LADY MARGARET BEAUFORT, mother of Henry VII | The real red queen | winning the Wars of the Roses

The life of LADY MARGARET BEAUFORT, mother of Henry VII, was full of danger, intrigue, child marriage and near-death experiences as she battled for her only child’s rights in an epic fight for the throne which lasted for decades. A wealthy heiress and a descendant of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, at the age of 12 Margaret was married off to the half-brother of King Henry VI, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond. She was then left widowed and pregnant at just 13. She remarried to Henry Stafford the following year, but her child was taken from her while he was still just a small boy and ended up in exile as a teenager, as two branches of the Plantagenet royal family (the Lancastrians and the Yorks) fought for control of England, putting young Henry’s life in danger as Edward IV and Richard III sought to capture and kill him. This battle was known as the Wars of the Roses and Margaret was one of its smartest and ultimately most successful players, who used marriages to create alliances, switched sides when needs be and collaborated with other famous women, including Queen Elizabeth Woodville, to protect Henry Tudor’s life and ultimately help to steer him to the throne. Indeed she could rightly be credited with winning the Wars of the Roses alongside her son and one-time brother-in-law, Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford. In this week’s video from History Calling, I’ll tell you the extraordinary story of how this little girl, who started out as nothing but a pawn, rose to become the red queen (to give her a later appellation attached to her) so that by the time she was 40, Margaret was the most powerful woman in the kingdom and had earned her place as one of the most famous women of the Wars of the Roses. Her story intersects with famous events including the very fishy death of Henry VII, the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower (which Margaret has sometimes been accused of causing) and the Battle of Bosworth, when the Plantagenet dynasty’s hold on the throne was finally extinguished.

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READ MORE:

Michael K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood, The King’s Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (Cambridge, 1992) available at https://amzn.to/3EgInG7

BUY OR RENT:

Britain’s Bloody Crown Presented by Dan Jones (2016) [Documentary covering the Wars of the Roses] https://amzn.to/2TPep8i
The White Queen (TV show, 2013) https://amzn.to/3dm7kBL (UK LINK) OR https://amzn.to/2VcbQO5 (US LINK)
The King in the Carpark (2013). Documentary about the discovery of Richard III’s skeleton in 2012. https://amzn.to/3C0loMF (UK LINK)

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