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“Margaret R”: Lady Margaret Beaufort’s Self-fashioning and Female Ambition

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Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Era

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Abstract

Lady Margaret’s ambition came to be justified and this can be partly attributed to careful self-fashioning. This chapter argues Lady Margaret represented her aspirational behavior as being grounded in both her motherhood and her nobility of birth. While Lady Margaret never ruled directly on behalf of Henry VII, the extent of her power and authority in other realms is unquestionable, and cannot be attributed solely to her status as mother of the king. Her rule over her household, for example, stands as evidence of her political abilities and cannot be underestimated. Focusing on the themes of motherhood and nobility, this analysis highlights Lady Margaret’s careful self-fashioning through text as a crucial component in justifying her ambition and cementing her place as a woman of power and authority.

My own sweet and most dear King and all my worldly joy, in as humble a manner as I can think, I recommend me to your Grace and most heartily beseech our Lord to bless you; …

At Colyweston, the 14th day of January, by your faithful true bedewoman, and humble mother, Margaret R.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I thank Dr Megan Cassidy-Welch, Dr Carolyn James and Lisa Di Crescenzo for their comments on an earlier version of this chapter.

  2. 2.

    Anne Crawford, ed., Letters of the Queens of England, 1100--1547 (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1994), p. 149 (Cotton MS, Vespasian F XIII, fol. 60. Holograph. Ellis, Original Letters vol. i, Letter xxii).

  3. 3.

    Stephen Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare, 2005 edn (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1980; 2005).

  4. 4.

    Michael K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood, The King’s Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, 1995 edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; 1995), p. 86, fn. 57. Jones and Underwood identify the first example as dating from November 1468 and the last from April 1497.

  5. 5.

    Ibid., fn. 57, citing Cooper, Memoir of Margaret Countess of Richmond and Derby, p. 64.

  6. 6.

    Crawford, ed., Letters of the Queens of England, p. 152.

  7. 7.

    Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, p. 86.

  8. 8.

    Ibid., p. 86.

  9. 9.

    Retha Warnicke, “The Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond: A Noblewoman of Independent Wealth and Status,” Fifteenth Century Studies, 9 (1984), pp. 215–48, at p. 225.

  10. 10.

    Stephanie Morley, “Translating Lady Margaret Beaufort: A Case for Translating as Compensatory Power,” in Lost in Translation?, eds. D. Renevey and C. Whitehead. The Medieval Translator. Vol. 12. (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2009), pp. 251–61, at p. 253.

  11. 11.

    Roberta Krug, Reading Families: Women’s Literate Practice in Late Medieval England (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2002), p. 85. Krug links this with Lady Margaret’s changed seal, as do Jones and Underwood. See The King’s Mother, Appendix 5, p. 292.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., p. 85.

  13. 13.

    Theresa Earenfight, Queenship in Medieval Europe (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p. 218.

  14. 14.

    Susan Powell, “Lady Margaret Beaufort and Her Books,” The Library, Sixth Series, Vol XX, No. 3, September (1998), pp. 197–240, at p. 197.

  15. 15.

    Cf. Barbara J. Harris, “Defining Themselves: English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550,” Journal of British Studies, 49 (2010), pp. 734–52. Although Harris does not refer to Lady Margaret in her article, her discussion of the ways in which aristocratic women represented themselves informs and supports my reading of Lady Margaret’s self-representation.

  16. 16.

    Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, p. 24.

  17. 17.

    Samuel Bentley, ed., Excerpta Historica: Or, Illustrations of English History (London: Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street, 1833), pp. 3–4: “Grant of the Wardship of Margaret, daughter and heiress of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, to William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk. 1443.” Cf. Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, pp. 35–6. Jones and Underwood date the grant at 1444.

  18. 18.

    Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, p. 36.

  19. 19.

    Ibid., p. 39.

  20. 20.

    Patricia-Ann Lee, “Reflections of Power: Margaret of Anjou and the Dark Side of Queenship.” Renaissance Quarterly, 39 (1986): pp. 183–271.

  21. 21.

    Caroline Amelia Halsted, Life of Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1839), p. 55.

  22. 22.

    For example, William Marx, ed., An English Chronicle, 1377–1461: A New Edition. Edited from Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales MS 21068 and Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Lyell 34, Medieval Chronicles (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003), p. 78: “The queen was defamed and deslaundered that he that was called prince was nat hir sone but a bastard goten in avoutry.”

  23. 23.

    On the vow, see Jones and Underwood, The King's Mother, pp. 153–54.

  24. 24.

    Ibid., p. 40.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., p. 98, citing Rotuli Parliamentorum, ed. J. Strachey et al., 6 vols. (London, 1767–77), VI, 284. 311–12.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., p. 40, citing the oration made at Cambridge by Fisher in J. Lewis, Life of Dr. John Fisher, 2 vols, vol. 2 (London: Joseph Lilly, 1855), pp 263–72, at, p. 265.

  27. 27.

    S.B. Chrimes, Henry VII (London: Eyre Methuen, 1972), p. 15. Chrimes describes these years as “largely obscure.”

  28. 28.

    For a summary of these negotiations see David Baldwin, Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower (Stroud, Glouc.: The History Press, 2002), p. 102, citing Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History, ed. Sir H. Ellis (1844), pp 195–7.

  29. 29.

    Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, Chapter 2: The Wars of the Roses.

  30. 30.

    Krug, Reading Families, p. 84.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., citing Crawford, Letters of the Queens of England, p. 145.

  32. 32.

    Crawford, ed., Letters of the Queens of England, p. 148.

  33. 33.

    Krug, Reading Families, p. 87.

  34. 34.

    Barbara J. Harris, Property, Power and Personal Relations: Elite Mothers and Sons in Yorkist and Early Tudor England,” Signs, 15 (1990), pp. 606–32, at p. 620. Harris, also referring to Lady Margaret’s use of such terms, describes their relationship as “one of the best documented and warmest,” before concluding “(n)o other mother’s letters from the period compare to Lady Margaret’s in their effusive, almost romantic, language.”

  35. 35.

    Crawford, ed., Letters of the Queens of England, p. 149.

  36. 36.

    Ibid.

  37. 37.

    Ibid., pp. 150–1, at p. 151.

  38. 38.

    Cf. Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother. Jones and Underwood attach the word “avarice” to both Lady Margaret and Henry VII on four occasions (p. 11; p. 82; p. 108; p. 258).

  39. 39.

    Crawford, ed., Letters of the Queens of England, pp. 150–1, at p. 150.

  40. 40.

    Ibid., p. 151.

  41. 41.

    See, for example, Ibid., p. 146; Morley, “Translating Lady Margaret,” p. 253.

  42. 42.

    Morley, “Translating Lady Margaret,” p. 253.

  43. 43.

    Mary C. Erler, “English Vowed Women at the End of the Middle Ages,” Mediaeval Studies, 57 (1995), pp. 155–203.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., p. 161.

  45. 45.

    The Thin Red Book, C7.11, fol. 47r (St John’s College Cambridge). By permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge. Cited by Susan Powell, “Lady Margaret Beaufort: ‘Of Singuler Wysedome Ferre Passynge the Comyn Rate of Women,’” in The Brown Book, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford: A Commemorative Edition for the 500th Anniversary of the Death of Lady Margaret Beaufort, ed. Carolyn Garr (High Wycombe: Resourceprint Management Ltd, 2009), pp. 4–18, at p. 6. Cf. Cooper, The Lady Margaret, pp. 97–8, transcribing MS. Cole XXIV 244 b. Cooper’s transcription was invaluable in my transcription of C7.11, fol. 47r.

  46. 46.

    On the transformation see Michael Jones, “Collyweston—an Early Tudor Palace,” in England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Daniel Williams (Woodbridge, Suffolk, Wolfeboro, N.H., USA: Boydell Press, 1987), pp. 129–41.

  47. 47.

    Fiona Kisby, “A Mirror of Monarchy: Music and Musicians in the Household Chapel of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Mother of Henry VII,” Early Music History, 16 (1997), pp. 203–34, at p. 211.

  48. 48.

    Warnicke, “The Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond,” p. 221.

  49. 49.

    My discussion of the historiography on Lady Margaret Beaufort is informed by the summary provided by Jones and Underwood. See, Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, pp. 1–16, esp. p. 8: “Halsted, however, began with a wider interest than her predecessors in the general history of England. She was also the authoress of a biography of Richard III …. Historically alert, she was not content with pointing up Margaret’s virtues and achievements as a patron of learning, but wished to investigate her impact on that ‘dark period,’ so the study inevitably had a major political dimension.” For an earlier work, also cited by Jones and Underwood in their discussion of this historiography, see Edmund Lodge, Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain 8 vols, vol. 1 (London: William Smith, 1849), pp. 13–20. Identified as “Margaret of Lancaster, mother of King Henry the seventh,” Lodge remarks (on p. 15): “The exaltation of her son to the throne seems to have been the signal for her retreat from all public concerns; but she did not abandon the Court.” For a later nineteenth-century biography, see Charles Henry Cooper, The Lady Margaret: A Memoir of Margaret Countess of Richmond and Derby, Ed. J. E. B. Mayor (Cambridge: Deighton Bell and Co, 1874). Cooper’s biography recognizes Lady Margaret’s power and influence, although his primary interest is in Lady Margaret as part of the Cambridge community. On his focus see, too, Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, p. 12.

  50. 50.

    Halsted, Life of Margaret Beaufort, pp. 163–4.

  51. 51.

    Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, p. 8, citing Halsted, Life of Margaret Beaufort, Preface, x: Jones and Underwood write that the presence of Queen Victoria, as a young queen “to whom the females of Britain look with duty and affection, with pride as women, with devotion as subjects” formed part of the inspiration for Halsted’s work.

  52. 52.

    Ibid.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., pp. 8–10.

  54. 54.

    Henry Ellis, ed., Original Letters Illustrative of English History, second series, 4 vols, vol. 1 (London: Harding and Lepard, 1827), pp. 162–166, at pp. 163–4.

  55. 55.

    BL Add MS. 45133, fol. 141v. I acknowledge the assistance of the Maps and Manuscripts Reference Team at the British Library in accessing this manuscript. See Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, p. 187, describing this as “the most authentic copy.”

  56. 56.

    BL Add. MS. 45133, fol. 141v. The transcription is my own.

  57. 57.

    Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, p. 187.

  58. 58.

    BL Add. MS. 45133, fol. 141v.

  59. 59.

    Ibid., and Warnicke, “The Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond,” p. 224: “Because of the ordinances permitting her, as the King’s mother, to wear a surcoat, a hood, and other attire like that of the Queen, scholars, such as Charles Cooper, Pearl Hogrefe, and Linda Simon have charged that she attempted to challenge the social position of her daughter-in-law. In fact, the outfits of these two were never completely identical, for the Countess wore only a coronet and not a crown and seems to have assumed a status like that of queen dowagers, who were expected to maintain many of the privileges that they had exercised as queen consorts.”

  60. 60.

    Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, p. 91, citing John Lewis, The Life of Dr. John Fisher 2 vols., vol. 2 (London: Joseph Lilly, 1855), pp. 263–72: “Oratio habita coram illustrissimo Rege Henrico VII. Cantabrigie, A.D. 1506, a Joanne Fisher episcopo Roffensi et Cancellario Accademiae illius illustris,” E. Cod. MS. Bodl. Archiv. B. 67.

  61. 61.

    J.B. Mullinger, The University of Cambridge from the Earliest Times to the Royal Injunctions of 1535. 2 vols, vol 1 (Cambridge: University Press, 1873), p. 449.

  62. 62.

    Lewis, The Life of Dr. John Fisher, “Oration,” p. 265. Cf. Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, p. 40, citing Oration, p. 265. Jones and Underwood also refer to Fisher’s indication that the birth was difficult and his reference to Margaret’s age and stature.

  63. 63.

    Lewis, The Life of Dr. John Fisher, “Oration,” p. 265.

  64. 64.

    Ibid.

  65. 65.

    Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, p. 205; Retha Warnicke, “The Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond (D.1509), as Seen by Bishop Fisher and by Lord Morley,” Moreana, XIX (1982), pp. 47–55.

  66. 66.

    Michael Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood, “Lady Margaret Beaufort,” History Today, 1985), pp. 23–30, at p. 28. See too, Powell, “Lady Margaret Beaufort,” p. 10: “I am assuming, perhaps cheekily, that she commissioned her own memorial sermon, as she commissioned her son’s funeral sermon.”

  67. 67.

    “Mornynge remembraunce had at the moneth mynde of the noble prynces Margarete countesse of Rychemonde & Derbye,” enprynted by Wynkyn de Worde, in The English Works of John Fisher, part I, ed. John E. B. Mayor (London: Published for the Early English Text Society, by N. Trübner & Co., 1876), pp. 289–310, at p. 289.

  68. 68.

    Ibid., p. 290.

  69. 69.

    Ibid., pp. 290–92.

  70. 70.

    Ibid., p. 290.

  71. 71.

    Ibid., p. 291.

  72. 72.

    Cf. Jones and Underwood, The King’s Mother, p. 258.

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  1. School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

    Sally Fisher

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  1. University of Winchester , Winchester, United Kingdom

    Carey Fleiner

  2. University of Winchester, Winchester, United Kingdom

    Elena Woodacre

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Fisher, S. (2016). “Margaret R”: Lady Margaret Beaufort’s Self-fashioning and Female Ambition. In: Fleiner, C., Woodacre, E. (eds) Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Era. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51315-1_8

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