Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty (26 page)
The hopes expressed at Henry VIII’s accession were almost impossible to live up to, and it is just possible that Margaret harboured grave concerns about the fitness of her grandson to rule. Margaret’s great-nephew, Reginald Pole, who was related to the Yorkist royal family through his mother, later recorded that, at her death, she wept for fear that her grandson would turn away from God. Given Pole’s later opposition to Henry and his religious policies, which saw the reformation of the Church and England’s break with Rome, it is most likely that these comments were written with the benefit of hindsight and do not accurately represent Margaret’s own feelings. However, it is just possible that, seeing her young and pleasure-loving grandson, Margaret was struck with a stab of fear at leaving him alone with the safety of her dynasty in his hands.
Whatever her personal thoughts about her grandson, Margaret was careful not to voice them. The new king was only seventeen at the time of his accession and had no experience of ruling. It therefore fell to Margaret, as her son’s chief executor and the most senior adult member of the royal family, to take on the role of ensuring that the transition to Henry VIII was smooth. Although the King was widely recognised to be able to rule alone, Margaret took on something of the role of regent, undertaking to assist her grandson until her reached eighteen. Margaret was aware that she would not be around to guide her grandson in the early years of his reign, and she therefore immediately set about selecting his council for him out of the men that had been most trusted by his father. This was a major undertaking for Margaret, and she knew that the new king would rely heavily on those she suggested. According to Edward Herbert, Henry’s seventeenth-century biographer, the King trusted his grandmother’s choices, and ‘he took their impressions easily, both out of a diffidence of his own strength in the managing of the weighty affairs of his kingdom, and a desire he had to be free to those exercises which most sorted with his youth and disposition’. Margaret took care to ensure that the council was made up of both scholars and soldiers, and it was headed by churchmen: William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry VII’s particular friend Richard Fox, Bishop of Winchester. Margaret took the time to brief the council on how she wanted them to act:
Whom she so disposed, as they might deliberate well among themselves always, before they gave their advice to this young king, a not thinking fit (at that age) he should be distracted by difference of opinions. Neither did they vary much, during her life; though afterward, some smothered jealousies broke out into open faction.
Whilst she lived, Margaret remained a political force to be reckoned with, and by choosing men favourable to herself and her son and ordering them to only present unanimous advice to the King, she hoped that the kingdom would continue to be governed in a way that was acceptable to both her and her son, even after their deaths. She also had a more personal reason for choosing those that had been friends to her son in his lifetime, and the first act of the council was to finalise Henry VII’s funeral. Once the council had been appointed, the new king left Richmond Palace for the Tower of London, where he consulted alone with his council for the first time. Although ill health and mourning may have prevented Margaret from joining them there, she was certainly kept apprised of what was happening and, by her force of will alone, kept the council united.
Although young and willing to listen to advice on the governance of his kingdom, Henry VIII was also impetuous, and on 3 June 1509, he privately married Catherine of Aragon, his brother’s widow. Henry later claimed that he had done so on the dying request of his father, and if this was the case, Margaret was probably satisfied with the marriage. However, whilst Henry VIII and Catherine had been betrothed soon after Arthur’s death in order to preserve the alliance with Spain, Henry VII had never shown any particular inclination towards the match and had, at one point, instructed his son to make a formal protest against his betrothal on the grounds that it had been entered into without his consent and in his childhood. Henry VII had treated Catherine very poorly in the years of her widowhood, and it is perhaps more likely that Henry VIII, seeking to assert himself as an adult ruler, took the initiative in the marriage himself, choosing the most conveniently available princess. Margaret is known to have attended court at Greenwich on 8 June, only five days after the marriage, perhaps to inspect the behaviour of the new queen, and she was apparently satisfied with what she saw.
Another reason for rushing into his marriage was so that Henry could share his coronation with his wife. Margaret and her youngest granddaughter, Princess Mary, stood behind a lattice in a rented house in London to watch the coronation procession as it passed on 23 June 1509. The procession was as spectacular as those that Margaret remembered from her son’s reign. Henry VIII wore a fine robe of crimson velvet, furred with ermine and a jacket of cloth of gold. His clothes shone with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls and other rich stones, and he wore a great chain around his neck. The new queen rode in the procession in a litter pulled by two white horses and Margaret may perhaps have been reminded of the coronation of her daughter-in-law, many years before, when Elizabeth of York too had appeared dressed in all her finery and with her fair hair hanging loose around her shoulders. She may, perhaps, have thought even further back and remembered the earlier coronation of Queen Anne Neville, in which she herself had played a prominent part. Henry and Catherine were crowned the day after the procession in Westminster Abbey. Once again, as she watched the coronation procession, Margaret was seen to weep; although happy for her grandson, she feared another turn of Fortune’s Wheel would bring disaster to them all. Margaret was able to attend her grandson’s coronation banquet in Westminster Hall, with her ever-faithful Henry Parker acting as her cupbearer and also bringing her own carver. Already unwell, it appears that she may have been unlucky enough to develop food poisoning after eating a cygnet at the banquet. Deeply unwell, she retired to a house in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, aware that she had now done all she could for the future of her dynasty.
Margaret had already chosen her son’s chapel in Westminster Abbey as the site of her burial. She had also given charitably to the abbey throughout Henry VII’s reign, including in 1508 making indentures with the Abbot of Westminster to ensure that he prayed for her, Henry VII, his children, her last three husbands, Elizabeth of York and her parents, the people who had always been most important to her in her life. This affinity with the abbey is probably why she chose to die within its precincts. Although her grandson’s coronation marked Margaret’s retirement from public affairs, she was still forced to deal with difficulties in her own household during her last days.
John Fisher was with Margaret constantly as she lay dying. Over the years of their association, he had become very important to her and wielded a considerable amount of power in her household. The anonymous author of one
Life of Fisher
, claimed,
He ordered himselfe so discretly, so temperatly and so wysely, that both she and all her familie [i.e., her household] were governed by his high wisdome and discretion, wherby at last he became greatly reverenced and beloved, not only of the vertuous ladie, and all her houshold, but also of the kinge her sonne.
Fisher wielded a great deal of power in Margaret’s household, but there may already have been murmurings about the extent of his influence even during Margaret’s lifetime, and he was not as beloved as he thought. According to Fisher’s own account,
When my lady was at the poynte to departe out off this worlde unto the mercy off God, I hadde pety off hir poure servaunts, and movide hir that suche as hadde done hir goode service, and was but littill recompenside, that it wolde please hir thei might furst be consideride after the wisdome and descrecion of my lorde of Wincestre and me; and she was well contentyde.
Margaret may have been content to allow the two bishops to decide what her servants should receive, but they certainly were not, and after her death, a group of them went to complain to the King himself. Just how aware Margaret was of the discontent in her household at Fisher’s influence and her failure to provide sufficiently for them is not recorded, but she appears to have remained lucid until the end. Fisher recalls that, at the very hour of her death,
When the holy Sacrament conteynyng the Blessyd Jhesu in it was holden before her, and the questyon made untyll her, whether she byleved that there was verayly the Son of God, that suffered his blessyd passyon for her and for all Mankynde upon the Crosse? Many here can bere recorde, how with all her herte and soule she raysed her body, to make answere thereunto, and confessed assuredly, that in that Sacrament was conteyned Chryst Jhesu, the Sone of God, that dyed for wretched Synners upon the Crosse, in whome holly she putte her truste and confydence.
It was the sheer strength of Margaret’s will that kept her alive, and her action in support of her grandson was the last service she was able to do for the son to whom she had been devoted.
Margaret prepared herself for death as well as possible. According to Fisher, in his funeral sermon for her, she had been accustomed to charitably keep twelve poor people at any one time in her house, providing them with lodging, food and clothing. When they were ill, she showed her charity by ‘vysyntynge [visiting] them and comfortynge them, and mynystrynge unto them with her owne hands: and when it pleased God to call ony of them out of this wretched worlde, she wolde be present, to see them departe, and to lerne to deye’. Margaret died on 29 June 1509, a few weeks after her sixty-sixth birthday and, more pertinently, the day after her grandson’s eighteenth birthday. She died surrounded by her household in the presence of her friend John Fisher, who later commented, ‘Ah my lorde! yf thou had ben presente, and had herde this sorrowfull cryes of her thy servaunte, with the other lamentable mornynges of her Frendes and Servaunts, thou for thy goodness wolde not have suffred her to dye: But thou wolde have taken pyte and compassion upon her.’
Even in her old age, having survived her only child, three husbands and most of her generation, Margaret’s will to live remained strong, and she, along with those around her, wept as she finally gave up the reins of power, leaving England to be ruled by her grandson, Henry VIII: the representative of the Tudor dynasty that she, more than anyone else, had founded.
Margaret Beaufort was at the centre of turbulent events throughout her life. It is no wonder that she learned to fear the sudden changes in fortune that she endured, and the concept of Fortune’s Wheel could have been developed for her. Margaret’s contemporary, the chronicler Edward Hall, summed up the changeability of fortune succinctly when he said, in relation to Margaret’s rival and coconspirator, Elizabeth Woodville:
Suche are all worldly chaunces, nowe in prosperyte and aboundaunce, mutable and chaungeable and full of inconstancy: and in aduersitye often chaunge from euell to good and so to bettre, to the entent that they that be in wealthe and flowe in the aboundaunce of all thinges shall not thynke theim selfes in suretye to tarye styll in that degree and state: and that they that be in misery and calamytie shall not despayre nor mystrust God, but lyue in hope, that a better daye of comfort and gayne wyll once apere and come.
This could have been written for Margaret herself: the mother of the Tudor dynasty always lived in fear that her good fortune would be followed by despair.
Whilst, during Margaret’s early life, the Wheel of Fortune turned somewhat indiscriminately, as she grew older, she was remarkable in that she was able to take control of her own destiny. Margaret lived in an age of powerful women, with Margaret of Anjou, Cecily Neville and Elizabeth Woodville all crossing her path at various stages in her life. It can, however, perhaps be said that Margaret Beaufort was the most remarkable of them all. It was Margaret who was able to take her son’s very dubious claim to the throne and turn him into a viable rival to the incumbent king. It was also she who arranged for him the marriage that secured the Tudor dynasty’s place on the English throne. Margaret’s grandson, Henry VIII, and his own children, always prioritised the claims of Elizabeth of York, as the heiress to the House of York when they set out their right to the throne. However, whilst Elizabeth did indeed have a stronger hereditary title, it was Margaret herself who should be seen as the most important ancestress to the Tudor dynasty. It was Margaret who gave her son, the first Tudor, his drop of English royal blood, and it was she who, through her continual efforts, maintained his hopes of returning to England. Eventually, when the political situation was right, her actions paved the way for his triumphant return, at great personal cost to herself. No one was more influential in putting Henry Tudor, an unknown Welsh exile, on the throne of England and the King himself was always grateful to his devoted mother.
Margaret was aware that, in the late fifteenth century, a woman could never have won or held the throne alone, and she was content to transmit her claims to her son. Whilst she allowed herself to be passed over in the succession, however, she certainly did not allow herself to be passed over politically. She saw herself as working in partnership with her son and was a constant rival to his queen, Elizabeth of York, for status and control. By signing her name as ‘Margaret R’, Margaret set out her own belief in her role. She ably assisted Henry VII in his consolidation of his rule and, on his death, by force of her will, she lived just long enough to see her grandson’s eighteenth birthday and hand over the reins of power to him.