Spotlight: Margaret Beaufort

Name: Margaret Beaufort / Margaret Tudor / Margaret Stafford / Margaret Stanley.

Title/s: My Lady the King’s Mother, Countess of Richmond, Countess of Derby, Lady Stafford, Baroness Stanley.

Birth / Death: 31 May 1443 – 29 June 1509.

Spouse: Edmund Tudor 1^st Earl of Richmond 1430 – 1456 / Sir Henry Stafford c.1425 – 1471 / Thomas Stanley 1^st Earl of Derby 1435 – 1504.

Children: Henry VII 1457 – 1509 (by Edmund Tudor).

Parents: John Beaufort 1^st Duke of Somerset 1403 – 1444 & Margaret Beauchamp c.1410 – 1482.

Siblings: John Welles 1^st Viscount Welles c.1450-1498 (half-brother)

Noble Connections: Margaret Beaufort was descended from an illegitimate line from Edward III. Her son became Henry VII, and her first husband was Edmund Tudor, the half-brother of Henry VI, who Margaret was devoted to.

Events of their Lifetime: Battle of Bosworth Field 1485, the mystery of the Princes in the Tower 1483?, the reigns of Henry VI (d.1471), Edward IV (d.1483), Edward V (d.1483?), Richard III (d.1485) and Henry VII (d.1509), and the Wars of the Roses.

Controversy: There has been debate over just how far Margaret Beaufort was willing to go to put her son on the throne – did she have a hand in the deaths of the Princes in the Tower?

Works of Fiction:
Gower, Iris, Destiny’s Child (1999)
Gregory, Philippa, The Red Queen (2010)
King, Betty, The Lady Margaret (1965)
King, Betty, The King’s Mother (1969)

Portrayals on Screen:
Sally Edwards, Princes in the Tower, 2005, directed by Justin Hardy
Amanda Hale, The White Queen, 2013, 10 episodes
Marigold Sharman, The Shadow of the Tower, 1972, 8 episodes

Further Reading:
Anglo, S., ‘The Foundation of the Tudor Dynasty: the Coronation and Marriage of Henry VII’, Guildhall Miscellanea, 2 (1960)
Chrimes, S.B., Lancastrians, Yorkists and Henry VII (1966)
Jones, M.K., The King’s Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort (1992)
Loades, David, The Tudor Queens of England (2009)
Skidmore, Chris, Bosworth: the Birth of the Tudors (2013)
Strickland, Agnes, Lives of the Tudor Princesses (1868)

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