However, there is more evidence to suggest they were married in January 1450, after Suffolk had been arrested and was looking to secure his son's future by betrothing him to a conveniently wealthy ward whose children could be potential claimants to the throne. The wedding may have been held between 28 January and 7 February 1444, when she was perhaps a year old but certainly no more than three.

Margaret was married to Suffolk's son, John de la Pole. Monumental brass of Edmund Tudor, St David's Cathedral, Pembrokeshire Although she was her father's only legitimate child, Margaret had two maternal half-brothers and three maternal half-sisters from her mother's first marriage whom she supported after her son's accession to the throne. Margaret's mother was pregnant at the time of Somerset's death, but the child did not survive and Margaret remained the sole heir. Upon her first birthday, the king broke the arrangement with Margaret's father and granted the wardship of her extensive lands to William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, although Margaret herself remained in the custody of her mother. Both effectively rendered Margaret, as her biographers Jones and Underwood write, 'a pawn in the unstable political atmosphere of the Lancastrian court'. As his only surviving child, Margaret was heiress to his considerable fortune and inheritor of his contested claim to the throne. According to Thomas Basin, Somerset died of illness. 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. 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.Īs Somerset was a tenant-in-chief of the crown, the wardship of his heir fell to the crown under the feudal system. Early yearsĪt the moment of her birth, Margaret's father was preparing to go to France and lead an important military expedition for King Henry VI.

Dugdale has been followed by a number of Lady 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 concerning the wardship of his unborn child should he die on campaign. William Dugdale, the 17th-century antiquary, suggested that she had been born in 1441, based on evidence of inquisitions post mortem taken after the death of her father. Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, a nineteenth-century foundation named after her was the first Oxford college to admit women.

She is credited with the establishment of two prominent Cambridge colleges, founding Christ's College in 1505 and beginning the development of St John's College, which was completed posthumously by her executors in 1511. She was also a major patron and cultural benefactor during her son's reign, initiating an era of extensive Tudor patronage. With her son crowned Henry VII, Lady Margaret wielded a considerable degree of political influence and personal autonomy – both unusual for a woman of her time. She was thus instrumental in orchestrating the rise to power of the Tudor dynasty. Beaufort's efforts ultimately culminated in Henry's decisive victory over King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Capitalising on the political upheaval of the period, she actively manoeuvred to secure the crown for her son. Lady Margaret Beaufort (usually pronounced: / ˈ b oʊ f ər t/ BOH-fərt or / ˈ b juː f ər t/ BEW-fərt – 29 June 1509) was a major figure in the Wars of the Roses of the late fifteenth century, and mother of King Henry VII of England, the first Tudor monarch.Ī descendant of King Edward III, Lady Margaret passed a disputed claim to the English throne to her son, Henry Tudor.

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