Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty (10 page)
The King showed his favour towards Margaret and her husband in 1466, when he granted to them the manor at Woking in Surrey. This was a generous gift and the manor became a favourite home of the couple’s. The manor had previously belonged to Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and provided a residence conveniently close to London. Unfortunately, little now remains of what was, for a time, Margaret’s favourite residence, but during her lifetime, it was palatial. The large house was built around a courtyard. It was surrounded by a moat, and there were also orchards, gardens and a deer park. Margaret and Henry Stafford spent much of Edward IV’s reign at the house, and the couple worked hard in managing their estates, and their household at Woking has been described as a small court, with nearly fifty servants in attendance, many of whom were gentlemen. The couple were renowned for their hospitality, and for their wedding anniversary on 31 January 1471, they feasted on curlew, plover and larks supplied by a London poulterer. It is apparent that the couple regularly celebrated their wedding anniversary, a further testament to the happy relationship between the pair.
Margaret and Henry Stafford were able to maintain a great state at Woking. They had an extensive household, as befitted their status as a couple with close links to court. On special occasions, they often sent to London for luxurious items, such as fresh lampreys and salmon. The household also consumed large amounts of white wine, with purchases recorded in their accounts. Margaret, as the mistress of the household, would have been largely responsible for organising the menus for special occasions, and many of the luxury items purchased reflected her own personal tastes. She and Henry Stafford also dressed to befit their rank. For example, their accounts show that fine velvet was purchased for a long gown for Henry Stafford to wear. Margaret always liked to appear well dressed and records of payments made in the 1470s (after Henry Stafford’s death) for her clothing show her interest in rich fabrics, which, given Stafford’s own interest in fine clothes, is likely to have been evident during her marriage to him and earlier. Her receiver recorded that sums were paid for furring a gown for her, an expensive process. She purchased a gown of velvet, as well as several yards of a tawny-coloured fabric for a kirtle. Margaret regularly sent to London for her clothes, the centre of fashion in England. In the accounts for the mid-1470s, it is clear that she took considerable trouble to look good, and she ordered that some cloth of velvet that she had purchased in London be sent to her at Lathom in Lancashire – a considerable distance. That she was able to do this was a mark of her status as a great lady. She further demonstrated this through the size and grandeur of her household, and she is recorded, again in the 1470s, to have purchased her New Year’s gifts for the gentlewomen in her household from a London goldsmith.
For Margaret, daily life at Woking revolved around her religious observances. The funeral sermon preached for Margaret by John Fisher provides a snapshot of her life and character, which, although based on her last years, is also likely to be relevant to her earlier life. Fisher was renowned for his ascetic way of life, and this is likely to have been what attracted Margaret to him. As previously mentioned, in his sermon, Fisher spoke of the Biblical Martha, who was praised for chastising her body through abstinence, fasting, chastity and wearing ‘sharp’ clothes (i.e., a penitential hair shirt). He then turned to Margaret:
I wolde reherce somewhat of her demeanynge in this behalfe; her sober temperance in metes and drynkes was known to all them that were conversant with her, wherein she lay in as great wayte of her self as ony Person myghte, kepynge alway her strayte mesure, and offendynge as lytell as ony creature myghte: Escheqynge [eschewing] banketts, rersoupers, joncryes betwixt meles.
Even in her old age, Margaret was renowned for fasting, especially in Lent, when she ‘restrayned her appetyte tyl one mele and tyl one fyshe on the day’. She also fasted on the saints’ days to which she was particularly devoted: Mary Magdalene, St Catherine and St Anthony. Given Stafford’s likely skin complaint and Margaret’s concern over his health, her fasts in honour of St Anthony almost certainly began during their marriage, and other facets of her asceticism may also have begun in that period, where Margaret, who always feared Fortune’s turn, must have looked continually for coming misfortune. Fisher also related that Margaret followed her religious observance in her dress:
As to harde clothes wearynge, she had her shertes and gyrdyls of heere [hair], which when she was in helthe, everi weke she fayled not certayn days to weare, sometyme ther one, sometyme the other, that full often her skynne, as I heard her say, was perced therewith.
Fisher also explained that Margaret’s daily life was strictly regulated:
First in prayer every daye at her uprysynge, which comynly was not long after five of the clok, she began certain devocyons, and so after them with one of her gentlewomen the Matynes of our Lady, which kept her to them she came into her closet, where then with her Chaplayne she said also Matyns of the Daye; and after that, dayly herde four or fyve Masses upon her knees, so continuing in her Prayers and Devocyons unto the hour of dyner, wich of the etynge [eating] day was ten of the clocke, and upon the fastynge day, eleven. After dyner full truely she wolde goe her statyons to thre aulters dayly; dayly her Dyryges and Commendacyons she wolde saye, and her Even Songs before souper, both of the day and of our Lady, besyde many other Prayers and Psalters of Davyde throughout the yeare; and at nyghte before she went to bedde she fayled not to resort unto her Chappell, and there a large quarter of an houre to occupye her [in] Devocyons.
Margaret prayed so much that she injured her knees and back. In an age where piety was expected, particularly of noblewomen, Margaret took her devotion to the extreme, and this is unlikely to be simply a trait that developed in her old age. Instead, part of her love of Woking may have been that, away from London, she was able to ignore the cares of the world and focus on her piety. Surviving representations of Margaret also attest to her piety, and she generally chose to be depicted in severe black and wearing a quasi-religious habit. One particularly famous representation of her depicts her at prayer, with an ornate Book of Hours open on the table in front of her, again demonstrating her devotion to religion. Whilst most representations of Margaret show her in her old age, one that appears to depict a younger Margaret, which is held by the National Portrait Gallery, also shows her in the dress of a religious ascetic, demonstrating that religion was likely to have taken up much of her time from her youth. Margaret appears to have been happiest in her religious devotions, and she was able to achieve a peaceful existence during the early years of Edward IV’s reign. She was also able to use her piety as a means of remaining in contact with her son, and in 1465, she secured the admission of Henry Tudor to the Confraternity of the Order of the Holy Trinity near Knaresborough in Yorkshire, demonstrating that she retained an interest in his religious development.
Whilst Margaret achieved a domestic contentment in the early 1460s, she was still uncomfortably aware of the changeability of fortune. With her cousin’s defection, Edward IV once again turned against the Beauforts, and Somerset’s mother was stripped of her pension by the King and imprisoned. Although Edward took no active measures against Margaret and Henry Stafford, he does not appear to have entirely trusted them, and he showed Stafford little positive favour, pointedly making his younger brother, John Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire, whilst Henry Stafford remained a mere knight. The couple were, however, welcome at court, and Stafford attended a council meeting at Mortlake Palace in 1467. A letter from Sir John Paston to Margaret Paston in October 1469 also records another occasion when Stafford was with the King:
The kynge is comyn to London, an ther came with hym, an roode ageyn hym, the Duke of Glowcestr, the Duke of Suffolke, the Erle of Aroundell, the Erle of Northumbreland, the Erle of Essex, the Lordes Harry [Stafford] and John of Bokyngham, the Lord Dakres, the Lorde Chambreleyn, the lorde Montjoye, and many other knightys and squryers, the Meyr of London, xxij Aldremen, in skarlett, and of the Crafftys men of the town to the nombre of cc., all in blewe.
They also journeyed specifically to London so that Henry Stafford could attend a parliament there on at least one occasion. Moving an aristocratic household was always a major undertaking, and Margaret was fully involved in the preparations at Woking before their departure. In her husband’s accounts, she is recorded to have purchased food for the household in readiness of their arrival. She took an interest in the minutiae and ordered that one of her gentlewomen’s saddles be mended, presumably so that she could ride alongside her mistress. Margaret probably looked forward to such trips eagerly, and it is clear that she regularly accompanied her husband on his travels. On an earlier trip, the couple were ferried by boat into the city together. Margaret engaged the services of a boatman again a few days later when she went by water to visit a bishop. For Margaret, the visits to London may have been a chance to socialise; whilst they were in London for the parliament, they paid the expenses of one of their servants for waiting on ‘my Lord Edwarde’ on their behalf.
Margaret and Henry Stafford also received a visit from the King at Woking in December 1468, and they entertained him at their hunting lodge in a tent of purple sarsenet. Margaret purchased luxurious materials for clothes to wear for the visit, including velvet and expensive Holland and Brabant cloth, clearly intended to impress the King. She may also have found that she had something in common with the King, and they shared a love of books, with the King collecting a number of texts, such as religious works and histories, including a copy of the chronicle of Jehan Froissart, detailing the usurpation of the throne of Henry IV, which ultimately led to the Wars of the Roses. The visit was a success, and whilst Edward IV’s feelings towards the couple were ambivalent, it is perhaps fair to say that Henry Stafford was not in any danger from the King, he was simply not trusted enough to be a member of his inner circle. This all changed in 1469, when, as the King’s own fortunes ebbed, Margaret’s actions led to both her and her husband incurring his displeasure.
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF LANCASTER: 1469-1471
During the early years of Edward IV’s reign, Margaret settled down into a retired and contented life with her husband, enjoying occasional visits to her son at Sir William Herbert’s residence of Raglan Castle. Everything changed in 1469 when the troubles in Edward IV’s own kingship bubbled up to the surface, and for the first time in eight years, the House of Lancaster was able to mount a credible opposition to the Yorkist king.
Edward IV began his reign on a wave of public support, but within years of his accession, the situation was very different. At a council meeting in 1465, shortly after his cousin, the powerful Earl of Warwick, had returned to England after making attempts to negotiate a French marriage for the King, Edward was forced to admit that he was already secretly married. His bride was Elizabeth Woodville, the widow of a knight. Her mother, Jacquetta, the widow of Henry V’s brother, John, Duke of Bedford, had caused a scandal similar to that caused by her sister-in-law, Catherine of Valois, by taking a lowly member of her household as her second husband. Elizabeth Woodville, the eldest child of Jacquetta’s second marriage, was very beautiful, and after her husband was killed fighting for the Lancastrians at Towton, she decided to petition the new king, Edward IV, for the return of her lands. According to legend, Elizabeth positioned herself under an oak tree with her two young sons, knowing that Edward was due to pass that way whilst out hunting. Edward was immediately smitten with the pretty widow, although, at first, he had no intention of actually marrying her, as a contemporary, Dominic Mancini, records:
W the king first fell in love with her beauty of person and charm of manner, he could not corrupt her virtue by gifts or menaces. The story runs that when Edward placed a dagger at her throat, to make her submit to his passion, she remained unperturbed and determined to die rather than live unchastely with the king. Whereupon Edward coveted her much the more, and he judged the lady worthy of a royal spouse, who could not be overcome in her constancy even by an infatuated king.
Elizabeth’s defiance only served to increase Edward’s ardour, and he rashly promised her marriage, with the couple wedding in secret on 1 May 1464.
The marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, although hasty, proved to be a personally very happy union, and they remained close until Edward’s death nearly twenty years later. Politically, however, it was a disaster and alienated Edward both from the powerful Warwick, who would eventually be nicknamed ‘The Kingmaker’, and from Edward’s younger brother, George, Duke of Clarence, who complained that it was beneath his brother’s dignity to marry a widow. Edward’s mother, Cecily Neville, was deeply offended and, damagingly, in a fit of pique, swore that Edward was the product of an adulterous affair rather than the true son of her husband, Richard, Duke of York. Edward ignored this criticism and determinedly presented Elizabeth as his queen, arranging for her to be crowned in a grand coronation and ennobling her relatives. This was personally satisfying for Elizabeth, but it led to the deep unpopularity of the Woodvilles, who were accused of obtaining the best marriages in England. Henry Stafford’s young nephew, the Duke of Buckingham, was one such target of the Queen, and he was married to her youngest sister, Catherine Woodville. Elizabeth obtained the King’s niece for her eldest son Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, and, scandalously, the elderly dowager Duchess of Norfolk, ‘a slip of a girl of about eighty years old’, for her twenty-year-old brother, John Woodville. The Woodvilles were seen as upstarts and acquisitive, which did nothing to help Edward’s popularity in England.