Margaret Beaufort’s other family























Henry VII was not amused.










7 thoughts on “Margaret Beaufort’s other family

  1. We now thank God that Woodvyle and Beaufort families had gone. The one thing that Henry VIII failed to know was the my ancestor was Plantagenet when he married her. Kate Parr was more Royal in bloodline than that oaf of a Tudor ever could have dared to be. Yes you are so right Henry followed his own father in cleaning out all real royals but he missed eight in his rage to rid us. My blood is Plantagenet in every drop i do hold in this mortal body. I am proud of that fact but feel no better than the next man before my God

    • It is true that Katherine was of royal descent and had Plantagenet blood. But her line from Edward III was like Henry’s father – Beaufort.

  2. I thought the Cousins War hypothesis had been exposed as the result of a well known fiction writer’s imagination.

    Do you have a list of the Plantagenets that were executed by Henry VII?

    • I suppose the thing is that all the leading families were so intermarried that they were all cousins of some kind or other- the Poles, for instance, were descended from the Duke of Clarence via his daughter Margaret whilst her husband, a staunch Tudor supporter, was the son of a Cheshire landowner and Margaret Beaufort’s half-sister, so doubly Henry VIII’s cousins (not that it did them much good). Henry VII didn’t do much in the way of execution when he came to the throne in 1485, was surprisingly lenient with Richard III’s supporters and then the range of pretenders who initially appeared on the scene (just think about Lambert Simnel). The deaths of assorted Yorkists in 1487 during battle was perhaps fortunate but he appears to have become less tolerant as time passed, understandable perhaps. It must have seemed that he was never free from some sort of plot or other. There are several, often contradictory, schools of thought as to the exact involvement of Margaret of Burgundy in this whole process. Henry VII’s key execution was the Earl of Warwick at the same time as Perkin Warbeck so you’re correct in saying he didn’t exactly pursue a policy of wholesale slaughter but the fact that Edward was perceived to be simple minded has weighed against Henry over the years. However, in my opinion at least, whether he had them executed to facilitate the Spanish marriage or to secure the throne for the Tudors it amounts to more or less the same thing in Henry VIII’s rather paranoid middle-aged mind, i.e. the Tudor dynasty needed to be protected and the way to do that was remove other contenders from the scene. The numbers executed and why would make an excellent post as would the various arguments about the relationships of the Cousins’ War so thank you very much for the comment and I look forward to hearing more views on the subject.

  3. The utterly amazing thing is that Elizabeth would have known if Warbeck was her brother same as Woodvyles but Henry v11 never brought Perkin Warbeck into Royal Circles and Elizabeth of York made no such attempt to see him. Very strange affair and if anything I truly believe Henrys mother Beaufort and Archbishop Morton knew the where abouts or the two Princes. Morton knew far too much about the burial under a pile of stones to be innocent in this singular affair. Both Morton and Margaret Beaufort lay in London at the time of the vanished Princes whilst Richard was far away on his progress to see all of his England. If any from his camp ran back to smother the boys in the Royal Apartments Brackenbury would have reported to the Council as he was a fair man. If they waited for his day off more likely Beaufort who conspired against Richard may have found it easy to blame him for all. Her own son sat waiting to take Richard crown. When Richard was asked were the Princes lay he made no answer. How could he as he had no idea himself.

  4. When Henry VII took the throne, did Margaret Beaufort outrank Elizabeth Wydville, even though Elizabeth was Queen dowager?

    • In terms of rank she shouldn’t have but it It hovered, unspoken in the air, that Margaret Beaufort was queen by right in much the same way as Duchess Cecily had behaved when her son was on the throne. So in answer to your question technically Margaret didn’t outrank Elizabeth but I don’t suppose anyone was going to make a point of discussing precedence with the woman who took to signing herself Margaret R – which could have been Margaret Richmond or Margaret Regina…

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