Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty (4 page)
Suffolk arranged the marriage solely in an attempt to secure the best possible match for his son, but this was not how many in England viewed it. By 1450, the English royal family was severely depleted and Henry VI had no children, siblings, first cousins or uncles remaining. In order to find a successor for the King from the house of Lancaster, it was necessary to look once again at the children of John of Gaunt, and assuming that the Beauforts were legally able to inherit the crown, this meant the descendants of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset. Margaret, as the only child of the 1st Duke of Somerset (the eldest son of the 1st earl to marry and produce a child), was potentially the heir to the throne after Henry VI, and this did not go unnoticed by Suffolk’s opponents in England.
By ordering the marriage, Suffolk played into his enemies’ hands. In early February, the commons prepared a bill of impeachment against the hated minister, accusing him of treason. The first charge claimed that Suffolk had conspired with the French to organise an invasion of England to destroy Henry VI:
To the entente to make John, sonne of the same Duke, [King] of this your seid realme, and to depose you of your heigh regalie therof; the same Duke of Suffolk havyng thenne of your graunte the ward and mariage of Margarete, doughter and heire of John, the late Duke of Somerset, purposing here to marey to heis said sonne, presuming and pretendyng her to be nexte enheritable to the Corone of this your realme, for lak of issue of you Soverayn Lord, in accomplishement of heis seid traytours purpose and entent, wheroppon the same Duke of Suffolk, sith the tyme of his areste, hath do the seid Margarete to be maried to heis seid sonne.
Suffolk was further accused of handing France back to Henry’s uncle, Charles VII of France, and giving the county of Maine to the Queen’s father, the titular King of Sicily. The charge that Suffolk intended to place his son on the throne through his marriage to Margaret was the chief article laid against him, and it is clear that Margaret’s position as the most likely heir to the House of Lancaster was widely known. The charges against Suffolk were clearly absurd, and whilst he was guilty of covetousness and mismanagement of the King’s affairs, it is implausible that he would have conspired with the French king. The only precedent for a female sovereign in England had been the attempt of Henry I’s daughter, the Empress Matilda, to assert herself as queen of England in the twelfth century, and whilst Matilda’s son did eventually successfully press her claim, the empress’s attempts to wear the crown had ushered in nearly two decades of civil war with her cousin, King Stephen. In his answer to the charges, Suffolk denied that Margaret was the heir to the throne and declared that his motivations for the marriage were merely financial and that he had hoped to marry his son to the wealthier heiress to the Earl of Warwick, only to be thwarted by her early death.
Margaret was still a young child at the time of Suffolk’s impeachment, but her mother and those around her cannot but have been alarmed at the mention of her name in connection with his alleged treason. Suffolk put up a spirited defence to the charges against him, declaring that he would be heard by the King, and whilst the charges, if proved, would have merited death, the King instead ordered that Suffolk be banished from the realm for five years. Suffolk’s banishment was a lenient sentence and one that was likely to have been ordered for his own protection, in the hope that, after a period in exile, the public resentment towards him would have been forgotten. On the eve of his departure from England on 30 April, Suffolk wrote a moving letter to his son, commanding him to obey the King and his mother in all things and to follow God’s law, finishing
and last of alle, as hertily and as lovyngly as ever fader blessed his chld in erthe, I yeve you the blessyng of oure Lord and of me, which of his infynite mercy encrece you in alle vertu and good lyvyng. And that youre blood may by his grace from kynrede to kynrede multeplye in this erthe to hys servise, in such wyse as after the departyng from this wreched world here, ye and thei may glorefye hym eternally amongs his aungelys in hevyn.
Interestingly, the sons of John de la Pole would eventually attempt to lay claim to the crown, but this was not through Margaret Beaufort. Suffolk left for an exile in Flanders early in May 1450, but shortly after setting sail, his ship was intercepted by a privateer’s ship, the
Nicholas of the Tower.
Suffolk was greeted with the words ‘welcom, Traitor’ and taken aboard the second vessel. After a mock trial by the sailors, he was beheaded with a rusty sword. His body was abandoned on the beach near Dover.
Suffolk’s murder shocked England, and it must have appeared suddenly very dangerous to Margaret’s mother for her daughter to be married to Suffolk’s son and heir. In spite of this, Henry VI and his queen Margaret of Anjou retained their affection for the duke, and they continued to show favour to the family. Margaret remained with her mother throughout the duration of her marriage to John de la Pole, and she was a wife in name only. Finally, in early 1453, Lady Fortune span her wheel again, and she was summoned to court for the first time in order for her future to be decided.
Following the Duke of Suffolk’s murder, Margaret remained with her mother. The King did not, at first, show any interest in Margaret, although, with Suffolk’s death, her wardship had once again passed to the crown. This changed in February 1453, when Margaret’s mother was commanded to come to court, bringing her daughter with her in her train. For Margaret, the summons meant that Fortune’s Wheel was about to turn again.
Margaret was still only nine years old at the time of the summons, and it would have been her first visit to court. On 23 April 1453, she and her mother attended the St George’s Day celebrations of the Order of the Garter at Windsor Castle, and this may have been Margaret’s first sight of the King. Henry VI was never the most prepossessing of kings, and his own wife, Margaret of Anjou, had failed to recognise him at their first meeting when he attended her dressed as a squire. In spite of this, he was a kindly figure and may have met with the young Margaret personally. Henry VI was certainly interested in his young cousin, and on 12 May 1453, he made her a grant of 100 marks to spend on clothes – a vast sum at the time. On the same occasion, he also granted Margaret’s wardship to his half-brothers, Edmund and Jasper Tudor.
By the early 1450s, Henry VI had little close kin, and he began to show an increased interest in the children of his mother, Catherine of Valois. Catherine of Valois was the youngest daughter of Charles VI of France, and Henry V had demanded marriage to her as part of his attempt to win the French throne. The French had initially resisted Henry’s demands, but after his successful military campaign, the marriage was agreed, in 1420, along with Charles VI’s confirmation of Henry as his heir, an agreement that disinherited his son, the Dauphin. The couple married in May 1420, and early the next year, Catherine visited England for the first time. She remained in her husband’s kingdom for the rest of the year, giving birth to the future Henry VI on 6 December 1421 before rejoining her husband in France the following May. With Henry V’s early death on 31 August 1422, Catherine, who was only twenty-one, was left without a role in England, as her husband had declined to appoint her as either regent or guardian for their son. Nonetheless, she returned to England with the King’s body and took up residence with her son. During the early years of the reign, she remained with him and she was an important figure in his upbringing, only obtaining her own household in 1430, when he was eight years old.
At some point either before or after she established her own household, Catherine secretly married a young Welshman who was in her service, Owen Tudor. Details of the marriage are scant, but one story claims that Owen, who was considerably beneath Catherine socially, first came to her attention when he fell into her lap during a dance. Another story suggested that Catherine caught sight of Owen whilst he was swimming and, attracted to him, asked to meet with him secretly. The marriage only became common knowledge after Catherine’s death at Bermondsey Abbey on 3 January 1437, when she was discovered to have borne her husband four children: Edmund, Jasper, Owen and an unnamed daughter who died in her infancy. The younger Owen Tudor eventually became a monk. His two brothers were sent to be raised by Katherine de la Pole, the sister of the Duke of Suffolk, at Barking Abbey, where they were prepared for life as gentlemen. Their half-brother, Henry VI, was fond of them and, once they were adults, took them into his household. In 1452, he created his elder half-brother, Edmund, Earl of Richmond, and his younger half-brother, Jasper, Earl of Pembroke. He was also generous in his treatment of them, and when, in 1455, parliament passed an Act annulling any wardships granted in the previous five years in order to return revenue to the crown, Henry specifically exempted from this any wardships granted to the queen ‘or of any Graunte made unto Edmond Erle of Richemond, and to Jasper Erle of Pembroke, of the kepyng of the Londes and Tenements and of the Heire of John late Duke of Somerset; and of the Mariage of Margarete Doughter and Heire of the seid late Duke’. Henry VI wanted to ensure that Margaret’s future remained solely at the disposal of his half-brothers, whom he considered to be his closest kin.
By granting Margaret’s wardship to his half-brothers, it is certain that the King intended a marriage between one of them and Margaret. In 1453, Edmund Tudor was aged around twenty-two, and as the elder brother, it was he who decided to marry Margaret in 1455, shortly after her twelfth birthday. Margaret later told her chaplain, John Fisher, that she was given a choice as to whether to marry John de la Pole (to whom she was actually already married) or Edmund Tudor:
She which as then was not fully nine years old, doubtfull in her mynde what she were best to do, asked counsayle of an old Gentlewoman whom she moche loved and trusted, which dyde advyse her to commend her self to St Nicholas the patron and helper of all true maydens, and to beseche him to put in her mynde what she were best to do. This counsayle she follow’d, and made her Prayer so, full often; by specially that nyghte when she sholde the morrowe after make answare of her mynde determynately. A mervaylous thyng! that same nyght, as I have herde her tell many a tyme, as she lay in Prayer, calling upon St Nicholas, whether slepynge or wakeynge she could not assure, but about four of the clocke in the mornynge, one appered unto her arrayed like a Byshop, and naming unto her Edmonde, bad take hyme unto her Husbande. And so by this meane she did enclyne her mynde unto Edmonde, the Kyng’s Broder, and Erle of Rychemonde.
Margaret was close to Fisher later in her life, and it is likely that she genuinely believed that she had been told by a vision to accept Edmund Tudor. It was fortunate, however, that she did indeed wish to divorce her first husband and marry the King’s half-brother, as, in reality, she had no choice in the matter. It was Henry VI himself who decided that Margaret should marry Edmund, and it is very likely that, early in 1453, he was motivated by Margaret’s royal blood. Margaret’s strong claim to be the heir to the Lancastrian dynasty was well known, and Henry almost certainly considered Edmund to be the best possible successor to the crown in the event that he died childless.
Whilst Henry VI selected Edmund Tudor as a possible successor through his marriage to Margaret, such a provision quickly became unnecessary, and in the spring of 1453, the Queen, Margaret of Anjou, announced her first pregnancy after several years of childless marriage. Whilst this should have been a moment for Henry VI to consolidate his position as King of England, public discontent at his kingship soon began to gain momentum. On 16 July 1453, the English army was decisively defeated at the Battle of Castillon by the French leaving the English in possession only of Calais on the Continent. This was a disaster for Henry VI, as, over the course of his thirty year reign, he had succeeded in losing an entire kingdom. He was devastated, and the news triggered an attack of a mental disorder that he had inherited from his grandfather, Charles VI of France, who was famously considered to be insane for much of his life. On 15 August 1453, Henry complained that he felt unusually tired, and he retired to bed early. According to
Whethamstede’s Register
, during the night, ‘a disease and disorder of such a sort overcame the king that he lost his wits and memory for a time, and nearly all his body was uncoordinated and out of control that he could neither walk, nor hold his head upright, nor easily move from where he sat’. Whilst seemingly conscious, Henry was unable to take in anything around him. On 13 October 1453, whilst he was still unresponsive, his wife gave birth to her only child in London, a son whom she named Edward.
Henry VI remained in an unresponsive state for some months and, disastrously for the Queen and her supporters, was unable to recognise the prince as his son. According to one contemporary account, Margaret of Anjou made strenuous efforts to secure the King’s recognition of the child, aware that there were rumours that her pregnancy had been the result of an extramarital affair with Margaret Beaufort’s uncle, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset:
As touchyng tythynges, please it you to wite that at the Princes coming to Wyndesore, the Duc of Buk’ toke hym in his armes and presented hym to the Kyng in godely wise, besechyng the Kyng to blisse hym; and the Kyng gave no answere. Natheless the Duk abode stille with the Prince by the Kyng; and whan he coude no maner answere have, the Quene come in, and toke the Prince in hir armes and presented hym in like forme as the Duke had done, desiryng that he shuld blisse it; but alle their labour was in veyne, for they departed thens without any answere or counteaunce saving only yay ones he loked on the Prince and caste doune his eyene ayen, without any more.