her husband died of the plague. ![]() Edmund Tudor was anxious for an heir & he did not wait. Although it was customary for very young girls to be married, the marriages were not usually consummated until the girl was older, especially as Margaret was considered quite small for her age. She told him that she was inspired by a vision of St Nicholas in a dream to accept Edmund’s suit, although in reality she would have had little choice in the matter. An indication of Margaret’s religious nature comes from a story told later by John Fisher, Margaret’s chaplain. Catherine’s son, Henry VI, was fond of his half-siblings, & took them into his household, granting them titles & planning good marriages for them.Įdmund was made Earl of Richmond & Margaret was considered an excellent match for him. Tudor was much lower in rank than the Queen & the marriage was a scandal. The Tudors were the children of Catherine de Valois, widow of Henry V & Owen Tudor. Margaret was married again at the age of 12 to Edmund Tudor, a half-brother of Henry VI. ![]() This marriage was dissolved when the young husband, John de la Pole’s, family was disgraced. She married four times, the first when she was only six years old. Her father was the first Duke of Somerset & Margaret was a great heiress. The Beauforts were loyal to the Lancastrian royal family & were well-established in the nobility by the time of Margaret’s birth in 1443. ![]() However, when Henry Bolingbroke, son of John of Gaunt, usurped the throne in 1399, he stipulated in an Act of Parliament that his half-siblings had no rights to the throne. Richard II did legitimate the children as a favour to his powerful uncle, never imagining that they would be close enough to the throne to cause a problem. Although they eventually married, this in itself wasn’t enough to legitimise their children. Margaret’s family, the Beauforts, were descended from the adulterous relationship between John of Gaunt, uncle of Richard II & Katherine Swynford. Margaret was an ambitious woman who put her considerable energies into helping her son to the throne of England. So, I was pleased to come across this new biography by Elizabeth Norton. I’m a confirmed Yorkist so, while I know lots of scurrilous facts about Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, courtesy of the many books I’ve read about Richard III, I’ve never read a biography of her.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |