Henry reinforced the power of the monarchy by tightening up administration and increasing revenues. It is reported that he inspected accounts every day. Ultimately, he would be overshadowed by his (second) son and successor, King Henry VIII. We shall see what he achieved, though.
Edmund’s father, Owen Tudor, originally from the Isle of Anglesey in Wales, had been a page at the Court of Henry V. He rose in favour and fought at the Battle of Agincourt and is said to have secretly married Henry V's widow, Catherine of Valois. One of their sons, Edmund, was created Earl of Richmond in 1452, and "formally declared legitimate by Parliament".
Henry's main claim to the English throne derived from his mother, the sole remaining heir of the House of Beaufort. Lady Margaret Beaufort was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster and fourth son of Edward III, and his third wife Katherine Swynford. Margaret’s ancestor, however, was born before Gaunt and Katherine married, but was legitimised by Letters Patent in 1397 by Gaunt's nephew Richard II, subsequently read out by the Chancellor in Parliament, thus making it in effect an Act of Parliament. Conversely, Henry IV, Gaunt's son by his first wife, issued new Letters Patent in 1407 again confirming the legitimacy of his half-siblings but also specifically declaring them ineligible for the throne.
Henry Tudor's main claim was thus somewhat tenuous. Nevertheless, by 1483 Henry was the senior male Lancastrian claimant remaining after the deaths in battle, by murder or execution of his closest relatives. Margaret was actively promoting Henry as an alternative to Richard III, despite by now being married to a Yorkist herself and acting with King Edward IV's widow, Elizabeth Woodville. Henry also pledged to marry Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV, who was also Edward's heir since the presumed deaths of her brothers, the Princes in the Tower.
Having first tried from Brittany, where he had fled in exile, Henry landed in his native Pembrokeshire with the ready help of the French and his prospective in-laws, the Woodvilles and marched towards England with his uncle, Jasper Tudor. Amassing an army of about 5,000 soldiers, he decided to engage Richard III quickly and defeated him at Bosworth Field on 22nd August 1485, supposedly plucking Richard’s crown from a hawthorn bush and placing it on his own head.
Henry's Arms as Earl of Richmond were naturally the same as his father Edmund's, namely the Royal Arms with a Bordure azure charged alternately with Fleurs-de-Lys and Martlets or. (A Martlet is a stylised bird similar to a house martin (from whom, it is said, its name is derived), but with no feet. The bird is so depicted because it tends to fly for considerable lengths of time and it was therefore believed to have no feet.) See also below. The Royal Heraldry of England by J. H. & R. V. Pinches, 1974 describes Henry's Crest but, whilst there is no reason to disbelieve him, no graphic can be found to substantiate this. (Unless you know differently...) On a Chapeau gules turned up ermine, a Lion statant guardant crowned or, gorged with a plain Collar azure, thereon three Martlets gold. |
Henry is also said to have combined the Rose Badges of the warring sides of the War of the Roses into the one Tudor Rose, as we also saw in a previous Blog. However, it is debatable that the combined Rose Badge was anything other than a Tudor ploy, played on mainly by Henry's son, Henry VIII. Henry VII certainly used his mother's Portcullis Badge more. As previously mentioned, the historian Thomas Penn writes in "How Henry VII branded the Tudors", The Guardian, 2 March 2012: The "Lancastrian" red rose was an emblem that barely existed before Henry VII. Lancastrian kings used the rose sporadically, but when they did it was often gold rather than red; Henry VI, the king who presided over the country's descent into civil war, preferred his badge of the antelope. Contemporaries certainly did not refer to the traumatic civil conflict of the 15th century as the "Wars of the Roses". For the best part of a quarter-century, from 1461 to 1485, there was only one royal rose, and it was white: the badge of Edward IV. The roses were actually created after the war by Henry VII. |
Henry kept to his pledge and married Elizabeth of York on 18th January 1486 at Westminster Abbey, thus combining the two warring houses and giving any children of his a strong claim to the Throne. (Henry had had Parliament repeal Titulus Regius, the statute that declared Edward IV's marriage invalid and his children illegitimate, thus legitimising his wife.)
Henry basically did everything he could to secure his Crown. He undermined the power of the nobility to secure loyalty. He also enacted laws against livery and maintenance to prevent potential private armies. He either secured the allegiance of a number of contenders or fought off rebellions, the most notable of which were from the pretenders such as Lambert Simnel, who claimed to be Edward IV's nephew, and Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, the brother of Edward V and the younger of the "Princes in the Tower". The rebellions were put-up jobs and largely easy to defeat. Simnel was pardonned and made a servant in the royal kitchen, but Warbeck, who actually mounted a number of invasions, was captured and executed.
Unlike his predecessors, Henry VII came to the Throne with no personal experience in estate management or financial administration. But, during his reign, he became a fiscally prudent monarch who restored the fortunes of an effectively bankrupt exchequer and introduced stability to the financial administration of England.
Henry was one of the first European monarchs to recognise the importance of the newly united Spanish kingdom, concluding the Treaty of Medina del Campo, by which his son, Arthur Tudor, was married to Catherine of Aragon. He also concluded the Treaty of Perpetual Peace with Scotland (the first treaty between England and Scotland for almost two centuries), by which his daughter Margaret was married to King James IV of Scotland. Henry VII hoped to break the Auld Alliance between Scotland and France, but this was not achieved during his reign. The marriage eventually led to the union of the English and Scottish crowns under Margaret's great-grandson, James VI and I, following the death of Henry's childless granddaughter Elizabeth I.
In 1502 Henry suffered the loss of his newly married eldest son and heir, Arthur, Prince of Wales. The following year, his wife, Queen Elizabeth (Elizabeth of York), died in childbirth. Both these deaths hit Henry very hard and it is unusual for the times that Henry either showed great affection by weeping openly or shut himself away for several days. (It is also unusual for the times that Henry VII had no known mistresses.) Not long after Elizabeth's death, Henry would also 'lose' his eldest daughter, Margaret, when he rode with her to the Scottish border as she was betrothed to King James IV there. He would never see her again. The death of his eldest son left his second son, Henry Duke of York, as his only heir, putting the new House of Tudor in a precarious political position. Henry obtained special dispensation from the Pope for Arthur's widow, Catherine of Aragon, to marry the young Henry, but the boy would be too young to marry during his father's lifetime. Henry senior even obtained Papal dispensation to marry Catherine himself after Elizabeth died but didn't carry this through. He also attempted to find a second wife, to secure more male heirs, but this came to nought, especially when it was soon realised that the physical description Henry sent with his ambassadors of what he desired in a new wife matched the description of Elizabeth.
Henry's health deteriorated and he succumbed to tuberculosis at Richmond Palace in 1509, a couple of months before his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, died.
Elizabeth of York
On 9th April 1483, Elizabeth's father unexpectedly died and her younger brother, Edward V, ascended to the Throne with their uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, regent and protector. Gloucester opted to take steps to isolate his nephews from their Woodville relations, including their own mother and had the boy King intercepted whilst travelling from Ludlow, where he had been living as Prince of Wales, to London to be crowned. Edward V was placed in the Tower of London, ostensibly for his protection. Elizabeth Woodville fled with her children, taking sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. Gloucester asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to take Richard, Duke of York to the Tower to keep his brother Edward company. Elizabeth Woodville, under duress, eventually agreed.
On 22nd June 1483, Edward IV's marriage was declared invalid. Claiming that Edward IV had already been betrothed to Lady Eleanor Butler, Parliament issued a bill, Titulus Regius ("Royal Title") which legally rendered the children of Edward IV illegitimate and ineligible for the Succession. Gloucester was declared the rightful king as Richard III and the succession was diverted to children of another late brother of the new King. Edward and Richard, the ‘Princes in the Tower’, disappeared soon afterwards and rumours began to spread that they had been murdered.
It was at this stage that Elizabeth Woodville made an alliance with Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, who had the closest claim to the throne among the Lancastrian party although it descended from John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, whose legitimised offspring had been barred from the Throne by Richard II. Whatever the merits of Henry's claim, the mothers agreed he should move to claim the Throne and marry Elizabeth of York to unite the two rival houses, which Henry Tudor swore in the cathedral of Rennes in December 1483 to do.
In 1484, Elizabeth of York and her sisters left Westminster Abbey and returned to court when their mother was apparently reconciled with Richard III. This may have been part of the plan to bring the King down. It was rumoured that Richard III intended to marry Elizabeth of York because his wife, Anne Neville, was dying and they had no surviving children. But soon after his wife’s death, Richard III sent Elizabeth away from court and opened negotiations to marry Joan, Princess of Portugal.
Henry Tudor and his army landed in Wales on 7th August 1485. On 22nd, he and Richard III fought at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Richard III died and Henry took the Crown by right of conquest as Henry VII.
As the eldest daughter of Edward IV with no surviving brothers, Elizabeth of York had a strong claim to the throne in her own right, but she did not assume the throne as queen regnant because of a historical mistrust of female rule. Also, whilst acknowledging that marriage with Elizabeth would consolidate his claim to the Throne and weaken claims form any surviving members of the House of York, Henry wished to reign in his own right. He therefore held his Coronation first, on 30th October 1485. Henry had the Titulus Regius repealed, thereby legitimating his future wife and arranged for a Papal Bull (which was slow and had to be applied for twice) because of their common descent from John of Gaunt. They were married on 18th January 1486 in Westminster Abbey.
Although an arranged marriage, Henry and Elizabeth came to love each other and Elizabeth proved very useful in setting up a proper court as Henry had been in exile from England since he was 14 years old. To help secure the Throne and end the feuding of the War of the Roses, they married off Yorkist princesses to Lancastrians. Henry is often thought of as being miserly (which came about later in life) but to his wife and children he was as generous as Elizabeth was charitable. She shared her husband’s grand designs for buildings, having a hand in designing Greenwich palace, for instance. She was diplomatic and fully involved, for instance, in the negotiations with Castile over the marriage of her eldest son, Arthur, to Catherine of Aragon.
Elizabeth had 7 or 8 pregnancies but only 4 children survived infancy – Arthur, Prince of Wales; Henry, Duke of York; Margaret and Mary. When Arthur died unexpectedly both parents grieved, but Elizabeth was the more pragmatic in pinning her hopes on Henry who succeeded his father as King Henry VIII. Margaret became Queen of Scotland and Mary became Queen of France. Elizabeth’s final birth, of a daughter Katherine, ultimately caused her own premature death and her husband took the news heavily.
Elizabeth of York was renowned as a great beauty for her time – her looks she inherited from her mother and her distinctive red hair, a trait of many of her descendants, she inherited from her father. According to folklore, Elizabeth is rumoured to be the ‘face’ of the Queen of Hearts in a pack of playing cards and is the Queen in her parlour in the nursery rhyme Sing A Song Of Sixpence, “…eating bread and honey”.
It has always been a source of intrigue why this first Tudor Queen Consort was called Elizabeth of York. Even taking into consideration the fact that that Elizabeth and her siblings were of the House of York, as the daughter of a King she, and her sisters for that matter, would surely have been Elizabeth of England. There do seem to have been fewer first names in those days and maybe 'York' was the easiest way to distinguish her from any other Elizabeth, especially her sovereign granddaughter.
Having said that though, her Arms were not the Royal Arms alone. This is not, however, to avoid doubling up the same Arms on her marital Achievement when she married Henry because all her sisters had the same Arms. As Queen they are blazonned as follows:
Quarterly 1st: Quaterly France and England; 2nd & 3rd: Or a Cross gules (de Burgh), 4th: Barry or and azure, on a Chief of the first two Pallets between two Base Esquires of the second over all an Inescutcheon argent (Mortimer)
Supporters: Dexter, the Royal Lion guardant or, imperially crowned proper. Sinister a Lion argent.
The Royal Arms in the first Quarter emphasise her descent from Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence (1338–1368), and third son (and second-surviving son) of King Edward III, on which basis the House of York claimed the Throne. Lionel married heiress Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster (1332–1363). Their daughter and only child, Philippa de Burgh, 5th Countess of Ulster, married Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March, whose son Roger de Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, was Elizabeth of York's great-great-grandfather.
Before the War of the Roses, Philippa and her descendants were the next heirs to the English Throne after the childless King Richard II. She and her line were effectively usurped by Henry of Bolingbroke, son of King Edward III's next son, the ambitious John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, thus causing the War of the Roses.
Philippa marshalled her father's Arms with her husband's. It was Roger, not being able to inherit the Royal Arms through his mother, who quartered Mortimer with de Burgh.
Arthur, Prince of Wales
Although everything was planned for the birth in Winchester, Arthur was born a month early and caught everyone, including his father and his eventual godfather, the Earl of Oxford, by surprise. (Contrary to popular rumour, he was not a sickly child.) He was christened at Winchester Cathedral (then an abbey) four days after his birth and created Prince of Wales at the age of three.
Arthur became a very good scholar, an excellent archer and a pleasant dancer. He inherited his unusual height from his grandfather, King Edward IV, and was considered extremely handsome.
Henry VII planned to marry Arthur to a daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, in order to forge an Anglo-Spanish alliance against France and their youngest daughter, Catherine, was suggested as being suitable. The Treaty of Medina del Campo (27th March 1489) provided that Arthur and Catherine would be married as soon as they reached canonical age; it also settled Catherine's dowry at 200,000 crowns. Although Arthur was only 13 years of age a Papal dispensation allowed the betrothal to go ahead by proxy on 25th August 1497 and a marriage by proxy followed two years later. Catherine landed at Plymouth when Arthur attained an age to marry at 15 and the couple met for the first time on 4th November 1501. The marriage finally took place 10 days later at the Old St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Much was made of the bedding ceremony, with bed blessed and scattered with holy water, and much significance would be made later, as we have seen.
Arthur had had many grants bestowed upon him as heir, including the County of March, and the newly-wedded couple proceeded to Ludlow Castle on the borders with Wales. In March 1502, Arthur and Catherine were afflicted by an unknown illness. While Catherine recovered, Arthur died on 2nd April 1502 at Ludlow, six months short of his sixteenth birthday. Although his mother tried to support her husband in their grief for the loss of their son and the King’s heir, both were deeply affected. On 25th April, Arthur's body was taken to Worcester Cathedral, via the River Severn, where he was laid to rest.
Henry and Elizabeth’s second son, Henry, Duke of York, was now heir, becoming the Duke of Cornwall and then Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, and the matter of what to do with Catherine soon arose. As we have seen, she and Henry married soon after Henry succeeded his father to the Throne and the matter of what happened between Catherine and Arthur became a bone of contention when a male heir did not arrive. English witnesses would maintain that Arthur and Catherine had had sexual relationships and when questioned by the disappointed Henry VIII would answer that his elder brother had been as prolific in the bedchamber as the new King was. Spanish witnesses, however, would maintain that nothing had happened and even that Catherine has expressed here disappointment in someone who was, to be frank, nothing but a boy. Catherine would maintain that she was 'uncorrupted' at the point she married Henry.
Margaret Tudor (Queen of Scotland)
Daughters were important political assets in a world where diplomacy and marriage were closely linked. Even before Margaret's sixth birthday, Henry VII thought about a marriage between Margaret and James IV as a way of ending the Scottish king's support for Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the throne of England. The marriage was completed by proxy on 25 January 1503 when Margaret was barely 13 years old, only coming to Scotland later in the year after her mother had died. It was part of the Treaty of Perpetual Peace from the year before. The marriage was celebrated in person in Holyrood Abbey on 8th August 1503.
Her first child was born in 1507 and although Margaret and James would be known to have six children, only one, another James, would survive infancy. The treaty of 1502 barely survived the death of Henry VII in 1509. His successor, Margaret’s brother Henry VIII, had little time for his father's cautious diplomacy, and was soon heading towards a war with France, Scotland's historic ally. In 1513, James invaded England to honour his commitment to the Auld Alliance, only to meet his death at the Battle of Flodden. Margaret had opposed the war, but was still named in the royal will as regent for the infant king, James V, for as long as she remained a widow. A woman was rarely welcome in a position of supreme power, and Margaret was the sister of an enemy king, which served to compound her problems, but she acted with diplomacy and managed to reconcile the contending parties. |
Shortly after obtaining an annulment in 1527, she married Henry Stewart, who was made Lord Methven when James assumed personal control of the government in 1528. For a time, Margaret and Methven were James’s most influential advisers. But in 1534 she fell out of royal favour after James discovered that she had betrayed state secrets to her brother, Henry VIII and seven years later she died at Methven Castle.
Douglas's full Coat of Arms is blazonned as follows:
Arms: Quarterly: 1st, Azure a Lion rampant argent, crowned or (Galloway); 2nd, Or a Lion rampant gules debruised by a Bendlet sable (Abernethy); 3rd, Or five Piles in Point gules (Brechin); 4th, Or a Fess chequy argent and azure over all on a Bend gules three Buckles gold (Stewart of Bonkyl); over all an Inescutcheon, argent a Human Heart gules and, on a Chief azure, three Mullets of the Field (Douglas)
Crest: A Salamander in Flames and spouting fire
Supporters: Dexter: A Savage wreathed about the middle and holding in his Hand a Baton (or Club); Sinister: A Stag antlered with ten Tynes or
Motto: Jamais Arrière (Never Behind)
Arms: Quarterly: 1st, Or a Lion rampant within a Double Tressure flory counterflory gules (Scotland); 2nd, Or a Fess chequy azure and argent with a Label of three Points gules in Chief (Stewart); 3rd, Argent a Saltire between four Roses gules (Lennox); 4th, Or a Lion rampant gules (Fife), over all an Inescutcheon gules charged with a Lion rampant holding in his Forepaw a Tower argent (Lordship of Methven)
Crest: A Tower Argent
Supporters: Dexter: A Dragon Vert; Sinister: A Greyhound Argent
Motto: Forward
Mary Tudor (Queen of France)
Mary's father was anxious for all his children to make good marriages, and many of the other kings and queens of Europe wanted Mary as a wife for one of their sons. She was considered one of the most beautiful princesses of her time and even Erasmus was moved to say of her that "Nature never formed anything more beautiful." She was first betrothed to Charles of Castile, later the Holy Roman Emperor but this betrothal was broken later. She did not get married until after her brother Henry became king. When Mary was 18, she married King Louis XII of France, who was 52 years old, in Abbeville, France, on 9th October 1514. Mary did not want to marry King Louis, but agreed when her brother said that she could marry anyone she wanted after Louis died. Louis promptly passed away on 1st January 1515. Mary had been Queen of France for barely three months.
Mary soon married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk as his third wife. Performed secretly sometime in May 1515 in France, the marriage occurred without the consent of Mary's brother, the King, despite his promise and necessitated the intervention of Thomas Wolsey. Henry eventually pardoned the couple, after they paid a large fine.
Not surprisingly, Mary did not have any children while married to Louis, but she did when she was married to Charles. Her elder daughter Frances went on to be the mother of Lady Jane Grey, who was the Queen of England for only nine days and whose story is told in a previous Blog. She thereby showed that all four of Henry VII’s adult children were significant in the history of the Tudor Dynasty.
Mary died in Westhorpe Hall in 1533. Brandon then married Catherine Willoughby two months later by whom he had his elder surviving son, also called Henry, who survived his father. The second Duke of Suffolk died at the age of 15 on the same day as his brother, Charles, who was a year or two younger, during an epidemic of the sweating sickness, which is the same illness which carried off Arthur, Prince of Wales.
Arms: Quarterly: 1st and 4th, Barry of ten pieces argent and gules, a Lion rampant or crowned party per Pale of the first and second; 2nd and 3rd, Quarterly I and IV, Azure a Cross moline or (Bruyn); II and III, Lozengy ermine and gules (de la Rokele) The title Duke of Suffolk appears to have been given to favourites of the king at the time. The first had been William de la Pole, a favourite of Henry VI. His younger son and last of that grant, Edmund had married a sister of Edward IV. Brandon was succeeded by two of his sons, both of whom died young. The title dying with them, it was given next to his son-in-law Henry Grey, father of Lady Jane. |
Lady Margaret Beaufort
Somerset was arrested for treason soon after returning from a campaign in France and died, possibly from suicide, not long afterwards. Margaret became the ward of William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk, a favourite of the King, Henry VI, and was promised in marriage to Suffolk’s son but this was dissolved later and never recognised by Margaret.
King Henry then granted Margaret's wardship to his own half-brothers, Jasper and Edmund Tudor. Edmund was considered a possible heir for Henry and marriage with Margaret would strengthen that position. At age twelve Margaret married Edmund Tudor, twelve years her senior, on 1st November 1455. The Wars of the Roses had just broken out. Edmund was taken prisoner by Yorkist forces less than a year later. He died of the plague in captivity at Carmarthen on 3rd November 1456, leaving a 13-year-old widow who was seven months pregnant.
While in the care of her brother-in-law Margaret gave birth to a son, Henry Tudor, at Pembroke rising out of her own experience. Jasper helped arrange for her to marry Sir Henry Stafford (c. 1425–1471), second son of the 1st Duke of Buckingham, on 3rd January 1458, to ensure the security of her son, who was, however, placed under Jasper’s wardship in Pembroke.
During the hiatus when Edward IV won the Throne, Margaret tried to negotiate with the new King’s brother. But soon Henry VI was back for a short time before Edward IV took over again and Margaret pleaded with Jasper to take young Henry with him into exile in France. The same year, Margaret's husband died of wounds suffered at the Battle of Barnet and, at 28 years old, Margaret became a widow again.
The following year Margaret married Thomas Stanley. Primarily a marriage of convenience to enable Margaret to return to the court of Edward IV, her efforts were successful, and she was chosen by the Queen (Elizabeth Woodville) to be godmother to one of her daughters. Following Edward's death and the seizure of the throne by Richard III, Margaret was soon back at court serving the new Queen, Anne Neville, carrying her train at the coronation. Seeking her son’s return to England, Margaret appears to have negotiated with Richard, but she is also known to have conspired with Elizabeth Woodville against Richard.
On the face of it a most pious woman, Margaret was certainly involved in—if not the mastermind behind—Buckingham's rebellion in 1483 to dethrone Richard. The plan to bring Henry back had to be aborted and the Duke lost his head for it. Richard, however, stopped short of accusing Margaret of treason by transferring her property to her husband, Lord Stanley. He also effectively imprisoned Margaret in her husband's home with the hope of preventing any further correspondence with her son. However, her husband failed to stop Margaret and when the time came for Henry to press his claim, he relied heavily on his mother to raise support in England.
Although summoned, Margaret’s husband did not fight in the Battle of Bosworth Field but was the one who picked up Richard III’s Crown and placed it on his stepson’s head. For that he was created Earl of Derby and so Margaret became known as the Countess of Richmond and Derby but was referred to in court as "My Lady the King's Mother".
The new Henry VII granted his mother many rights not possessed by many women, including the ability to own land in her own right and not that of her husband. Even though she had arranged with Elizabeth Woodville for Henry to marry Elizabeth of York and thereby become Queen Consort, Margaret maintained an equal status with the two royal Elizabeths, even allegedly to the point of changing her signature from M Richmond to Margaret R, like a queen. Margaret exerted much power in Court and over her son, possibly to the extent that Elizabeth Woodville, as Dowager Queen, withdrew in 1487. (A parallel would be Kaiser Franz Josef of Austria and his mother Archduchess Sophie.) However, it may be seen as Henry rewarding his mother directly not via her husband’s family and making arrangements directly through Parliament thereby removing any personal involvement. In 1499 she took the not-unprecedented step of taking a vow of chastity whilst remaining married. Still, when Arthur, Prince of Wales died she became instrumental in preparing his brother Henry for kingship and when Elizabeth of York died, Margaret became the principal female member of the royal family.
Henry VII died on 21st April 1509, having designated his mother chief executrix of his will. Margaret arranged her son’s funeral and her grandson’s coronation. The Countess herself died in the Deanery of Westminster Abbey on the day after her grandson Henry VIII's 18th birthday and just over two months after the death of her son.
Lady Margaret Beaufort's legacy is enormous. Henry's success without doubt owed much to the remarkable determination of his mother. Matriarch of the Tudor Dynasty, she helped arrange his prospective match with Elizabeth of York, sent him money and organised part of the 1483 rebellion. She endowed the building of chapels in Wales, was a patron of the printer William Caxton, was a successful translator of religious texts, she founded schools which still exist, established the Lady Margaret's Professorship of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, founded Christ's College, Cambridge and effectively founded St John's College there, and endowed a lectureship in divinity at the University of Oxford. Lady Margaret Hall, the first women's college at the University of Oxford, founded in 1878, was named in her honour.
Whilst Lady Maragret Beaufort's Arms may be portrayed as at the top of this section, namely Beaufort marshalling those of Edmund Tudor, the father of her son, in reality she showed her Arms alone inherited from her father, John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset. Quarterly, 1st and 4th, France modern, 2nd and 3rd England, within a Bordure componée argent and azure Unusually for a woman of her times (but not for Lady Margaret Beaufort, the Mother of the King) she not only sported a Crest - an Eagle gorged with a Coronet to which is fixed a Chain - but also Supporters - two Yales. This is a mythical creature, perhaps based on an ibex, but with tusks and with large horns that it can swivel in any direction. The Beaufort Yale at least is shown white with gold spots and mane. The Yale of Beaufort became one of the King's Beasts at Hampton Court (supporting a Shield of Jane Seymour's Augmentation Arms) but also one of the Queen's Beasts at the Coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 (supporting the Beaufort Portcullis Badge). |
Edmund and Jasper Tudor
Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond (11th June 1430 – 3rd November 1456) was granted the title of Earl of Richmond and given lands once he came of age by King Henry. Edmund was also granted Baynard's Castle, London, and ran a successful estate.
He was married to Lady Margaret Beaufort after her first marriage was annulled, as we have seen. It was always rumoured that Edmund was the result of an affair that his mother had with Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset. The evidence of this affair is questionable; however, the liaison prompted a parliamentary statute, regulating the remarriage of queens of England. It would also have made Edmund and Margaret first cousins.
Prior to the start of the Wars of the Roses, Edmund liaised with Richard of York and supported him when the King fell ill during 1453-1454. After war began in 1455, York sent Edmund to uphold the authority of the King in South Wales. While he was there, York was overthrown by the King and, in retaliation, Yorkist forces were sent to engage those of Tudor's in South Wales. Edmund was captured at Carmarthen Castle, where he died of the bubonic plague on 3rd November 1456.
Jasper Tudor (c. November 1431 – 21st/26th December 1495) was honoured by Henry VI like his brother and likewise created, 1st Duke of Bedford and 1st Earl of Pembroke.
Between 1456 and 1459 he worked hard to increase his influence in West Wales. He was with his half-brother Henry VI when the Yorkists were forced to flee at Ludford (Shropshire) in 1459, and in 1460 he besieged and captured the Duke of York’s North Welsh stronghold of Denbigh Castle. He shared in the Lancastrian defeat at Mortimer’s Cross (February 1461), where his father was captured and beheaded, but he made his escape to Ireland and later to Scotland.
In 1468 he landed in North Wales in an attempt to relieve Harlech Castle, which held out for King Henry VI. He was able to capture Denbigh Castle but was then defeated by William, Lord Herbert, who was rewarded with his forfeited earldom of Pembroke. Landing with the Earl of Warwick in 1470, he was sent to Wales and arrived too late for the defeat of the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury (1471).
With his young nephew, Henry of Richmond, he escaped to Brittany, where Henry grew up under his guidance. He attempted a further invasion of England during the rebellion of 1483 but was prevented from landing. In August 1485 he landed with Henry in South Wales and fought at Bosworth Field. His unflinching loyalty was rewarded by Henry VII with the dukedom of Bedford (1485) and a grant of the lordship of Glamorgan (1486), and he was afterward lord lieutenant of Ireland (1486–94). Jasper played a leading part in the suppression of the rebellions of 1486 and 1487 and lived into an honoured old age. He had issue by his wife, Catherine Woodville, sister of Edward IV’s Queen, but the dukedom became extinct upon his death.
Even though they were technically not entitled to them, the brothers were assigned the Royal Arms by King Henry VI to secure their possible place in the Succession and with very similar Borders. Martlets were evidently a symbol used by the Valence family, Earls of Pembroke, showing one of the earliest uses of the bird. They also form part of the attributed Arms of King Edward the Confessor. The Fleurs-de-Lys presumably came from their mother's Arms. Their Crests showed the Royal Lion collared respectively with Martlets and Fleurs-de-Lys.