Free Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty by Elizabeth Norton

Edward has become master and governor of the whole realm. Words fail me to relate how well the commons love and adore him, as if he were their God’. Edward’s father, the Duke of York, had long been involved in a feud with Margaret’s uncle, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and Edward IV was determined to prevent this continuing in the next generation, actively trying to make peace with Margaret’s cousin, Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. Somerset had travelled north with Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou following the Battle of Towton, but he finally surrendered to the King in 1462 and received an immediate pardon. Edward was determined to make a great show of his trust in Somerset, as demonstrated by Gregory’s Chronicle :
[Early in 1463] the king made much of [Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset]; insomuch that he lodged with the king in his own bed many nights, and sometimes rode hunting behind the king, the king having about him no more than six horsemen at the most, and three were men of the duke of Somerset.
     
    Somerset’s apparent support for the Yorkist cause was a major coup for the King, and as further evidence of his determination to honour Margaret’s cousin, Edward decided to visit the north of his kingdom in the summer of 1463 and appointed Somerset and his men as his guards. According to Gregory’s Chronicle , the visit was not an entire success, and at Northampton, Somerset was attacked by the people as a traitor to the King. It was only with difficulty that Edward was able to save the life of his new ally, and this incident terrified Margaret’s cousin. Later that year, Somerset secretly left the King and once again headed north to rejoin Henry VI. He fought against the King’s forces at Hedgeley Moor on 25 April 1464 and again at Hexham on 14 May 1464, where he was defeated. Edward IV, although often kind and jovial, could be ruthless when he was crossed, and he had Somerset summarily executed following the battle as a warning to others that might plan to betray him.
    Although Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, was the male head of the Beaufort family at the time of Edward IV’s accession, it was well known that Margaret was the hereditary heiress, and both she and Henry Stafford benefitted from the King’s intention to favour the Beauforts. They also soon had another link to the King when Edward, who had announced that he had secretly married a widow, Elizabeth Woodville, in 1464, married his sister-in-law, Catherine Woodville to Stafford’s nephew, the young Duke of Buckingham. Although both parties were children at the time of their marriage and it proved an unhappy union, it did serve to link Margaret and Henry Stafford to the powerful Woodville family and to the King himself, as did the fact that Stafford was a first cousin of the new King through their mothers.
    The King showed his favour towards Margaret and her husband in 1466, when he granted to them the manor at Woking in Surrey. This was a generous gift and the manor became a favourite home of the couple’s. The manor had previously belonged to Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and provided a residence conveniently close to London. Unfortunately, little now remains of what was, for a time, Margaret’s favourite residence, but during her lifetime, it was palatial. The large house was built around a courtyard. It was surrounded by a moat, and there were also orchards, gardens and a deer park. Margaret and Henry Stafford spent much of Edward IV’s reign at the house, and the couple worked hard in managing their estates, and their household at Woking has been described as a small court, with nearly fifty servants in attendance, many of whom were gentlemen. The couple were renowned for their hospitality, and for their wedding anniversary on 31 January 1471, they feasted on curlew, plover and larks supplied by a London poulterer. It is apparent that the couple regularly celebrated their wedding anniversary, a further testament to the