Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty

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This is a must-read for anyone curious about the Wars of the Roses, the beginning of the Tudor dynasty, and this strong mother caught in the middle.

One could be living a life of luxury, stability reigning supreme, and is destined to marry a foreign king or prince, but when the wheel begins to spin, all seems lost, and the things that once were as good as guaranteed fall by the wayside. If you were a woman who could be ruled by affection you would have gone to Jasper and your son a dozen years ago. She certainly had a motive: if the York boys were dead then her son would be the next heir, from the Lancaster side of the family. It acts as a fantastic introduction to this turbulent time in English history that brought the downfall of the powerful Plantagenets and brought forth the Tudors.Through this superb revisionist biography, Margaret Beaufort emerges as a fascinating and often surprisingly sympathetic matriarch. This was likely to strengthen Edmund's claim to the throne should Henry be forced to designate Edmund his heir; the king was then without child or legitimate siblings. Tallis takes the time to explore this relationship and to debunk the myth that she had something to do with the Princes in the Tower and their disappearances.

A power struggle ensues between Richard Duke of Gloucester and Elizabeth Woodville over who should be King of England. Perhaps with duplicitous motives (as he may have been desirous of the crown for himself), Buckingham conspired with Beaufort and Woodville to dethrone Richard.

Although there is nothing new about exploring the lives of Tudor women, the idea of analyzing the Tudor queens and their reigns in one book is so unique and vital. Somerset fell out with the king after coming back from France and was banished from the royal court pending a charge of treason against him. Like Edward IV and his court, she was also involved with the advances in printing of William Caxton and his successor Wynkyn de Worde, not only as a patroness but for her own acquisition. If you want an insider’s look into the early years of the Tudor dynasty through the eyes of its matriarch, I highly recommend you read The Beaufort Chronicle by Judith Arnopp, especially the third book, “The King’s Mother”. Her story has been told in many different ways, but the story of her early years has rarely been told, until now.

Despite what these negotiations may suggest, Lady Margaret is known to have conspired with Elizabeth Woodville, mother of the two York princes whom Richard confined to the Tower of London, after rumours spread of the boys' murder. Owen Tudor descended from those who were involved in a Welsh rebellion against Henry IV, the first Lancastrian king, he married the wife and mother of two other Lancastrian kings, and his sons were the half-brothers of a Lancastrian King, Henry VI.Despite being Lancaster born and bred, and mother to their heir, she and her husband Thomas Stanley have been loyal to us for the last eleven years. They wrote jointly of the necessary instruction for Catherine of Aragon, who was to marry Elizabeth's son Prince Arthur. Before her death Beaufort also left her mark on the early reign of Henry VIII; when her eighteen-year-old grandson chose members of his privy council, it was Margaret's suggestions he took. This was England’s triumph, this was her son’s triumph, but far more than that, this was her triumph – to have dragged this base-born bastard family back from disaster, to challenge the power of York, to defeat a reigning king, to capture the very throne of England against all the odds. The fighting had taken the life of Margaret's father-in-law and forced Jasper Tudor to flee to Scotland and France to muster support for the Lancastrian cause.

During medieval wars, one’s fate is often determined by the spin of the Wheel of Fortune, even for those who did not fight a single battle. To see her interacting with Elizabeth Woodville and her children was a delight and makes you wonder what life might have been like for Margaret if she had more children. It was the royal blood and who had the right to rule that was at the heart of the Wars of the Roses, as Jones goes on to explain.This wouldn’t have been a problem if Henry VI was as strong as his father, but alas, as king was very weak, which meant that he needed help to rule his kingdoms. Somerset negotiated with the king to ensure that if he were to die, the rights to Margaret's wardship and marriage would be granted only to his wife.