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 1443 - 1509 (~ 66 years)
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| Name |
Beaufort, Margaret |
| Born |
31 May 1443 |
Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, England  |
| Gender |
Female |
| Buried |
29 Jun 1509 |
Westminster Abbey, Westminster, London, England |
| Person ID |
I01197 |
My Genealogy |
| Last Modified |
17 Feb 2015 |
| Father |
Beaufort, John, b. 25 Mar 1404, England , d. 27 May 1444, Wimborne, Dorset, England (Age 40 years) |
| Mother |
Beauchamp, Lady Margaret, b. Abt 1410, Of Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, England , d. 8 Aug 1482, Wimborne, Dorset, England (Age ~ 72 years) |
| Married |
Abt 1441 |
England |
| Family ID |
F00133 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
| Family 1 |
Tudor, Edmund, b. Abt 1431, Of Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, England , d. 1 Nov 1456, Grey Friars, Carmarthan, Wales (Age ~ 25 years) |
| Married |
01 Nov 1455 |
England |
| Children |
| | 1. Tudor, Henry, b. 28 Jan 1457, Wales , d. 1509, London, England (Age 51 years) |
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| Family ID |
F00489 |
Group Sheet | Family Chart |
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| Notes |
- Margaret was born at Bletso Castle, Bedfordshire , on 31 May 1443. The date and month are not disputed, as she required Westminster Abbey to celebrate her birthday on 31 May. The year of her birth is more uncertain. William Dugdale , the 17th century antiquary, has suggested that she may have been born two years earlier, in 1441. This suggestion is based on evidence of inquisitions taken at the death of Margaret's father. Dugdale has been followed by a number of Margaret's biographers. However, it is more likely that she was born in 1443, as in May 1443, her father had negotiated with the King about the wardship of his unborn child in case he died on a campaign.[1]
She was the daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset , and Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso ... According to Thomas Basin , Somerset died of illness, but the Crowland Chronicle reported that his death was suicide. Margaret, as his only child, was the heiress to his fortunes.[2]
On Margaret's first birthday, the King broke his arrangement with Margaret's father and gave her wardship to William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk , though Margaret remained with her mother... Although she was her father's only legitimate child, Margaret had two half-brothers and three half-sisters from her mother's first marriage whom she supported after her son's accession.[4]
Margaret was married to Suffolk's son, John de la Pole . The wedding was held between 28 January and 7 February 1450. Papal dispensation was granted on 18 August 1450 because the spouses were too closely related. Three years later, the marriage was dissolved and the king granted Margaret's wardship to his own half-brothers, Jasper and Edmund Tudor .[5][6][7]
Margaret never recognized this marriage. In her will, made in 1472, Margaret refers to Edmund Tudor as her first husband. Under canon law Margaret was not bound by the marriage contract anyway, as she entered the marriage before reaching the age of twelve.[8] ...Margaret was 12 when she married 24-year old Edmund Tudor on 1 November 1455.
Margaret and her son remained in Pembroke until the York triumphs of 1461.[11] ....The Countess always respected the name and memory of Edmund for he was the father of her only child. In 1472, sixteen years after his death, Margaret specified in her will that she wanted to be buried alongside Edmund, although she enjoyed a long, stable and close relationship with her third husband who died in 1471.
On 3 January 1462, Margaret married Henry Stafford (c.1425 - 1471), son of Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham. The dispensation for the marriage, necessary because Margaret and Stafford were second cousins....Margaret's own estates were still the main source of income. Margaret's estates enabled the pair to enjoy an aristocratic lifestyle. They had no children.[14]
She became a widow again in 1471.
In June 1472, Margaret married Thomas Stanley, the Lord High Constable and King of Mann. ...Later in her marriage, the Countess preferred living alone. In 1499, with her husband's permission, she took a vow of chastity in the presence of Richard FitzJames Bishop of London Taking a vow of chastity while being married was unprecedented. She moved away from her husband and lived alone at Collyweston She was regularly visited by her husband, who had rooms reserved for him. Margaret renewed her vows in 1504.
On the death of Henry VII, the Countess was declared to be regent for her grandson, Henry VIII , who was considered too young to reign on his own.
Her regency was short lived, however, as the Countess died on 29 June 1509 in the Deanery of Westminster Abbey just over two months after the death of her son. She is buried in the Henry VII Lady Chapel of the Abbey, in a black marble tomb topped with a bronze gilded effigy and canopy...
Her tomb was sculpted by Pietro Torrigiano and features a portrait effigy of Margaret dressed in traditional widow’s dress, her head resting on two pillows decorated with the Tudor badge, her hands raised in prayer and the Beaufort family crest at her feet. The Latin inscription, written by Erasmus, translates as “Margaret of Richmond, mother of Henry VII, grandmother of Henry VIII, who gave a salary to three monks of this convent and founded a grammar school at Wimborne, and to a preacher throughout England, and to two interpreters of Scripture, one at Oxford, the other at Cambridge, where she likewise founded two colleges, one to Christ, and the other to St John, his disciple. Died A.D.1509, III Kalends of July [29 June]“.
Will: MARGARET COUNTESS OF RICHMOND.
In the name of Almighty God, Amen. We, Margaret Countes of Richmond and Derby , moder to the most excellent Prince King Henry the VHth, by the g'ce of God King of England and of Fraunce, and Lorde of lrlande, our most dere son, have called to our remembrance the unstabilnesse of this transitory worlde, and that ev'ry creatur here lyving is mortall, and the tyme and place of deth to ev'y creatur uncerteyn. .....And our body to be buried in the monastery of Seynt Peter of Westm'r, in suche convenable place as we in o'r lif, or our executors after our decesse, shall provide for the same within the Chapell of o'r Lady, which is nowe begon by the said o'r most deer son.... place of our interment that shal be helping at all divine s'vices of placebo and dirige with Seynt John our Chamberlayn.... . Proved 17 tb October 1512.
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