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History's Greatest Battles (podcast series)
Dr Lauren Johnson and Emily Briffett round off our series on the Wars of the Roses with Bosworth, the battle that ushered in the Tudor dynasty
In 1485, England stood at a crossroads, scarred by decades of civil war. Against this grim backdrop, two armies headed for a fateful confrontation: one led by a battle-hardened king determined to ensure the success of a dynasty he had fought to protect for years; the other by a new challenger in an old conflict. In this final episode of our History’s Greatest Battles series charting the Wars of the Roses, Emily Briffett is joined by historian and author Lauren Johnson to explore how, in one fateful meeting on one remarkable day, a new king would be crowned – and history would never look the same again. History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.
Dr Lauren Johnson and Emily Briffett consider the blood and brutality of the battle of Tewkesbury, where the Lancastrian cause was broken
Survivors desperately fleeing to the apparent safety of a nearby abbey. A young prince on the brink of death. A dynasty on the precipice. The battle of Tewkesbury, which played out during May 1471, certainly had its fair share of high drama, and high stakes, as armies clashed and the Lancastrian cause was shattered. In this fourth episode of our History’s Greatest Battles series charting the Wars of the Roses, Emily Briffett joins historian and author Lauren Johnson to consider those remarkable events – and their legacy. History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.
Dr Lauren Johnson and Emily Briffett travel delve into the fog of war of the battle of Barnet
April 1471: a thick, blinding fog smothered the fields near Barnet, swallowing banners, muffling orders and turning friend into foe. Opposing armies became disoriented – and then one mistake proved fatal. In this third episode of our History’s Greatest Battles series charting the Wars of the Roses, Emily Briffett joins historian and author Lauren Johnson to chronicle the clash at Barnet, in which lines buckled and trust collapsed. History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.
Dr Lauren Johnson and Emily Briffett travel to 1461 and the frost and fury of the battle of Towton
In the bitter spring of 1461, the freezing fields of Yorkshire became a blood-soaked battlefield in which two rivals fought for the throne of a divided nation. But who would emerge victorious? In this second episode of our History’s Greatest Battles series charting the Wars of the Roses, Emily Briffett joins historian and author Lauren Johnson at the 1461 battle of Towton. History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.
History's Greatest Battles: The First Battle of St Albans
Dr Lauren Johnson and Emily Briffett explore the clash that ignited the Wars of the Roses: the First Battle of St Albans
History’s Greatest Battles is back! This time around, Emily Briffett and historian and author Lauren Johnson will be chronicling the most momentous clashes of the Wars of the Roses. In this first episode, they explore 1455’s First Battle of St Albans, a bitter brawl that sparked a dynastic struggle and set in motion a chain of events that would redefine power in England for centuries to come. History’s Greatest Battles is produced by HistoryExtra, the home of ‘History’s Greatest’ podcasts. Listen to our other podcasts: History's Greatest Dishes, History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, History’s Greatest Scandals, History’s Greatest Cities and HistoryExtra Long Reads.
5 things you (probably) didn't know about the Tudors
Ruth Goodman, who teaches our new HistoryExtra Academy course on Tudor life, shares five insights about the dynasty’s legacy
1. The Tudors brought peace and prosperity to England Bringing peace was probably the most important thing the Tudors did for us. The British countryside is littered with the sites of medieval battles – places where opposing forces stomped over crops, burned barns and rounded up people’s sons. For centuries, rival aristocrats made and broke alliances, and killed those who got in their way. Henry Tudor took the throne in exactly this way at Bosworth in 1485, when he persuaded a number of warlords to desert their king, Richard III. But there it stopped. Intrigue and power politics were thenceforth undertaken by more covert means. Everyone became a bit safer, the day-to-day became a bit more predictable, and lots of people got a little bit richer. Less war meant that more crops made it to market, more young men were available for work, and there was less damage done to buildings, less thievery with menaces and safer travel. In turn, this meant more trade and a greater willingness to invest. The peace the Tudors brought to their lands benefited all – rich and poor alike. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/GettyImages-540735906webready-614eaac.jpg" width="5572" height="3714" alt="An engraving shows Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, presenting an English translation of the Bible to Henry VIII (Image by Getty Images)" title="An engraving shows Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester during the Reformation, presenting an English translation of the Bible to Henry VIII (Image by Getty Images)" /> 2. Henry VIII was a reluctant reformer When the Tudors came to power, the Catholic church was already struggling to maintain its grip upon the minds and souls of Europe. New ideas about the nature of God and the state of Christianity were circulating. So when Henry VIII lost patience with the pope, there were plenty of people delighted by the opportunity to rethink England’s official religious position. Read more | Tudor England had no standing army, but this humble hobby kept its people ready for war Henry himself seems to have been happy to leave the religion as was. He just wanted the power and money the pope had been leveraging from his kingdom. He was quickly convinced, though, that he should also have the money and assets of the monasteries. A significant number of influential and vocal people wanted much more, however, pushing for a ‘purer’ form of Christianity that did away with priests entirely and abandoned the rituals and traditions of Catholicism. Others, of course, wholeheartedly defended the time-honoured form of faith. The result was a fracturing of society. Hundreds, both Protestant and Catholic, were executed for refusing to change their form of faith and follow the state-sponsored format – one that changed radically several times. But for all the death and fear, the upset and soul-searching, a new freedom of thought also emerged. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/GettyImages-463916919webready-ea853dd.jpg" width="3432" height="2288" alt="A painting showing a person, holding the page of a book which sits on a table" title="During the Tudor era, literacy grew, in part because Protestantism emphasised reading the Bible rather than the word of God being mediated by a priest (Image by Getty Images)" /> 3. The Tudor era brought a rise in literacy A few years before Henry Tudor took the throne, in 1476, William Caxton printed his first book on English soil. As printing presses became established and the price of books plummeted, reading became affordable to many more people. There was also more choice. Alongside religious texts, books of popular stories, advice manuals, joke books, medical texts and scandal sheets were published. At the same time, there was a new religious pressure for Britons to learn to read. The Protestant faith required its adherents to stop relying on priests and to read the Bible for themselves. This applied to everyone: shepherds and ploughmen as well as nobles and merchants – even women. Teaching people to read became a new religious duty and literacy rates started to climb. Read more | What did the Tudors think was ‘good’ sex? These tips and tricks were key to relationships in the 16th century 4. They drove the expansion of industry The Tudor monarchs – Elizabeth, in particular – were very keen to kickstart new industries and update old ones. In order to do this, specialist workers from Europe were encouraged to resettle on these shores. Some came as refugees fleeing religious persecution in France and the Low Countries, bringing new textile-making skills. Others were purely economic migrants with mining expertise or knowledge of new glassblowing and brass-founding techniques. The strategy worked – and these new arrivals provided the core of know-how and experience around which English industry could grow. Read more | 5 things you (probably) didn't know about Victorian Britain 5. The health of the nation improved Rates of fatal illness fell during the Tudor period – though this was the result of sheer luck, as certain major diseases mutated into less virulent forms. When a new, often lethal form of the plague arrived in England in 1348 – the Black Death – it killed around a third of the population, suddenly and catastrophically. Plague returned to Britain many times over the centuries that followed but, by the start of the Tudor era, the outbreaks were becoming smaller and more people were surviving. Meanwhile, another major killer known as the sweating sickness – a mysterious disease causing rapidly developing symptoms including shivers, headaches, dizziness, pains and, soon afterwards, sweating and commonly death – came and went. The first epidemic broke out in 1485, just as the Tudor era was beginning, and the last came in 1551, after which it apparently vanished completely. With both of these big killers in retreat, the population began to grow. Ruth Goodman is a social and domestic historian and broadcaster. Her books include How to Be a Tudor (Viking, 2015) This article was first published in the December 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine Want to step even further into the world of the Tudors? In her brand-new HistoryExtra Academy series, Ruth Goodman takes you inside everyday life in the 16th century — from food and fashion to faith, work, and even love and marriage. The first three episodes are available now on the HistoryExtra app, with more to come soon. Start watching today Want to ask Ruth a question? Join our live virtual Q&A on 19 November. Find out more here
The rise of Henry VII: how a life of cheating death prepared him for the throne as the first Tudor king
Want to know why Henry VII is remembered as an intensely suspicious king, wracked by paranoia? The answer, writes Nathen Amin, lies in his death-defying rise to power
Portraits of Henry VII typically share a few key traits. They depict a man with a lean, strong face, a shock of brown hair escaping from beneath a black cap. A long nose; often the ghost of a smile. And dark, piercing eyes. Watchful? Wary? Suspicious, even? Certainly that’s how history has remembered him: as a king driven to the edge of tyranny by his rampant paranoia, cursed with a debilitating suspicion of those around him that left him isolated and unloved towards the end of his reign. Francis Bacon, writing in the early 17th century, remarked that Henry was “a dark prince, and infinitely suspicious”, who would admit no one “to his power or to his secrets”. There is an element of truth in Bacon’s judgment that Henry became “lost in a wood of suspicions”. Read more | Henry VII: the greatest pretender Henry’s wary nature is typically attributed to his shaky claim to the throne. The first Tudor monarch was unable to escape the taunt that he was a usurper with no right to call himself king. In fact, his renowned paranoia was the inevitable consequence of a traumatic youth – a trait ingrained long before he harboured ambitions to wear a crown. If we delve deeper into Henry’s background, we can draw a fuller picture of one of our most circumspect of monarchs – one that might elicit sympathy for a long misunderstood king. Growing up with the enemy Henry was not born to rule. Indeed, he was born far from the throne, both figuratively and literally. The son of Margaret Beaufort, an English heiress of royal descent, and a half-Welsh, half-French earl named Edmund Tudor, Henry was born in Pembroke Castle on 28 January 1457. It was an inopportune moment to arrive in the world: civil war was brewing between the rival houses of York and Lancaster, remembered today as the Wars of the Roses. Henry was related on both sides of his family tree to the beleaguered Lancastrian king Henry VI, who was both his maternal cousin and his paternal half-uncle. He never knew his father, Edmund Tudor, who died three months before Henry was born. Edmund, who had been engaged in conflict with a Yorkist faction led by William Herbert, perished in uncertain circumstances in Carmarthen in November 1456, having not long been released from a Yorkist prison. In any case, Margaret was just 13 years old when she gave birth to Henry, and the baby’s welfare was entrusted to his uncle Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/07/F3PEBE-9ea8023-e1721916654762.jpg" width="620" height="414" alt="The 12th-century Pembroke Castle was Henry VII’s birthplace, but also where he and his uncle Jasper were besieged by the forces of Edward IV in 1471, when Henry was just 14 (Photo by Christopher Nicholson/Alamy Stock Photo)" title="The 12th-century Pembroke Castle was Henry VII’s birthplace, but also where he and his uncle Jasper were besieged by the forces of Edward IV in 1471, when Henry was just 14 (Photo by Christopher Nicholson/Alamy Stock Photo)" /> A series of battles between 1459 and 1461 ultimately displaced the Lancastrians from the English throne. Henry’s grandfather, Owen Tudor, was executed and his uncle Jasper was forced into penurious exile. At just four years old, Henry’s wardship was sold by the new Yorkist king, Edward IV, to none other than Herbert, the avowed enemy of the Tudors, who had been closely implicated in the death of the boy’s father, Edmund, just five years earlier. Being just a child, Henry had no input in this decision. He spent the next decade living with the Herberts at Raglan Castle in Monmouthshire, on the Welsh border. There he enjoyed a stable life and a solid education. War, however, continued to rear its ugly head. At the battle of Edgcote in July 1469, Lord Herbert fought rebels loyal to Edward IV’s wayward brother George, Duke of Clarence, and cousin Richard Neville, better known as Warwick ‘the Kingmaker’. Herbert, whose side lost the battle, was captured and beheaded. It is possible Henry was himself present at this engagement; if so, it would have been a horrifying first experience of warfare. When Clarence and Warwick helped restore the Lancastrian king Henry VI to the throne the following year, though, the door was opened for the young Henry Tudor to be reunited with Jasper, the uncle he barely knew. Edward IV targets Henry Tudor The Lancastrian resurgence proved short-lived: in May 1471, Edward IV wrested back his crown in battle then, over the days that followed, ruthlessly eliminated the flower of Lancaster. Among the dead were Henry VI; his son, Prince Edward of Westminster; and his cousins Edmund and John Beaufort. As a consequence of this bloodletting, the previously lightly regarded Henry Tudor, still just 14 years old, was suddenly in the Yorkist crosshairs. As one foreign ambassador remarked, Edward IV was determined to “crush the seed” of Lancastrianism. Henry was at Chepstow with Jasper when they were set upon by a Yorkist soldier sent by the king to seize them. His uncle was able to turn the tables and kill this would-be captor but, conscious that reinforcements would soon appear, the two Tudors quickly set off across the wilds of south Wales. At Jasper’s seat, Pembroke, they were besieged for eight tense and terrifying days before escaping to the nearby coastal fort of Tenby. Uncle and nephew scrambled through a network of underground tunnels down to the harbour, where they hopped into a waiting vessel. Their departure marked the start of 14 years of exile for Henry. Tossed by a storm, the Tudors eventually made landfall in Brittany. There they received the protection of Duke Francis II. Henry's life in exile When Edward IV discovered that Henry had escaped, he sought to manipulate Francis’s very real fears of being conquered by the acquisitive French crown. Brittany and Yorkist England were allies, and Edward expected Francis to surrender the Tudors at once. But Francis hesitated. If he turned over Henry, he would have no bargaining chip with which to extract military or financial support from the English, who were equally keen that the Bretons didn’t deliver the Tudors to the French. Hampered by geopolitics, Francis instead swore “upon his honour” to protect his guests. Hence the disconcerted Henry found himself a pawn in a fluid Anglo-French-Breton diplomatic tussle; like a ship in a tempest, his fate lay outside his control. For much of the next dozen years, Henry was closely observed, his movement curtailed and his servants heavily vetted. According to a contemporary observation by the Frenchman Philippe de Commines, the Tudors were treated “very handsomely for prisoners”, but it was clear that they were vulnerable to the whims of others. This became evident five years into Henry’s Breton exile. In early 1476, Edward IV sought once more to get his hands on this evasive Lancastrian ally who remained tantalisingly out of his grasp. An embassy was sent across the Channel armed with chests of gold, hoping to persuade the Bretons to release their Tudor guest. Duke Francis’s resolve was weakened, and he “committed the sheep to the wolf”, handing Henry to Edward’s delegation. The jubilant English envoys decamped to Saint-Malo, ready for the voyage back to their awaiting king. Still just 19, Henry likely viewed the ships in the harbour with trepidation, knowing that, as “the only imp” of Henry VI’s blood still living, he was being “carried to his death”. So, at the final moment, Henry faked an illness. This provided an opportunity for the Bretons to change their mind, and in the confusion that ensued he managed to slip away from his captors, fleeing through the narrow streets to claim sanctuary in the cathedral. When the Englishmen tried to force their way in, they were beaten back by the outraged local populace and returned home empty handed. Rise of Richard III The next six years of Henry’s exile passed with little incident, living once more at the Breton court under the aegis of a contrite duke. For much of this time, Henry’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, worked hard to convince a mellowing Edward IV to permit her son to return home – and not to the chopping block. By June 1482 she had wrested a draft pardon from Edward, which stipulated that Henry could return provided he bend the knee to the Yorkist king. He would be restored to the earldom of Richmond, and there was even a potential marriage to Edward’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, on the cards. But on 9 April 1483, before the negotiations could be concluded, Edward IV died. Within weeks the deceased king’s brother had orchestrated a coup to become Richard III. The Yorkist court was bitterly divided between those who accepted the sidelining of Edward’s sons and those who didn’t. And when rumours spread that Richard’s nephews – popularly known today as the princes in the Tower – had been put to death, dismay manifested into outright rebellion. Read more | Did Richard III really kill the Princes in the Tower? Concerned that Richard seemed unwilling to honour the pardon Edward IV had drafted for Henry, Margaret Beaufort now extended the hand of friendship to the princes’ grief-stricken mother, Elizabeth Woodville. The two women arranged to put past differences behind them to take down a common foe. The Duke of Buckingham – who himself had a royal claim – was persuaded to abandon his erstwhile ally, Richard, and lead the crusade. Buckingham roused his tenants in October 1483, intending to link up with the Woodville contingent and an invading Henry Tudor. The uprising, however, proved farcical. Buckingham was captured with ease, and was executed soon afterwards. The Woodvilles were scattered, and Henry never even succeeded in making landfall in England. The upshot of Buckingham’s death, combined with the belief that the Yorkist princes had been killed, was that there now remained only one realistic challenger for Richard’s crown: Henry Tudor. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/07/KDFNTT-02d9781-e1721916878653.jpg" width="620" height="414" alt="A portrait of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, who persuaded Edward IV’s widow, Elizabeth Woodville, to help bring down Richard III (Photo by Historic Collection/Alamy Stock Photo)" title="A portrait of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, who persuaded Edward IV’s widow, Elizabeth Woodville, to help bring down Richard III (Photo by Historic Collection/Alamy Stock Photo)" /> Henry as heir to the throne There is no evidence from before the end of 1483 that Henry or his mother had any aspirations for him to be king. And he was regarded by one foreign contemporary, Philippe de Commines, as a “person of no power, and one who had been long prisoner” who was “not the next heir to the crown”. Even so, Henry saw an opportunity – and seized it. On Christmas Day 1483, Henry made a solemn promise to English rebels gathered before him in St Peter’s Cathedral, Rennes. If they sponsored his unlikely bid to be king, he would return their seized estates and offices. To further bind the Yorkist element to his cause, he swore to marry Elizabeth of York and symbolically unite the two warring royal houses. It was a bold gambit – but it paid off: the rebels pledged their fealty “as though he had already been created king”. This marked an astonishing turnaround in Tudor fortunes. Now regarded by Richard III as “the king’s great rebel and traitor”, Henry’s task was daunting. He spent the first few months of 1484 trying to persuade Duke Francis of Brittany to fund a fresh enterprise against the English king, but was himself nearly outmanoeuvred by a wily Richard. When Francis was taken ill, Richard sent across another embassy to deal with the Breton treasurer, Pierre Landais. Seeking personal enrichment, Landais promised to have an oblivious Henry seized and handed over. Fortunately for Henry, the Tudor camp had a spy in Richard’s council, and a messenger swiftly travelled to Brittany to warn Henry of his impending betrayal. Through necessity, the young Tudor had grown into a cautious adult, and took this news gravely. He summoned a few trusted figures to his side, and hatched yet another escape plan. He had already made two improbable flights during his lifetime: first as a 14-year-old in Tenby and again as a 19-year-old in Saint-Malo. Now, aged 27, he looked to complete a third. At some point in September 1484, Henry departed his court-in-exile under the pretence of visiting an acquaintance. Just a few miles into his journey, Henry and his companions left the road. He quickly changed into the clothes of a servant and, suitably disguised, rode hard for the French border. When they realised that something was afoot, the Bretons sent out a search party to bring Henry back. Stopping only briefly to water his exhausted horse, Henry made it into France with just an hour to spare. Once again, he had completed a remarkable escape. Once the French discovered that Henry was on their turf, they immediately welcomed him to court, where he was treated with every courtesy. More importantly – and for their own ends – the French crown publicly sponsored Henry’s campaign to “recover the Kingdom of England”, and began to source funding and soldiers. The path to Bosworth Field Richard III was outraged by this development, and rued his failure to get his hands on Henry. On 7 December 1484, the king issued a scathing proclamation – a masterful exercise in propaganda, lashing out at the “rebels and traitors” who had taken as their captain a man of “ambitious and insatiable covetousness [with] no manner, interest, right or colour” to his crown. All, Richard thundered, had not only forsaken their rightful king and natural country, but were murderers, adulterers and extortioners, moral delinquents who would inflict great harm on the English people if successful in their venture. Richard expected all “good and true Englishmen” to remain loyal. Henry and his supporters persevered, however. Having secured a series of personal loans from a number of merchants to bolster his war chest, by the summer of 1485 the would-be king was ready to set sail. He led a modest force largely comprising French mercenaries and a few hundred English rebels with nothing to lose. Read more | Bosworth: the dawn of the Tudors On 1 August 1485, Henry stepped onto a ship moored in Harfleur harbour. As he awaited a favourable wind to take him across the Channel to his uncertain fate, he may have reflected on his life to this point – and his repeated brushes with death. Removed from his family as a child, he had possibly witnessed the beheading of his guardian, and been forced to flee for his life on more than one occasion while still in his teens. As a claimant to the English throne, his life was still in constant peril. It is easy to picture Henry on the deck of his ship, staring out to sea, vowing that – if this unlikely quest proved successful – he would never again be a pawn in others’ games. History has adjudged Henry a king racked with suspicions; a trait that left him unloved and unmourned at death. His path to the throne, however, had taught him to be wary of both friend and foe. His court biographer, Polydore Vergil, wrote of Henry that “his mind was brave and resolute and never, even at the moments of the greatest danger, deserted him”. Life experience had taught Henry to be guarded. Far from a weakness, it was an attribute that served him well as king. He was suspicious, yes, but successful – and a true survivor. Nathen Amin is an author specialising in the reign of Henry VII. His new book is Son of Prophecy: The Rise of Henry Tudor (Amberley, 2024) This article was first published in the September 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine
She was pregnant at 12, widowed by the Wars of the Roses and almost died at the hands of Richard III. But, writes Michael Jones, nothing could prevent the indomitable Margaret Beaufort from engineering the rise of her son, Henry VII, to the English throne...
On 14 February 1453, a nine-year-old girl was travelling to London to be introduced to the court of King Henry VI. Her name was Margaret Beaufort, the only child of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and inheritor of a large landed estate. Margaret (born on 31 May 1443) had royal blood in her veins. But it was tainted blood, for her family was the illegitimate offspring of the king’s great-grandfather, John of Gaunt, by his mistress, Katherine Swynford. When Gaunt subsequently married Katherine, the Beauforts were legitimised – but barred from succeeding to the throne. As Margaret approached the royal court that day in 1453, her family harboured hopes that that Henry VI would overturn this provision. Margaret’s father had died shortly before her first birthday and so she was brought up by her mother, Margaret Beauchamp. Her mother instilled in her a strong sense of personal destiny and family pride. Despite her young age, Margaret was bright and remarkably self-assured. Above all, she was well aware of the opportunities beckoning her. Read more: the ultimate history guide to the Tudors That she would go on to take full advantage of these opportunities is beyond doubt. For, in the face of huge obstacles and sometimes mortal peril, Margaret played the 15th-century game of power-politics with bravery and determination. And, on 22 August 1485, her perseverance was rewarded when her son, Henry Tudor, defeated Richard III at the battle of Bosworth to become king. Charting Margaret’s role in Henry VII’s rise to power – and the establishment of the Tudor dynasty – reveals the skill-set of one of the great political survivors of the late Middle Ages. Margaret Beaufort's early life As the young Margaret travelled towards the royal court in February 1453, she found herself at the centre of a high-stakes tug-of-war. Three years earlier, Henry VI’s chief minister, William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, had arranged her marriage to his son John. The dynastic implications of this planned alliance would not have been lost on Margaret for King Henry, married for eight years, as yet had no heir. The House of Commons had nervously claimed that Suffolk was steering his son towards the throne through the rights of his prospective wife, whom he “presumed and pretended to be next in line to the crown”. Fresh stories were eddying around the court: Henry VI intended to annul Margaret’s match with Suffolk and instead marry her to his half-brother, Edmund Tudor. Young Margaret’s importance in such schemes was clear. But contemporaries imagined her role would be passive: by the standards of the time, she was merely a commodity in the medieval marriage market. Few at Henry’s court were in much doubt as to what would happen next. Margaret would meet her two suitors – John de la Pole and Edmund Tudor – and accede to the king’s wish. But Margaret had other ideas. The young girl solemnly told the astonished gathering that, as the matter was of such gravity, she should be allowed more time to decide. Margaret’s spiritual adviser John Fisher tells us what happened next: “Being then little more than nine years old, and doubtful in her mind what she were best to do, she asked counsel of an old gentlewoman, whom she much loved and trusted, who did advise her to commend herself to St Nicholas, the patron and helper of all true maidens, and to beseech him to put in her thoughts the right course to take. This counsel she followed, and made her prayer full often, and especially that night, knowing that in the morning she would be required to give her answer. And as she lay in prayer, calling upon the saint – whether asleep or awake she could not remember – about four o’clock in the morning a figure appeared before her, dressed in white, rather like a bishop, and naming Edmund, bade her take him as her husband.” Margaret duly did – but not before she had made the entire Lancastrian court await her decision. Marriage and the birth of the future Henry VII Margaret’s experience of marriage was harsh. She conceived Edmund Tudor’s child at the age of 12, and lost her husband to plague before the baby was born. The young widow was forced to seek the protection of Edmund’s brother Jasper, giving birth to a son, Henry Tudor, on 28 January 1457 at Pembroke Castle in west Wales. The recollections of John Fisher reveal that the birth was a very painful one, because of her small build and young age, and Margaret, now 13, was almost certainly physically damaged by it. She would never bear another child. Jasper Tudor, with the young mother and child under his protection, took charge of proceedings. According to the Welsh chronicler Elis Gruffydd, Jasper named the boy Owen, in memory of his own father. But Margaret, now well enough to attend the baptism, commanded the bishop to halt the service, begin again, and give her son the name of Henry. She spoke with such assurance that the entire assembly meekly followed her wishes. Margaret Beaufort did not wait upon events. No sooner had the ‘churching’ – the 40 days of ritual purification after the birth of a child – been completed, she was already making moves to avoid another husband being forced upon her. In March 1457, she entered into an agreement to marry the Duke of Buckingham’s second son, Sir Henry Stafford. Jasper Tudor and his retinue accompanied her to the duke’s manor of Greenfield, near Newport, but it was the 13-year-old Margaret who struck a bargain with one of the most powerful aristocrats in the country. Yet the wheel of fortune was to turn against her once more. For much of Margaret’s early life, England was ravaged by the Wars of the Roses, a bloody conflict that pitted the Lancastrian king Henry VI against his enemies, now led by Edward, Duke of York. In March 1461, Edward seized the crown (as Edward IV), and crushed Henry’s army at the battle of Towton. One of Edward’s first moves as monarch was to grant the wardship of Henry Tudor to one of his closest supporters, William Lord Herbert. Margaret and her son were separated, and Henry brought up at Herbert’s stronghold at Raglan Castle. Margaret refused to be discouraged, however, keeping in touch with her son through a stream of messages and occasional visits. The handsome and charming Edward IV won a brief reconciliation with Margaret’s cousin, Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, through sheer charisma. It surprised many. “The king made full much of him,” Gregory’s Chronicle reported indignantly, as the two former enemies went hunting together, and in a signal mark of favour, shared the royal bed. But when Somerset betrayed Edward’s trust and joined other Lancastrian exiles in Scotland in the spring of 1464, the king was furious, pursuing a vendetta against the whole family. It was now that Margaret’s skills as a diplomat came to the fore. She managed to rebuild bridges with the Yorkist king – employing her husband’s connections – and in December 1468 the two of them entertained King Edward at their hunting lodge of Brookwood, near Woking. She was also an opportunist. When her son’s guardian, Lord Herbert, was killed in the aftermath of the battle of Edgcote on 26 July 1469, she bemoaned the horror befalling those caught up “in fierce and terrible warfare” – and then promptly began a search of the legal records, in an attempt to overturn Henry Tudor’s grant of wardship. She wouldn’t have to wait long to gain access to her son again, for in the autumn of 1470 a rebellion – led by George, Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Warwick, ‘the Kingmaker’ – forced Edward IV into exile and saw Henry reinstalled on the throne. On 27 October 1470, mother and son paid a visit to the returned Lancastrian king, during which Henry reportedly made a prophecy that Margaret’s son “would heal the divisions of war” and reunite the nation. The tables turn But Margaret did not let sentiment cloud cold, political calculation. In March 1471, all was once again on a knife-edge as Edward IV returned from exile with a fresh army. At the end of the month, her cousins arrived at her manor of Woking, in an effort to enlist her support for King Henry. But Margaret and Stafford decided that the Lancastrian forces simply weren’t strong enough to prevail – and, as the Beauforts rode towards the West Country, Stafford and his retainers headed off in the opposite direction, to join Edward’s army. Victories at the battle of Barnet and the battle of Tewkesbury, on 14 April and 4 May 1471, re-established Edward IV on the throne. Margaret’s decision to throw her lot in with him was vindicated but her prudence came at a cost. In the aftermath of Tewkesbury, Henry VI was almost certainly murdered on Edward’s orders, Margaret’s remaining male Beaufort cousins were killed, and her husband Henry Stafford died of battle wounds. Meanwhile her son Henry, in Wales with the Lancastrian forces of his uncle, Jasper Tudor, fled into exile in Brittany. Margaret did not know if she would see him again. In May 1472 she drew up her will, instructing her trustees to preserve an estate “should Henry ever return to England and be restored to favour”. Sadly, this prospect seemed far distant. Most aristocratic women may now have retired from political life altogether and joined a religious community. But Margaret’s resilience was extraordinary. In June 1472 she once more negotiated a marriage alliance, this time with Thomas Lord Stanley, the steward of Edward IV’s household. The Stanleys were great landowners in Lancashire, Cheshire and north Wales, and the match gave Margaret an influential position at the Yorkist court. By the summer of 1482 she was at last able to broker an agreement with Edward IV for her son to return to England, secure a landed estate and a marriage to one of Edward’s daughters. But the king died, on 9 April 1483, before it could be put into effect. King Edward’s son and heir was now recognised as Edward V, and first a governing council and then a protectorate, under Edward IV’s younger brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was set up to rule the country until he came of age. But the protectorate itself abruptly ended when Richard dramatically announced that his brother’s marriage to his queen, Elizabeth Woodville, was invalid and the couple’s two sons illegitimate. Gloucester now claimed the throne himself, being crowned Richard III on 6 July 1483. Richard’s seizure of the throne was bloody and confused. The new king ordered Edward IV’s sons, Edward and Richard, to be confined to the Tower, had Edward’s chamberlain, William, Lord Hastings, executed for treason, and forced Elizabeth Woodville to withdraw into sanctuary at Westminster Abbey with her daughters. Read more | Did Richard III really kill the Princes in the Tower? And what of Margaret Beaufort? Ever the pragmatist, she initially sought an accommodation with Richard in order to safeguard the arrangements for Henry Tudor’s return drawn up a year earlier. She and her husband even played a prominent role in Richard’s coronation. But it wasn’t long before the relationship between king and countess turned sour. Alarmed by the fate of the princes in the Tower, Margaret changed tack, organising a rebellion in which a rising by the Duke of Buckingham and the Woodvilles would be supported by an invasion force led by Jasper and Henry Tudor from Brittany. Margaret “was commonly called the head of that conspiracy”, the historian Polydore Vergil remarked. Did Margaret have the princes in the Tower murdered? The disappearance of the two sons of Edward IV, the princes in the Tower, is one of our enduring royal mysteries. The majority of contemporaries believed that that they had been killed sometime around August 1483 and Richard III, and also the Duke of Buckingham, were seen as the most likely culprits. In the early 17th century researchers William Cornwallis and Sir George Buck first suggested that Margaret Beaufort might have killed the the princes, in order to further Henry Tudor’s chances of taking the throne. Such a possibility cannot be ruled out, and has recently been revived in Philippa Gregory’s historical novel The Red Queen, and the BBC’s 2013 dramatisation of Philippa’s Wars of the Roses books. It represents the darkest and most terrifying fruit of her remorseless ambition for her son. While a motive for Lady Margaret existed – albeit a profoundly disturbing one – hard evidence for her involvement in such a scheme is scant indeed. Buck claimed to have found proof in “an old manuscript book”, but as he never cited its provenance or quoted from it, its existence remains a mystery. No contemporary chronicler or source blamed Margaret for the princes’ disappearance. Most believed Richard III was guilty of the crime. All the while, an extraordinary prospect was opening up: of a marriage alliance between Henry and Edward IV’s oldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, by which Tudor could himself claim the throne. However, the rising collapsed – and Margaret, deprived of all lands and servants by an act of parliament, was only spared execution because of her husband’s continued loyalty to Richard III. When Henry Parker, Lord Morley, wrote “In King Richard’s days, she was oft in jeopardy of her life,” he certainly wasn’t exaggerating. Read more | Elizabeth of York: a Tudor of rare talent But, in the summer of 1485, Margaret’s luck was to change again. Henry recruited a new invasion army, landed in Wales, and on 22 August – with Stanley’s support – defeated and killed Richard III at Bosworth Field. The man who Margaret described in her letters as “my dearest and only beloved joy in the world”, was now king of England. And, as he himself acknowledged, he owed much to his mother. Her seemingly endless reserves of resolve and practicality had forged a most surprising medieval success story. Margaret Beaufort was truly one of history’s great survivors. The five lives of Margaret Beaufort From bitter inheritance to England’s most powerful woman 1 The infant heiress Margaret was brought up by her mother with a strong sense of her Beaufort lineage, and the family’s closeness to the ruling House of Lancaster. The Beauforts’ illegitimate origins – and the stigma of her father John Beaufort’s disgrace and suicide after an unsuccessful military campaign in France – demonstrated the mutability of human fortunes. (John Fisher remembered Margaret’s tears at her son’s coronation, motivated by the fear that their fortunes might change once more). It also fuelled a determination to redeem her family’s reputation. 2 The child bride A young and wealthy heiress in the medieval marriage market was normally a pawn in the game of powerful men – but Margaret sought to take command of the situation, claiming the decisions to marry first Edmund Tudor and then Henry Stafford as her own. She was not entirely successful (she cannot have anticipated that the 24-year-old Tudor would consummate their union when she was still only 12, a decision shocking by modern standards and unseemly by medieval ones), but it gives us a powerful insight into the way she made sense of the world. 3 The canny networker Margaret Beaufort revered Henry VI, and in her son’s reign attempted to get the hapless king made a saint, but to her credit she was prepared to work with Edward IV. Her marriage to Thomas Stanley, steward of the royal household, gave her a permanent place at the Yorkist court in the second half of Edward’s reign. John Fisher praised Margaret’s accessibility – “She was of singular easiness to be spoken unto, and full courteous answer she would make to all that came to her” – and her interest in court protocol began at this time. And the agreement of June 1482, by which Edward IV allowed the restoration of Henry Tudor to lands and titles and a marriage to one of his daughters, was a remarkable triumph. 4 The rebels’ ringleader The Tudor historian Polydore Vergil gives a striking portrait of Margaret’s role in the rebellion against Richard III in the autumn of 1483. Vergil related how Margaret sent her physician, Lewis Caerleon, into the sanctuary at Westminster Abbey, to plot with Elizabeth Woodville. She also opened discussions with the Duke of Buckingham through John Morton and her trusted servant Reginald Bray. Meanwhile, money was also sent to Henry Tudor in Brittany. Margaret’s role may have been a little less all-encompassing than Vergil claimed, but the broad tenor of his account is confirmed by Richard III’s own act of parliament against her. 5 The king’s mother During the reign of her son, Henry VII, Margaret held an unparalleled position of power. She was able to attend to works of religious patronage and the great educational foundations, at Christ’s and St John’s Colleges in Cambridge (the coat of arms pictured above is sited at St John’s). In the last decade of Henry’s rule, Margaret ran a court of equity from her palace of Collyweston (in Northamptonshire) and governed the Midlands on the king’s behalf. She outlived her son, falling ill at the coronation banquet of her grandson, Henry VIII. She died on 29 June 1509 – with the new Tudor dynasty firmly founded. Michael Jones is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He co-authored, with Philippa Langley, The King’s Grave: The Search for Richard III (John Murray, 2014) This article first appeared in the January 2017 issue of BBC History Magazine
Margaret of Anjou: the 'she-wolf' queen who wouldn’t go quietly
Margaret of Anjou was a foreigner and a woman: two facts that should have sunk her bid to regain the English throne for her husband, Henry VI, in the Wars of the Roses. Yet, writes Joanna Arman, when it came to fighting her family’s corner, the 'she-wolf' of Shakespeare simply didn’t know when she was beaten
Margaret of Anjou crossed swords with some of 15th-century England’s most formidable warriors. But it was a playwright born eight decades after her death who inflicted the most damage on the queen’s reputation. When William Shakespeare had Richard, Duke of York describe Margaret as the “She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,” in Henry VI Part III, he helped secure the queen a place in historical infamy. For 500 years, Margaret – wife of Henry VI, and towering figure in the Wars of the Roses – has been labelled an unfaithful wife, a foreign enemy within, a Machiavellian schemer and a bloodthirsty monster who delighted in exacting terrible vengeance on her enemies. Even in modern times, some say Margaret was the inspiration for Game of Thrones’ notoriously manipulative monarch Cersei Lannister. The truth is, inevitably, far more nuanced – and compelling – than the stereotype. Margaret was neither the unscrupulous ogre of Shakespeare’s portrayal, nor the innocent bystander that some historians have presented in recent years. She was a woman who fought with no little skill and tenacity on behalf of her husband, her son Edward of Westminster – and, of course, herself – in the maelstrom of one of England’s most protracted and vicious civil wars. She suffered setbacks and endured abuse (much of it a result of her gender) that would have broken many of her contemporaries. And yet she so nearly realised her aim of securing her son the English throne. That in itself makes her one of the most fascinating figures of the 15th century. Margaret of Anjou’s route to power Margaret was born in 1430, probably in Lorraine in modern-day France. Her parents were Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine and René of Anjou, brother-in-law of King Charles VII of France. With René a prisoner of war for much of Margaret’s childhood, and Isabella called away to the Italian peninsula to oversee her husband’s lands, Margaret lived with her grandmother Yolande of Aragon until she was 12. War had cast a long shadow over Margaret’s early years, but it was an attempt to negotiate peace that would turn her life on its head. In 1445, at the age of just 15, she was married to Henry VI, king of England, as part of negotiations to bring to an end decades of conflict between England and France. Her future now lay in a foreign and unfamiliar land. Margaret’s time as queen of England can be divided into two phases: the first being from 1445–53, when she largely stayed out of the great affairs of state. First phase of her time as queen <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/05/2M65HDA-92f0b78.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="An illumination from c1484 depicting Margaret of Anjou’s marriage to King Henry VI (Photo by IanDagnall Computing / Alamy Stock Photo)" title="An illumination from c1484 depicting Margaret of Anjou’s marriage to King Henry VI (Photo by IanDagnall Computing / Alamy Stock Photo)" /> Little of her correspondence survives from that first period, and most relates only to her hobbies or the administration of her lands. One of her early letters shows her intervening on behalf of one of her tenants, who faced prosecution for cutting down trees; another shows her involvement in a marriage case. Then, in 1453, everything changed. And the catalyst was the birth of a son, Edward of Westminster. Second phase: rise of a political powerhouse This marked the start of the second period of her tenure (1453–61) in which she became a major player in the political chaos and internecine conflict that increasingly consumed the kingdom. By giving her husband a long-awaited heir, Margaret had bolstered her status; she had solidified her role as queen. She now clearly felt emboldened to actively protect and advance her family’s interests. This new-found confidence would change the course of Margaret’s life. Shortly before she gave birth, Henry had been laid low by illness – a form of mental instability that prevented him from fulfilling his duties as king. In early 1454, with parliament having been summoned to decide who would run the country in this time of crisis, Margaret did something unprecedented: she tried to claim the regency for herself. “Desires the whole rule of this land” The Paston letters (written by a Norfolk gentry family from 1422–1509) present us with a reasonably reliable contemporary account of what took place. Margaret presented a bill with five articles, “the first of which is that she desires the whole rule of this land; the second is that she may appoint the chancellor, treasurer… and all other officers of this land”. Margaret’s bid to rule in her husband’s stead drew a storm of opprobrium from her contemporaries, and has been heavily criticised by historians since. One of the chief charges levelled at her was that her gambit was nothing more than a naked power grab. Yet her intent was, it’s likely, not to take over the government for her own selfish ends, but to protect her son’s interests while her husband was ill, and to try to create a unified government to rise above the factionalism plaguing Henry’s regime. Margaret genuinely believed that, as queen and now mother to the heir, she was the right person to perform this role. This takes us to the second main source of the criticism: Margaret’s gender. Plight of the medieval queen In France and other parts of Europe, there was a long-established precedent for female regents. These included Margaret’s own mother, Isabella of Lorraine, upon whom Duke René “bestowed full executive and military authority”, and Joan of Navarre, who had been regent for her young son, John V, Duke of Brittany. Unfortunately, no such precedent existed in England. Here, there was an ancient animosity to female rule going back to the 12th century and Empress Matilda’s attempt to wrest the throne from Stephen in the so-called Anarchy. And so both parliament and Margaret’s political rivals were appalled by the prospect of a woman operating the levers of power. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/05/GettyImages-464462463-046e739.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="A 19th-century painting by John Gilbert shows Margaret of Anjou being taken prisoner at the battle of Tewkesbury (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" title="A 19th-century painting by John Gilbert shows Margaret of Anjou being taken prisoner at the battle of Tewkesbury (Photo by Guildhall Library & Art Gallery/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" /> It is surely no coincidence that it is from 1453 that many of the scurrilous rumours about Margaret having extramarital affairs, or being utterly obsessed with power, began to emerge. She had transgressed the social expectations of her society – and that was unforgivable. A ballad, written a number of years after the event, demonstrates how some people tried to frame Margaret’s actions in 1454: “It is a right great perversion a woman of a land to be a regent / Queen Margaret, I mean, that ever has meant / To govern all England with might and power / And to destroy the right line was her intent… ” Margaret and the Wars of the Roses Margaret’s bid to rule as regent – and her opponents’ reaction to it – would have enormous consequences. This deteriorating relationship helped plunge England into the Wars of the Roses, which would see the houses of York (initially headed by Richard, Duke of York) and Lancaster (with Margaret to the fore) engaged in a brutal, three-decades-long struggle for the throne. Margaret and Richard, Duke of York first clashed during Henry VI’s initial bout of illness, when York attempted to have a key ally of Margaret’s executed, as well as using his power to deny her funds. This caused Margaret to see him as a threat to her position, and that of her son. Her fears were confirmed in 1455, when escalating tensions exploded into armed conflict. In May that year, the houses of Lancaster and York came to blows at St Albans, the opening battle of the Wars of the Roses. For the following six years, the forces of York and Lancaster were engaged in a struggle for supremacy in which Margaret’s fortunes ebbed and flowed wildly. A low point arrived in July 1460 when her husband was captured and taken into captivity following defeat at the battle of Northampton. Margaret of Anjou’s changing fortunes In December that same year, the Lancastrians gained some degree of revenge with victory at the battle of Wakefield, a clash that would result in the death of Margaret’s nemesis, Richard, Duke of York. A myth quickly developed that the queen was at the battle, where she tormented the defeated duke, thus giving birth to the violent, vindictive and unnatural tyrant of Shakespeare’s imagination. However, in more recent years historians have established (with the help of her correspondence) that, as the battle raged at Wakefield, Margaret was in Scotland, attempting to raise troops. Margaret did indeed get her army and was able to wrest her husband out of enemy hands in early 1461. But, as she attempted to enter London, her fortunes plunged again. With rumours swirling that she was plotting to murder Henry and marry her alleged lover, the Duke of Somerset, the people of London baulked at the idea of allowing the “evil” queen and her army of “barbaric” Scots within the city walls. Lancastrians defeated, and a new leader emerges In March 1461, as Margaret was embroiled in negotiations with the people of London, Richard, Duke of York’s son seized the initiative and had himself crowned Edward IV. Edward sealed his triumph by defeating the Lancastrians at the battle of Towton, possibly the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil. The royal family was driven into exile and Henry formally deposed. After this point, Margaret became the true leader of the Lancastrian cause, not least because so many devoted Lancastrian nobles had been killed in the previous years. She spent the next two years on the run with Edward of Westminster, in Wales, Scotland and France. But her dreams of securing her son’s rightful inheritance, the English crown, weren’t entirely dashed yet. In October 1462, with the backing of the new French king, Louis XI, Margaret landed back in England at the head of an army of 800 soldiers. They made landfall in Northumberland, and secured Bamburgh and Alnwick castles. Yet they were soon driven out of their new gains and, in August 1463, Margaret and Edward were forced to sail back to France. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/05/0231519-3875e31.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Margaret of Anjou (probably right) in an illumination from c1475. Following Henry VI’s defeat at the battle of Towton, his wife became the true leader of the Lancastrian cause (Photo by Topfoto)" title="Margaret of Anjou (probably right) in an illumination from c1475. Following Henry VI’s defeat at the battle of Towton, his wife became the true leader of the Lancastrian cause (Photo by Topfoto)" /> Victory over her Yorkist enemies must now have seemed as distant as ever. But in the summer of 1470, after seven more years in France entertaining exiled Lancastrian lords, Margaret’s fortunes changed again. She would have one final shot at victory. Timeline: the life of the 'She-wolf of France' 23/24 March 1430 Margaret of Anjou is born to Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine and René of Anjou, brother-in-law of King Charles VII of France. 22 April 1445 Margaret weds Henry VI, king of England, as part of a peace treaty between England and France. 13 October 1453 Margaret gives birth to Edward of Westminster. The following year, Edward is invested as Prince of Wales. Early 1454 With Henry VI incapacitated by mental instability, Margaret bids, unsuccessfully, to rule England as regent. 22 May 1455 Some of Margaret’s key allies are killed at the battle of St Albans, the opening clash of the Wars of the Roses. Later that year, her enemy Richard, Duke of York, is appointed protector of the realm. 29 March 1461 Edward IV wins a crushing victory at Towton. Henry VI is now formally deposed and Margaret and her son driven into exile. October 1462 Margaret lands in Northumberland with the aim of seizing the throne from Edward IV. She is soon forced to sail back to exile in France. 3 October 1470 An invasion headed by Margaret’s ally, Warwick the Kingmaker, forces Edward IV into exile. 4 May 1471 Seventeen-year-old Edward of Westminster is killed by Edward IV’s forces at the battle of Tewkesbury. Henry VI dies soon after. 25 August 1482 Having lived the final years of her life in exile, Margaret of Anjou dies in her father’s lands in France. Margaret and the Kingmaker That change of fortune would come from an unlikely source: Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, also known as Warwick the Kingmaker. Warwick had previously been a close political ally of Edward IV but the two had fallen out, and now he had arrived in France with a plan to restore Henry VI to the throne. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/05/GettyImages-463950051-2ea2079.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Edward of Westminster, son of Margaret of Anjou and Henry VI, shown in an engraving published in 1793 (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)" title="Edward of Westminster, son of Margaret of Anjou and Henry VI, shown in an engraving published in 1793 (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)" /> One of Warwick’s conditions was that his 14-year-old daughter, Anne Neville, be married to the young Edward of Westminster, by then aged 16. Following a complex round of negotiations, Margaret agreed to throw her weight behind Warwick’s plan. But she and her son wouldn’t be allowed to depart for England just yet. Louis XI would not give them permission to sail until Warwick upheld his side of their deal: to attack the French king’s Burgundian enemies after he’d put Henry VI back on the English throne. Warwick fulfilled his part of the bargain, forcing Edward IV into exile in the autumn of 1470. Her moment had come and gone Bad weather then delayed Margaret’s crossing even longer. Everything was working against her: perhaps she should have taken it as a sign. For, by the time she did finally land at Weymouth on 14 April 1471, with an army consisting largely of French mercenaries and Lancastrian lords, her moment to strike had come and gone. While Margaret and her son had languished in France, Edward IV had returned from exile at the head of an army, hellbent on regaining the throne from Henry VI. By a cruel twist of fate, on the very day that Margaret landed at Weymouth, Edward IV defeated and killed the Earl of Warwick at the battle of Barnet and returned victorious to London. Battle of Tewkesbury: fall of the Lancastrians When Margaret heard the news, her first instinct was to flee back to France with her son. The Duke of Somerset and others, though, persuaded her to stay and meet up with the forces of Jasper Tudor (Henry’s half-brother) in Wales. Together their combined army could still beat Edward. It wasn’t to be. Edward intercepted the Lancastrian army at the battle of Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire on 4 May. Although the battle was initially hard-fought, the Yorkists emerged victorious, decimating their enemies and killing Edward of Westminster. There is some doubt over precisely what happened to him: most say he was killed in the battle or just afterwards, but one or two contemporary sources suggest that Margaret’s beloved son was brought before Edward IV alive after the battle and murdered. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2023/05/GettyImages-601101716-2f5052a.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Miniature depicting the beheading of Margaret’s ally, the Duke of Somerset, following defeat at the battle of Tewkesbury (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty)" title="Miniature depicting the beheading of Margaret’s ally, the Duke of Somerset, following defeat at the battle of Tewkesbury (Photo by Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty)" /> Regardless of what actually happened, Edward IV would never have let his Lancastrian rival live. Margaret was taken from Tewkesbury back to London, reportedly conveyed in a cart, staring blankly ahead. She was, finally, a broken woman. Although she was taken to the Tower of London, she and Henry were kept apart and he died in suspicious circumstances two weeks after the battle. As for Margaret, she was eventually sold back to France in 1475 as part of a treaty, spending the last seven years of her life living in relative poverty on her father’s lands in France until her death in August 1482. Margaret of Anjou’s legacy: what if... In the five centuries since her demise, Margaret of Anjou’s reputation has taken a battering. Yet look beyond the stereotypes at the hard evidence and there can be little doubt that she was a formidable, accomplished leader who didn’t know when she was beaten. In fact, if Margaret had been able to act of her own volition and raise troops without Louis’ conditions, that last throw of the dice at the end of 1470 may well have ended in triumph. If that had happened, we might view her very differently: as a heroic warrior-queen who emerged victorious against the odds. This article was first published in the June 2023 issue of BBC History Magazine
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