Margaret Beaufort
Margaret Beaufort (May 31, 1443 – June 29, 1509) was the daughter of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset and Margaret Beuchamp. She was also through her father a granddaughter of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset and a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster and his mistress Katherine Swynford; following Gaunt's marriage to Katherine, their children (the Beauforts) were legitimized, but their descendants were barred from ever inheriting the throne, though Edward IV of England and every monarch after him is descended from Gaunt and Swynford.
Edward and his younger brother Richard III of England were sons of Cecily Neville, grandsons to Joan Beaufort, great-grandsons to John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford.
Margaret married four times, but had only one child, Henry VII of England. The effect of Henry's birth on her 13-year-old body rendered her infertile for life.
Margaret's first marriage, to John de la Pole, took place in 1450, when she was still a child, but was annulled after a short time. Her second cousin Henry VI had as yet no children, and considered naming her his heir. He married her to his half-brother, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond. Edmund was the eldest son of the king's mother, dowager Queen Catherine (the widow of Henry V) by her second marriage to a Welsh squire in her household, Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur (Owen Tudor); the legality of this marriage was questioned by others later, but it appears to have been valid. Thus, in one of the great ironies of history, Margaret's son Henry, the Lancastrian claimant to the throne at the end of the Wars of the Roses — the one who won it all and united the two houses by marrying the Yorkist princess Elizabeth of York — had plenty of royal blood but no legal claim to the throne; in fact, were it not for the Salic Law barring women from inheriting the French throne, he would have had a greater claim to the throne of France than to that of England. In addition, as Henry derived his claim to the throne from Margaret, it is arguably she and not her son who should have claimed the crown, although Margaret was content to let Henry reign instead of her.
Lady Margaret was thirteen and pregnant when Edmund died.
She soon married her third husband, Sir Henry Stafford, son of the 1st Duke of Buckingham. Following his death in 1471, she took a vow of chastity, but this did not prevent her from marrying Thomas, Lord Stanley, some time between 1473 and 1482. Stanley, who had switched sides during the Wars of the Roses (this was due to Richard III holding his eldest son Lord Strange, captive). However, at the end of the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, it was Stanley who placed the crown on Henry VII's head. Stanley was later made Earl of Derby, which made Margaret Countess of Derby, but she was styled "The Countess of Richmond and Derby". She was known for her education and her piety, and her son is said to have been devoted to her.
Once her son Henry became king, she was the mother of the reigning King but had never been Queen Consort, so she could not claim the title of Queen Mother; instead she was referred to in court as My Lady the King's Mother.
In 1502 she established the Lady Margaret's Professorship of Divinity at the University of Cambridge.
Following the death of her third husband and the accession of her son Henry VII to the throne, she refounded and enlarged God's House as Christ's College, Cambridge with a royal charter from the King. She has been honoured ever since as the Foundress of the College. Her signature can be found on one of the buildings (4 staircase, 1994) within the College.
Her portrait, at prayer in her richly furnished private closet behind her chamber, is a rare contemporary glimpse into a late Gothic aristocratic English interior. It rewards a close look. The severe black of her widow's weeds contrasts with the splendour of her private apartment, where every surface is patterned, even the floor alternating cream-colored and terracotta tiles. The plain desk at which she kneels is draped with a richly patterned textile that is so densely encrusted with embroidery that its corners stand away stiffly. Her lavishly illuminated Book of Hours is open on a richly worked pillow before her. The walls are patterned with oak leaf designs, perhaps in lozenges, perhaps of stamped and part gilded leather. Against it hangs the dosser of her canopy of estate, with the tester above her head (the Tudor rose at its centre) supported on cords from the ceiling. The coats-of-arms woven into the tapestry are of England (parted as usual with France) and the portcullis badge of the Beauforts, which the early Tudor kings would use. Small stained glass roundels in the leaded glass of her lancet windows also carry both England (cropped away here) and Beaufort.
Lady Margaret Hall, the first women's college at the University of Oxford, was named in honour of Margaret Beaufort.
