May 31, 1441/43: Birth of Lady Margaret Beaufort. Part I.

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Duke of Lancaster, Duke of Somerset, Duke of Suffolk, Edmund Tudor, Edward III of England, Henry IV of England, Henry VI of England, John Beaufort, John de la Pole, John of Gaunt, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Margaret Beauchamp

Lady Margaret Beaufort (May 31, 1441/43 – June 29, 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.

Origins

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 (third surviving son of King Edward III) by his mistress Katherine Swynford.

Lady Margaret’s mother was Margaret Beauchamp (c. 1410 – before 3 June 1482) was the oldest daughter of Sir John Beauchamp, de jure 3rd Baron Beauchamp of Bletsoe, and his second wife, Edith Stourton.

Lady Margaret was born at Bletsoe Castle, Bedfordshire, either on May 31, 1441 or, more likely, on May 31, 1443. The day and month are not disputed, as she required Westminster Abbey to celebrate her birthday on May 31.

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.

As 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.

Her descent from Edward III is from his son John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

All English monarchs beginning with Henry IV are descended from John of Gaunt. His direct male line, the House of Lancaster, would rule England from 1399 until the time of the Wars of the Roses. Gaunt is also generally considered to have fathered five children outside marriage: one early in life by a lady-in-waiting to his mother; the others, surnamed Beaufort, by Katherine Swynford, his long-term mistress and third wife.

They were later legitimised by royal and papal decrees, but this did not affect Henry IV’s bar to their having a place in the line of succession. This disbarment from the throne of the Beaufort line makes Lady Margaret’s claim, and her son Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond’s claim to the throne in dispute.

Lady Margaret 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 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. Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, the first Oxford college to admit women, is named after her.

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. The Duke of 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.

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”.

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.

Margaret was married to Suffolk’s son, John de la Pole. The wedding may have been held between January 28, and February 7,1444, when she was perhaps a year old but certainly no more than three.

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. Papal dispensation was granted on August 18, 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.

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.

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.

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. Edmund was the eldest son of the king’s mother, Catherine of Valois, by Owen Tudor.

At nine years old Margaret was required to assent formally to the marriage. Later she claimed she was divinely guided to do so.

At age twelve Margaret married Edmund Tudor, twelve years her senior, on November 1, 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 3, 1456, leaving a 13-year-old widow who was pregnant with their child.

January 18, 1486 ~ King Henry VII of England marries Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, uniting the House of Lancaster and the House of York.

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Battle of Bosworth Field, Catherine of Valois, Duke of Richmond, Edmund Tudor, Edward IV of England, Elizabeth of York, Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Owen Tudor, Richard III of England, Wars of the Roses

Henry VII (January 28, 1457 – April 21, 1509) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizure of the crown on August 22, 1485 until his death in 1509. He was the first monarch of the House of Tudor.

Henry VII was born at Pembroke Castle to Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond. His father, Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, died three months before his birth. Henry’s paternal grandfather, Owen Tudor, originally from the Tudors of Penmynydd, Isle of Anglesey in Wales, had been a page in the court of King Henry V.

Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland

Owen Tudor rose to become one of the “Squires to the Body to the King” after military service at the Battle of Agincourt. Owen is said to have secretly married the widow of King Henry V, Catherine of Valois. One of their sons was Edmund, Henry’s father. Edmund was created Earl of Richmond in 1452, and “formally declared legitimate by Parliament”.

Henry’s mother, Margaret, provided Henry’s main claim to the English throne through the House of Beaufort. She was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (fourth son of Edward III), and his third wife Katherine Swynford.

Initially Katherine was Gaunt’s mistress for about 25 years. When they married in 1396 they already had four children, including Henry’s great-grandfather John Beaufort. Thus, Henry’s claim was somewhat tenuous; it was from a woman, and by illegitimate descent.

Hereditarily the Portuguese and Castilian royal families had a better claim to the throne of England than the Beaufort family since they were descendants of Catherine of Lancaster, the daughter of John of Gaunt and his second wife Constance of Castile.

John of Gaunt’s nephew King Richard II legitimised Gaunt’s children by Katherine Swynford by Letters Patent in 1397. In 1407, Henry IV, Gaunt’s son by his first wife, issued new Letters Patent confirming the legitimacy of his half-siblings but also declaring them ineligible for the throne.

Elizabeth of York, Queen of England and Lady of Ireland

Henry IV’s action was of doubtful legality, as the Beauforts were previously legitimised by an Act of Parliament.

Nonetheless, by 1483 Henry Tudor was the senior male Lancastrian claimant remaining after the deaths in battle, by murder or execution of Henry VI (son of Henry V and Catherine of Valois), his son Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, and the other Beaufort line of descent through Lady Margaret’s uncle, Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset.

By 1483, Henry’s mother was actively promoting him as an alternative to Richard III, despite her being married to Lord Stanley, a Yorkist. At Rennes Cathedral on Christmas Day 1483, Henry pledged to marry Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV. She was Edward’s heir since the presumed death of her brothers, the Princes in the Tower, King Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York.

Henry devised a plan to seize the throne by engaging Richard III quickly because Richard had reinforcements in Nottingham and Leicester. Though outnumbered, Henry’s Lancastrian forces decisively defeated Richard III’s Yorkist army at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 22, 1485. Several of Richard’s key allies, such as Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland, and also Lord Stanley and his brother William, crucially switched sides or left the battlefield. Richard III’s death at Bosworth Field effectively ended the Wars of the Roses.

To secure his hold on the throne, Henry declared himself king by right of conquest retroactively from August 21, 1485, the day before Bosworth Field. Thus, anyone who had fought for Richard against him would be guilty of treason and Henry could legally confiscate the lands and property of Richard III, while restoring his own.

On January 18, 1486 Henry honoured his pledge of December 1483 to marry Elizabeth of York. They were third cousins, as both were great-great-grandchildren of John of Gaunt. Henry married Elizabeth of York with the hope of uniting the Yorkist and Lancastrian sides of the Plantagenet dynastic disputes, and he was largely successful.

However, such a level of paranoia persisted that anyone (John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, for example) with blood ties to the Plantagenets was suspected of coveting the throne.

Henry had Parliament repeal Titulus Regius, the statute that declared Edward IV’s marriage invalid and his children illegitimate, thus legitimising his wife.

Royal Ancestry of Henry VII of England: Part V.

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Earl of Richmond, Edmund Tudor, Edward III of England, Henry VII of England, House of Tudor, Jasper Tudor, John of Gaunt, King Henry VI of England, Kings and Queens of England, Margaret Beaufort, Owen Tudor, Prince of Wales, Wales

Today we will begin to examine the Paternal Ancestry of Henry VII of England. We begin with his father Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, born June 11, 1430 and died November 3, 1456. He was also known as Edmund of Hadham. Edmund Tudor was father of King Henry VII of England and a member of the Tudor family of Penmynydd, North Wales.

Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland.

Edmund’s parents were Owen Tudor and the dowager queen Catherine of Valois, (wife of Henry V of England) making Edmund a half-brother to Henry VI of England. Edmund was raised for several years by Katherine de la Pole, and King Henry VI took an interest in Edmund’s upbringing, granting him the title 1st Earl of Richmond and lands once he came of age. Both Edmund and his brother, Jasper, were made advisers to the King as they were his remaining blood relatives. The brothers were made the senior earls in the royal court and had influential positions in the Parliament of England. Edmund was also granted Baynard’s Castle, London and ran a successful estate.

As Earls, and recognised by court as the King’s half brothers, Edmund and Jasper Tudor had unparalleled precedence over the other laypersons in court with the exception of the Dukes. They were each given lands, although Jasper received a yearly stipend until the Earldom of Pembroke became available. After seven years of marriage to Margaret of Anjou, King Henry VI was still without children. After the death of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the royal line was at risk of extinction and considerations were made about the Tudor brothers inheriting the throne. There were concerns that while they had descended from the French royal line through Catherine, they only had little or distant blood relation to the English throne.

On November 1, 1455, Edmund married John Beaufort’s granddaughter, Margaret Beaufort, (John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset was the son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, third son of King Edward III of England). Prior to the start of the Wars of the Roses, Edmund liaised with Richard of York and supported him when the King fell ill during 1453 and 1454. After war began in 1455, York sent Edmund to uphold the authority of the King in South Wales. While he was there, York was overthrown by the King and in retaliation, Yorkist forces were sent to engage those of Tudor’s in South Wales. Edmund was captured at Carmarthen Castle, and died there of the bubonic plague on November 3 1456 aged only 26. The future Henry VII of England was born at Pembroke Castle on January 28, 1457 and automatically became the 2nd Earl of Richmond, for his father had died three months before his birth.

Edmund’s father was Sir Owen Tudor Sir Owen Tudor (c. 1400 – 2 February 1461) Asmentioned the Tudor’s were descendants of a prominent family from Penmynydd on the Isle of Anglesey, which traces its lineage back to Ednyfed Fychan (d. 1246), a Welsh official and seneschal to the Kingdom of Gwynedd. Tudor’s grandfather, Tudur ap Goronwy, married Margaret, daughter of Thomas ap Llywelyn ab Owain of Cardiganshire, the last male of the princely house of Deheubarth. Margaret’s elder sister married Gruffudd Fychan of Glyndyfrdwy, whose son was Owain Glyndŵr (sometimes called Owen Glendower in English, was a Welsh ruler and the last native Welshman to hold the title Prince of Wales). Owen’s father, Maredudd ap Tudur, and his uncles were prominent in Owain Glyndŵr’s revolt against English rule, the Glyndŵr Rising.

Owen’s original name in Welsh was Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur. When Owen Anglicized his name he abandoned the Welsh patronymic naming practice and adopted a fixed surname. When he did, he did not choose, as was generally the custom, his father’s name, Maredudd, but chose that of his grandfather, Tudur ap Goronwy, instead. This name is sometimes given as Tewdwr, the Welsh form of Theodore.

The Tudors of Penmynydd were the senior line of a noble and aristocratic family, connected with the village of Penmynyddin Anglesey, North Wales, who were very influential in Welsh (and later English) politic. The family descended from one of the sons of Ednyfed Fychan (died in 1246), the Welsh warrior who became seneschal to the Kingdom of Gwynedd in north Wales, serving Llywelyn the Great and later his son Dafydd ap Llywelyn. He claimed descent from Marchudd ap Cynan, Lord of Rhos and ‘protector’ of Rhodri the Great, king of Gwynedd, a founder of one of the so-called Fifteen Tribes of Wales. From Ednyfed’s many sons would come a ‘ministerial aristocracy’ in northern Wales. He left the manors of Trecastell, Penmynydd and Erddreiniogin, Anglesey to those of his sons born to his second marriage to Gwenllian, daughter of king Rhys ap Gruffydd of Deheubarth, and among these sons was Goronwy (died 1268), founder of the line of the Tudors of Penmynyth.

This is enough information for one day. More on the background of the Tudor dynasty in then next post in this series.