![]() ![]() Thus, before Margaret could walk or talk she became one of England’s greatest heiresses and a sought after prize on the marriage market – not a bad lot for a woman in the 15th century and, as we will see, the defining characteristic of her adult life. John’s dukedom passed to his younger brother, Edmund, but the bulk of his wealth was left to his only child. Just as Margaret reached her first birthday, John was dead – ever since, rumors have swirled that it was suicide, though the Beauforts always maintained he contracted an illness abroad. It’s unclear if John’s blunders were premeditated as part of his secretive mission, but you can read more about that here. The campaign was a disaster, John made an enemy of the powerful Richard, Duke of York (then England’s Lieutenant of France) and he returned an unpopular figure. Reluctant to leave home, he delayed his departure for months, not arriving in France until after the birth of his first child, Margaret. Among them was a request from the King’s government to lead an army in France to support the defense of Aquitaine which was sweetened with money and an elevation from an earldom to a dukedom. Captured as a teenager, he returned to England at the age of 35 where he quickly married and lapped up as many financial rewards as he could. Her great-uncle, Cardinal Beaufort, was one of the most powerful men at the King’s court and her aunt, Joan, was the Dowager Queen of Scotland.įive years before her birth John had been released as a prisoner-of-war in France, where he had languished for no less than 17 years. Via her father she had strong blood connections to the royal House of Lancaster, then led by the 21-year-old King Henry VI – indeed, John and the King were second cousins. Margaret was born in the spring of 1443 to John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset and Lady Margaret Beauchamp of Bletsoe. To some, she is even a contender as the true killer of the Princes of the Tower. ![]() Instead, she is usually depicted as the mother-in-law from hell, a meddler and a jarring mix of pious and power-hungry. But though she existed in the same world as Marguerite of Anjou, Elizabeth Woodville and Anne Neville, she is rarely seen as exciting as them – she never wore a crown and by the time she held substantial power, she was a woman in 50s. Mother to Henry VII, she is an ancestor to every English/British monarch since Henry VIII (as well as Scotland’s James V and Mary Stuart). Certainly she is one of the few to have lived through the war in its entirety and, as such, became the matriarch of the House of the Tudor. Margaret Beaufort is arguably the great winner of the Wars of the Roses.
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