 1443 - 1509 (66 years)
-
| Name |
Margaret of Richmond Beaufort |
| Suffix |
Countess of Richmond and Countess of Derby |
| Birth |
31 May 1443 |
Bletsoe Castle, Bedfordshire, England  |
| Gender |
Female |
| _FSFTID |
LZZ8-HWP |
| _FSLINK |
https://familysearch.org/tree/#view=ancestor&person=LZZ8-HWP |
| Death |
29 Jun 1509 |
Abbot's House, Cheyney Gates, Westminster, England |
| Burial |
Westminster Abbey, London, England |
| Notes |
- Founder of Christ's and St.John's Colleges, Cambridge.
http://www.hull.ac.uk/php/cssbct/cgi-bin/gedlkup.php/n=royal?royal01255
Beaufort, Margaret, countess of Richmond and Derby, British And Irish Hist
ory, Biographies
Related Category: British And Irish History, Biographies
Beaufort, Margaret, countess of Richmond and Derby[bO´furt, dAr´bE] Pronun ciation Key, 1443 to1509, English noblewoman, mother of Henry VII. She w as the daughter and heiress of John, 1st duke of Somerset, and great-grand daughter of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. She was married three time s: to Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond, who was Henry's father; to Henry Sta fford; and to Thomas, Lord Stanley, afterward earl of Derby. Renowned f or her philanthropy, she endowed professorships of divinity at Oxford a nd Cambridge and with the help of her confessor, John Fisher, founded Chri st's College and St. John's College, Cambridge. She was the patron of ma ny religious houses and of William Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia
Margaret Beaufort
(1441-1509)
Born: 31st May 1443 at Bletsoe, Bedfords
Countess of Richmond
Countess of Derby
Died: 29th June 1509
The Countess of Richmond & Derby, commonly called Lady Margaret Beaufor t, was the daughter of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset (son of John of Gau nt by Catherine Swynford), and his wife, Margaret Beauchamp. At the a ge of about seven, she became the child bride of John De La Pole, 2nd Du ke of Suffolk, but the union was later dissolved. The Beaufort stock, thou gh originally bastard, was legitimized by an Act of Parliament in Richa rd II's reign. Thus, on the failure of the heirs of King Henry VI, Margare t's claim to the crown of England became quite a possible one (1471). Su ch as it was, however, the Lancastrian title had originally reste d, if on anything beyond usurpation or parliamentary election, on the excl usion of females.
Henry VI always looked upon the Beauforts as possible heirs and, in 145 5, married the twelve-year-old Margaret to his own maternal half-brothe r, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond (then aged twenty-five). Her son, afterw ards Henry VII, was born in 1456, and her husband died in the same year. S he, soon afterward, married Henry Stafford, the second son of the Du ke of Buckingham, and submitted to the Yorkist rule; but, after the Batt le of Tewkesbury, she was obliged to send her son, Henry, now the sole ho pe of the Lancastrian cause, to seek refuge in Brittany.
Margaret's third husband was a pronounced Yorkist, Thomas, Lord Stanley, a fterwards Earl of Derby; but his final defection from Richard III on the f ield of Bosworth secured the victory to his stepson, Henry VII. Margare t, though she seldom appeared at her son's court, remained, until her deat h, his constant correspondent and one of his wisest advisers. She took vo ws of religion in 1504, but continued to live out of a nunnery, although s he had founded several.
Her great glory is, however, her foundation of the two Colleges of Christ 's and St. John's at Cambridge, and of the' Lady Margaret' professorshi ps of Divinity at both Universities. She was instigated to these foundatio ns by the advice of John Fisher, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, one of t he glories, as indeed Margaret herself also was, of Renaissance learni ng in England. Margaret was an ardent patron of the Early English Press a nd her grandson Henry VIII's love of learning and books was no doubt a dir ect inheritance from her.
Edited from Emery Walker's "Historical Portraits" (1909).
|
| Person ID |
I3306 |
Glenn Cook Family |
| Last Modified |
26 Jan 2015 |
-
| Sources |
- [S36] Brian Tompsett, Dept of Computer Science, University of Hull, England(B.C.Tompsett@dcs.hull.ac.uk), Directory of Royal Genealogical Data, (This work is Copyright b 1994-2002 Brian C Tompsett).
|
|
|
