Alice Chaucer, Politician and Patron (and Granddaughter of the Poet)

Alice Chaucer, duchess of Suffolk (died 20 May 1475)

As an academic, I was trained as a medievalist, and for decades, I taught not only medieval but early-modern literature courses at a liberal-arts university. I continued to teach Beowulf, Chaucer, Malory, Wyatt, Surrey, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Marlowe, among many other canonical writers and texts, long after my own research and writing interests had transitioned to women's history and women writers. This site, The Monstrous Regiment of Women, is a post-retirement project that allows me to continue to read and write about women, women's history, and women writers. 

Tomb effigy of Alice Chaucer,

duchess of Suffolk

(parish church of St Mary,

Ewelme, Oxfordshire)

Now here's an admission. I taught an upper-division course in Chaucer for decades, as well as teaching selections from The Canterbury Tales in lower-division literature survey courses. I knew Chaucer had married Philippa de Roet, whose sister, Katherine, later known as Katherine Swynford (her first husband was Sir Hugh Swynford), would become the mistress, then wife, of John of Gaunt, third son of Edward III. Many students over the years found this personal connection--one between the poet and the royal patron whom he served--to be an intriguing one. 

But beyond knowing that Geoffrey Chaucer had married Philippa de Roet, I never thought much about Chaucer's wife, much less his children, except for the claim that his Treatise on the Astrolabe may have been written for his son, Thomas--despite the fact that the piece is addressed to "Lyte Lowys my sone." This reference has resulted in a great deal of speculation. Some critics have argued that "Louis" really means "Thomas," others that the poem may have been addressed to a godson or another child to whom Chaucer was close, while still others have concluded that Chaucer had a second son, named Louis. It's best just to say that the treatise "may or may not" refer to Chaucer's own son.

In fact, it isn't clear exactly how many children Chaucer and Philippa had, though it's generally said that they had four (or three). Certainly they had a son named Thomas, who made an advantageous marriage and had a notable political career. Chaucer and Philippa may have had two daughters, and if they did, these daughters may be Elizabeth (a woman named Elizabeth Chaucy became a nun at Barking Abbey, and Agnes (a woman named Agnes Chaucer played a role in the coronation of Henry IV).

So, as I said, how many children Chaucer and his wife had is not clear--but what is clear is that Alice Chaucer is Geoffrey Chaucer's granddaughter, the child of Thomas Chaucer. About her, historian John Kirby Edges wrote, "Few women ever had a more gradual and successful rise in the world than Alice Chaucer. Born the daughter of a gentleman of no illustrious descent, she became in name a lady by her contract of marriage with a knight; next a countess by her first marriage, and during her [subsequent] marriage she reached the higher dignities of marchioness and duchess." 

Brass rubbing of
Matilda Burghersh,
mother of Alice Chaucer
(Victoria and Albert Museum)

Born about the year 1404, just a few years after her grandfather's death (Geoffrey Chaucer died on 25 October 1400), Alice was the daughter of Thomas Chaucer and Matilda Burghersh, an heiress to a significant estate. Ewelme Manor (Oxfordshire), where Alice Chaucer would spend a great deal of her life, came into the Chaucer family's possession at the death of Sir John Berghersh, Matilda'a father. 

Alice Chaucer's now-famous grandfather, Geoffrey, was the son of a wine merchant who became a courtier, diplomat, and bureacrat, in addition to becoming one of the great poets of the English language. He began his astonishing rise as a page in the household of Elizabeth de Burgh, married to Lionel of Antwerp (like John of Gaunt, a son of Edward III). 

Alice’s father, Thomas Chaucer, was able to have a distinguished political career--he served in various capacities under Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V, and was was elected to parliament fifteen times, serving as Speaker of the House of Commons five times. 

While such careers were not possible for a woman, Alice Chaucer nevertheless found advancement through marriage, a career option that was available to women.

When she was about eleven (by October 1414), Alice was married to Sir John Phelip, a man about twenty-five years older than she was. Although his Suffolk family was "of no very great local importance," they had experienced a "spectacular rise" while serving John of Gaunt and Henry IV. Sir John died on 2 October 1415, about a year after his marriage to Alice. As his widow, Alice Chaucer gained control of significant property, including Donnington Castle, which had been acquired by her father and was part of her dowry.

Alice's second marriage was a much more prestigious one--by 30 November 1424, when she is known to be attending a marriage in France with her husband, Alice had become the wife of Thomas Montagu, fourth earl of Salisbury. Salisbury was one of the great English commanders during the Hundred Years War. On the occasion of a celebration of marriage, the duke of Burgundy seems to have been captivated by Alice Chaucer and went so far as to try to seduce her--despite the fact that the wedding being celebrated was his own. Alice did not succumb, though her second marriage was not to last long. Salisbury was wounded at the siege of Orléans, and he died on 3 November 1428.

Two years later, in 1430, the twice-widowed Alice married William de la Pole. Like Thomas Montagu, he was an important English commander--he had also been at the siege of Orléans--and he served Henry VI in several capacities. (He also helped to negotiate the marriage between Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou.) John de la Pole was made earl, then marquess, and, in 1448, duke of Suffolk. As for Alice Chaucer, she became one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting. 

In May 1432, Alice Chaucer was granted the "distinguished privilege" at the feast of St. George of "wear[ing] the Order of the Garter." Like the knights of the Order, the "Ladies had not only the habit of the Order, but they, like the Knights, had also the ensign of the Garter delivered to them. . . . These Garters might be worn by Ladies about their left arm."

But Suffolk's career would end disastrously. His years in service to Henry VI earned him many enemies. In 1450, he was accused of treason, imprisoned in the Tower, and then sent into exile. Before he got too far on his voyage from England--just off the coast of Dover, in fact--his ship was overtaken, and he was beheaded. 

Alice Chaucer, duchess of Suffolk, had given birth to only one child during her three marriages. John de la Pole was born on 27 September 1442. By the terms of her husband's will, Alice was named the sole executrix of his estates: "above all the earth my singular trust is most in her." During the years immediately following Suffolk's death, Alice too was the focus of a great deal of anger. Much of it was the result of her husband's disastrous actions.

Most significantly, she was implicated in her husband's decision to marry their son, John de la Pole, to Margaret Beaufort. Fears that Suffolk intended to secure the throne of England for his own son by means of this marriage ("presuming and pretending" Margaret Beaufort "to be next inheritable to the crown") had led to the charges of treason brought against Suffolk. Alice found herself charged with treason in 1453, but she was acquitted.

In the same year, her son's marriage to Margaret Beaufort was annulled. In 1458, after years of a close relationship to Henry VI, Alice Chaucer decided to ally herself with Richard, duke of York. A marriage was arranged between John de la Pole and Elizabeth of York, the sixth child and third daughter of the duke and his wife, Cecily Neville. Through this marriage, Alice would become grandmother to eleven grandchildren. 

Throughout the years that followed her husband's death, Alice Chaucer remained a potent force. In her work on women in medieval England, Mavis E. Mate notes, "she continued to dominate politics in East Anglia," where the de la Pole family resided. Beyond her continued political maneuvering, Alice Chaucer was an important patron of the arts and literature. She commissioned tapestries, and she may have commissioned a poem by John Lydgate. Mate acknowledges that Lydgate "ostensibly produced works" for her husbands, but suggests that "in each case the real motivating force behind the commission may have been Alice Chaucer herself." Whether or not she herself commissioned any of Lydgate's work, she was a lover of books and amassed a large library. Notably, she is known to have owned a copy of Christine de Pizan's Book of the City of Ladies.

She was also known for her acts of piety. She made donations of books and money to Oxford University, she made contributions to various religious institutions, and she gave alms to the poor. In this last role, she supported God's House at Ewelme, an almshouse that she had founded with her husband, a charity that survives today.

In 1472, not long before her own death, Alice Chaucer was once more in contact with Margaret of Anjou, when the widow of Henry VI was transferred to her "care." After the death of Henry VI and Margaret's defeat at the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471, the former queen was taken captive by William Stanley and imprisoned in Wallingford Castle and then the Tower of London. She was transferred into the custody of Alice Chaucer and presumably remained with her until the duchess of Suffolk died. (Margaret of Anjou was finally ransomed by Louis XI of France in 1475.)

Alice Chaucer's strenuous efforts to protect--and expand--her son's inheritance helped insurance his future, even while they did nothing for her own reputation. Historian Lauren Johnson claims that Alice Chaucer and her husband were "well matched": "both ambitious, cunning and charming, but willing to be ruthless if necessary." 

And what a future it was--I've already noted John de la Pole's large family. Three of his sons made claims to the throne of England: the eldest, John de la Pole, first earl of Lincoln, was made heir to the crown by his uncle, Richard III, but he died in 1487, at the battle of Stoke, two years after Henry VII claimed the throne; Edmund de la Pole also claimed the English throne and was executed by Henry VIII in 1513; Richard de la Pole, the seventh and youngest, continued the claim but lived on the continent until his death in 1425 at the battle of Pavia. Another son, William, made no claim to the throne but was imprisoned in the Tower for allegedly plotting with his brothers--he remained there for thirty-seven years, dying in 1539.

Alice Chaucer, duchess of Suffolk,
tomb, St. Mary's Church, Ewelme,
showing Order of the Garter

Fortunately for Alice Chaucer, duchess of Suffolk, she did not live to see her grandsons' deaths. She died on 20 May 1475 and is buried in St. Mary's Church, Ewelme (Oxfordshire). Her tomb effigy shows her wearing the Order of the Garter on her wrist. 

Information about the remarkable Alice Chaucer is often found by scrounging in the biographies of men--Geoffrey Chaucer, Henry VI, her own husbands. Until now, there has been no biography of her, but one will soon be available: Michèle Schindler's What Is Better Than A Good Woman: Alice Chaucer, Commoner and Yorkist Matriarch will be published in July of this year.

I've linked to Marjorie Anderson's 1945 article, "Alice Chaucer and Her Husbands," above. 

There are also two excellent (but difficult to access) articles about Alice Chaucer as a book collector: Karen Jamback's “The Library of Alice Chaucer, Duchess of Suffolk: A Fifteenth-Century Owner of a ‘Boke of le Citee de Dames’,” The Profane Arts of the Middle Ages 7, no. 2 (1998): 106-35; and Carol M. Meale, “Reading Women’s Culture in Fifteenth-Century England: The Case of Alice Chaucer,” in Mediaevalitas: Reading the Middle Ages, ed. Piero Boitani and Anna Torti (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. 1996), 81-101. 

You may also want to check out Rachel M. Delman's "Gendered Viewing, Childbirth and Female Authority in the Residence of Alice Chaucer, duchess of Suffolk, at Ewelme, Oxfordshire" (click here). This essay not only provides an unusual account of Alice Chaucer's preparations for the birth of a grandchild, it also includes a great deal of information about the books she owned. (And since it's online, it's more accessible than the two articles I've noted above.)

As for me, I came upon the name of Alice Chaucer in Lauren Johnson's The Shadow King: The Life and Death of Henry VI, from which I have quoted, above. 

 

Margaret More Roper, Translator and Editor

Margaret More Roper (31 December 1525)

Because the exact date of Margaret More's birth and death are unknown, I am writing about her today, as my last post of the year, on the date that her father, Sir Thomas More, was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. This is not one of Thomas More's more notable titles or offices--I am just using it, and him, as a reason for writing about his daughter.*

Margaret More Roper, c. 1535-36,
a miniature by Hans Holbein the Younger

Margaret More was the firstborn child of Thomas More and his first wife, Joanna Colt, who was just eighteen when she gave birth to Margaret in 1505, probably between late August and October. Joanna was only twenty-three years old when she died in September 1511, after six years of marriage and the birth of four children.

Within a month, More had remarried. His second wife was a wealthy widow, Alice Harpur Middleton. Alice was the butt of many cruel jokes, insults, and caricatures, not only made by More's friends and associates but by More himself. Perhaps the best assessment of this relationship is historian John Guy's half-hearted (?) claim that "Margaret's father, we must conclude, loved her stepmother in his own way. . . ."

After More's marriage to Alice, who brought her daughter into the household, More began the process of educating his children, teaching them himself whenever his increasingly demanding duties allowed. In 1518, he carefully selected a tutor for them: his daughters, Margaret, Elizabeth, and Cecily; his son, John; and an adopted daughter, Margaret Giggs. (Alice Middleton was several years older than Thomas More, and by 1518, her seventeen-year-old daughter, also named Alice, was married.) The children were all taught the same curriculum: Greek, Latin, logic, philosophy, theology, astronomy, geometry, and mathematics. Well, almost the same--John studied rhetoric, the art of public speaking, something that the girls would not need. 

While humanist scholars, like More, supported education for women, there was a moral--and gendered--value to it. Many viewed education for women as, in the words of publisher Richard Hyrde, "a bridle" against "vice." The Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives, who traveled to England and devised an educational curriculum for Henry VIII's daughter, Mary, wrote that a "woman is even as man is a reasonable creature," one whose "wit" was capable of "both good and evil." Education was a way her wit "may be altered and turned."

More himself agreed that both men and women were "equally suited for the knowledge of learning by which reason is cultivated," but added that it was especially important for "excellent matrons and honorable girls" as a sure basis for their religious faith.

But in 1521, when she was just sixteen, Margaret More followed the more conventional course for a young woman in the sixteenth century, no matter how intelligent and capable, and no matter what kind of education her father provided for her. She was married to the lawyer William Roper. In the next few years, before her death in 1544, at just thirty-seven years old, she would give birth to five children: Elizabeth, Mary, Thomas, Margaret, and Antony.

A detail of Margaret More,
from a 1593 copy of a lost
More family portrait,
Hans Holbein the Younger

Up to this point, there is nothing remarkable about Margaret More Roper's story, except her exceptional education. But she proved to be an excellent scholar as well as a dutiful, capable student and a dutiful, capable wife and mother. In addition to producing children, in 1524 she produced the first published work by a woman who was not a member of the royal family: her translation of Erasmus's 1523 Precatio dominica, a work on the meaning of the Lord's Prayer. 

Margaret More Roper's book, with a preface by Richard Hyrde, was titled A Devout Treatise upon the Pater Noster, Made First in Latin by the Most Famous Doctor Master Erasmus Roterodamus, and Turned into English by a Young, Virtuous and Well-Learned Gentlewoman of Nineteen Years of Age. (Hyrde dates his preface to 1 October 1524, which helps narrow down the date of Margaret's birth.)

Thomas More may have been proud of his daughter's intellectual abilities, but he did not approve of women's publication. A woman was to make no show of her learning, in More's view, and publication was exactly the kind of "show" that was discouraged. Before Margaret had married, when she had expressed something of a desire to write and publish a book, her father had dissuaded her.

Title page of the 1526 reprint
of Margaret More Roper's
Devout Treatise

For a woman "to lay herself out for renown . . . is the sign of someone who is not only arrogant, but ridiculous and miserable." Women must show "appropriate modesty." "Renown for learning," he concluded, "if you take away moral probity, brings nothing else but notorious and noteworthy infamy, especially in a woman."

Clearly while she remained at home, Margaret More Roper had to abide by her father's decisions. But in 1524, as a married woman, she could, under the cover of a thinly veiled anonymity, publish her translation. It was only a matter of months, however, before she ran into trouble.

Early in 1526, three books were "called in" on suspicion of heresy--and Margaret's publisher, Thomas Berthelet, found that he could no longer sell the Devout Treatise upon the Pater Noster, "translated by the wife of Master Roper," and that he was ordered to appear before a consistory court. (Berthelet had not acquired the prescribed license before publishing the book.)

Margaret More Roper and Berthelet were "saved" from any further proceedings, however, because, with the help of Hyrde, Sir Thomas Wolsey intervened, and Margaret's book was reprinted with Wolsey's coat of arms included on the back of the title page. 

It seems that Margaret did not consider publication again--at least not for some years. But after Thomas More's arrest and imprisonment, when he had received a letter from Alice Middleton Alington, his stepdaughter, Margaret and her father, together, composed a long letter in response. This joint composition, the Letter to Alice Alington, though not published until 1557, was nevertheless a crucial composition for both Margaret More and her father. As Marion Wynne-Davies notes, it "accomplishes what would have been impossible for More himself to do, since he had been ordered by the King, 'at your execution you shall not vse many wordes.'" Forbidden to deliver a scaffold speech expressing his views, More "allowed his words to be translated by his daughter into an imaginative tale that could be circulated amongst his family and fellow Catholics."

After her father's death, Margaret More Roper was not content to publish merely by means of circulation. Realizing that publication could define and shape a man's life and reputation (her father's biography of Richard III is a great example!), she hoped to collect and publish all of Thomas More's works, including the letter to Alice Alington, and to embed them in a discussion of her father's life.

To this end, she employed a secretary to collect copies of More's books, to make copies of More's manuscripts, and to collect and sort his letters, but in 1537 she ran into trouble and was called in to be examined by Thomas Cromwell, who discovered that she "meant to set her father's works in print." Declining to prosecute her "because she was a woman," Cromwell threatened her and returned her home, to her husband. 

In 1540, Margaret's brother-in-law Giles Heron, her sister Cecily's husband, was accused of treason and executed at Tyburn. Then, in 1543, her husband William was arrested and spent four months in the Tower. Shortly after his release, Margaret More Roper died. 

The project to publish her father's work did not die with her, however. It was carried on by a number of people, including Margaret Giggs, Margaret's adopted sister, who relocated to the continent after Henry VIII's death and during the reign of his son, the ardently Protestant Edward VI.

But after Mary Tudor came to the throne, the product finally came to fruition, aided by Margaret More Roper's daughter, Mary Roper Clerke Basset (born between 1526 and 1530), a friend of the new queen and one of her gentlewomen of the privy chamber. 

On 30 April 1557, The Works of Sir Thomas More, Knight, Sometime Lord Chancellor of England, Written by Him in the English Tongue was published. It included Mary Basset's translation of her grandfather's De tristitia, tedio, pauore et oratione Christi ante captionem eius, written in in the Tower. Mary's translated and carefully edited text was published as Of the sorowe, werinesse, feare, and prayer of Christ before hys taking.  

I have quoted from John Guy's A Daughter's Love: Thomas More and His Dearest Meg, This dual biography puts a bit too much attention on More for my taste, but it presents a thoroughly admirable assessment of Margaret More Roper's life and work. I just wish we could have a book about Margaret More that wasn't so much about Thomas More. 

Marion Wynne-Davies's "The Theater," which contains her extended analysis of the Letter to Alice Alington, is in Caroline Bicks and Jennifer Summit's The History of British Women's Writing, 1500-1610. This is the second volume of The History of British Women's Writing (Palgrave-Macmillan), which also contains a discussion of Roper's Devout Treatise and of Mary Roper Basset's translation.

*If that sounds like I'm dissing Thomas More, you're right. Long before Hilary Mantel's depiction of a despicable More in Wolf Hall, I loathed him, influenced in part by the views of the great Tudor historian Geoffrey Elton, but in greater part because I just can't stand him. How's that for reasoned academic argument? I could give you chapter and verse, but in the spirit of New Year's Eve jollity, let's just let it go. 

Katherine Swynford: Is It Really a Love Story?

Katherine de Roet, lady Swynford and, later, duchess of Lancaster (born 25 November 1349 or 1350)

For generations of readers, Anya Seton's 1954 historical novel Katherine was the means by which they came to the story of Katherine Swynford. Seton's is a romantic narrative in the extreme: the twenty-five-year-long love affair between a young woman with no social status or political significance and John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, the third son of Edward III, king of England. 

Katherine Swynford's device,
featuring Katherine Wheels,
adopted after her marriage to
John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster

Their passion, their heartbreak, their separation, their against-the-odds marriage (Katherine becomes Gaunt's third wife)--it's an amazing novel. I read it for the first time, just a few years ago, on the recommendation of a co-worker, and I loved it. Much to my co-worker's surprise, actually, since she thought I would hate a book that was, as she apologetically described it, "just fiction." (She said this to me, knowing that I taught literature!!)

I have also read Alison Weir's biography of Swynford, Mistress of the Monarchy: The Life of Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster. Weir begins her study by noting her own lifelong fascination with Seton's novel:

This is a love story, one of the greatest and most remarkable love stories of medieval England. . . .

Katherine Swynford's story first captured my imagination four decades ago, when I read Anya Seton's famous novel about her, Katherine. This epic novel made a tremendous impact on me as an adolescent, and still has the power to move me today. And I am not alone, because it has hardly been out of print since its first publication in 1954, and ranked ninety-fifth in the top one hundred favorite books voted for by the public in BBC TV's "The Big Read" in 2003.

While I loved Seton's novel, I did not love Weir's biography--I guess I expect more out of non-fiction. The truth is that we have no way of knowing whether Katherine Swynford's relationship with John of Gaunt was "one of the greatest and most remarkable love stories" of the late Middle Ages--or of any time. Too much focus on the inner (and highly romanticized) feelings and motivations of historical figures in a work of history doesn't make for good history, or at least not the kind of history that I appreciate. 

There simply is not much information available about Katherine Swynford, for one thing. The broad facts of her life are known: she was the daughter of Paon de Roet, a knight from the county of Hainault, a principality that was part of the Habsburg empire (the area generally corresponding, now, to Belgium), who seems to have become a part of the English court around the time of Edward III's marriage to Philippa of Hainault. (While Paon de Roet was not named in the official list of Philippa's retinue, the fifteenth-century court historian Jean Froissart, himself from Hainault, indicates that he was one of the "other young squires" who accompanied her to England at the time of her marriage.)

Historians have never been able to identify Katherine de Roet's mother--there is simply no information about Paon de Roet's marriage. Even so, there is speculation he married more than once--that his four children, born over the course of fifteen years, must have had different mothers--and that Katherine's mother was somehow connected to the ruling family of Hainault, and thus that she was related to Philippa of Hainault. But no evidence.

I'm posting today because her birthdate is conventionally cited as 25 November--but that is speculation too, simply because it is the feast date of Katherine of Alexandria, a saint for whom Katherine would demonstrate particular reverence (as we might expect if this were her patron saint). The badge she adopted after her marriage to John of Gaunt incorporated Katherine Wheels in its imagery, as did a variety of vestments she offered as gifts to Lincoln Cathedral.

Katherine Swynford's tomb,
Lincoln Cathedral

Katherine's eldest sister, Elizabeth de Roet, was probably born around the year 1335; she became a canoness at the Abbey of St. Waudru in Mons (Hainault).

Her brother, Walter, was probably born between 1338-40; he served Margaret, countess of Hainault, and fought under Edward, the "Black Prince," probably at the battle of Poitiers in 1356.

Katherine's younger sister Philippa, likely born in the 1350s, was a member of Queen Philippa's household and would later marry the poet Geoffrey Chaucer. 

At some point before 24 January 1365, when she is referred to by her married name in the register of Lincoln Cathedral, Katherine de Roet was married to Sir Hugh Swynford, of Kettlethorpe. She bore him at least three children, though their order of birth is not clear: Blanche (b. 1363?), Margaret, and Thomas (b. 24 February 1367). Sir Hugh was killed in 1371, fighting with John of Gaunt in Aquitaine.

And at some point after Gaunt's marriage to the heiress Blanche of Lancaster in 1359, Katherine had joined her court. (Katherine's daughter Blanche was likely named after the duchess.) Also at some point, again we don't know when, Katherine became the governess of Blanche and Gaunt's daughters, Philippa and Elizabeth. And at some point, too, she became Gaunt's mistress. 

Blanche of Lancaster died in 1369, when she was just twenty-three years old; on 21 September 1371, John of Gaunt married Constance of Castile (Constance's younger sister, Isabella, married Gaunt's younger brother). While married to Constance, and having children with her (a daughter, Constance of Lancaster, born in 1373, and a son, John, born in 1374), Gaunt had four children with Katherine: John (b. 1373), Henry (b.1375), Thomas (b.1377) and Joan (b.1379). The children were given the surname Beaufort. 

After Constance of Castile died in March of 1394, on 13 January 1396, Gaunt married Katherine Swynford. Their four children were legitimized by Pope Boniface IX and the English king, Richard II. Gaunt died just three years later, in 1399. 

The relationship between John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford was widely condemned by contemporaries, who called her an "abominable strumpet" and an "unspeakable concubine." Gaunt himself was condemned for being "blinded by desire" and a "doting fool."

While Seton and Weir are anxious not only to defend Katherine but to tell the story of a great "love affair," I'm not sure that Gaunt and Swynford's relationship was what Weir calls, quoting Shakespeare, "A marriage of true minds," nor that Katherine was "the love of his heart, and the sole focus of his desire" (particularly since Gaunt is known to have had sexual relationships with other women--other than his wife, that is--during the time of his relationship to Katherine Swynford--"sole focus of his desire"??????).

Part of what makes me so hesitant, I think, is that clearly Katherine was in a position that made her vulnerable--vulnerable in terms of her sex (as a woman to a man), vulnerable in terms of her social status (as a woman of a somewhat ambiguous social class in relationship to one of the most powerful men in England), vulnerable in terms of her marital status (as a widow, probably, at the time her relationship with Gaunt began). She was certainly financially dependent. Her children's futures were also at risk--the children that she had with Swynford as well as her children with Gaunt. 

Rather than reduce (and I do mean reduce) Katherine to a romanticized object of desire or a woman driven by passion, I guess I'd rather focus on her rather limited options as a woman. Her sister's husband, Geoffrey Chaucer, could rise in service to John of Gaunt, Richard II, and Henry IV, by means of his wits through a series of royal grants and appointments.

As a woman, perhaps equally gifted and ambitious, Katherine Swynford's options were more limited. But she certainly accomplished a great deal within the limited scope offered women. Unlike Chaucer, the upwardly mobile son of a merchant, she couldn't dedicate graceful dream visions to royal patrons or secure increasingly important bureaucratic posts. But she could become a governess to aristocratic children--which she did--she could marry reasonably well--which she did--and whether she courted a sexual relationship that could advance her position and offer her security or agreed to one because she was madly in love or accepted one because she had little choice in the matter, she certainly advanced her Beaufort children.

It was exceptional for a man--especially a royal duke, the son of a king--to marry a woman who had been his mistress, certainly. But was the marriage to Katherine Swynford the culmination of a long love affair? Or was it, as the chronicler Froissart suggested, because of his "affection" for the children he had with her? Or, perhaps, because if legitimized, his Beaufort children could prove the source of consolidating yet more power and influence?

Whatever the case, Gaunt's children with Katherine Swynford, legitimized in 1399, proved themselves to be extraordinary. John Beaufort, first earl of Somerset, was the grandfather of Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry Tudor, who became Henry VII of England. Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, became a Cardinal in 1426, and presided over the trial of Joan of Arc after her capture in 1431. He served as Lord Chancellor of England on several occasions and was part of the regency council for Henry VI. (And he had an illegitimate daughter--oops.) Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, held a variety of military commands and also served as Lord Chancellor of England. Joan Beaufort, countess of Westmoreland, married into the powerful Neville family--her daughter was a woman we have met before, Cecily Neville, and thus Joan Beaufort was the grandmother not only of Edward IV and Richard III, but also of Elizabeth of York, who married Henry Tudor. 

Gaunt's son by Blanche of Lancaster, Henry, ultimately became king of England, and when he did so, he referred to Katherine as "the king's mother," even after Gaunt's death, a tribute to this remarkable woman. 

Not a bad outcome for Katherine de Roet, the daughter of an unremarkable knight from a small county on the continent.

I've already linked you, above, to Weir's biography, though I will warn you that much of the book is really about John of Gaunt, since there is so little information, really, about Katherine Swynford. There is also a biography by Jeanette Lucraft, Katherine Swynford: The History of a Medieval Mistress. 

I have not read Lucraft's biography, but certainly her essay, "Missing from History: Jeanette Lucraft Recovers the Identity and Reputation of the Remarkable Katherine Swynford," published in History Today, is excellent, and I'll link to it here.*

(By the way, this is another great example of the reason "traditional" marriage isn't quite what people think it is!)

*Update, 25 November 2021: Jeanette Lucraft's History Today article is no longer freely available--it is now behind an institutional subscription paywall. I've left the reference in just in case you might have access . . . I hate it when this happens.

Margaret of York and the "Marriage of the Century"

Margaret of York (duchess of Burgundy, from 9 July 1468)

Born on 3 May 1446, Margaret of York was the daughter of Cecily Neville, whom we have met before, and Richard, duke of York--Margaret was the sister of both Edward IV and Richard III of England.*  In 1468, in what her recent biographer, Margaret Weightman, has called "the marriage of the century," Margaret of York became the third wife of Charles the Bold, whose lands included, besides Burgundy, a "vast agglomeration" of French fiefs, imperial territories, and several imperial cities and states in the "Pays d' Embas," or Low Countries. 

Margaret of York, c. 1477

The extent and complexity of Burgundy are indicated by the titles Margaret acquired after her marriage: she became duchess of Burgundy, of Lotharingia, of Brabant, of Limbourg, of Luxembourg, and of Guelders; countess of Flanders, of Artois, of Hainault, of Holland, of Zeeland, of Namur, of Zutphen, and of Burgundy (Franche Comté); and the lady of Friesland, of Salins, and of Malines [Mechelen], among others.

Although she failed to provide a male heir for Charles, as duchess of Burgundy Margaret of York functioned superlatively as a political adviser and diplomat for the duke and as a mother for his daughter and heir Mary.

After her marriage to the duke, Margaret of York also developed a strong relationship with her husband's mother. The dowager duchess, Isabel of Portugal, was the daughter of Philippa of Lancaster and João of Portugal, the granddaughter John of Gaunt.

Although Philippa's direct family members were Lancastrian, she was also an English relative of the Yorkist Margaret. Like Margaret, Isabel of Portugal was descended from Edward III of England. Although she was nearly seventy years old when Margaret arrived in Burgundy, the dowager duchess was still politically active, "well able," as Weightman notes, "to take charge of the marriage negotiations and to receive important diplomatic embassies on behalf of her son."

In Burgundy, Margaret of York played an important role not only in court life but also in politics and government. Just as Charles's mother, for example, had acted as regent of Burgundy, had functioned in the administration of the duchy, had negotiated treaties, and had helped to formulate policy, by 1472 Margaret herself was involved in the administration of Burgundy.

Among Margaret's responsibilities as duchess were regular progresses around the Low Countries; while her husband visited his possessions and campaigned to extend his territory, Margaret also traveled, her progresses an important means of representation of Charles's ducal position. During the first seven years of her marriage, she spent, by Weightman's calculations, only about a year with her husband; between 1475 and Charles's death in 1477, they did not meet at all.

Margaret of Burgundy and her stepdaughter traveled and lived together. Mary of Burgundy's early education had been supervised by her father's half-sister Anne, but after 1468 it became Margaret of York's task to guide, support, and educate Charles's heir. 

Charles of Burgundy died in battle in 1477, and Margaret of York was forced to move quickly and forcefully to protect Mary. In the crisis that followed the duke's death, the thirty-one-year-old Margaret, experienced in government, advised her twenty-year-old stepdaughter and negotiated on her behalf. To guard against further French encroachment--Louis XI claimed a woman could not inherit the duchy of Burgundy--Margaret of York and Mary of Burgundy turned to Maximilian, then archduke of Austria and eventually Holy Roman Emperor, offering him, as the dowager duchess wrote, "the word of a princess" in support of a marital alliance with Mary of Burgundy.

The original marriage contract, as Weightman reports, "cut Maximilian out of the succession, leaving all the Burgundian lands to the children of the marriage and specifying that all Burgundian possessions must be under Burgundian rule."

Margaret of York before the risen Christ,
from a book commissioned by
the duchess of Burgundy,
shortly after her marriage in 1468

Later, in an act signed by Margaret, her stepdaughter Mary, and Maximilian--and only one Burgundian official--this provision was eliminated, and Mary's inheritance was left to Maximilian in the event of her death. This decision proved to be critical. After five short years--and the births of two children--the young duchess of Burgundy, pregnant with her third child, died in a hunting accident.

When Mary died in 1482, Margaret of York was to have assumed the role of guardian of her stepdaughter's heirs, Philip, then four years old and Margaret, age two. But the Estates General of Flanders refused to turn the children over to Maximilian and the dowager duchess.

While Margaret prepared troops to gain possession of them, the Estates signed a treaty with Louis XI, sending the infant Margaret of Austria to the French court, while still refusing to relinquish the heir to the dowager duchess or to his father. Maximilian eventually regained control of Philip in 1484; he then entrusted Margaret of York with the boy's guardianship and education. Margaret established her court in the city of Mechelen, in Brabant, one of her dower possessions; during her stepgrandson's minority, her court there became the de facto ducal palace.

The relationship between Maximilian and the dowager duchess was complementary: Margaret of York needed the support of Maximilian in order to retain control of her dower properties, but Maximilian needed Margaret of York's experience and administrative capabilities. Throughout Philip's minority, Margaret remained Charles's "most loyal subject": "her support and advice were an invaluable asset to Maximilian in his government of the Low Countries."

Margaret was forty-eight years old when her stepgrandson Philip of Austria came of age in 1494, inheriting his mother's titles and possessions. Upon his accession, he confirmed the dowager duchess's possessions, in recognition, as he proclaimed, 

[of her] good and honest conduct towards our late lord and grandfather, and the great love that she clearly bore towards our late sovereign lady mother and to all her lands and lordships both before and after her marriage, and equally towards our lord and father, and towards us in our minority, how after the death of our late lady mother, she behaved towards us as if she was our real mother . . . and moreover because she has suffered inestimable damange rather than abandon us . . . and because of many other great reasons and considerations.

Although Margaret of York never gave birth to a child of her own, she staunchly and faithfully defended the inheritance of her stepdaughter and her stepdaughter's children. She was to serve the next generation as well, for Madame la Grande, as she was known, retained her considerable influence during her stepgrandson's rule, welcoming foreign visitors to his court (including his bride, Juana of Castile), selecting administrators and counselors for him, and presiding over many ceremonies, including the christening of Philip and Juana's first two children, Eleanor and Charles. 

Margaret of York's spectacular crown,
now in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury

Margaret of York played an important role in the life of Margaret of Austria, her step granddaughter, though the younger Margaret spent relatively little of her childhood with the older Margaret. Nevertheless, as Weightman notes, the younger Margaret "inherited much from her step-grandmother, acquiring both her personal treasures and her public servants"; but "the young woman seems to have inherited much more than material goods and servants from her namesake."

Under the influence of her female role models--Margaret of York, as well as Anne of France and Isabella of Castile, about whom I'll post later this year--Margaret of Austria was to become one of the most accomplished rulers of the early modern period. She was to serve as regent of the Netherlands for twenty years, at the same time shaping another generation of women whom she trained at her court and for whom she herself was to provide an influential model of female sovereignty.

Christine Weightman's Margaret of York: Duchess of Burgundy, 1446-1503, originally published in 1989, was republished in 2009 with a horrible title, Margaret of York: The Diabolical Duchess. Why? Not why the republication, but why the obviously tabloidization of the title?

*This post has been adapted from The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan).

Lady Margaret Beaufort: The Kingmaker

Lady Margaret Beaufort (born 31 May 1443)

In 1485 Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, defeated Richard III at Bosworth Field, ending thirty-three years of civil war. He was immediately proclaimed king: his victorious supporters shouted "God save King Henry" after the battle, while Thomas, lord Stanley, placed Richard's crown on the head of the new "king."

A sixteenth-century portrait of
Lady Margaret Beaufort,
as a widow, at prayer

The fifteenth-century political crisis in England that resulted in thirty years of civil war had pitted cousin against cousin in a struggle for the crown. The so-called War of the Roses had begun in 1455 with a rebellion against King Henry VI by Richard, duke of York.

The chief opponents in this civil strife were cousins, all descendants of Edward III. (Indeed, Philippa Gregory has linked her novels about this period under the series title "The Cousins' War.")

As these cousins and their numerous supporters struggled, first one branch of the family, then the other, controlled the throne of England. While Henry Tudor's victory at Bosworth seemed to put an end to the bloody contest between Lancaster and York, the new king still faced something of a dilemma. 

While the rival claimants to the English throne had fought it out on the battlefield, the contest had also raised questions of a woman's place in the royal succession. The Lancastrians had argued their superior claim to the English throne by excluding inheritance through the female line, while the Yorkists had made their claims to the throne through the female line.

But in 1485, after his victory at Bosworth, if the new Tudor king wanted to justify his right to the throne, he would have to do so through a woman, his mother, Margaret Beaufort.* But, while justifying his claim to the throne through a woman, Henry VII would have to deny another woman, his wife, Elizabeth of York, the right to make the same claim.

Although Margaret Beaufort would never become queen of England in her own right, she nevertheless would go on to wield considerable political power in the role she assumed as "the king's mother." Indeed, an alternative history of the Wars of the Roses might be written--for the more familiar and obvious battles of fathers and sons we might well substitute the equally bloody battles fought by mothers on behalf of those same sons. We've already looked at the role of one of those powerful women, Cecily Neville, duchess of York (who, remember, styled herself as "queen by right")--now it's time to look at her Lancastrian opposite, Margaret Beaufort.

Margaret Beaufort was the only child of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset, and his wife, Margaret Beauchamp. Through her father, Margaret Beaufort was the descended from King Edward III, and the Tudor claims to the throne of England came through her paternal line. Yet Margaret's mother was also a considerable force in her daughter's life. 

The daughter of Sir John Beauchamp of Bletsoe, Margaret Beauchamp had been an heiress in her own right; following the death of her husband, the dowager duchess had control not only of her own possessions but those of her husband as well, thus insuring her independence. More importantly, Somerset had arranged that, in the event of his death, the rights to his daughter's wardship and marriage were to be left in the hands of her mother.

Although Henry VI had revoked this agreement after Somerset's death in 1444, Margaret continued to live with her mother; unlike many wealthy heiresses, she remained under her mother's care and guidance until 1453, when her wardship was transferred to Jasper and Edmund Tudor. She sustained a strong identification with her mother and her maternal lineage throughout her life.

Lady Margaret Beaufort's tomb effigy,
Westminster Abbey

Margaret Beaufort's "War of the Roses" was fought initially on a matrimonial battlefield. She was married four times, each alliance a politically expedient skirmish in her war of succession.

The first of these unions was in late January or early February of 1450, when William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, married his seven-year-old son John to the six-year-old Margaret. (William de la Pole's wife, little John's mother, was Alice Chaucer, the granddaughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.) Suffolk, a Lancastrian supporter of Henry VI, had been awarded Margaret's wardship (though not custody--as I noted above, she remained under her mother's care) by the king as acknowledgement for the "notable services" he had performed. As Margaret Beaufort's biographer Linda Simon notes, this marriage was not without implications for the succession:

As a staunch Lancastrian, unwilling to consider the claims of the family of York, [Suffolk] believed that there was only one real heiress. Margaret Beaufort was a potential queen, and if his ward did not claim the crown for herself, she must pass that glorious inheritance to her son.

Suffolk suffered almost immediately for his presumption; he was indicted for treason, chief among the accusations against him that he had attempted to secure the English throne for his son by marrying the boy to Margaret, "presuming and pretending her to be next inheritable to the crown." (Although the two children had been married, Margaret had not been removed from her mother's guardianship. Later in her life, Margaret Beaufort would never acknowledge this marriage.)

Henry VI dissolved Margaret's marriage to Suffolk's son in 1453. He then granted the wardship and marriage of the nine-year-old girl to his half-brothers, Jasper and Edmund Tudor, the sons of another woman whom we have already discussed, Katherine of Valois (as queen of England, she was the mother of Henry VI; by her second marriage, she was the mother of the Jasper and Edmund).

This move once again had dynastic significance. As Michael Jones and Malcolm Underwood suggest, "Henry's initial intention in dissolving Lady Margaret's marriage with John de la Pole may have been to nominate his half-brother, Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond as his heir, in the right of Margaret Beaufort." A twelve-year-old Margaret was married to Edmund Tudor in 1455; by November of 1456 Edmund Tudor was dead, his adolescent widow six months pregnant.

Margaret gave birth to her only child, Henry Tudor, on 28 January 1457. In their biography of Margaret Beaufort, Jones and Underwood note that her "chief concern" throughout her life was to protect her son's interests. To this end, the thirteen-year-old widow participated actively in arrangements for her next marriage, to Henry Stafford, a staunch Lancastrian.

Discussions for the match began in March 1457, the ceremony taking place on 3 January 1458. Margaret's decision about the alliance was to prove a good one. After Edward IV came to power in 1461, Stafford was reconciled to the Yorkist king, securing a pardon for both himself and for his wife. Wounded fighting for Edward IV and the Yorkists at the battle of Barnet, Stafford never recovered; he died in 1471.

Within the year, in fact before the arrangements for Stafford's burial were complete, Margaret married for a final time. Her strategy at this point is clear; she married a Yorkist supporter, Thomas Lord Stanley. Once more her marriage reflected her carefully calculated decision.

In the mean time, after his mother's marriage to Stafford, Henry Tudor had become the ward of the Yorkist William Lord Herbert, who intended to marry the young Henry to his own daughter, obviously recognizing what Jones and Underwood call Henry's "long-term political future." But in 1469, Henry Tudor's fortunes changed dramatically after Herbert's defeat by Lancastrian forces and with the brief restoration of Henry VI. Margaret's interest was, "first and foremost," the safety of her son, with whom she was reunited in London.

After the Lancastrians were defeated at Barnet, Jasper Tudor and his nephew fled first to Wales, then to France. Edward IV was returned to the throne and now, as Stanley's wife, the Lancastrian Margaret Beaufort was intimately involved with the Yorkist court. In 1479, for example, she carried the king's youngest daughter to her christening, while in 1483, during Richard III's coronation, she carried Queen Anne's train, "taking precedence over all other peeresses, even over King Richard's sister."

Within the year, however, Margaret Beaufort took the "calculated but highly dangerous step" of supporting, perhaps even initiating, the rebellion of Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham against King Richard. The Tudor historian Polydore Vergil was later to conclude that she "was commonly called the head of that conspiracy." Head of the plot or not, her "astonishing role in the conspiracy of 1483" is discussed at some length in both of the recent biographies written about her; in their discussion of Margaret's role in events, Jones and Underwood conclude that her participation demonstrated her "ruthless practice of realpolitik." After the insurrection failed, Richard initiated efforts to pass an act of attainder in Parliament against Margaret Beaufort, "mother to the king's great rebel and traitor, Henry, earl of Richmond." 

Richard charged that she had "conspired and committed high treason, especially by sending messages, writings, and tokens" to her son, and that she had "conspired and imagined the destruction of the king" by supporting Buckingham's treasonous rebellion. But, because of the "good and faithful service" of her husband" and "for his sake," she was spared the act of attainder. Her person and her considerable property were to be controlled by her husband, however; Stanley was to keep his wife "so straight with himself" that she could neither communicate with her son "nor practice anything at all" against the king.

Margaret's effort to defeat Richard did not end with Buckingham's defeat. Later in the same year, her efforts to bring Richard III down led to a coup d'etat of a different sort. Margaret's new strategy continued the war she had waged on the matrimonial battlefield, but this time her her effort was to arrange a marriage between her son and Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth. 

Plans for such a marriage had first been considered while Edward IV was still alive, but at that point Margaret had warned her son not to return to England from the safety of France even if Edward offered such a marriage. Richard III, too, had suggested a marriage between Henry Tudor and one of Edward's daughters. After the failure of Buckingham's rebellion Margaret herself pursued the alliance, sending her personal physician to Edward IV's widow, Elizabeth Woodville, then in sanctuary at Westminster with her daughters. Between them, the two women arranged for the marriage of the "Lancastrian" heir Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York, the oldest surviving heir of Edward IV; in Brittany, Henry Tudor pledged himself to the match on 25 December 1483. 

Once her son became king of England, Margaret Beaufort could abandon her matrimonial strategy for a new tactic. She had waged her battle on Henry's behalf by successful marriages, her own and then his. Now she could continue to act on her son's behalf--and her own--as "my lady the king's mother."

At the beginning of her son's reign, Margaret was accorded an honor that was "semi-regal," and she easily dominated both her son's royal household and his queen. One Spanish observer noted that Elizabeth of York "was kept in subjection" by "the king's mother"; another, commenting on the influence of "the king's mother," wrote that "the queen, as is generally the case, does not like it."

Margaret's arrangements for the royal household extended even to the birth of a child, her plans compiled in her "Ordinances as to what preparation is to be made against the deliverance of a queen as also for the christening of the child of which she shall be delivered." She directed the arrangement of the "lying-in chamber," the procedure for the queen's retirement to await the birth, the composition of the queen's attendants, and the baptismal ceremony.

She established rules for the management and staffing of the royal nursery. Following the birth of her grandson Arthur in 1486, she took over his care. Her role in the lives of her grandchildren extended to her arrangements for their education. After Elizabeth of York's death in 1503, Margaret developed a particularly strong relationship with Henry, heir to the throne after Arthur's death, and she was instrumental in the marriage alliances of her granddaughters Margaret and Mary.

Meanwhile, within the royal households, she lived in close physical proximity to her son. At the residence of Woodstock, for instance, her rooms were linked to his by a shared "withdrawing" room "that belongs to the king's chamber and my lady, his mother's." In the Tower, her rooms were next to her son's bedchamber and council chamber. This physical closeness continued to the end of Henry's life; in 1508, when he was seriously ill, his mother "was in almost constant attendance": Jones and Underwood indicate that "makeshift lodgings were hurriedly erected at Richmond to house her servants as she watched over her son." A year later, as he lay dying, Margaret, "now based in her London house of Coldharbour, made regular journeys by barge along the Thames to the palace of Richmond."

The "king's mother" had a dominant place not only in her son's household but in his kingdom, where her political advice and experience were critical. Henry appointed many of his mother's trusted household officials to positions in his service. The two also shared legal advisors; Jones and Underwood note that "an overlap often existed between the councils of Margaret and her son," with these advisors and even decisions "sometimes passed from one to the other." In 1498 the Spanish ambassador to the court observed that Henry was "much influenced by his mother," and, indeed, that her authority exceeded that of many of his own advisors. 

Margaret's interest in and influence on Henry's foreign affairs were also considerable; she maintained "friendly" contact with the Yorkist Margaret, duchess of Burgundy, who posed a constant threat to the new Tudor king, for example, and she negotiated at length with the French king on her son's behalf. Most significantly, in the last years of his reign, Henry VII delegated power to his mother's council as a way of relieving the "enormous burden of work" on his own counselors. From 1499 to 1507 Margaret presided over this court, "her powers" and her authority judged to be "considerable," her role unprecedented: in this position, Jones and Underwood conclude, she "broke new ground."

While she spent a great deal of time in the royal court, the "king's mother" also maintained her own household, Collyweston, a kind of "city of ladies" that "represented a separate court establishment in its own right, particularly for the numerous aristocrat and gentry women who boarded there." Among those women were the queen's sister, as well as several other "ladies, wards, suitors and scholars." The "king's mother" negotiated marriages for many of the young women whose rearing she supervised, such political marriages benefitting her son, while at the same time demonstrating her own influence and authority.

As he lay dying in 1409, Henry designated his mother as the chief executor of his will. The "culmination of her ceremonial role" within her son's court is indicated by her part in the organization of the burial of her son Henry VII and of the coronation of her grandson Henry VIII; one contemporary account notes that the council arranging these ceremonies was headed by "the mother of the said late king." In both the funeral and the coronation, she was given precedence in the ceremonies. Her "political status" was also "enhanced," if that is possible, by her role in the interim council that governed until Henry VIII's coronation. "My lady the king's grandam," as she then became, "gave instructions for [her grandson's] marriage to Catherine of Aragon and for his coronation."

In their assessment of Margaret Beaufort's role during her son's reign, Jones and Underwood note that Margaret enjoyed a "degree of influence" that gave her "a dominating position within the realm." Throughout the twenty-four years of Henry VII's reign, from his victory at Bosworth in 1485 until his death in 1509, the "king's mother" participated "in every aspect of Tudor ceremony, government and administration and fought for the safeguarding of the dynasty." Hers was, they conclude, "a formidable achievement," even a "partnership."

For a quick overview of Margaret Beaufort, see Michael Jones's excellent essay, "Lady Margaret Beaufort," originally printed in History Today, click here. There are two excellent biographies of Margaret Beaufort: Linda Simon's Of Virtue Rare: Margaret Beaufort, Matriarch of the House of Tudor and Michael Jones and Malcolm Underwood's The King's Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby.

In addition to her political role, Margaret Beaufort was an educated and pious woman. Throughout her life, she was a supporter of a variety of religious orders and their institutions, including the Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Carthusians. She was a benefactor to both Oxford and Cambridge colleges, she was a patron of the English printers Richard Pynson, William Caxton, and Wynkyn de Worde (who all printed books at her request), and she was, herself, a writer. She translated into English one book (the fourth) of the Imitation of Christ (it was printed by Richard Pynson), and  her The Mirror of Gold for the Sinful Soul  was an English version of a French translation of a Carthusian devotional work, the Speculum aureum peccatorum. A selection of her letters and translations are found in Donald W. Foster's Women's Works: Volume 1, 900-1500.

Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford,
founded in 1878
and named in honor of Lady Margaret Beaufort

Update, 26 May 2024: Recent archaeological work has uncovered the site of Collyweston Palace, Margaret Beaufort’s “city of ladies.” For Megan Specia’s piece in The New York Times, click here

Update, 31 May 2026: You may be interested in two recent podcasts episodes about Margaret Beaufort. First, Episode 2428 (8 December 2025) of the BBC's History Extra podcast focused on Margaret Beaufort for its "Life of the Week" series.  And the 2 April 2027 episode of the BBC's In Our Time podcast, hosted by Misha Glenny, featured a discussion of Margaret Beaufort by three eminent Tudor historians. You can access these episodes wherever you usually listen to podcasts. 

*This post has been adapted from The Monstrous Regiment of Women: Female Rulers in Early Modern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan).

Cecily Neville, "the Rose of Raby"

Cecily Neville, duchess of York (born 3 May 1415)

One recent biography of Cecily Neville is subtitled "mother of kings"--and, no doubt, Cecily Neville was the mother of two English kings, Edward IV and Richard III. (She was also the wife of a man who wanted very much to be king, Richard Plantagenet, the duke of York.)

But being the mother of kings wasn't quite enough for Cecily Neville--after her son Edward married Elizabeth Woodville, a woman she did not approve of, Cecily styled herself "queen by right." In 1469, still not happy with her son, Cecily seems to have declared Edward to be illegitimate so that her second son, George, duke of Clarence, could be king--which would have made her the mother of three kings . . .

A portrait of Cecily Neville,
a nineteenth-century reconstruction of medieval stained glass,
(St. Andrew's Church, Penrith)

In any case, while she was indeed the mother of two relatively short-lived kings, Cecily Neville was also much more. Not only did she regard herself as "queen by right," Cecily Neville was also the mother of three very successful daughters, including Margaret of York.

As duchess of Burgundy, Margaret of York was not a queen, but, whether it offered Margaret the title of queen or not, Burgundy was the wealthiest, most culturally advanced, and sophisticated court in Europe. Among her many accomplishments, Margaret, as duchess of Burgundy, had a role in Burgundian politics, was a patron of many artists, and was an influential and stable figure in the life of her step-granddaughter, Margaret of Austria.

A detail from the St. Andrew's window, above left

In addition to being the mother of such an accomplished woman, Cecily was also the mother of two other duchesses (Anne of York, duchess of Exeter, and Elizabeth of York, duchess of Suffolk, whose sons would continue the Yorkist claim to the English throne into another generation). Cecily was also the grandmother of a queen, another Elizabeth of York, who would marry Henry Tudor, the man who defeated her uncle, Richard III, at the battle of Bosworth.

Cecily Neville herself was the eighteenth child (!) of Ralph Neville and his second wife, Joan Beaufort--who was the daughter of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and thus through this connection (Gaunt was the son of King Edward III), Cecily had royal blood. (As did her husband, who also descended from Edward III.) During their thirty-year marriage, Cecily gave birth to thirteen children, six of whom died in infancy; in addition to the six surviving children we've already mentioned, Edmund of Rutland died with his father at the battle of Wakefield.

Beyond producing children and managing the enormous households associated with two great families, Cecily Neville supported her husband's political and martial activities. After his death, she acquired even more land, wealth, and titles, she was a noted patron of religious and educational institutions, and she played a significant role in attempting to secure a brilliant continental match for her son, Edward--thus her disappointment with his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. I should add here that there is much debate about the source of the claim that Edward was not his father's son--the degree of his mother's involvement, if any, isn't at all clear.

But there was a rift between mother and son after Edward's marriage, and that meant Cecily spent a great deal of time away from court; after Edward's death, she supported her son Richard's claim to the throne, asserting his legitimacy and the illegitimacy of the claims of Edward's sons, the ill-fated "princes in the Tower." 

Even after Richard's death in 1485, the indefatigable Cecily Neville was not done--there is some evidence that she was still involved in political intrigue at the time of her own death in 1495, when her servants were connected with the conspiracy plots involving Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be the younger of the two missing princes, suddenly returned to claim his throne.

In her will, Cecily Neville left a poignant bequest to her great grandson, Prince Arthur, the son of Henry Tudor (who had killed Cecily's son, Richard III, at the battle of Bosworth), and of Cecily's granddaughter, Elizabeth of York: a set of bed hangings, made of arras, or Flemish tapestry, decorated with "the Whele [wheel] of Fortune," a potent image of the fickleness of human life.

Cecily Neville was sometimes romanticized by later historians as the "rose of Raby" because of her great beauty (the "rose" part) and because she was born at Raby Castle. She was the principal character in a quartet of novels written in the 1970s by Eleanor Fairburn: The Rose in Spring (1971); White Rose, Dark Summer (1972); The Rose at Harvest End (1975); and Winter's Rose (1976). More recently, she makes an appearance in Philippa Gregory's The Cousins' War series.

 

In this image from the 

Neville Book of Hours, 1425,

Ralph Neville is pictured 

with twelve of his children,

including Cecily

(Bibliothèque nationale de France)

The life of Cecily Neville is covered well in Sarah Gristwood's Blood Sisters: The Women behind the Wars of the Roses. Amy License's Cecily Neville: Mother of Kings is the first full-length biography. For her definitive treatment, I highly recommend J. L. Laynesmith's 2017 Cecily Duchess of York.

And as one last intriguing note, Cecily Neville probably owned a copy of Christine de Pizan's The Book of the City of Ladies.

Update, August 2021: You may also be interested in a History Extra podcast episode on Cecily Neville, the "forgotten matriarch of the Wars of the Roses" (to listen, click here).