Lady Margaret Beaufort

English noblewoman

• Born: May 31, 1443
• Place of Birth: Bletsoe Castle, Bedfordshire, England
• Died: June 29, 1509
• Place of Death: London, England

Lady Margaret Beaufort was closely involved in the political life of her day, playing a significant role in her son Henry’s return to England from exile and his battle for the English crown in 1485. Contemporaries saw in Margaret a particularly religious woman, and her charity gave rise to two colleges at Cambridge University: Christ’s and St. Johns.

Early Life

The family of Margaret of Beaufort first formed through an adulterous relationship between John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford in the late 1300s. Margaret’s father was John Beaufort, the first duke of Somerset, who fell sharply from royal favor and died, perhaps killing himself, in the year of Margaret’s birth. This sad event overshadowed her early years, and she was placed in an arranged marriage to John de la Pole while still a very young child. The marriage was disbanded when she was six.

If she came to marriage young, she also was a mother at a very tender age. Her second marriage, to Edmund Tudor, was brief, but one that would have historic consequences. Edmund died of the plague in 1456, but the twelve-year-old Margaret was already pregnant with Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII.

Life’s Work

Not long after the death of Edmund Tudor, Margaret married Henry Stafford in 1458. It was the beginning of what is widely understood to have been a very long and contented marriage. Even if Margaret found stability, events in England during the following years were far from peaceful. During more than three decades of what is known as the Wars of the Roses, the years between 1469 and 1471 saw especially significant and violent upheaval. Edward IV seized the Crown from Henry VI in the name of the Yorkist camp, but a rebellion by the Lancastrian side restored Henry to the throne and forced Edward into exile. However, Edward returned from exile and won a famous victory at the Battle of Tewkesbury (1471). Henry died soon after in the Tower of London. The aftermath of the battle was significant for Margaret: Stafford, who had fought on Edward’s side, died soon after, and her son Henry was sent to France for his safety. By 1472, moreover, Margaret had married her fourth and last husband, Thomas Lord Stanley.

In 1483 Edward IV died, and his brother usurped the Crown to become Richard III. Margaret, with typical caution, had not been hostile to the new king, but she soon joined others in actively resisting his monarchy. Many have said she played a key role in the return of her son, Henry, bidding to defeat Richard for the Crown. Stanley, who had been loyal to Richard, was also active in aiding Henry’s triumphant return. Henry would defeat Richard at the Battle of Bosworth in August 1485 to become Henry VII, marking the start of the Tudor dynasty, one of England’s most successful royal lines.

Henry VII was a broadly successful king, and Margaret was a close and influential aid to her son. She was active in, among many other affairs of court, the marriage of Henry to Elizabeth of York, thereby uniting the houses of York and Lancaster. Her biographers show Margaret as a woman who played a very important role in the reign of Henry VII, who enjoyed her authority, worked to exert and maintain it, and became very wealthy. Still, with all her skill with policy and finance, Margaret was an exceptionally devout woman, committing herself to sober and intensive worship. She spent large portions of the day taking Mass and offering prayer.

Stanley died in 1504. There has been speculation about the closeness of Margaret and Stanley. Some have made the case that they were a distant couple, existing in a marriage that was founded on political expediency rather than love. Those who have taken this point of view have pointed to Margaret’s increased independence during the marriage, particularly the establishment of her own household and a vow of chastity before her husband’s death. There has been an effort to reconsider this picture, suggesting that Margaret’s move away from Stanley could be explained in political terms rather than as a result of any hostility between the couple. The biographers who make this claim highlight Stanley’s frequent and seemingly welcome visits to Margaret’s estate, as well as the very proper period of mourning that Margaret faithfully observed after Stanley’s death.

The young Prince Arthur, Henry’s oldest son, had died in the same decade, as had Henry’s wife, Queen Elizabeth. Finally, in 1509, Henry VII himself died. Margaret had outlived her husbands, her daughter-in-law, her son, and her oldest grandchild. With the coronation of her grandson, Henry VIII, however, she did not outlive the dynasty to which she had given birth, as she died days later in June 1509.

In the last years of her life, Margaret had been busy securing a legacy visible centuries later. She had for some years been developing a deep and profound tie to higher education. Her interest turned into direct and groundbreaking levels of support for Oxford University, but especially Cambridge University. Her first gift was to both, providing for each university endowments for lectureships in theology. Soon her abundant resources and energies were directed almost singularly toward Cambridge, however, as she diligently lobbied and funded the transformation of the smaller God’s House at Cambridge into Christ’s College. The founding of the college was significant, and Margaret had not been simply a figurehead sanctioning the work. She had been involved at every level, and the immense success of the project was largely because of her support.

At the close of her life, she had begun plans to establish a second college at Cambridge. This late design involved the transformation of an old Cambridge hospital into St. John’s College. She died before the project was much more than a concept, but her wishes for St. John’s were realized in the years after her death.

Significance

Margaret was the fountainhead of the Tudor dynasty, a royal line that continued into the seventeenth century. Her contribution to one of the world’s finest seats of learning, moreover, was meaningful and lasting. On an individual level, however, Margaret was a complex, often admirable, though frequently calculating woman. Her life is worthy of study for the significance of her actions, for her important place in the lineage of a royal family, and for her example of how one woman operated with intelligence and sharp skill within the limits of a strict patriarchal culture.

Evidence of the persistence of the legacy of Margaret and her ruling family came in late 2023 with the announcement that citizens of an English village had worked to uncover the remains of a palace, significant to the Tudor dynasty, that Margaret had owned and occupied but had been lost over time. Using technology acquired through grant money and collaborative research, the team succeeded in locating and digging up remains of the palace's walls and foundation that experts then verified.

Bibliography

Jones, Michael K., and Malcom G. Underwood. The King’s Mother. Cambridge UP, 1992.

Seward, Desmond. Wars of the Roses. Viking Press, 1995.

Simon, Linda. Of Virtue Rare. Houghton Mifflin, 1982.

Specia, Megan. "Amateur Historians Heard Tales of a Lost Tudor Palace. Then, They Dug It Up." The New York Times, 26 May 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/05/26/world/europe/england-collyweston-tudor-palace.html. Accessed 21 June 2024.

Stanton, Graham, et al. Lady Margaret Beaufort and Her Professors of Divinity at Cambridge. Cambridge UP, 2003.