Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty (22 page)
Margaret’s second grandson, Henry, resembled his maternal grandfather, Edward IV, in both stature and appearance and proved just as charming. Margaret was again prominent at the ceremonies that surrounded his creation as Duke of York in 1494, when, at the jousts that were held in celebration at Westminster, the challengers appeared wearing her livery of blue and white on the third day of the tournament.
Margaret may have been consulted by her son on his decision to create his second son Duke of York. There were sound political reasons for creating a new Duke of York as the previous holder was Elizabeth of York’s brother, the younger of the princes in the Tower, Richard, Duke of York. In 1490, a new pretender emerged at the ducal court at Burgundy, claiming to be Richard. This second great pretender of Henry’s reign was considerably more convincing than Lambert Simnel, and he quickly gathered international support with Margaret of York, Dowager Duchess of Burgundy, proving particularly influential when she formally recognised the pretender as her nephew and persuaded the husband of her stepdaughter, the Archduke Maximilian, who ruled Burgundy in right of his deceased wife, to do likewise. Henry was alarmed by the pretender’s emergence and made some enquiries, quickly declaring that he was one Perkin Warbeck from Tournai. In spite of this, he was very effectively coached by his ‘aunt’, whose identification of him was suspect, given that she had seen the real Richard only once during her brief visit to England in 1480. Margaret of York, who apparently hated Henry for the death of her brother, Richard III, had no compunction about trying to bring about the ruin of her niece’s husband, and both Margaret Beaufort and Henry viewed her as a particular threat. In a letter that illuminates Margaret Beaufort’s character, she made a subtle dig at the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy, writing to the Earl of Ormond in 1496 to thank him for a gift he sent her from Flanders: ‘I thank you heartily that ye list so soon remember me with my gloves, the which were right good, save they were too much for my hand. I think the ladies in that parts be great ladies all, and according to their great estate they have great personages’. The greatest of the ‘great’ ladies in Flanders was, of course, Margaret of York, and it appears that the tiny and abstinent Margaret Beaufort intended to make a comment about her rival’s weight problem.
In an attempt to deflect the danger of the new pretender, Henry VII proclaimed his own second son as the legitimate Duke of York, but the shadow of Perkin Warbeck hung over his reign for some years. In 1495, Warbeck went to Scotland, where he was duly recognised by James IV and married to Catherine Gordon, a kinswoman of the King of Scots. Something that also touched Margaret, her husband, Lord Stanley and the King personally regarding the rebellion was that, early in 1495, her brother-in-law, the hitherto loyal Sir William Stanley was found to have been in contact with Warbeck and was executed for ‘certeyn treasons, ymagened and compassed traiterously, to the destruccion of the moost roiall persone of the King oure Sovereign Lorde’. Sir William’s execution was a blow for Henry, and his accounts show that he contributed towards his former supporter’s funeral. Margaret may well have attempted to smooth matters over between her son and her husband following the execution, and it does not appear that the execution caused any breach with Stanley, who remained loyal to the King until his death. Warbeck was finally captured in 1497 when he attempted to mount a full-scale invasion of England, only to lose his nerve when he found limited support for his cause, surrendering to the King. As with Lambert Simnel, Henry at first dealt leniently with the pretender, but when Warbeck was captured trying to escape from house arrest at court in 1498, he was executed at a similar time to the genuine Earl of Warwick in 1499.
Elizabeth of York’s own thoughts on the pretenders who claimed to be her kinsmen cannot be known, but it is unlikely that she would have believed them. As she aged, Elizabeth appears to have come to assert herself more and more against the dominant, if well-meaning, force of her mother-in-law, and by 1502, she was primarily responsible for purchasing clothes for her two daughters, Margaret and Mary, something that suggests that she was increasingly able to demonstrate her authority in relation to her children. At the betrothal of her eldest daughter, Margaret, to the King of Scots in January 1502, which took place in Elizabeth’s chamber at Richmond Palace, it was very much the Queen who was in control, and contemporary sources do not even mention if Margaret was present. It was Elizabeth, as the princess’s mother, who was asked for her consent to the match, and following the ceremony, ‘the Queene tooke her Daughter the Queen of Scotts by the Hand, and dyned both at one Messe covered’.
Margaret played only a limited role in the marriage of her eldest grandchild, Prince Arthur. Arthur’s betrothed bride, Catherine of Aragon, landed at Plymouth in late 1501 and Henry and Arthur immediately rushed to meet her. She made a good impression on the King, and on his return to Richmond, ‘he was mett by the Queene’s Grace, whom he ascertained and made privye to the Acts and Demeanor betweene himselfe, the Prince, and the Princesse, and howe he liked her Person and Behaviour’. Securing a daughter of the famous Ferdinand and Isabella for their son was a major coup, and Henry was determined to show the world that he was equal to the famous ‘Catholic Kings of Spain’, putting on a great tournament in his new daughter-in-law’s honour. Margaret was present with Elizabeth of York, Catherine and her two granddaughters, Princesses Margaret and Mary, sitting on a specially prepared stage to watch the jousting, in which Margaret’s former ward, the Duke of Buckingham, took part. That night, the same company watched a masque at court, as well as a number of fine pageants. The younger company then danced, with Arthur partnering his aunt, Cecily of York, and Prince Henry dancing with his sister Margaret. Although it was Arthur’s wedding, it was Prince Henry that shone, and ‘he pereceiving himselfe to be accombred with his Clothes, sodainly cast off his Gowne, and daunced in his Jackett with the said Ladye Margarett’. The evening finished with a banquet, with a further feast the next day at which Elizabeth was flanked by Margaret and the Spanish ambassador, whilst the king sat with Catherine of Aragon. Further masques and tournaments followed before the couple were finally married on 14 November 1501.
For Margaret and Henry, the marriage of Prince Arthur to a princess of Spain was a major achievement and symbolised the prestige and stability of the Tudor dynasty that they had founded together. Soon after the wedding, Arthur and his bride set out for Ludlow Castle to enable the young couple to rule their principality. Whilst they were there, both Arthur and Catherine fell ill with sweating sickness, a mysterious and often deadly illness that had arrived on the ships that carried Henry to England in 1485. Catherine survived the attack, but Arthur, to everyone’s horror, died suddenly on 2 April 1502 at the age of only fifteen. Margaret, who would have been as shocked as everyone else to hear the news, does not appear to have been at court when word of it reached Henry, and a contemporary manuscript, which details their reaction, demonstrates just how close Henry and Elizabeth had become, in spite of Margaret’s near-constant presence in their marriage. When the news of the death reached court, it was given to Henry’s chaplain who immediately took the news to the king:
When his Grace understood that sorrowful heavy Tydings, he sent for the Queene, saying, that he and his Queen would take the paineful sorrowes together. After that she was come and sawe the king her Lord, and that naturall and painefull Sorrowe, as I have heard saye, she with full great and constant comfortable words besought his Grace, that he would first after God, remember the Weale of his owne noble Person, the Comfort of his Realme, and of her. She then saied, that my Ladye his Mother had never no more Children but him onely, and, that God by his Grace had ever preserved him, and brought him where that he was. Over that, howe that God had left him yet a fayre Prince, Two fayre Princesses, and that God is, where he was, and we are both young ynoughe: And that the Prudence and Wisdome of his Grace spronge over all Christendome, so that it should please him to take this accordingly thereunto. Then the king thannked her of her good Comfort. After that she was departed and come to her owne Chamber, naturall and motherly Remembraunce of that great Losse smote her so sorrowfull to the Hart, that those that were about her were faine to send for the king to comfort her. Then his Grace of true gentle and faithfull love, in good Hart came and relieved her, and showed her howe wise Counsell she had given him before; and he for his Parte would thanke God for his sonn, and would she should doe in like wise.
The grief of Arthur’s parents was genuine and heart-felt and something that Margaret, although fond of the prince as his grandmother, could not share. It was Elizabeth who kindly thought to send for Arthur’s widow, bringing her back to London in ‘a lytture of blake velvet with blake cloth’. Elizabeth was also correct that she and Henry were young enough to have another child, and she conceived soon after Arthur’s death. Elizabeth’s last child had been Edmund, who was born in 1499 when she was thirtythree. According to a report of the Spanish ambassador, ‘there had been much fear that the life of the queen would be in danger, but the delivery, contrary to expectation, has been easy’. Given the speed at which Elizabeth conceived in 1502 and the three-year gap between her final two children, it appears that the couple had made a decision to cease having children after Edmund’s birth, and this may have been due to Elizabeth’s ill health. Henry and Elizabeth took a risk in trying to replace Arthur with another son, and the Queen’s last pregnancy did not go smoothly. She was delivered, prematurely, of a daughter on 2 February 1503 at the Tower of London. The baby, who was christened Katherine, died soon afterwards. Her mother also failed to recover from the birth, and she died on 11 February 1503, the day of her thirty-seventh birthday.
Henry was devastated by Elizabeth’s death and immediately shut himself away to grieve. It is likely that Margaret, who was always such a dominant force in his life, sought to comfort him. She also grieved for the daughter-in-law she had spent so much time with. In spite of her grief, Margaret kept herself busy, and she produced a set of ordinances for mourning, dealing with the ‘apparell for princesses and great estatis and other ladies and gentilwomen for the tyme of mornyng’. Margaret put as much thought into these as she had her earlier ordinances in relation to royal births. Intending that the ordinances be used for all future royal deaths, she set out the mourning clothes for a queen to wear, which included a surcoat with a train both in front and behind. A mantle with a train was also to be worn, and it was necessary to ensure that the queen, as the ‘grettest estat’, had the longest train. Immediately after the death, the queen was to wear a plain hood over her hair. After three months, if she wished, a queen could wear a mantle lined with black satin or fine sarcenet. Alternatively, it could be lined with fur of powdered ermine. Margaret then set out what other ladies should wear, beginning with ‘my ladie the kinges modir’, then the King’s daughters and married sisters, duchesses, countesses, duke’s daughters, lord’s daughters and knight’s wives, the gentlewomen of the Queen, the King’s mother and the King’s daughters. She even considered the apparel for the gentlewomen of assembled duchesses and countesses. Tellingly, Margaret, although only a countess, eschewed the plain surcoat and mantle assigned to that rank, instead declaring that the King’s mother is ‘to werre in every thinge lyke to the quene’. Even with Elizabeth’s death, Margaret could not bring herself to abandon the rivalry that had dominated her daughter-in-law’s marriage. As the author of the ordinances, Margaret would have ensured that she complied with them and appeared at court with the longest train and a black dress of the finest fabrics. She would only just have put her mourning for Elizabeth away when she was forced to don it once again.
The following year, on 29 July 1504, Margaret was widowed herself, and whilst she had been effectively separated from Stanley for some time, his loss may still have been a personal blow. The couple had been married for over thirty years, and he had protected her at her time of greatest danger, also assisting, albeit cautiously, her son in his path to the throne. Stanley left a gold cup to the King in his Will, along with a request that he be a good lord to his son. To Margaret, he left nothing, save a request that she be accorded all the rights set out in their marriage contract. Margaret was, by 1504, a very wealthy woman, and Stanley may have realised that she needed nothing further from him. The Stanley arms were later included on the adornments to Margaret’s tomb, suggesting that the death may have saddened her.
In June 1503, Margaret had taken Elizabeth of York’s role in seeing off Princess Margaret when she left to marry the King of Scots, hosting both the King and court at her residence at Collyweston. With the deaths of Elizabeth of York, Thomas Stanley and Prince Arthur and the departure of Princess Margaret to Scotland, the royal family was substantially reduced and Margaret, who had for so long vied with the Queen for prominence, became, officially, the first lady in the land and the person on whom the King relied the most.
A PATRONESS OF LEARNING: JULY 1504-APRIL 1509
In the early years of the sixteenth century, the royal family had been significantly reduced, allowing Margaret to finally establish herself as the first woman in the land. By 1504, Margaret had passed her sixtieth birthday, old by the standards of her time. In spite of this, she remained active and it was in the last few years of her life that she created her own lasting memorial. Margaret had always been interested in education, and even in the early years of her son’s reign, she had begun to look with interest on the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, the centres of learning in England at the time. Henry visited Cambridge as part of his first progress following his accession, and he was well received by both the university and the town. This sparked the interest of both Henry and his mother in the university, although, at first, Margaret decided to split her patronage between both ancient institutions.