Margaret Beaufort

Marriage of Margaret Beaufort and Henry Stafford

On 3 January 1462, Margaret Beaufort married Henry Stafford, son of Humphrey, duke of Buckingham.

She had been married as a child to John de la Pole, though the marriage was soon dissolved.

She married in 1455 Edmund Tudor, but he died on 1 November 1456 from the plague.  She gave birth to Edmund’s son Henry on 28 January 1457, who would later defeat King Richard III at the battle of Bosworth and take the crown as Henry VII.

Margaret had no further children.  However, her marriage to Henry Stafford seems to have been happy.  He died on 4 October 1471.

In June 1472 she married Thomas Stanley, surviving him for five years until her own death on 29 June 1509, just two months after her son had died.

Reference:

Michael K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood, ‘Beaufort, Margaret , countess of Richmond and Derby (1443–1509)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [last accessed online 2 Jan 2020]

Michael Jones, ‘Lady Margaret Beaufort’, History Today, Volume 35, Issue 8 (August 1985).  URL: http://www.historytoday.com/michael-jones/lady-margaret-beaufort  [last accessed 2 Jan. 2020]

Dorothea Preis

Tags: Henry Tudor, Margaret Beaufort, Richard III

Death of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor (Henry VII), just two months after her son’s death on 21 April 1509.  On 24 June 1509, she had still witnessed the coronation of her grandson, Henry VIII, and Katherine of Aragon.

Source: Michael K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood, ‘Beaufort, Margaret , countess of Richmond and Derby (1443–1509)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 (online version)

Tags: Henry Tudor, Margaret Beaufort

Birth of Margaret Beaufort, daughter and heir of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset (1404–1444), and Margaret (d. 1482), daughter of Sir John Beauchamp of Bletsoe, Bedfordshire.

She was an influential supporter of her son Henry Tudor, who became Henry VII after defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth.

Tags: Henry Tudor, Margaret Beaufort

Barbara Gaskell Denvil. No surprise there for New South Wales Branch members and visitors to our website. Barbara’s imaginative and beautifully written books, Satin Cinnabar and Sumerford’s Autumn, and her well-researched features are much appreciated.

Her latest achievement is winning a copy of a young person’s novel The Disappearing Rose, by Canadian writer Renee Duke who, keen to promote her latest work, organised a competition on Lynne Murray’s blog to find out who people thought were responsible for the disappearance of the two Princes. Good idea – until she was alarmed to discover that Richard was winning!

An emergency email for help arrived in Julia’s inbox and, naturally, Julia sent a plea to all New South Wales members and friends to show that loyalty binds them and to save Richard from this undesirable fate!

And so they did. Renee reports that 34% of the votes and comments were from Australia which in a world-wide competition is pretty terrific – and Barbara’s comment was the winner. The overall results were:

First: Margaret Beaufort

Second: Henry VII and Richard III (tie)

Third: Henry, Duke of Buckingham and Elizabeth of York (another tie)

Fourth: Sir Thomas More

Fifth: two write-ins:  No one (’cos they survived) and Henry VIII (he time-travelled)

Barbara’s winning comment was different again. She says,“I basically explained – very briefly – why I thought the princes actually survived.”

And that seems much more logical than the suggestion of the sainted More; his tender age when the princes disappeared makes it unlikely that he could have organised the event!

So, what of the book The Disappearing Rose? It is for young people, especially those who love time travel, history, mystery and adventure.

“No one knows what happened to the little Princes of the Tower. That’s what Dane, Paige, and Jack are told when they start working on a medieval documentary for Dane and Paige’s filmmaker father. But then an ancient medallion transports them back to the fifteenth century and gives them a chance to discover the truth about the mysterious disappearance of young King Edward the Fifth and his brother Richard, Duke of York. But they’d better be careful. The princes are definitely in danger, and the person responsible for their disappearance just might decide that their new friends should disappear as well.”

Sounds like good reading for tweens, teens and those over 21 too. The good news is it is the first in The Time Rose series. It is an e-book and more information can be found on http://museituppublishing.com.

Renee Duke, the author, grew up in England and says she has been interested in the princes ever since she read about them in a text book of the Uncle-Richard-did-it variety that still prevails. She’s hoping that the time travel approach will lure high tech fantasy obsessed children of today into considering other possible culprits.

Tags: Books, Elizabeth of York, Henry Tudor, Henry VIII, Margaret Beaufort, NSW Branch, Princes, Richard III, Thomas More

Julia has just finished reading Philippa Gregory’s new novel, The Red Queen.

She says that she found this review hard work.  We must also keep in mind that it is fiction, which means that some of the ideas are imagined and/or unproven.  However, it should inspire interest in the period.

You can find Julia’s review here.

Tags: Books, Margaret Beaufort

The following article  was originally published in The Plantagent Chronicle, newsletter of the Plantagenet Society of Australia, Vol.12, No.4, August 2010.  You can find out more about Isolde Martyn here.

St David’s Cathedral (© Isolde Martyn)

Some of you may have recently seen the Terry Jones TV documentary series on a seventeenth century road map which showed a route through Wales to Holywell via the village of St David’s. We had the opportunity to visit St David’s in the English spring this year and discovered it to be a very picturesque area, steeped in history and as pretty as Cornwall but without the hordes of tourists. But for me, there were three surprises, which I’ll share with you shortly. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Church, Margaret Beaufort, Ricardian Authors, Tudors

Another gem from Sir Frederick Treves’ Highways and Byways of Dorset .

Wimborne Minster – Church of St Cuthburga (© Copyright Mike Searle and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.)

Not so far from Bloxworth (about 12 kilometres east)  is the much larger town of Wimborne Minster, and it is here in the impressive ecclesiastical building that Sir Frederick remarks on the many interesting tombs. It seems his favourite is “the beautiful monument to John Beaufort and his wife, Margaret”.

John was the grandson of John of Gaunt, and his wife was Margaret Beauchamp. “The effigies,” writes Sir Frederick, “were prepared by the direction their daughter, Lady Margaret Tudor, mother of Henry VII. The two lie side by side, he a burly fighting man in full armour, she a slender and pretty woman, in robes of state. She wears a veil under her coronet and a jewel on her breast. Their two right hands are firmly clasped together, and so natural is the action that the impression remains that it was thus they died. He has taken off his gauntlet the better to hold her hand , while the empty glove is pressed to his cuirass.”

It seems that their daughter, who – as we all know became Lady Stanley a couple of husbands down the track – was anxious to portray her parents in the best possible light. If only they were as serenely happy as portrayed in Wimborne Minster.

Bibliography:

Sir Frederick Treves, Bart. GCVO, CB, LL.D, Highways and Byways of Dorset.  Macmillan & Co. Ltd, 1906. No ISBN.

You can find a photograph of the grave here (scroll down to the bottom of the page).

Tags: Church, Margaret Beaufort