Margaret Beaufort
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Margaret Beaufort, Mother of Henry VII, at prayer, by Rowland Lockey, about 1500 |
Margaret Beaufort (
May 31,
1443 â€"
June 29,
1509) was the daughter of
John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset and
Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso. She was also through her father a granddaughter of
John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset and a great-granddaughter of
John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster and his mistress
Katherine Swynford; following Gaunt's marriage to Katherine, their children (the Beauforts) were legitimized, but their descendants were barred from ever inheriting the throne, though
Edward IV of England and every monarch after him is descended from Gaunt and Swynford.
Edward and his younger brother
Richard III of England were sons of
Cecily Neville, grandsons to
Joan Beaufort, great-grandsons to John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford.
Margaret married four times, but had only one child,
Henry VII of England. The effect of Henry's birth on her 13-year-old body rendered her infertile for life.
Margaret's first marriage, to
John de la Pole, took place in
1450, when she was still a child, but was annulled after a short time. Her second cousin
Henry VI had as yet no children, and considered naming her his heir. He married her to his half-brother,
Edmund Tudor, Earl of
Richmond. Edmund was the eldest son of the king's mother, dowager Queen
Catherine (the widow of
Henry V) by her second marriage to a Welsh squire in her household, Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur (
Owen Tudor); the legality of this marriage was questioned by others later, but it appears to have been valid. Thus, in one of the great ironies of history, Margaret's son Henry, the Lancastrian claimant to the throne at the end of the
Wars of the Roses â€" the one who won it all and united the two houses by marrying the Yorkist princess
Elizabeth of York â€" had plenty of royal blood but no legal claim to the throne; in fact, were it not for the Salic Law barring women from inheriting the French throne, he would have had a greater claim to the throne of France than to that of England. In addition, as Henry derived his claim to the throne from Margaret, it is arguably she and not her son who should have claimed the crown, although Margaret was content to let Henry reign instead of her.
Lady Margaret was thirteen and pregnant when Edmund died.
She soon married her third husband, Sir Henry Stafford, son of the
1st Duke of Buckingham. Following his death in
1471, she took a vow of
chastity, but this did not prevent her from marrying
Thomas, Lord Stanley, some time between
1473 and
1482. Stanley, who had switched sides during the
Wars of the Roses (this was due to Richard III holding his eldest son Lord Strange, captive). However, at the end of the
Battle of Bosworth Field in
1485, it was Stanley who placed the crown on Henry VII's head. Stanley was later made
Earl of Derby, which made Margaret Countess of Derby, but she was styled "The Countess of Richmond and Derby". She was known for her education and her piety, and her son is said to have been devoted to her.
Once her son Henry became king, she was the mother of the reigning
King but had never been
Queen Consort, so she could not claim the title of
Queen Mother; instead she was referred to in court as
My Lady the King's Mother.
In
1497 she announced her intention to build a free school for the general public of
Wimborne,
Dorset. With her death in 1509, this wish came to pass and Wimborne Grammar School came into existence. The name of the school was changed to the Free Grammar School of Queen Elizabeth. The site and name of the school has since changed and is now Queen Elizabeth's School, the largest school in Dorset and one of the largest in the country.
In
1502 she established the
Lady Margaret's Professorship of Divinity at the
University of Cambridge.
Following the death of her third husband and the accession of her son Henry VII to the throne, she refounded and enlarged God's House as
Christ's College, Cambridge with a royal charter from the King. She has been honoured ever since as the Foundress of the College. Her signature can be found on one of the buildings (4 staircase, 1994) within the College. She also founded
St John's College, Cambridge.
Her portrait, at prayer in her richly furnished private closet behind her chamber, is a rare contemporary glimpse into a late Gothic aristocratic English interior. It rewards a close look. The severe black of her widow's weeds contrasts with the splendour of her private apartment, where every surface is patterned, even the floor alternating cream-colored and terracotta tiles. The plain desk at which she kneels is draped with a richly patterned textile that is so densely encrusted with embroidery that its corners stand away stiffly. Her lavishly
illuminated Book of Hours is open on a richly worked pillow before her. The walls are patterned with oak leaf designs, perhaps in lozenges, perhaps of stamped and part gilded leather. Against it hangs the dosser of her canopy of estate, with the tester above her head (the Tudor rose at its centre) supported on cords from the ceiling. The coats-of-arms woven into the tapestry are of England (parted as usual with France) and the portcullis badge of the Beauforts, which the early Tudor kings would use. Small
stained glass roundels in the leaded glass of her lancet windows also carry both England (cropped away here) and Beaufort.
Lady Margaret Hall, the first
women's college at the
University of Oxford, was named in honour of Margaret Beaufort.
*
A short profile of Margaret alongside other influential women of her time *
E.M.G. Routh, Lady Margaret: A Memoir of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond & Derby, Mother of Henry VII, 1924: e-text
*
Catholic Encyclopedia article*
The school that was established in honour of Lady Margaret Beaufort's will
