all Englonde for her dethe had cause of wepynge.1
In April 1509, Henry VII lay dying at his Renaissance fantasia Richmond Palace. His health had been poor in the last two or three years, as he suffered with lingering throat afflictions, fever, failing eyesight and diseases of the joints. He had suffered a serious bout of illness in 1503–4, when he required lotions for his eyes, again in 1504 and had a regular cough every spring, suggesting a tubercular lung infection. By 1507 he was suffering from gout and ‘wasted’ lungs causing him to experience ‘great fits and labours’, but recovered sufficiently to go hunting that October in ‘perfect health’.2 Margaret would have been with him when he passed Christmas 1508 at Greenwich and Richmond, before Henry travelled to his house at Hanworth, Middlesex, where he was overcome by an impending sense of mortality. Henry was seen less and less before retreating to his state apartments at Richmond and shutting himself in to await the end, calling for his confessor on 21 February. False reports had been given out of his death as early as 24 March and he made his will a week later, but in fact, he was to linger for another month, with his son at his side.
Prince Henry was now 17. He had been raised at Eltham Palace, carefully tutored by a range of talented thinkers, including Margaret’s protégé, the poet laureate John Skelton who composed Speculum Principis, The Mirror for Princes, a book of conduct to guide his young charge. Margaret had taken an interest in both her grandsons’ education and development, giving them books such as the copy of Cicero’s De Officiis which included illustrations of Tudor dynastic symbols. In 1506, she had bought Henry a horse costing £6 13s 4d, with a saddle and harness covered in black velvet decorated with gilt flowers. Despite all Margaret’s piety though, she also shared a love of fun with Henry; he enjoyed dancing and playing at dice and she liked to make a wager on a game of chess, listen to her minstrels or watch her jesters Skip and Reginald the Idiot perform their tricks. Her relationship with the young Henry must have been a blend of fun and the formidable intellectual endeavour for which Margaret had come to be known. She would also become his guide through the dramatic weeks ahead, witnessing the transition from one monarch to another and ensuring that the right decisions were taken for a smooth handover of power.
Henry VII died on 21 April. At once, the machinery of government sprang into action, beginning the next reign with a subterfuge designed to ensure that key decisions were made before the news was announced. Henry lay dead in his bed for almost two days, and his son remained in his private apartments, speaking in hushed voices to maintain the appearance that the king was still alive. Meals were brought for Henry and masses were said for his recovery. Behind the scenes, though, the chief members of the Privy Council were handing over their offices and instructions to their successors and time was being bought for certain individuals to arrive at Richmond. Margaret had certainly been summoned from Coldharbour House to see her son before his death and was now placed to take a central part in the discussions. It was agreed that until Henry reached his eighteenth birthday on 28 June, Margaret would act as regent. Clearly there were differences between this situation and the offer made by Margaret of Anjou in 1453, but it illustrates just how much Margaret Beaufort’s abilities were trusted. Late on St George’s Day, 23 April, after the new king had eaten supper and attended evensong, still addressed as the Prince of Wales, the news was finally broken to the court. Only then was his son proclaimed as Henry VIII and left Richmond for the Tower, to await his coronation. Margaret joined him there shortly afterwards.
The two months of Margaret’s regency witnessed a number of important decisions. Henry VII’s unpopular councillors Edmund Dudley and Richard Empson were arrested at once, scapegoated for some of their former king’s more unpopular financial policies, and taken to the Tower. They would be executed that August. Another arrest hit closer to home. A warrant was issued for Henry Stafford, younger brother of the Duke of Buckingham, the ambitious sons of the Buckingham who rose against Richard III, and a great nephew of Margaret’s former husband, who was also taken to the Tower. This may have been intended to send a warning sign to the Staffords, whose claim to the throne was also a strong one, an attempt to impress upon them the authority of the new regime. Henry Stafford would be released after the coronation. A general pardon was also issued, other prisoners were released and the new king promised to right wrongs suffered under his father’s regime, although the remaining Yorkists, the de la Poles, were exempted from it. Negotiations were also made with Ferdinand of Aragon and, after the long-awaited arrival of the second half of his daughter’s dowry, a marriage between Henry and Catherine was now arranged.
Margaret oversaw the arrangements for her son’s funeral. On 11 May, she signed the warrants for approval of payments for black mourning cloth, wages for the torchbearers and chariot to bear his body to Westminster. Her ordinances, drawn up in the wake of Queen Elizabeth’s death, no doubt were the foundation for the process by which Henry’s body was embalmed and revered during a 24-hour vigil during which masses were said over his coffin, before being set on the chariot covered in black cloth and topped with his life-size effigy, ‘richly apparelled’ in his Parliamentary robes and adorned with jewels and the ball and sceptre of state. The funeral procession travelled from Richmond to Southwark, on to Tower Bridge and into St Paul’s Cathedral, accompanied by solemn mourners and witnessed by a great crowd. The following afternoon, Henry undertook his final journey to Westminster and his coffin was lowered into the vault alongside that of his wife. John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester delivered a long homily which so greatly moved and impressed Margaret that she ordered it to be printed by Wynkyn de Worde and distributed.
It must have been a time of mixed emotions for Margaret. On one hand, she was burying her beloved son, whose journey she had witnessed from exile to England’s conqueror and king; on the other, she had the opportunity to act as midwife to a new regime, to deliver the realm into the hands of her grandson. Henry clearly appreciated her steadying hand and her interest. On 19 May, he granted her her old property of Woking Palace, which she had surrendered in 1503 to her son, who had renovated and used it as one of his favourite residences.
On 11 June, Henry married Catherine of Aragon at the church of the Friar Observants at Greenwich. The match had been approved by his council but it would appear that only a few witnesses were present, rather in contrast to the bride’s first state wedding in white silken finery at St Paul’s Cathedral. Henry’s Lord Steward, George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury and Privy Chamberer William Thomas were named in the documentation but it is not clear whether Margaret was there too. It would seem likely that she was, but this cannot be proven and there may be unknown reasons for her absence. Henry appears to have wished to conclude the ceremony in advance of his coronation, which was scheduled for two weeks later, to allow himself and his new spouse to be crowned together. Yet there was much planning to do, with pageants and decorations, banquets and feasts planned, arrangements made, verses written and clothing sewn. The standard was set by the Ryalle Book, partly written during the reign of Edward IV, along whose formal Burgundian lines the stage was set for the coronation of Henry VIII, the heir to the dynasties of both York and Lancaster.
Saturday 23 June dawned bright and sunny. Henry and Catherine set out from the Tower at around 4 p.m., following a day and night of celebrations and the ceremony of the Knights of the Bath. Henry was first, dressed in robes of crimson velvet and ermine over a gold jacket and collar of rubies. He rode under a gold canopy, his horse trapped in ermine and damask gold, flanked by knights in red velvet and children dressed in blue and gold. Catherine’s litter followed, pulled by six white palfreys draped in white cloth of gold. She wore a dress of white satin and a gold coronet on her long loose red hair. Margaret probably watched them from the position of a house on Cheapside, as she had witnessed other important events in recent years. Even a sharp shower of rain could not dampen the mood as Catherine was forced to shelter briefly under a draper’s stall in Cornhill. They arrived at Westminster, where they were to dine and rest for the night, being received ‘with much joy and honour’.3 Henry and Catherine were crowned the next day in the abbey, where Margaret took her place in the choir. The next few days were spent in feasting, dancing and jousting.
Observing everything was Margaret Beaufort, the king’s grandmother, the last member of the old Lancastrian dynasty. Amid all the Tudor pomp and ceremony, mingled with her grief and apprehension for the future, she could feel secure that her regency had been successful. Embodied in Henry VIII, the figure who united the dynasties of Lancaster and York, was the future Margaret had long fought for, the security that had seemed at times in her life to have been out of reach. She had been born before the Wars of the Roses, even before Henry VI had fallen ill or Margaret of Anjou had set foot on English soil. She was the great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, her bloodline stretched back to Edward III and Philippa of Hainault, the product of an illicit love affair between a royal prince and the governess of his children. Her lifetime had witnessed the outbreak of violence, the shedding of blood from the noblest houses of the country, by their own brothers and cousins, in an unpredictable tussle for the throne. She had been married too young, borne a child when she was only a child herself; there had been years when she was parted from her boy, when she feared for his life and perhaps her own, until the final moment of triumph at Bosworth Field. Now she had outlived her child, but she had spent those terrible weeks of grief busily, negotiating to ensure his son was in full possession of his inheritance. On 28 June, the court celebrated Henry VIII’s eighteenth birthday. With this rite of passage, Margaret’s regency formally came to an end. The following day, she died peacefully at Cheneygates, the Deanery at Westminster Abbey. The cause of her death is unknown.
Margaret’s body was moved to Westminster Abbey refectory on 3 July, where candle-lit vigils were held and masses were said for her soul. Six days later she was buried in the Lady Chapel, in a black marble tomb topped with a golden effigy designed by Pietro Torrigiano, who also created the nearby tomb of Henry VII and his queen. She was depicted in her widow’s weeds, with a hood and long mantle, her head resting on two pillows depicting her symbols of the portcullis and Tudor rose, while at her feet is the mythical yale, another Beaufort device. The tomb is also adorned with the arms of the Staffords, Stanleys, Henry V and Catherine of Valois, Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and those of Margaret’s parents. The inscription on the tomb, written by the Humanist scholar Erasmus, reads:
Margaret of Richmond, mother of Henry VII, grandmother of Henry VIII, who gave a salary to three monks of this convent and founded a grammar school at Wimborne, and to a preacher throughout England, and to two interpreters of Scripture, one at Oxford, the other at Cambridge, where she likewise founded two colleges, one to Christ, and the other to St John, his disciple. Died A.D. 1509, III Kalends of July (29 June).
Margaret’s chaplain Bishop John Fisher delivered a laudatory sermon which has helped to shape a sense of the king’s mother’s character for later historians. He compared her to the biblical Martha in four senses: in their nobleness of person, in the disciplining of their bodies, in the ordering of their souls to God and in the keeping of hospitals and giving charity to their neighbours. Fisher praised Margaret as a true daughter of Lancaster, honouring her parents in being ‘bounteous and liberal to every person of her knowledge and acquaintance’ and loathing ‘avarice and covetousness’. He gave further descriptions of her character:
She was also of syngular Easyness to be spoken unto, and full curtayse answere she would make to all that came unto her. Of mervayllous gentylenesse she was unto all folks, but specially unto her owne whom she trusted and loved ryghte tenderly. Unkynde she wolde not be unto no creature, ne forgetfull of any kindness or service done to her before, which is no lytel part of veray nobleness. She was not venegable ne cruell but ready anone to forgete and to forgyve injuryes done unto her, at the leest desire or mocyon … mercyfull also and pyteous she was unto such as were grevyed and wrongfully troubled and to them that were in poverty, or sekeness or any other mysery.
She possessed:
awareness of her self she had always to eschew every thyng that myght dishonest ony noble woman or distayne her honour in ony condycyon. Tryfelous thyngs that were lytell to be regarded, she wold let pass by, but the other that were of weyght and substance wherein she myght proufyte, she wolde not let for ony payne or labour to take upon hande. These and many other such noble condycyons left unto her by her Auncetres.
Margaret also lived soberly, restricting her dietary intake for personal and religious reasons:
Her sober temperance in metes and drynkes was known to all them that were conversant with her … kepying alway her strayte mesure and offendynge as lytell as ony creature myghte: eschewing banketts, reresoupers, joncryes betwixt meles. As for fastynge, for aege and feebleness albeit she were not bounde, yet those days that by the Chirche were appointed, she kept them diligently and seriously and in especyall the holy Lent; throughout that, she restrayned her appetyte tyl one meal and tyl one Fyshe on the day besydes her other peculer fastes of devocyon as St Anthony, St Mary Maudelyn, St Katherine, with other theroweout all the Yere, the Friday and Saturday she full truly observed.
According to Fisher, Margaret also wore a hair shirt beneath her clothing, made according to the traditional Catholic method of animal hair or coarse sackcloth, sometimes woven with twigs or thin wire to mortify the skin as a means of penance and repentance:
As to harde clothes wearyne, she had her shertes and grydyls of here, which when she was in helthe, everi week she fayled not certain days to weare, sometimes the one, sometimes the other, that full often her skynne, as I heerd her say, was perced therewith.
And when she made her confession, every third day, she would weep copiously:
Her mervaylous wepyng they can bere wytness of, which here before have herde her confession, which be divers and many at many times of the yere … what flodes of teeres there yssued forth of her eyes!
These devotions were conducted despite considerable pain in her joints, for which the remedies were kept in her closet:
All this long time her knelynge was to her paynful, and so paynful that many tymes it cause in her back payne and disease. And yet nevertheless dayly, when she was in helthe, she fayled not to say the Crowne of Our Lady, which, after the maner of Rome, conteyneth sixty and three Aves; and at every Ave to make a kneylynge.
She also suffered great pain in her hands, probably rheumatic:
These mercyfull and lyberall hands to endure the moost paynful cramps, so greveously vexynge her compellynge her to crye O Blessyd Jhesu help me! O Blessyd Lady socoure me! It was a mater of grete pyte.
Fisher also praised the organisation of her household, which was run ‘with mervaylous dylygence and wysedom’, writing ordinances quarterly to be read aloud by her officers, whom she would ‘lovingly’ encourage to do well, although she was prepared to deal with any dissent or factions within her house ‘with great discretion’. She was a thoughtful and sensitive hostess:
… what payn, what labour, she of her veray gentleness wolde take with them, to bere them maner and Company and intrete every person, and entertayne them, according to their degree and haviour [behaviour] and provyde, by her own commandment, that nothynge sholde lack that might be convenient for them, wherein she had a wonderful redy remembraunce and perfyte knowledge.
And took care of those suitors and the poor who came to petition her for justice and help:
… of her own charges provyded men lerned for the same purpose, evenly and indyfferently to here all causes and admynyster right and justyce to every party, which were in no small nombre and yet mete and drynke was denyed to none of them … Poore folks to the nombre of twelve she dayly and nyghtly kepte in her House, gyvynge them lodginge, mete and drynke and clothynge … and in their sykenesse visytyng them and comfortynge them and mynystrynge unto them with her owne hands: and when it pleased God to call ony of them out of this wretched worlde, she wolde be present, to see them departe … Suppose not ye, that yf she myghte have gotten our Savyour Jhesu in his owne Persone, but she wolde as desyrously and as fervently have mynystered unto hym?
Despite, or perhaps as a result of, her piety and suffering, there was a fatalistic streak to Margaret:
She never was yet in that prosperity, but the greter it was, the more alwaye she dreded the austerity. For when the King her son was crowned, in all that grete tryumphe and glorye she wept mervaylously; and lykewyse at the grete tryumphe of Prynce Arthur, and at the last coronacyon, whereyn she had full grete joy, she let not to say that some advertise wolde followe. So that eyther she was in sorowe by reason of the present adversytes or else whan se was in prosperyte, she was in drede of the adversyte for to come.
She was a treasure, concluded Fisher, and ‘all Englonde for her dethe had cause of wepynge’.
An inventory taken of the closet beside Margaret’s chamber reveals a combination of her personal preferences and functional items, its detail creating a sense of rifling through her cupboards. Locked away were piles of her papers, including annuities, bonds and indentures for her wards and dependents, as well as the jointure settled upon her by Thomas Stanley. There were service books, bound in velvet and wrapped in linen; two pairs of gold spectacles and ivory combs, a gold purse containing true love knots and another with rings thought to prevent cramp. Margaret had at least one significant Beaufort item, a goblet made of gold with a cover in the shape of a portcullis, as well as silver candlesticks and spoons. Inside a little black coffer were silver pots used to hold medicinal powders and a number of remedies prepared to ease the stiffness in her joints. She also had a small portable shrine gilt and glazed, containing relics, as well as a little bag containing a ‘heart of relics’ and a silver-gilt plate bearing the image of the Virgin Mary.4
The executors of Margaret’s will grouped her items under the headings plate and great jewels, small jewels, chapel stuff, wardrobe of beds, wardrobe of robes, silks and napery, certain wines, kitchen stuff, certain stuff in storehouses, standards and chests, certain spices, palfreys and chariots, small trash with glasses and pewter basins. Further inventories of her bedroom equipment describe the furnishings including beds of fine arras or red saye, counterpoints of tapestry, gold and silk, down pillows, gold cushions, carpets, canvases, coverings for chairs and litters. Major bequests were made to Christ Church College and St John’s College, Cambridge, to Westminster Abbey and other places that had enjoyed her patronage, like Burne Abbey, or had family connections, like Wimbourne. Margaret’s will also rewarded a painter named Wolff for his ‘warkemanshipp’ in ‘the making ii pyctures of my lady’s personage’, and a Maynerd Wayweke ‘for makyng an ymage for Crystex College’. Payments were also made for painted books made for the college, for the writing and sealing of the books, and to Lady Scrope in recompense for a ring which Prince Henry had from her and to Master Fisher of Hatfield for an old pair of ‘dydrygurders’ or hurdy-gurdies that were left behind by the Lord of Misrule. Thus the separate pieces of her life were assigned or returned until the material traces of Margaret Beaufort were all dispersed.
Margaret’s reputation among later writers has been mixed. Poet and tutor to Henry VIII, Bernard Andre described her as ‘steadfast and more stable than the weakness in women suggests’, which springs straight from contemporary gender conceptions but allows Margaret to be strong and constant as an exception to the stereotype. Her nineteenth-century biographer Charles Henry Cooper saw her as ‘the brightest example of the strong devotional feeling and active charity of the age in which she lived’, who ‘stepped widely … out of the usual sphere of her sex to encourage literature by her patronage and her bounty’ and was ‘united to the strictest piety the practice of all the moral virtues and … chastened, while she properly cherished, the grandeur of royalty by the indulgence of domestic affections and the retired exercise of a mind at once philosophic and humble’.5 Cooper’s contemporary Caroline Amelia Halsted echoed his view of Margaret as a role model to whom ‘the females of Britain look with duty and affection, with pride as women, with devotion as subjects’ considering her the ‘brightest ornament of her sex’.6 By contrast, David Starkey’s assessment typifies a more critical modern reaction to Margaret’s talents, referring to her as ‘imperious’ and ‘tight-fisted’. As Helen M. Jewell summarises, Margaret’s most recent biographers have taken a ‘shrewder perspective, crediting her with a calculating temperament and natural astuteness, “a veteran of bruising political battles” whose life and work show “a constant blend of the practical and the pious, which argues at least an active and disciplined will”’.
There is little doubt that Margaret was a dynamic and influential figure, a survivor whose strength and resilience increased as a result of the dangerous circumstances to which she was a witness. She was also an opportunist, biding her time until she could seize whatever chance might arise to further the fortunes of her family. In this, she was no different from the men of her era, although her sphere of influence differed greatly and the power she exercised was largely in the gift of the men in her life, her husbands and son, even at the height of her influence. As the final link in the chain of the Lancastrian women, her qualities and success underscore the journey the dynasty had taken since the marriage of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, her great-grandparents.
1 Taken from the sermon preached at Margaret Beaufort’s funeral by Bishop John Fisher.
2 Comment made by the Spanish Ambassador, cited in Bacon, The History of the Reign of King Henry VII and Selected Works.
3 Hall.
4 Underwood and Jones.
5 Cooper.
6 Halsted.