Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > The House of Beaufort: The Bastard Line that Captured the Crown > Status Update

'Fourteen years later, the Tudors returned to Wales at the head of an army that included Henry's cousin Charles Somerset, the illegitimate son of Henry Beaufort, the 2nd Duke killed at Hexham in 1464. Although not Beaufort by name, the pair were Beaufort by blood, and at Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485, the Portcullis and Yale standards once again fluttered proudly in the English breeze.'

'observed Somerset 'loggyr whythe the kynge in hys owne bedde many nyghtys, and sum tyme rode a huntynge behynde the kynge', while Edward commemorated the duke's defection with a great joust at Westminster, in which Somerset 'ranne fulle justely'. To share the royal bed, in a non-sexual manner, was a significant political statement on Edward's behalf and emphasised his genuine desire for reconcliliation'

'For Somerset and his Beaufort kin, including his younger brothers Edmund and John, this was a disastrous development, for which their Beaufort-blooded Neville relations were largely responsible. The family had always depended on the patronage of a friendly Lancastrian king, and with that support about to be withdrawn they stood at the mercy of a hostile Yorkist regime led by the eponymous duke himself'

'the English Chronicle, written less than fifteen years after the battle and which recalled how Somerset 'had herde a fantastyk prophecy that he shuld dy undre a castelle'. While he had feared the royal fortress of Windsor as a result, of which he remained constable up until his death, it was in St Albans, where there was 'an hostry having the sygne of a castelle', that Somerset ultimately fell.'

'York had grown accustomed to authority during his nine months in charge, as had the supporters who had risen with him, and the duke did not easily accept his sudden dismissal. He had taster power and had little desire to let it go. Edmund Beaufort, on the other hand, had been freed from the Tower on 7 February and not only sought to regain his former pre-eminence, but to wreak vengeance on York.'

'The much-celebrated gains of Henry V between 1415 and 1420 were undone in just over a year, and unfortunately for the reputation of Edmund Beaufort, who again avoided England by heading for Calais, it happened on his watch. No amount of excuses or reasoning could eradicate that fact, and it would have dire consequences for the houses of Beaufort and Lancaster.'

'Margaret Beaufort did not forget about her father, even though he passed away before she was old enough to remember him. Able to take advantage of her exalted status as the king's mother, Margaret secured a licence on 1 March 1496 to found a chantry chapel of one chaplain in the 'collegiate church of Wymburne', to be named the chantry of the Blessed Jesus and St Mary the Virgin.'

'The 1430s had been a tumultuous decade for the Beauforts, beginning with the demise of Thomas, taking in the personal strife of the two Joans, and ending with John's release, Edmund's heroics and Margaret's death. Now the elderly cardinal of England was showing signs of growing fatigue after a lifetime of intense service to the crown'

'a band of assassins, dispatched by the king's estranged uncle Walter Stewart, earl of Atholl, invaded the Dominican Friary in Perth just after midnight and cornered the terrified royal couple in their lodgings. James attempted to flee but was quickly apprehended, subdued and 'most barbarously assassinated'. Though 'villainously wounded in two places', Joan survived'

'After his humiliation in 1427, this was unquestionably a victory for the cardinal over the duke, with Gloucester unable to cultivate enough support to destroy his nemesis. Henry Beaufort had been present on the political stage for more than thirty years and with England about to enter a crucial period in the war with French, it was unwise to lose his Europe-wife connections and diplomatic expertise.'