Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty (2 page)
Richard, by the grace of God, King of England and of France, and Lord of Ireland, to our most dear kinsmen the noble men John [Beaufort], knight, Henry, clerk, Thomas, young gentleman, and to the beloved noble woman, Joan Beaufort, young lady, children of our most dear uncle the noble man John, Duke of Lancaster, our lieges, greeting and benevolence of our royal majesty. Since we thought in our inner contemplation, how ceaselessly and with what honours we have been blessed by the paternal and sincere affection of our uncle, and by the maturity of his counsel, we thought it fitting and worthy that with our knowledge of his merits and contemplation of the grace of persons, we should confer the blessing of our special prerogative and of our favour and grace on you who shine by the quality of your great worth and the honesty of your life and manners, and are sprung from royal stock, and endowed with many virtues and signs of divine favour. Therefore, yielding to the prayers of our uncle, your father, with whom it is said, you bear a defect of birth … we wish nevertheless that whatsoever honours, dignities, pre-eminencies, status, ranks, and offices, public and private, perpetual and temporal, feudal and noble there may be … whether held immediately or directly from us … you may receive, hold, enjoy, and exercise, as fully, freely, and lawfully as if you were born in lawful wedlock.
Richard concluded by confirming that ‘we legitimate you … and any children that you may have’, and he imposed no limits on the Beaufort’s new status. By the statute of 1397, the Beauforts were legally to be considered as legitimate as their elder half-brother, Henry, Earl of Derby, and the other children of John of Gaunt’s first two marriages. As a further mark of their status and royal favour, Richard II created the eldest Beaufort, John, Earl of Somerset. Although John of Gaunt had only one legitimate son before the legitimisation of the Beauforts, he had no real dynastic need of further sons, as his heir, Henry, Earl of Derby, was a mature man with a large family of his own. It is therefore most likely that, as one contemporary, the chronicler Jehan Froissart, suggested, John of Gaunt was motivated by affection for his new wife and their children. John did not long survive his marriage, and his Will is a testament to his love for the children of all three of his marriages. He left bequests to all his children and to Katherine Swynford, although he asked to be buried beside his first wife, Blanche, in St Paul’s Cathedral.
Although John of Gaunt sought to provide for his Beaufort children, his main efforts were directed towards his heir, Henry, Earl of Derby, and he secured a marriage for him with Mary de Bohun, one of the greatest heiresses in England. Even in his father’s lifetime, Henry came into conflict with his cousin, Richard II, and following John of Gaunt’s death in 1399, he returned from a continental exile to depose his cousin, taking the throne as Henry IV. With the accession of Henry IV, the Beauforts, as the halfsiblings of the King, naturally came to a degree of prominence. A near contemporary of Henry, John Capgrave, declared that he wore the crown ‘not so much by right of descent as by the election of the people’, and it was certainly the case that there were people in England with a stronger hereditary claim than Henry IV. In spite of the defects in his own claim, Henry was not prepared to consider the possibility of the Beauforts inheriting the crown, and he inserted a clause into the statute of 1397 declaring that they were legitimate in all matters, save with regard to the inheritance of the throne. The legality of this insertion is debatable, and it does not appear to have been enacted by parliament. However, it did, in the eyes of many, prejudice any claim to the throne that the Beauforts could make. By the time of Margaret Beaufort’s birth, the Beauforts were recognised as close kin to the ruling Lancastrian dynasty, but their position with regard to the crown was distinctly uncertain. In other respects, however, Henry IV was prepared to favour his Beaufort half-siblings, and in 1404, for example, he agreed to grant the Earl of Somerset £1,000 a year until he could be provided with lands to maintain his position. Somerset’s daughter, Joan Beaufort, was also considered a suitable bride for James I of Scotland, whom she married during the reign of Henry VI in 1424.
Margaret’s grandfather, John, Earl of Somerset, died in 1410 and was succeeded by his eldest son. Eight years later, on the death of his elder brother, Margaret’s father succeeded to the family earldom and estates. The second John Beaufort endured something of a wasted life. Only three years after he became Earl of Somerset, when he was still aged under twenty, he travelled to France in the company of his stepfather, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, the brother of Henry V. Clarence was one of the leading English commanders in the Hundred Years War, which had begun in the fourteenth century when Edward III claimed the throne of France through his mother, Isabella of France. Clarence and Somerset served together at the Battle of Baugé in 1421, which proved to be one of the few defeats suffered by Henry V’s army during his successful conquest of France. The battle was a disaster, and Clarence and a number of other prominent members of the English nobility were killed. Somerset and his younger brother Thomas were captured, and both entered a long and frustrating imprisonment in France. There is evidence that both brothers fiercely resented their imprisonment. For example, in 1427, they jointly petitioned parliament and the Duke of Gloucester, who ruled as protector for the young king, Henry VI, to ask that an agreement be put into effect so that they could be released in exchange for the imprisoned Duke of Bourbon. This agreement came to nothing, although Thomas Beaufort was eventually released in 1430. Somerset, as the elder brother, was a more valuable prisoner, and as the highest ranking English prisoner taken by the French, it took seventeen years for his ransom to be agreed. Whilst he was imprisoned, he was overshadowed at the English court by his younger brother, Edmund Beaufort.
Somerset returned to England after seventeen years and immediately set about establishing himself as a leading nobleman and landowner. He had been young and inexperienced when he was imprisoned, and upon his release, he found the challenge of his role as a landowning lord beyond his capabilities. According to the
Crowland Chronicle Continuations
, on his return to England, Somerset resolved to take personal control of his manor of Deeping in Lincolnshire:
And the whole multitudes of the district flocked forth to meet him, each one endeavouring to be avenged upon his neighbour, and thinking himself fortunate in being enrolled among the number of his servants. The people of Depyng were especially elated, as though a prophet had arisen amongest them; escorting him about on every side, promising great things, and suggesting still more; while by the voice of a herald they proclaimed him lord of the whole marsh. Upon this, his heart was elevated to a lofty pitch, and, being puffed up by the great applause of the populace, his horn was exalted too greatly on high. Forthwith, tolls were levied by his servants in the vills; and the cattle of all were driven away from the marshes, and, when driven as far as Depyng, were there detained; nor were they allowed to be redeemed without a payment and acknowledgement of him as lord of the demesne.
Somerset also upset the abbot of the neighbouring Crowland Abbey by raising an embankment and refusing to allow goods to be transported to the monastery over his lands. The indignant abbot complained directly to the King, to Somerset’s fury.
Somerset had been forced to pay a large ransom to secure his release from France, and this may have been behind his attempts to extract the maximum profit from Deeping and his other lands. He certainly drove a hard bargain when, in 1443, it was suggested that he lead a military expedition in France. Following his accession to the throne, Henry V had renewed the Hundred Years War against France with great success, and by the time of his death in 1422, he had been recognised as heir to the French throne. With Henry V’s early death, his infant son, Henry VI, inherited his claims, and he was proclaimed as King of France on the death of his maternal grandfather, Charles VI. Initially, with France governed by Henry VI’s uncle, the Duke of Bedford, the English were able to maintain their grip on the conquered kingdom. However, by the early 1440s, the tide of the war had firmly turned against them. In 1443, the English council determined to send an army to defend Gascony, which had been in English hands since the twelfth century, and Somerset was selected to be the commander.
The choice of Somerset to lead an important military expedition was an odd one, as, apart from a brief experience of war in his late teens, he had no military experience. By 1443, Henry VI, who was the only child of his parents’ marriage, had few relatives, and the English royal family was greatly depleted. Somerset, with his Lancastrian blood, was therefore almost certainly selected due to his position on the fringes of the royal family rather than due to any ability that he had shown. The choice proved to be disastrous.
Somerset was not entirely enthusiastic about the campaign, and he drove a hard bargain with the royal council. Henry VI agreed to create his cousin Duke of Somerset, with precedence over all other dukes save the King’s uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, and the royally descended Duke of York, who was leading a campaign in Normandy. Somerset also received an annual income of 600 marks, after his initial demands for 1,000 marks were rejected, and was created Earl of Kendal. For Somerset, this was an acknowledgement of his royal blood, and he was satisfied with all that was granted, also receiving the confirmation that he would be in overall authority in any part of France ‘in the whiche my said Lorde of York cometh not’. One final point over which Somerset bargained was in relation to the child that his wife was expecting that summer. Somerset knew that it was possible that he would not survive the campaign, and he was anxious to ensure that Margaret Beauchamp retained custody of their expected child and, also, their lands and their disposal in marriage. This again was granted, and the birth of Margaret Beaufort on 31 May, less than three weeks before the day appointed for the expedition, may account for the fact that Somerset did not meet with his army as planned. Personal business may also have delayed matters, and that summer, he met with the abbot of Crowland at Corfe Castle in Dorset in an attempt to bring their dispute to an end. Somerset was in no hurry to reach an agreement, but he was finally persuaded to write to his seneschal ordering him not to interfere with the abbey or its servants until the matter could be fully settled on his return. Somerset missed the next date scheduled for his campaign to begin, and around 9 July, the council lost patience, informing him that the delay was costing the king £500 a day and ordering him to depart. He finally joined his army at the end of July and took up his commission as ‘lieutenant and captain-general of France and Gascony’. He immediately caused a major diplomatic incident by taking his army into Brittany, an ally of England, and pillaging the towns and countryside. It seems unlikely that Somerset could have failed to realise that he had crossed into Brittany, and his actions demonstrate his shortcomings as a military commander. Duke Francis I of Brittany immediately complained to Henry VI, declaring that Somerset had entered like a conqueror and threatening to abandon his alliance with the English. With difficulty, the Breton alliance was salvaged, but not before Somerset had extracted a tribute payment from the duchy. His expedition proved to be utterly ineffective, and he was summoned home in disgrace, having cost the crown over £26,000.
Somerset appears not to have realised quite how furious the King and council were, and the
Crowland Chronicle Continuations
tell us that he returned ‘amid much pomp to England’. He was soon made aware of the anger directed at him when he was refused an audience with the King, instead being banished from court. A chastened Somerset returned to his West Country estates, aware that his career was over and that he was facing a charge of treason. According to the
Crowland Chronicle Continuations
, which appears to be a reliable source for Somerset and his family,
The noble heart of a man of such high rank upon his hearing this most unhappy news [i.e., his banishment], was moved to extreme indignation; and being unable to bear the stain of so great a disgrace, he accelerated his death by putting an end to his existence, it is generally said; preferring thus to cut short his sorrow, rather than pass a life of misery, labouring under so disgraceful a charge.
Somerset died just under a year after the birth of his only child. The charge of suicide cannot be substantiated, but it is certainly a possibility, as he was in the greatest disgrace. Margaret Beaufort had no memory of her father, but she was later associated with Crowland Abbey and would have heard the rumours about her father’s death. In commenting on Somerset’s death, the Crowland chronicler recited a prophecy about the duke, declaring that it had been foreseen that ‘hardly for twice two years endured John’s pride of power’. As a sign of her sympathy for her father, Margaret later paid for a grand tomb to mark his grave and that of her mother at Wimborne Minster in Dorset. Even from her infancy, Margaret Beaufort’s life was subject to the jubilation and miseries of Fortune’s wheel, and she reached her first birthday as both the daughter of a disgraced probable suicide and one of the greatest heiresses in England.
With the disgrace and early death of her father, Margaret, who was only days away from her first birthday, was left in a precarious position. Before he left for France, Margaret’s father had secured the King’s agreement that, in the event of his death, his wife would be left with custody of their child. Whilst Somerset’s younger brother, Edmund Beaufort, inherited the Somerset earldom and some estates entailed on the male line, Margaret was left very wealthy, and certain members of the court began to look greedily towards her wardship and eventual marriage.