Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty (3 page)
Although Somerset had secured the King’s agreement to Margaret’s wardship remaining with her mother, following his disgrace, the King and his council were in no mood to grant the family any favours. In the medieval period, when a minor inherited land, their wardship and the rights to their marriage immediately passed to the king. This meant that the king could benefit from the revenues of the estates during the heir’s minority and arrange their marriage, something that could be very lucrative. Wardships were frequently given as rewards to favoured members of the court, and within weeks of Somerset’s death, Henry VI had granted Margaret’s wardship to his most favoured councillor, William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, declaring to his chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, that:
Right Reverend fader in God, right trusty and right welbeloved, we grete you wel. And for asmoche as oure Cousin the Duc of Somerset is nowe late passed to God’s mercy, the whiche hath a doughter and heir to succede after hym of ful tender age, called Margarete. We, considering the notable service that oure Cousin therl of Suffolk hath doon unto us, and tendering hym therfore the more specially as reason wol, have of oure grace and especialle propre mocion and mere deliberacion graunted unto hym to have the warde and mariage of the said Margarete, withouten eny thing therfore unto us or oure heires yielding. Wherfore we wol and charge you that unto oure said Cousin of Suffolk ye do make, upon this oure graunte, lettres patents souffisant in lawe and in deue forme; and that ye faille not hereof, As we specially truste you, and as ye desire to do unto us singuleir plesir, and that ye send unto us oure said lettres patents seeled by the berer of thees.
Perhaps as a concession to his earlier promise to Somerset, the King allowed Margaret to remain in her mother’s household during her childhood, a departure from the common practice, which generally saw an heir raised in the household of the person who held their wardship.
Margaret’s wardship was granted to the most powerful man in England, as the Earl (who would later be created first a marquess and then a duke) of Suffolk was commonly believed to control the King. Henry VI had come to the throne in his infancy and, by 1444, had ruled the kingdom personally for some years. Even during his lifetime, Henry VI had a poor reputation with his subjects. One contemporary record, for example, states that two husbandmen from Sussex, John and William Merfeld, were arrested for stating in the market place that ‘the king was a natural fool and would often hold a staff in his hands with a bird on the end, playing therewith as a fool, and that another king must be ordained to rule the land, saying that the king was no person able to rule the land’. A number of other hostile sources implied that the King was a simpleton and unfit to rule, with Jean de Waurin, for example, declaring that he was simple-minded and ruled like a child. The truth of this is difficult to judge, although the King is unlikely to have suffered from a learning disability, as he is known to have mastered both French and Latin. No mental deficiency was noted in the instructions given to Henry’s guardian, the Earl of Warwick, in 1428, when the boy king was seven years old. The earl was instructed ‘to remain about the king’s person, to do his utmost in teaching him good manners, literature, languages, nurture and courtesy and other studies necessary for so great a prince’. It is clear that the boy was considered to be normal enough, although, as he aged, he was noted to take a simplistic and overly earnest approach to the world, declaring, for example, when he was sixteen, that he would avoid the sight and conversation of women and ‘affirming these to be the work of the devil’ before quoting from the gospel that to look at a woman with the eye was to commit adultery with the heart. The King was renowned for his piety and, according to his supporter, John Blacman,
[Henry] once complained heavily to me in his chamber at Eltham, when I was alone there with him studying his holy books, and giving ear to his wholesome advice and the sighs of his most deep devotion, [concerning] a knock on his door by a certain mighty duke of the realm: the king said, ‘They so interrupt me that, whether by day or night, I can hardly snatch a moment for reading the holy scripture without disturbance’.
Henry was not unintelligent, but in many matters, he was childlike and easily led. He was entirely unsuited to the role of a medieval king, and he relied heavily on a handful of advisors, the most unpopular of whom was Suffolk.
Margaret’s guardian, William de la Pole, Earl, and later Duke, of Suffolk, came from a family of wool merchants in Kingston-upon- Hull who had made their fortune and been ennobled some years before his birth in 1396. The family were viewed as upstarts by many of the traditional nobility, although they were connected with the Lancastrian royal family through Suffolk’s marriage to Alice Chaucer, the granddaughter of Katherine Swynford’s sister. Suffolk was, first and foremost, a courtier, and Henry VI had quickly come to rely on his advice after declaring his majority, making him chamberlain of England and employing him as his ambassador in France in 1444 whilst the King’s marriage was negotiated. It was Suffolk who acted as Henry’s proxy in his marriage ceremony with Margaret of Anjou, and he and his wife escorted the new queen to England, earning her esteem.
Margaret Beauchamp was an heiress in her own right and she raised both Margaret and the children of her first marriage at her manors of Bletso and Maxey. Few details survive of Margaret Beaufort’s upbringing, but it is apparent that she developed a strong bond with her St John half-siblings. Margaret created an embroidery showing the descent of the St John family during her childhood, and in her later life, she always took an interest in the family. For example, after 1504, she appointed her nephew, John St John, as her chamberlain and also named him as an executor of her Will. She arranged a marriage for one of her nephews with the royally descended Margaret Plantagenet, daughter of the Duke of Clarence.
There is also some evidence that Margaret enjoyed a warm relationship with her mother, who remarried in 1447, taking Lionel, Lord Welles, as her third husband. Margaret Beauchamp was a shrewd woman and, as the Crowland Chronicler noted, took an active and firm interest in the management of her estates:
The lady duchess Margaret, her mother, held the said lordship of Depyng in dower for many years, during which she survived: besides which, she continued to retain full possession thereof, all the days of her life, a period of nearly thirty years, both in exacting amercements for trespasses, levying for repairs of the embankments, and taking poundage for animals, in such manner as she had found the same rights appendant to the said marsh lands on the day of her husband’s death.
Margaret Beaufort was accused of acquisitiveness in her later life, and in this, she was a similar character to her mother. Although the Crowland Chronicler was generally favourable in his references to Margaret’s mother, in one entry he did note with censure that, with regard to an area of marshland that was disputed by Margaret Beauchamp and the abbey, she kept it in her possession with the markers and other boundaries being removed so that it was impossible for anyone to remember where the boundary had originally been. For the most part, Margaret Beauchamp was a friend of Crowland Abbey, and in 1465, the chronicler recorded evidence of the closeness between mother and daughter:
In the same year, also, the duchess, Lady Margaret, relict of John, the illustrious duke of Somerset, one who had always proved gracious and favourably disposed to our monastery, and who, as we have already mentioned, had received the manor of Depyng as a part of her dower, while staying at her castle of Maxay, was desirous, in a spirit of extreme devoutness, to be commended to our prayers; upon which, she was readily admitted to be a sister of our chapter. Influenced by pious considerations, she also induced her daughter, the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, and heir to the before-named manor of Depyng, (who had been married, as we have long before already mentioned, to the lord Henry, the illustrious son of the duke of Buckingham), to become a sister along with her, and in like manner enjoy the benefit of our prayers. This was done, to the end that, being bound to us by such ties as these, she might be rendered more benevolent to us hereafter, and more complacent in every respect.
Margaret Beaufort was always affectionate to her maternal family, and it was her mother who would have been responsible for her early education.
The education of women was not routine in late medieval England, but there is a considerable body of evidence to show that Margaret Beaufort was well educated. John Fisher, Margaret’s chaplain and friend in the last years of her life, commented on this in the sermon that he gave in memory of her:
Fyrst, she was of singular Wisedom, ferre passyng the comyn rate of women. She was good in remembraunce, and of holdyng memorye; a redye wytte she had also to conceive all thynges, albeit they were ryghte derke. Right studious she was in Bokes, which she had in grete number, both in Englysh and in Frenshe; and for her exercise, and for the profyte of other, she did translate divers maters of Devocyon out of Frensh into Englysh. Full often she complayned that in her youthe she had not given her to the understanding of Latin, wherein she had a lytell perceyvyng.
Whilst Margaret received little Latin tuition, her French education was first rate, and Fisher noted that she possessed a number of books in the language for her religious mediations and that she also employed herself in translating French works into English. In his dedication to the English translation of
The Hystorye of Kinge Blanchardyne and Queen Eglantyne his Wyfe,
the printer William Caxton asked Margaret ‘to pardon me of the rude and common English, where as shall be found fault; for I confess me not learned, ne knowing the art of rhetorick, ne of such gay terms as now be said in these days and used’. Whilst Caxton, who benefitted from Margaret’s patronage, naturally intended to flatter her, his comment does, again, suggest that she had a reputation for learning, and this accords with her later interest in book production, her translation works and her interest in Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Within her family circle, Margaret was known to value the written word, and the mother of her third husband, the Duchess of Buckingham, included a bequest in her Will ‘to my daughter of Richmond [Margaret], a book of French called LUCUN; another book of French of epistles and gospels; and a primmer with clasps of silver gilt, covered with purple velvet’.
Whilst it is clear that Margaret’s education was, by the standards of the time, extensive, particular attention would have been paid to instructing her in her future life as the wife of a nobleman. In his sermon on Margaret, John Fisher noted,
She was bounteous and lyberal to every Person of her Knowledge or acquaintance. Avarice and covetyse she most hated, and sorowed it full moche in all persons, but specially in ony that belong’d unto her. She was also of syngular easyness to be spoken unto, and full curtayse answere she would make to all that came unto her. Of mervayllous gentyleness she was unto all folks, but specially unto her owne whom she trusted and loved ryghte tenderly. Unkynde she wolde not be unto no creature, ne forgetfull of ony kyndness or servyce done to her before, which is no lytel part of veray nobleness. She was not vengeable, ne cruell; but redy anone to forgete and to forgyve injuryes done unto her, at the leest desyre or mocyon made unto her for the same. Mercyfull also and pyteous she was unto such as was grevyed and wrongfully troubled, and to them that were in Poverty, or sekeness, or ony other mysery.
T God and to the Chirche full obedient and tractable. Serchynge his honour and plesure full besyly. Awareness of her self she had alway to eschewe every thyng that myght dishonest ony noble woman, or disdayne her honour in ony condycyon.
Margaret was the highest ranking of Margaret Beauchamp’s children from her three marriages, and she ensured that her daughter was raised to be aware of her status. Fisher felt that Margaret was a credit to her mother, declaring that she ‘was a veray Doughter in all [noble manners]’. The shadow of her wardship must have hung over her early childhood however, and early in 1450, the Duke of Suffolk finally decided to make clear his plans for her.
During the early years of Henry VI’s reign, his leading councillors had been his uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and his great uncle, Cardinal Beaufort. Beaufort had virtually retired from court before his death in April 1447, making room for Suffolk to increase his influence. Gloucester, who was disliked by his nephew, the King, also found his influence increasingly marginalised in the early years of the 1440s, and on 10 February, he was suddenly arrested and was found dead a few days later. Although Gloucester’s death was announced to have been due to natural causes, it was widely rumoured that Suffolk had ordered his murder. When, shortly afterwards, Normandy fell whilst under the control of Margaret’s uncle, Edmund Beaufort, who was Suffolk’s ally, Suffolk became increasingly disliked.
By early 1450, Suffolk was aware that he was deeply unpopular, and on 28 January, the commons in parliament ordered his arrest and imprisonment in the Tower of London. He had originally intended to marry his eldest son, John de la Pole, to the wealthy heiress of the Earl of Warwick, whose wardship he had secured at a similar time to Margaret’s. The Warwick heiress’s early death threw these plans into disarray, and at some point between 28 January and 7 February 1450, in an attempt to increase his support and ensure that his family continued to benefit from Margaret’s lands, he brought the two children together to be married. At the time of the marriage, John de la Pole was eight years old and Margaret only six, and the couple never lived together as husband and wife. Instead, it is likely that, once the ceremony had been performed, Margaret was returned to her mother’s custody whilst Suffolk attempted to salvage his position as the most powerful man in England. Margaret was given no choice in the marriage, and it is possible that she never fully understood the ceremony that was performed, later referring to her second husband, Edmund Tudor, as her first. Whilst the marriage remained unconsummated and both children were below the age of consent, the marriage was, in any event, voidable, although Suffolk did go to the trouble of obtaining a dispensation from the Pope due to the blood relationship between Margaret and John.