Vulgar History - Margaret Beaufort, The Original Tudor Icon

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is

00:00:14.280 Anne Foster, and today we are talking about Margaret Beaufort, who you might have heard

00:00:19.540 of if you're a fan of the Tudor era history. She is the grandmother of the notorious Henry

00:00:25.440 the 8th. She's also a major figure in the Wars of the Roses. She's up there with other figures

00:00:30.740 like Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret of Anjou. She also appears, you might know her if you're a fan

00:00:36.360 of the Starz TV adaptations of Philippa Gregory's books or Philippa Gregory's books themselves,

00:00:40.980 like the White Queen and the White Princess. Margaret Beaufort is always there kind of looming

00:00:44.920 in the background, kind of villainous figure. And that's how she's often portrayed in film. 0.77

00:00:50.240 And that's how she's often thought of in history. But in a new book, Margaret Beaufort, Survivor,

00:00:55.080 rebel kingmaker. Author and historian Lauren Johnson is encouraging us to think of her in a

00:01:01.360 new way. She really did some new digging around into the historical archives to learn more about

00:01:06.720 Margaret. And she really wrote this biography to see who was she really, what was she really like?

00:01:11.540 And because I know this is a figure not everybody knows about in the conversation you're about to

00:01:15.720 hear with Lauren, we just kind of talked through who was Margaret Beaufort, what did she get up to,

00:01:20.520 why she's so important. And I was so excited to be able to talk with Lauren.

00:01:25.260 So her previous book was The Shadow King, The Life and Death of Henry VI, which is a resource

00:01:30.900 that I used when I did an episode years ago about Henry VI's wife, Margaret of Anjou. And so I knew

00:01:37.220 that her writing is really great. It's really readable. It's a history book that reads like a

00:01:41.420 novel, really. And so I was so happy to have her on the show just to explain who is Margaret Beaufort,

00:01:46.300 Why does she matter? And what was life really like in this Tudor era? So please enjoy this

00:01:51.600 conversation with author and historian, Lauren Johnson. So I'm so happy to welcome Lauren

00:02:00.980 Johnson here to talk to me today. She's the author of a new book called Margaret Beaufort,

00:02:06.200 Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker. Welcome, Lauren. Thanks for having me. Nice to be here.

00:02:11.740 I'm really excited to talk to you about, well, first of all, your book, obviously,

00:02:15.260 but also Margaret Beaufort who's been one of my faves for a long time I know she's got kind of a

00:02:21.600 mixed reputation these days and you definitely talk about that in your book but what I want to

00:02:26.440 do today is just explain to everyone a lot of whom might not know who this is at all kind of

00:02:31.640 why she's important and why she's interesting so kick us off by sort of explaining as best as you

00:02:40.280 can in the most straightforward way just I read the book everybody to get all the details on this

00:02:45.060 But like, why was her family important?

00:02:47.700 Yeah. And I will say in the book, there are quite a few family trees.

00:02:51.040 She helps you a lot. The book helps a lot.

00:02:53.300 There's a character list. There's maps, you know,

00:02:56.660 not as many family trees as I had to make while I was researching it.

00:03:00.180 I have to say every two minutes, I was like, who's John?

00:03:04.040 John who? John St. John plus John St. John is different from this other one.

00:03:08.640 There are, I will say, sorry, just before you say also,

00:03:11.380 another thing I appreciate about this book,

00:03:12.660 because I want everybody to know this is a very approachable book.

00:03:15.060 Like, this is about a part of history you might not know about, but Lauren, like you as the author, metaphorically holding the hands of the readers to just explain here's what's going on.

00:03:23.740 And part of that is the fact that everybody has one of two names, which are Margaret or Edward, for the most part.

00:03:31.420 You find ways to give everybody a different name in the book so we can at least tell everybody apart.

00:03:37.160 Yes. Although I did get confused myself at times because of this system.

00:03:41.340 When I got to the part where Margaret has a half-sister also called Margaret,

00:03:45.680 I was just like, really?

00:03:47.500 Yeah, her mother, her grandmother, her sister, her cousin.

00:03:52.180 Her cousin is literally called Margaret Beaufort.

00:03:54.700 Why?

00:03:55.580 Why, 15th century?

00:03:56.900 Why?

00:03:57.860 Yeah, yeah.

00:03:59.260 So that's what we're dealing with.

00:04:00.540 We're dealing with the age of Margaret.

00:04:02.760 That's how I'm going to term it now.

00:04:05.000 Yes, why is Margaret important? 0.51

00:04:06.840 Why is she interesting?

00:04:08.380 She is.

00:04:09.120 if you've ever heard of the Tudors, she is the reason the Tudors exist. That's my banner sentence.

00:04:18.200 Well, and exactly. And if you're looking specifically, we'll get to how this all

00:04:21.100 happens. But she is the grandmother of Henry VIII, one of the best known British kings of all time,

00:04:27.120 I would say. Yeah, best known, infamous, I would say, infamous King Henry VIII. And Margaret not

00:04:34.120 only is the reason that the Tudors get a claim to the throne because of various complicated, 0.95

00:04:39.660 you know, dynastic reasons going back through generations. But she literally is like, she's 0.90

00:04:44.140 a political player in her own right. She ensures that the Tudors come to the throne. She survives 1.00

00:04:48.880 the Wars of the Roses. She makes sure that like there is sort of peace brought to England after

00:04:55.940 a period of decades of civil war. And I think arguably is a really key reason that Henry VIII

00:05:02.380 himself comes to the throne. Because before Henry VIII becomes king in 1509, there had been

00:05:08.640 literally a century in which there had not been an adult prince inheriting the throne from his

00:05:15.580 father. It did not happen for a century. And yet Henry VIII manages it in part because of his

00:05:21.220 grandma, Margaret Beaufort. So she is a woman who throughout her entire life, literally from birth

00:05:26.300 to death is at like the epicenter of politics and like she doesn't just sort of find her way

00:05:34.200 through these circumstances or survive them by luck or anything like that she really works to 0.98

00:05:39.640 thrive in a system that brought down swathes of of her relatives and friends well and so just to

00:05:47.880 explain to people what you mean when you say that henry the eighth was the first adult son to inherit

00:05:53.080 it. Like for the previous century, correct me if I'm wrong, all the kings were either adult men

00:05:59.300 who seized it from somebody else or a little baby who didn't really rule because he was a little

00:06:05.560 baby. And there was just kind of like people scheming in the background. So there wasn't a

00:06:08.860 consistent, and this is part of why I will say when Henry VIII becomes king, I think infamously

00:06:14.320 what most people know about him is he really wanted a son. And it's like, yeah, he did. And

00:06:18.760 part of the reason was because he wanted this smooth succession because he knew that there 0.92

00:06:23.200 had been a hundred years of just absolute chaos but that's what margaret was living through 1.00

00:06:27.120 can we talk about her as a little girl and what well i mean honestly how old was she when she 0.65

00:06:32.740 had her first marriage like six or something yes six years old was it six i was underestimating

00:06:38.220 to make a joke okay actually six okay actually six hang on maths uh maybe seven i'm not great

00:06:45.500 at mental arithmetic so she was either six or seven you know the old age of seven years old 0.89

00:06:50.520 yeah so the thing to know about margaret right from the start is that she's really rich

00:06:55.240 her father was a great lord who had like both inherited and made a lot of money from various

00:07:02.640 sources and had this very distant blood claim to the english throne so she even as a child she was

00:07:09.500 someone that people wanted to marry because by marrying her whichever family married her would

00:07:14.400 be able to claim her lands her royal claim her wealth etc she's an only child i just wanted to

00:07:21.020 mention so part of why it all landed on her there's not yes sort of this is this is the kind

00:07:26.200 of fascinating thing about her she is the only child of her father but um in like a in something

00:07:32.340 that i think we imagine is very 21st century she grew up with a totally blended family like she had

00:07:37.640 step parents and half siblings and loads of people around her as she was growing up but she was kind

00:07:43.620 of exceptional because she is the only one who has the Beaufort claim to the throne. So yeah,

00:07:49.200 she is like the sole person who can have that claim. And that's why people want to marry her, 1.00

00:07:54.180 even when she is a child. So yeah, first marriage, six or seven, that never turns into a proper

00:08:00.620 marriage, it must be said. Yeah. Well, I do want to clarify for people because we are going to

00:08:04.980 talk about this in a bit when we get to marriage number two. But in terms of marriage age six,

00:08:09.580 we're not saying put her in a white dress, walk down the aisle. It's just like it's all on paper.

00:08:13.620 like people like marriage arrangements were made about very young children but they were not

00:08:17.500 expected to live as man and wife to consummate that marriage until the girl was able to bear

00:08:22.860 a child basically so like an older teen generally speaking so when we say she's married at six this

00:08:28.320 is not yeah this is kind of this is not weird to have this on paper marriage just to clarify

00:08:34.340 there's literally babies get betrothed to each other in this time and there's a yeah it's all

00:08:39.500 a very fuzzy area of church law to be honest like the marriage situations in this period of history

00:08:45.140 so this is kind of a paper marriage exactly as you say and then she is remarried as it were to

00:08:52.660 someone else instead when she is 12 and 12 according to church law medieval church law

00:08:58.680 is the age of consent for girls it's 14 for boys 12 for girls but her second husband is a man

00:09:05.320 called Edmund Tudor and he is in his late 20s he might even be 30 when they get married so this is

00:09:11.480 a proper marriage this is a marriage where it is intended she will have children she will consummate

00:09:17.960 it although again I really want to emphasize that even getting married at the age of consent

00:09:26.040 usually for very good like mental and psychological and physiological reasons people didn't actually

00:09:32.840 usually consummate these marriages until, you know, late teens, early 20s. But we know that

00:09:40.160 Edmund Tudor does consummate the marriage because Margaret gets pregnant when she is 13. 0.83

00:09:47.300 And this is, I want to, in terms of Margaret Tudor, she's an outlier. This at the time, 0.66

00:09:54.320 you say in your book, like other people were like, oh, really? Like this is, it's not the norm

00:09:59.720 for a 30-year-old man when he marries a 12-year-old

00:10:02.540 to impregnate her immediately.

00:10:04.780 This is, because sometimes people say like,

00:10:06.140 oh, in the past, in medieval times,

00:10:07.740 like, girl, they were all getting, 0.91

00:10:09.400 having children at age 12.

00:10:10.260 It's like, they weren't.

00:10:11.760 No, they weren't.

00:10:12.300 Like 20 was the average age for a first child

00:10:15.360 for this class.

00:10:16.260 But he really needed to have an heir is part of why.

00:10:20.440 Well, partly.

00:10:21.080 And also just, he was greedy.

00:10:22.520 He wanted her money.

00:10:23.580 And if she was pregnant, even if she died 0.97

00:10:26.560 or if the child died by the custom of england by a sort of like legal convention he could get her

00:10:32.900 land and money straight away he didn't have to wait so it's entirely about what's best for him

00:10:37.960 not her well especially because she's also she's a really little tiny person so it's not just

00:10:43.160 she's 12 it's like and i would say 12 year olds are not suitable for having children then or now

00:10:51.620 physically mentally anything but she was also like a very small 12 year old so just physiologically

00:10:57.140 it would be more dangerous for her than it would be for somebody who's 12 years old and five foot

00:11:00.820 seven like she's a little tiny person yeah we it seems like demographically we in the 21st century

00:11:07.600 like periods start earlier adolescence has moved earlier basically so in the medieval period it

00:11:15.000 seems like it would actually be quite unusual to even be having your periods when you're 12 never

00:11:19.680 mind actually be able to get pregnant so she was in a really unfortunate situation i think

00:11:26.320 that physically she was capable of getting pregnant but exactly as you're saying

00:11:31.680 psychologically and physiologically in other ways she was not really able to have an untraumatic

00:11:38.840 birth and like throughout her entire life people i mean she does it as well people make jokes about

00:11:44.520 the fact she's very small. There's all sorts of comments about this throughout her entire life.

00:11:50.740 We know as well from her granddaughter. Her granddaughter apparently resembles her a lot,

00:11:54.660 who is also called Margaret. She's described as being very slight for her age. Margaret expresses

00:12:00.100 concern that this princess grandchild of hers might be forced into a marriage too young and 0.79

00:12:05.960 tries to prevent it happening so that this grandchild won't be hurt, as she puts it.

00:12:11.420 So I think there's a real legacy in terms of how Margaret experiences this point in her life. And I don't think that we can underestimate how traumatizing and difficult this point in her life when she was pregnant and giving birth and a new mother was.

00:12:31.680 Well, for a number of reasons. One of those is the fact that the birth, and you described in your book as well, everybody read the book. We don't know specifically what happened in the childbirth situation, but we know from what stuff she said later, like it went, it was a traumatic experience. It was not a straightforward birth.

00:12:49.820 No, I don't think so. And the biggest part of that is that the norm in medieval times,

00:12:55.080 and for most of history actually, was that you would have a community of women and trusted

00:12:59.500 people around you. And as far as we know, Margaret was just completely alone. Her husband had

00:13:05.040 actually died by the point she was giving birth. He died of the plague after various military

00:13:09.960 things that were going on. And she was kind of forced when heavily pregnant to flee to a different

00:13:15.560 castle to the castle of her brother-in-law Jasper Tudor just to kind of keep safe while she was

00:13:20.600 giving birth she's hundreds of miles away from her mother and her sisters she like we've already

00:13:25.920 mentioned like is very young is kind of thrust into this position of motherhood and widowhood

00:13:34.180 and parenthood and all of this way before most people would have been and I think that it probably

00:13:39.880 really affected her relationship with her child for the first few years of his life her child

00:13:46.020 survives which is like miraculous people even at the time say that the fact that both of them

00:13:51.520 survive like that she survived that he survived it's like yeah yeah it is shocking it is seen as

00:13:57.620 i think they read it backwards as sort of a semi divine intervention i think they genuinely think

00:14:03.680 like how is this possible that all everything was against you there was plague there was war

00:14:07.640 there was a tiny like all of these dangers and yet you survived and this child survived

00:14:12.940 it is incredible but margaret quite quickly after the birth of this child that she names

00:14:18.820 henry probably after the king at that time who is her cousin she leaves the baby in this castle

00:14:26.440 in wales and she goes and arranges a marriage to someone else someone who is much more likely to

00:14:32.480 kind of listen to her, I think, and to be kind to her and who crucially takes her back to the

00:14:40.060 lands where she grew up, the territory where her family live, so that she can almost like

00:14:45.020 restart her life. That's how I see it, that she's just sort of like erasing this horrible period of

00:14:50.840 her marriage to Edmund Tudor and starting a new life. But in doing that, she leaves her child

00:14:55.480 behind. Well, and in terms of choosing the second husband, and this is something that

00:14:59.760 it's an, she's still so young, even though she's just given birth to a child, but we really see

00:15:04.820 her, I guess I'll say agency, but just kind of her commitment to making her life better to

00:15:12.600 improving things. Like she, she knows like she's a 13 year old single mother widow. And she, and

00:15:18.600 in what is this like the 1400s? She's like, well, I need a husband. I can't, I need, and she finds 0.93

00:15:24.820 him and she figures this out for herself. And I think that's very impressive and shouldn't be

00:15:29.100 discounted in terms of her taking control of her own life i completely agree agency is like

00:15:34.580 absolutely the word that she wants to like we might see it as a sort of a lowering of yourself

00:15:41.540 being like oh well you have to marry you have to have a man but actually the fact that she chooses

00:15:46.120 it she does it very rationally that she makes it in a she makes that decision in quite a measured

00:15:51.880 way as quickly as she makes it um i think is really revealing and the success of that

00:15:58.100 marriage, the fact that all of the evidence points to this couple being very happy together,

00:16:03.440 having a long and quite companionate marriage, a much more normal marriage, actually, for the

00:16:09.620 15th century than the one with Edmund Judah. I think that's testament to Margaret's wisdom.

00:16:14.700 And the other thing to say is that at this point in history, we are getting the beginnings of the

00:16:20.740 Wars of the Roses, the wars, the dynastic wars, basically, a civil war between York and Lancaster.

00:16:26.100 Yeah, York and Lancaster, I was going to say, if people don't know the phrase, Wars of the Roses. It's that. There's all the Shakespeare plays about it. I'm sure we'll get into it. Richard III is involved. It's kind of like, yeah, a lot of wars, families, and it's a lot to do with succession, really.

00:16:44.320 Entirely, yeah. It's about who should be king, fundamentally. But yeah, it's remembered as being

00:16:49.460 the White Rose of York, their family, against the Red Rose of Lancaster, their family. And Margaret

00:16:54.460 is essentially just trying to protect herself and her own family and is like, I just want someone 0.99

00:16:58.960 in the middle, please. I don't want to get dragged into it. So there's all of that political

00:17:03.340 sinking as well happening when she's making this marriage. 1.00

00:17:07.600 Yeah, well, because she's living in this incredibly unstable time and just her role

00:17:11.720 as sort of a distant relative of the royal family puts her in danger really so i think she just

00:17:18.260 and we see this throughout her life really and you talk about this in the book as well

00:17:21.880 everybody read the book um but she's kind of like if i can just compare this to the tv show survivor

00:17:28.860 um she's a sort of person because it's in your title she's a survivor but there's people in

00:17:34.080 that show who are just kind of sit back and let the bigger characters fight it out and they're

00:17:38.540 like if like i just want i'll see who's there at the end and i'll just kind of make a deal week to

00:17:44.220 week who i'm going to ally with and that's kind of what margaret reminds me of she's just she's not 0.92

00:17:48.960 all in on either side she's just like you have your war and i'll just be here and leave me yeah

00:17:56.480 i'll look after my own myself and my own people that's such a good way of uh putting it yeah

00:18:01.580 yeah she is that's that's who she is survivor well and that's what that's what she does throughout

00:18:06.620 the whole story like we see this through like she's living through this extremely contentious

00:18:09.420 period of time and if she had at this stage taken a firm stance I don't think any the rest of

00:18:15.200 history would have spiraled out like it did so she kind of knew well and at this point too she's got

00:18:19.660 her new husband she's now in her what mid-teens like if we're looking at this era she would

00:18:24.420 probably be expecting that she's going to have children with him but she does not and you suggest

00:18:29.600 and I think other historians have suggested the trauma of the birth of her first child probably

00:18:34.560 just messed up her internal organs to such a point she probably couldn't conceive.

00:18:39.180 Yeah, I don't know if it's like physiological or it could also totally be psychological. We know,

00:18:45.040 and it's something that I think people are starting to put onto women in the past and

00:18:50.340 to understand a bit better. Like we know in the 21st century that cortisol levels,

00:18:54.620 stress hormones can so impact your ability to conceive and PTSD, things like that. There must

00:19:02.100 have been all sorts of psychological legacies for Margaret that might have made it impossible for 0.97

00:19:07.180 her to have a child, even if she wanted it. And I do think she wanted more children with her 0.53

00:19:11.260 next husband. So yeah, whether it's physical, mental, whether it's that her husband himself

00:19:18.120 can't have children, that's also a possibility. But yeah, she doesn't have children. And I think

00:19:23.320 that that's why about 10 years after she has left her son Henry, she starts to kind of take more

00:19:30.960 interest in him and start to kind of like build a relationship that goes on later in her life

00:19:37.060 actually to be pretty much the most important relationship for her and for that son which

00:19:42.920 ends up being very important because he eventually becomes king. Well and I think it's interesting

00:19:47.800 too just I was looking at portraits of everybody because you kind of mentioned this person resembled

00:19:52.240 this person and I was like what did they look like and so Margaret Beaufort and her son I think

00:19:56.000 do have quite a strong physical resemblance and I think in character they also were very similar

00:20:00.880 So I could see 10 years in, she's whatever, 22, he's 10.

00:20:06.660 And I think at that point, but they could see like, oh, we got along.

00:20:10.340 We are a similar sort of like very serious, very religious, but also I don't want to say mercenary, but just like straightforward sort of person.

00:20:19.200 I think there's a caution to them. And it's in her father as well. It's interesting.

00:20:22.980 there's a real like there's some genetic psychology going on through that family that

00:20:28.140 they're very careful considered people and I think they find the world around them to be made up of a

00:20:34.320 lot of a lot of mad risk takers and violence and they're just like no no no no can we do whatever

00:20:40.260 is least dangerous please at all times so this next era of her life if we're looking at so she

00:20:47.520 reconnects with her son because she realizes at this point probably she's probably not going to

00:20:50.800 have another child this is so he now carries the heir of the Beaufort lineage but then he's also

00:20:57.040 the tutors have a connection to the royal family as well and honestly I want to tell you when I was

00:21:02.740 first this is years ago but I was getting into the wars of the roses I actually made myself like

00:21:07.720 like a cork board with cards on it and string connecting things because I couldn't remember

00:21:13.040 how so that's all happening like yeah there's just kind of who at some point and I'm going

00:21:19.040 to show you i did a video when i was working out with spoiler princes in the tower stuff

00:21:23.120 i literally did that i have like string and pieces of paper because i was like what is happening in

00:21:29.180 this point in history well and then because suddenly in the story you're reading about

00:21:32.520 these people and i feel like i get it and then it's like and then this person comes in and i'm

00:21:35.680 like and they're the descendant of who from three generations back like john of gaunt is suddenly

00:21:41.020 involved like it's anyway so there's she's she has a connection to the royal family her son has a

00:21:46.820 connection to the royal family and there's basically just wars going on and she and her

00:21:51.660 husband i think also continue to be kind of like let's just see how this plays out right yeah yeah

00:21:57.740 absolutely and unfortunately like i mean there's so much in the wars of the roses you can go into

00:22:02.940 there's so much you don't need to go into but like but like essentially there's uh there's peace for

00:22:09.900 a time then the wars break out again margaret tries to play the system a little bit at that

00:22:16.020 point in time and it goes very badly for her her husband ends up being wounded in battle and

00:22:22.100 ultimately dies probably of those wounds her son is forced into exile because of his connection to

00:22:28.960 one side of the um the civil war when he's only 14 years old like margaret has made the wrong

00:22:34.820 alliance at the wrong time so she's out of favor and again i think it's very interesting that at

00:22:40.420 that point in time when she's like oh no i have messed up my decision making here i've really

00:22:45.520 chosen the wrong people she again remarries and she remarries someone who once again is like

00:22:51.580 famous for sitting out of the conflict who literally lives up in the northwest of england

00:22:56.180 i imagine him uh like very game of thrones like living up on an eagle's nest somewhere where no

00:23:02.400 one can get to him yeah that kind of individual um like she yeah she's very considered in who she

00:23:08.120 makes alliances with and so she again she's like you said like she she kind of took the risk she

00:23:14.460 made the alliance but then it was the wrong one so now she's making the right one and this is the

00:23:17.700 guy he's connected to the current king in a positive way i think so she is this i'm trying

00:23:23.540 to remember there's so many twists and turns this but at some point she becomes like the godmother

00:23:27.980 of the princess like she's back in the good graces yeah this person that she marries he's

00:23:32.740 like i say he's very famed for not backing any side in the wars of the roses he like literally

00:23:38.160 he will be to two different sides of a battle he'll say yeah yeah yeah i'll come and fight for

00:23:42.080 you and then just not fight for either of them and everyone's like oh thomas you can wag um he's

00:23:47.920 called thomas stanley he's also called the lord of man which is the best title of the wars of the

00:23:52.360 roses because of owning a tiny island called the isle of man uh which has cats with no tails fun

00:23:58.260 fact there we are um oh is that the manx manx cat the manx cat is from the isle of man yeah so he

00:24:05.080 owns he owns the manx cats technically yeah there we are anyway that's irrelevant to the wars of

00:24:11.220 the roses but fun fact I'm always you know what myself and my listeners are always glad to know

00:24:15.180 when cats are involved in stories so we just imagine them there too yeah okay yeah imagine

00:24:20.820 if you will a tower surrounded by cats uh that's what I'm picturing now yeah great choice great

00:24:26.180 choice of husband so she marries this guy who's famously stays out of it yeah yeah he's called

00:24:30.720 Thomas Stanley and he is connected to the the family who are at that point in time in the

00:24:36.260 ascendancy which is the Yorkist dynasty the White Rose of York they are now in control of the

00:24:41.180 kingdom. Thomas Stanley is quite high up in their hierarchy and manages to stay there pretty much

00:24:48.800 for the whole rest of the next decade or more, during which time we don't have loads of information

00:24:56.460 about Margaret. We know that she's just moving up and up, like you say, in society. She becomes

00:25:01.720 connected to different members of the ruling royal family. Really, everything just seems to

00:25:08.380 be going in the right direction for her she seems to be finally managing to maneuver henry her son

00:25:14.160 back into england she's making alliances with the yorkist king to get him back to get him married

00:25:20.100 maybe to a yorkist princess and then it all goes wrong because that king dies and we end up with

00:25:26.960 the princes in the tower these young boys who should become kings who instead are put in the

00:25:32.140 tower and their uncle becomes king richard the third so like really complicated situation all

00:25:37.060 you need to know is Richard III becomes king. And I will say that there is some, well,

00:25:43.840 Philip and Gregory being one in her fiction, people who suggest that Margaret Beaufort

00:25:47.500 murdered the princess in the tower. I think that's pretty far-fetched and you explain why that is in

00:25:54.480 the book as well. But this is, she's a character in this time period and she's all up in what's

00:26:00.040 happening to the extent that some people think that she was actively scheming and or doing murders.

00:26:06.260 Yeah, which she wasn't.

00:26:07.760 No.

00:26:09.980 Yeah, I mean, she was kind of willing to work with Richard III, is the thing.

00:26:15.000 She didn't particularly have a relationship with him at all before he became king.

00:26:20.620 Her husband, Thomas Stanley, didn't have a good relationship with him,

00:26:23.900 but again, was quite happy to go along with what was happening.

00:26:26.660 But there were various rebellions and movements against Richard

00:26:30.940 and suspicions that maybe the princes in the tower had been killed by him.

00:26:34.440 to the extent that Margaret started and I would argue completely as a result of the situation

00:26:41.840 not because this had always been in her intention but she started to join these conspiracies against

00:26:48.260 Richard III and put her own son Henry forward as a rival claimant for the throne so like quite a

00:26:55.380 swing around from someone who had been trying to not get involved in things suddenly she is

00:27:00.020 literally leading a conspiracy against the king of England. Yeah. And I think this is where some

00:27:05.600 people who look at this story, again, like especially fiction writers who you think you

00:27:09.940 want to go retroactively back to see if she does get to this point where she is actively scheming

00:27:14.560 her son to be the king. And it's like, well, let's imagine that she always wanted that. Let's imagine

00:27:18.100 that she's been doing that all along. But really, this was a pivot. And it was, like you said,

00:27:22.240 situational, really. Yeah, it's completely situational. And it's because there is an

00:27:26.460 initial rebellion against Richard that she gets involved in that completely fails and after it

00:27:31.820 fails she is punished by Richard she is sort of effectively made her husband's prisoner

00:27:37.940 and exiled away in the kingdom and she can't have her servants she can't communicate with her son

00:27:44.100 anymore all of her lands Richard seizes them and starts to kind of like hand them out to other

00:27:48.800 people so like she's lost everything at that point in time and the only way for her and her son to

00:27:56.260 really regain power or livelihood even is to continue this conspiracy against Richard

00:28:03.500 and to try and overthrow him, which is what they ultimately do.

00:28:08.440 Which they do. And it's a very exciting part. If you watch The Hollow Crown, the televised

00:28:12.980 adaptation of Shakespeare's plays, the sequence where Henry comes in and the sword fight against

00:28:18.640 Richard, it's all very good. And the guy playing Henry Tudor is very handsome. Anyway, it's not

00:28:25.120 hard to cheer for him in that scene but in history what happens it could have gone either way but it

00:28:29.060 just happened that henry tudor and his forces like they had the right soldiers they had the

00:28:35.320 right tactics they win and he margaret beaufort's son becomes henry king henry the seventh the first

00:28:42.860 tudor which i don't think anyone was prepared for there's a really like it's a moment in time where

00:28:47.740 i think most of the people in england and wales are like huh who what's happening like just rushing

00:28:54.020 to try and work out who this person is

00:28:55.740 because he hasn't been in the country

00:28:56.840 for 14, maths, 14 years, yeah.

00:29:00.720 Well, just in terms of you and me

00:29:02.020 and our cork boards with a string,

00:29:04.300 they have to put them up,

00:29:05.340 like olden Tudor era cork boards,

00:29:07.340 just being like, wait,

00:29:08.420 he's descended from who

00:29:09.680 and who's descended from who?

00:29:11.240 What's his claim?

00:29:12.500 Like, bring up the scrolls, I guess.

00:29:14.440 He literally had to win the throne in battle

00:29:16.920 because no one understood otherwise

00:29:19.080 how he was king.

00:29:20.080 Whereas if you win a battle

00:29:21.220 in the medieval times,

00:29:22.340 it's like, oh, okay, yeah, God chose.

00:29:24.020 fair enough that's fine but because henry has not been in the kingdom because no one knows who he

00:29:29.720 is really he doesn't have this like basis of support in the country or in the court

00:29:34.660 margaret beaufort his mother is hugely important because she is pretty much the most experienced

00:29:40.680 courtier and politician in the country at this point in time and crucially like he can trust her

00:29:47.400 he can't trust anyone else he doesn't know loads of people have been fighting for richard the ones

00:29:52.200 who were fighting for Henry were obviously technically supporting a rebel might they do

00:29:56.120 it again with someone else so like Margaret Beaufort becomes this incredibly important 0.95

00:30:01.460 political player to King Henry VII and because she's a woman I think a lot of that power that

00:30:08.320 she had that authority with which she influenced her son has kind of either it's been under

00:30:15.420 exaggerated you know it's been minimized or it's been made into a really weird kind of like

00:30:21.040 obsessive relationship where she has too much power there's no sort of understanding that this

00:30:26.100 was actually quite a functional partnership between them and now for a quick advertising break

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00:33:42.000 Well, and I think part of that,

00:33:43.400 there's lots of reasons for it,

00:33:44.280 but two things that come to mind for me

00:33:45.520 are the fact that, like we said before,

00:33:46.760 the two of them have such a similar personality.

00:33:49.600 They're not clashing in this fundamental level

00:33:51.840 where they're both cautious.

00:33:52.960 They're both very thoughtful.

00:33:54.280 Like I could see them working together

00:33:55.260 and they're also very close in age.

00:33:56.860 she's only 12 years older than him so and she hadn't raised him for the first 10 years so

00:34:03.400 where she is his mother they don't necessarily have that sort of like stage mom sort of presence

00:34:08.920 so I could see them as sort of allies sort of peers almost and I do want to mention this story

00:34:15.060 I really appreciate in the context of looking at so many other women in history like Catherine

00:34:20.080 de' Medici or Agrippina in ancient Rome where there are these women who fight so hard for their

00:34:24.360 sons to become the next ruler and the sons are useless and the sons are terrible and it's just

00:34:31.540 like oh the mom worked so hard and this guy sucks and people like with Agrippina like Nero 0.94

00:34:37.140 kills her but here it's not just that Margaret helped to ensure that his own became king but 0.96

00:34:42.960 then he respected her and kept her there and listened to her that never happens and he was

00:34:49.020 capable of being king this is a liar to me in terms of my research of like women in history

00:34:54.660 this is yeah he's actually perfect good at it yeah and and there are other women for whom that

00:35:00.640 is kind of true in 15th century England so the king before the main Yorkist king Edward IV his

00:35:06.420 mother was also a very important political player you know Margaret of Anjou was raising her son

00:35:12.440 in the Wars of the Roses to become the great next Lancastrian hope like there's there's actually

00:35:17.260 quite a few examples of of women working successfully with their sons but because we

00:35:22.740 haven't really remembered them I think Margaret Beaufort gets kind of presented as a bit of a

00:35:28.440 weirdo basically yeah well and again like I you know I've mentioned Philip McGregory as well but

00:35:34.480 that's because I first encountered her as a character in the tv version of the White Queen

00:35:38.680 where it's a fantastic performance by this actress I forgot her name but she's so intense and weird

00:35:43.360 and twitchy and she's just and she's like obsessed with him but she's also in love with Jasper Tudor

00:35:48.300 and they really just kind of go all in on like she's this weirdo like look at this insane person

00:35:54.840 weird old woman yeah yeah yeah but actually she is like and this is part of the reputation that

00:36:02.220 you're kind of exploring and interrogating in your book it's kind of like people see her this way

00:36:07.160 but what was she actually like and how was she actually seen at the time which it seems like

00:36:11.460 she was respected it yeah absolutely it's it's totally a modern construct of margaret and it is

00:36:18.560 partly a result of and when i say modern i mean modern in a history sense so i mean like oh the

00:36:23.620 1700s onwards like it's something that's kind of came about as a like uh almost a mirror of what

00:36:31.060 happened with richard iii that the more people were like no richard iii's been mistreated the

00:36:35.360 more Margaret seems to have gone down in people's esteem and the more she has become like almost his

00:36:42.120 enemy or something. And that's not remotely how it was at the time. I think Margaret Beaufort was

00:36:48.000 really well respected. There's very little bad that is said about her. And for 15th century

00:36:54.380 powerful women, that is incredible achievement. And we can tell from, you know, there's all sorts 0.84

00:37:00.380 of different resources that we have to study Margaret's life, of which her own household

00:37:04.380 accounts are the biggest one and you can see in them like how well she gets on with her servants

00:37:08.880 with her friends with her relatives how she really like cultivates her relationships separately from

00:37:15.020 her son and the royal court like people who are just important to her for other reasons um and

00:37:21.100 it's an element of her that kind of like that humanity essentially of her that just seems to

00:37:26.640 have been left out of her story in recent years and i think it's a huge uh a huge shame actually

00:37:32.880 because she was pretty great well and like you said the fact like for a powerful woman in this

00:37:38.580 time and place to not have like that that can be underestimated i think but also there's the 1.00

00:37:45.900 situation you mentioned there's other women who similarly queens or not queen dowager queens this 0.99

00:37:51.800 is what i want to talk about when henry becomes the king they're like what do we call her because

00:37:56.880 she wasn't queen beforehand and she's actually married to someone else so it's kind of this

00:38:03.120 confusing situation of the he became king but his mother was never like a titled royal like that so

00:38:09.960 what name do we give her yeah it's totally unprecedented basically even uh the like the

00:38:17.140 yorkist mother beforehand had kind of they'd claimed that the duke of york was king so they

00:38:21.760 could sort of be like no no the true queen that's who she was whereas margaret beaufort it's like no

00:38:26.420 know she's Thomas Stanley's wife that's what she is she's not a princess or anything so a lot of

00:38:32.900 effort is put into like we would say today the optics of who Margaret is in relation to Henry

00:38:38.600 and who she is in relation to Henry's queen who is Elizabeth of York and that's a marriage that

00:38:44.100 actually Margaret had helped make as well so like the three of them again really seem to have an

00:38:50.620 effective relationship and it is quite astonishing to me that there's no questioning of like Margaret

00:38:59.060 there's no sexual slander about the fact that she's still married while she has a son who is king

00:39:04.620 she makes some choices later to become what's called a vows which basically means she's almost

00:39:10.140 like a nun but she still has power but her husband's still alive it's it's a very nebulous

00:39:15.960 position, but it basically means that she is an independent lord in her own right. And I think

00:39:21.420 partly that is how she gets around that sort of slightly confusing situation of being, yeah,

00:39:29.280 king's mother, but never queen. And yeah, it's just testament to the respect that there was for her,

00:39:34.760 I think, and the ability that her and Henry and Queen Elizabeth demonstrate to the wider world. 0.56

00:39:43.900 And that's another sort of popular slander of Margaret is that she was interfering in 0.98

00:39:48.320 the marriage of her son or that she was lording it over her daughter-in-law when actually

00:39:53.240 it seems like, like what we talked about her personality, her son's personality, like

00:39:56.800 I just think that they're not people who are going to stir up drama for the sake of

00:40:00.480 drama.

00:40:00.960 Like they're very careful and considerate and politically, but I would think they're

00:40:03.740 also very careful and considerate personally.

00:40:06.060 Like you were saying, her servants had kind things to say about her.

00:40:08.540 So clearly the three of them were a functional unit, her, her son.

00:40:13.000 the wife and they'd all been through it like just to be clear like his wife elizabeth of york she

00:40:18.200 was the sister of the princess in the tower like her brothers were murdered by this uncle who maybe

00:40:24.680 wanted to also marry her like she so i think the three of them are just kind of like oh we can just

00:40:30.780 have like a pleasant domestic arrangement like we can just have dinner and can we just spin our yarn

00:40:36.540 can we just you know like there's not tv but if there was they just oh you know like let's just

00:40:42.120 watch like a nice little movie like the three of them are survivors like they're just like

00:40:47.780 they survived for a long time absolutely and like to be completely um transparent there are some

00:40:55.200 comments made about margaret and elizabeth's relationship at the time but they are made by

00:41:00.100 people who have never witnessed that relationship they're made by people who never seem to have

00:41:04.140 seen this pair who who are making like sweeping judgments about the dynamics of the royal court

00:41:09.240 based on very little and then some other evidence that's been totally like just totally misread

00:41:15.800 basically misconstrued several centuries later and all of the evidence that we have is that

00:41:21.320 Margaret and Elizabeth have probably like they've witnessed what happened to other women

00:41:26.580 of the royal court before and particularly Elizabeth's mother Elizabeth Woodville who

00:41:32.000 had an incredibly difficult time in the wars of the roses who lost a lot of members of her family

00:41:36.760 to the violence of the wars and was very unpopular herself. And lots of sexual slander did attach to

00:41:43.500 her. So I think we don't always realize that it can be a choice to be passive. And I think that's

00:41:51.480 the choice that Elizabeth of York made. She was like, no, that I am going to be the medieval

00:41:56.420 ideal queen, which is to say, I'm going to have children. I'm going to sit quietly. Every now and

00:42:01.180 then I might do something to do with religion. And otherwise I'm not getting involved because

00:42:04.720 that is the best way for me and my family to be safe. And again, it testifies to just like common

00:42:10.360 sense that I think is why Margaret and Henry enormously respected her. Like you said, like

00:42:16.360 it's a choice to be passive. It's not, you know, on my podcast, I love talking about women who are 0.97

00:42:22.420 scandalous and audacious and do ridiculous things, but they generally all die at age 25 of tuberculosis 1.00

00:42:28.000 or something like that. So if you want to live a long and happy life, like this is make that choice.

00:42:34.100 that doesn't mean that elizabeth of york is a boring person by any means it means

00:42:37.620 no it's and she knew how to survive and i totally i had to come to that thought process myself as

00:42:44.720 well because similarly like that's that's what's interesting isn't it you know the devil gets the

00:42:48.480 best stories he gets the best songs but it can be an empowering choice not not to do that it can be

00:42:55.120 empowering for a woman to say okay yeah the best political course for me is this one it might look

00:43:02.400 like the most boring choice but it's the safest one and that's that's how I'm going to survive in

00:43:07.400 this situation um and I yeah it is it was a bit revolutionary at that point in time because there

00:43:14.160 had not been that figure in politics that kind of safe in inverted commas queenship for quite a long

00:43:22.280 time and then Margaret Beaufort in her sort of like later years so she's there's this vowess 0.97

00:43:29.560 role that she has taken on because her husband it would have been very convenient for everyone

00:43:33.980 if he had died earlier but he didn't he was hearty um but she does so talk about her what

00:43:40.880 she does in terms of university or colleges and then also in terms of book writing publishing

00:43:46.020 translations yeah she has this whole other life margaret beaufort she would be incredible even

00:43:51.280 without the political stuff because she uh she found two different cambridge colleges not one

00:43:56.860 two and she actually has a real role to play in like the values of those colleges she's very

00:44:04.400 concerned for kind of disseminating information for getting like educational opportunity out

00:44:10.920 into the country and getting her religious messaging out into the country to the extent

00:44:16.400 especially she's very concerned like in England there's a real north-south divide even today like

00:44:22.240 the north tends to have a lot less money and opportunity than the south of England

00:44:25.900 and Margaret has lived in the North so she's witnessed it herself so she really tries to

00:44:30.360 make sure that Northerners get an opportunity to come and be students and preachers and whatever

00:44:35.120 within this university. She's also really concerned to spread the word of God as she sees it

00:44:41.840 by translating books herself so she publishes herself she's the first English woman to appear

00:44:49.260 in print which is incredible she then has those books published herself she pays for them to be

00:44:54.180 bound she pays them to be sent out and i think the amount of copies you say you say in your book

00:44:59.500 like how many it's not just oh she translated a book and look here's one we'll put it in the

00:45:02.780 library like so she made she had so many copies of them made like 50 to 100 she would and that's

00:45:08.540 just for herself to send out to people there were others as well and it has to be emphasized that

00:45:13.400 like she is born at the time the printing press comes into being like it is brand new technology

00:45:19.760 that she is harnessing and understanding the power of as well and like for me the big thing

00:45:27.480 that really touched me that I kind of hadn't quite got before was that Margaret Beaufort

00:45:32.620 because she was rich she was able to go into the places that had libraries she was able to go and 0.89

00:45:37.920 look at these hand-produced incredibly expensive barely touched manuscripts she could look at them

00:45:45.280 and she could get information out of them and she recognized that other people couldn't so she was

00:45:49.820 like well how do I spread this I know I'd get it printed because prints are cheap and so loads of

00:45:55.480 people can afford them but of course lots of people don't read Latin or French so how do I do

00:45:59.880 that right I translate them I translate them into English and just that thought process alone is

00:46:05.000 like totally revolutionary to me especially for a woman in this point in history like later on

00:46:10.580 under the Tudors we get humanism and all those sorts of like movements for education and

00:46:16.240 broadening education understanding and Margaret's doing it way before so yeah she's incredible

00:46:22.820 and that entire part of her life has sort of just been forgotten about well and I think also just

00:46:28.820 thinking today nowadays in terms of people who the older you are often the more set in your ways you

00:46:35.360 can be or like resistant to technology but she's in her I don't know she had her child so young

00:46:39.940 but let's say late middle age at least and she's like 50s 60s probably yeah but the fact that she's

00:46:45.620 like let's jump on this new technology let's take advantage of it and she's thinking of that herself

00:46:49.700 rather than be like oh how do i don't want to use an ipad or whatever like she's like she's

00:46:54.820 lifelong engaging with the new technologies i think that's also notable for someone now

00:46:59.040 and also for someone then yeah i think so too and it's she's just an like fascinating person

00:47:06.520 who is far beyond the sort of if people have ever heard of her they have just heard oh she's that

00:47:12.540 kind of scheming woman who did things it's like no no no she is like a revolutionary educator as 0.99

00:47:19.400 well as everything else and she I think this is part of like it would have been so predictable

00:47:25.600 if she had died in childbirth age 13 but the fact that and then or something in the wars of the

00:47:30.600 roses but the fact that she lived long enough to be able to live what I'll call sort of a

00:47:35.120 an active retirement, that she was able to engage with her passions and with her hobbies, like,

00:47:41.240 and that the world was settled and calm enough that she could be like, oh, I'm just gonna work

00:47:45.180 on some translations. She's not actively, you know, having to worry about civil war and things

00:47:50.540 like it just speaks to the, her involvement in how everything like her son became king,

00:47:57.040 everything kind of calmed down. He and his wife had children, they had sons. So there's going to

00:48:02.460 be a clear succession two sons you know you've got the air and the spirit so she like she lived

00:48:08.440 through such a chaotic the first three quarters of her life really i love for her the the last

00:48:13.740 part of her life she could just do what she was passionate about and that was spreading the word

00:48:18.000 of god and helping people really i think that's lovely yeah i think so i think she felt responsibility

00:48:25.480 for people and that is something that we can kind of lose sight of in the people with power

00:48:32.140 i think that they can also understand they have a responsibility to pay it back

00:48:36.820 and so she's around i'm just trying to think again the tv adaptations you know she's there

00:48:42.240 and even older women still scheming and like the spanish princess and stuff when catherine

00:48:46.760 of aragon comes to town but she's just being mean to everyone that's like in tv adaptations

00:48:51.400 of margaret but she's just going around being horrible i feel like sort of yeah sort of like

00:48:56.320 maggie smith and downton abbey sort of character but like without the sort of cuteness just just

00:49:02.660 sort of this old lady but in terms of like her life like she was born into this like chaotic

00:49:08.980 time the wars of the roses happened like for me i often think of the you know the wars of the roses

00:49:14.780 era and henry the eighth as two completely separate things but both of those were within

00:49:20.740 her lifespan because she lived like a decently long life considering the time period and when

00:49:26.120 she died like the Tudor dynasty was it was set up it was there like things were her life's work you

00:49:33.200 know in terms in addition to all that but just kind of securing peace for the kingdom like a

00:49:39.160 good life for her family like she when she died everything seemed on a great path I would think 0.69

00:49:46.520 yeah and also again in a very filmic manner she died literally after the coronation feast for

00:49:56.440 henry the eighth so she she saw her son to the end of his life henry the seventh he died while

00:50:01.980 she was continuing to look after him she then helps henry the eighth become king she's at the

00:50:08.020 coronation she goes to the coronation feast and then she dies it's so perfectly complete in some

00:50:15.180 way she was like right that's it I'm done yeah everything's good I do want to say though in terms

00:50:20.560 of she died because she potentially food poisoning related she ate a signet which is a baby swan was

00:50:28.180 part of what was served so there's something to me that just makes me think of ancient Rome again

00:50:32.140 somehow just like I don't know eating a swan eating a baby swan just feels like I don't know

00:50:37.680 if you told me that was how like Agrippina died or something I'd be like yeah that sounds ancient

00:50:41.820 wrong so there's something very classic about it but you're right like that she attends the feast

00:50:47.320 and then dies it's kind of like that's it i'm good things that yeah yeah so i sent you some

00:50:53.300 categories that i want to score i'm just bringing up my document here because when we do these kind

00:50:59.500 of biographical discussions i'm really fascinated where she's going to land in some of these

00:51:05.320 categories because you can imagine like the first category is uh scandalousness and you know the

00:51:11.180 sorts of people I was talking about like these audacious I don't know you know vaudeville

00:51:15.240 performers or something they would score very high but how on a scale of zero to ten how scandalous

00:51:19.140 do you think she was seen by people of her era I feel like I think of her era not very yeah like

00:51:27.500 no like no one was slandering her really no and again like that is incredible you know we mentioned

00:51:33.860 Margaret of Anjou a lot of slander there I am is there any slander in her life at all I mean

00:51:43.120 at the time there really isn't no because she kind of did what was expected of a woman really

00:51:49.100 like she was put into this arranged marriage and then she got another marriage and even when she

00:51:53.980 was behind the scenes no one ever saw her as stepping out of the bounds of what a woman should

00:51:59.640 be doing i don't think and i think it's to her credit um that i don't think she did some things

00:52:06.080 that one could say are scandalous like being involved in a rebellion to oust the king yeah

00:52:12.480 she is involved in quite a few rebellions to be fair that's a bit scandalous so a bit of three

00:52:18.200 there was yeah but there's three rebellions well and they were ultimately she was successful so

00:52:24.600 she'd been involved in a rebellion that didn't work then i think people would be like oh then

00:52:28.640 they'd be going after her, but they did work. So it's like, oh, she was right. So I think three

00:52:33.560 is fair. One for each rebellion. The next category is the scheminess. And this is not just the like

00:52:41.520 how she's shown on television adaptations, but just in terms of, I see this as a positive,

00:52:46.240 as a compliment, coming up with a plan, executing the plan, seeing what's going on and coming up

00:52:50.960 with what you should do to survive to the next day. And I think she's the ultimate,

00:52:55.360 it this is her survivor instinct i think she was always thinking of what to do and sometimes what

00:53:00.640 to do was to step back and not do anything but that was a choice yeah i she can't have a 10

00:53:06.300 because in like what's called the re-adaption this messy period 1469 to 71 when the throne keeps

00:53:13.400 switching between people she chooses the wrong side and it really messes with her situation so

00:53:19.640 i have to like at least one point has to come off of that she also she's involved in the rebellion

00:53:24.900 against Richards that happens early on that doesn't succeed so like maybe two points off

00:53:29.580 I'm going to give her eight out of ten eight I think that's fair yeah and I think she you say

00:53:36.720 in your book towards the end like if a couple of things hadn't gone her way then she would just be

00:53:41.080 remembered as this bumbler who just made some bad calls like I do think that we remember her and

00:53:47.700 we're honoring her like because a lot of the choices she made did work out but they could

00:53:52.080 of just as easily have not worked out like some some of that is just the hand of fate really but

00:53:57.460 she was very active yes absolutely and i think she recognized that as well i think she never lost

00:54:03.620 sight of the fact that there could come another rebellion or something where she would choose the

00:54:08.840 wrong side and lose everything um i mean literally to her dying day i think she had that fear so

00:54:14.740 So, yeah, she schemed, but she did not scheme always in the best directions.

00:54:21.600 The next category is significance.

00:54:25.440 I think I would think that this, I don't know, you tell me, I think this is a high score.

00:54:30.100 Just significance to history.

00:54:31.360 I think both what she did with her choices and how she worked to get Henry back to England to support him in those kind of that shaky era when he became king.

00:54:41.960 like the Tudors really set the tone for what we would call modern England really and she was a

00:54:48.940 crucial part of that but then also founding the colleges like the significance of her being the

00:54:53.200 first woman to have a book published like I feel like I go I go full 10 okay absolute full 10 because

00:54:59.980 I genuinely don't think that the Tudor dynasty would have first come into being and then survived

00:55:07.700 without Margaret Beaufort backing it or existing yeah I just I can't see it and the Tudor it's such

00:55:15.580 a I mean it's a famous well-known part of English history but that really set the tone for so much

00:55:21.140 stuff like the colonization which led to like the empire building like the fact that she's what

00:55:27.000 would she be the great-grandmother of Elizabeth I and everything that she accomplished actually

00:55:31.140 i will say elizabeth the first also facially resembles murga beaufort yeah yeah i think so

00:55:36.940 and i think also that sense of caution i think she's kind of you can see those genetic traits

00:55:42.940 in her i think um and then the final category is what i call the sexism bonus so this is where

00:55:49.520 you think you give people points for how much more maybe they could have accomplished were it

00:55:55.000 not for sexism and a 10 in this category would be somebody like um i'm trying to think uh sophia

00:56:03.980 dorothea who is the wife of george the first who was rumored to have an affair when was trapped in

00:56:08.660 a tower for 25 years or something it's like she would get a 10 because that's margaret beaufort

00:56:14.480 i think you know being the way that she was treated by jasper tudor i think as sort of uh

00:56:22.960 a tool for him to get money like i think like that's that cannot be understated the

00:56:29.380 the sexism in that that he just saw if if i can impregnate this child i will get money 0.99

00:56:35.020 um yeah it's really difficult with margaret as well to divorce her from her sex like i think 0.81

00:56:42.300 she had an understanding of herself fully based on her sex the fact that she was a woman and the 0.99

00:56:48.640 limitations that that put on her. And maybe also the opportunity. The one thing to say about the

00:56:53.960 Wars of the Roses is that because it is a time when there's a lot of political turmoil, where

00:57:00.340 men are the active participants, i.e. they are the ones in the battles, they are the ones who are

00:57:04.840 forced into exile or are tainted, so they're declared traitors and lose all their lands.

00:57:09.780 It actually kind of gives women an opportunity because their lands are usually protected by the 0.85

00:57:14.840 law. They are the ones who end up like holding together everything for their family so it can 1.00

00:57:21.540 be inherited for the next generation. They might be left in charge of enormous swathes of, you

00:57:27.540 know, countryside and farms and all sorts of things. So I think there was actually a lot of

00:57:34.480 female power around at that point in time. Well, I think also there were the, you mentioned, you 1.00

00:57:40.280 know the other mothers of other kings or would-be kings there was some acceptance of a powerful woman

00:57:47.820 at least in that role of mother of a prince so I don't I think she accomplished so much I don't 0.99

00:57:53.720 think sexism got in her way other than most egregiously being impregnated age 12. Yeah 1.00

00:58:02.760 absolutely which can't there's just no way to see it any in any other direction because it just

00:58:08.520 wouldn't have happened it wouldn't have happened obviously to a boy so yeah the danger of that

00:58:15.180 situation would not have happened in any way to someone male at that point in time I think I would

00:58:22.660 give her in terms of the sexism quote-unquote bonus I would say it's because it didn't really

00:58:27.100 get in her way and this category is kind of there to give points to people where it did get in their

00:58:30.460 way but it didn't she accomplished so much despite living in the culture she was living in so I think

00:58:35.760 would just be something like a two or something yeah I agree a two let me just get so this is

00:58:41.400 so her total score is a 23 I just want to let you and the listeners I guess know who who does that

00:58:47.600 put her in the company of on this um for instance um Jane Austen has a 22 um Margaret Beaufort has

00:58:55.660 a 23 yeah so I feel like Jane Austen and Margaret Beaufort would have been pals they would have

00:59:00.740 sat around being witty I think they would have and just being kind of like we're just reading

00:59:05.480 quietly they might have sat and just read together quietly in a corner just being two kind of

00:59:09.720 reasonable level-headed people surrounded by living in eras that are full of really audacious chaotic

00:59:17.280 people they could i think they both appreciate to just sit down with a cup of tea and they could do

00:59:23.200 some embroidery together or read a book in in terms of writing too like the fact that margaret

00:59:27.840 beaufort was this pioneer running i think that's lovely i think that's nice that they can sit next

00:59:32.220 to each other on this scale for the Vulgar History Podcast. So Lauren, your book, I just

00:59:39.280 want to get the title right. So Margaret Beaufort, Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker. It's coming out in

00:59:44.080 North America when this episode comes out. So in March of 2026, it's already been out in the UK

00:59:49.800 for a while. I just don't know if you have any thoughts you wanted to share about what the

00:59:54.520 reception has been like, what conversations you've had with people. Are people surprised

00:59:58.220 by some of the way that you present her in the book uh yeah it's i mean it's been well received

01:00:04.200 people have been pretty positive about it i think my like my big agenda in it was just to try and

01:00:11.640 make sure that her womanhood as it were was not forgotten and that some of the myths that had come

01:00:18.120 about as a result of her being a woman and a mother were challenged um which i think it has

01:00:24.640 done successfully and hopefully I've been sort of equal enough there haven't don't seem yet to have 1.00

01:00:30.660 been any enraged Ricardians for instance so that's really good I'm always worried about them 1.00

01:00:35.040 whenever I do anything about that era I'm just like I know that there's people out there who 1.00

01:00:38.700 are passionate about Richard III and you say in your book like he told like he basically

01:00:43.360 killed the prince had them killed like that seems pretty obvious and I thought good for you for just

01:00:49.060 saying that you know because well people at the time seem pretty clear on it I just can't you can't

01:00:56.060 really discount the evidence I feel like yeah of just what people then assumed and what that led

01:01:01.160 to but yeah I know just if listeners don't know there's people who really are defensive about

01:01:05.160 Richard III and claim that he's very misunderstood and stuff so that's good and I'm glad that um

01:01:10.020 I think that it's a figure that people who are interested in Tudor history may not know about

01:01:14.900 of people focus more on Anne Boleyn or the Henry VIII era. But I think this era is, it's so

01:01:20.440 interesting. And I think your book is a really good introduction, both to her and also to the

01:01:25.000 wider, that early Tudor era. And thank you so much for joining me for this conversation.

01:01:32.220 Thanks for having me.

01:01:37.080 So again, the book we're talking about, Margaret Beaufort, Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker by Lauren

01:01:42.260 johnson is now available in north america it was already available in the uk for a while but now

01:01:47.720 it's here where i live in canada they're in the u.s and i really encourage everybody to pick it

01:01:52.500 up because it's a really fantastic book the information is so good but also as you heard

01:01:56.800 from lauren she's so good at telling telling the story and sharing this information and i also have

01:02:01.720 a book that i have written it's called rebel of the regency the scandal saga of caroline of

01:02:06.100 brunswick britain's uncrowned queen it is now available all over the place wherever you buy

01:02:10.800 your books in North America and most English speaking countries. You can find copies of it

01:02:17.080 as well as in a few other countries. It's in Germany. It's in Japan. You can get a full list

01:02:21.660 of links to buy copies of my book at my website, rebeloftheregency.com. And if you do read my book

01:02:28.680 and you like it, I would encourage you to leave a five-star review or a four-star review, whatever

01:02:33.600 you're feeling, but just a review in general on Amazon and on Goodreads, because the more reviews

01:02:38.060 that are there, the more it gets bumped up in different algorithms and the more other people

01:02:42.340 will find my book. And you know what? Once you read Lauren's book, do the same for Margaret

01:02:45.700 Beaufort, Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker. Just, you know, supporting women writing history books

01:02:50.600 because it's important. And what also is important is I'm taking a little trip. I'm going to be in

01:02:57.220 London, England, actually this weekend coming up. So on March 15th, I'm going to be having an event

01:03:03.300 for fans of this podcast, fans of my book, fans of me.

01:03:07.180 We're going to all be hanging out in London.

01:03:08.820 And if you want to take part in that, please RSVP.

01:03:12.440 And I'll send you all the details, the where and the when.

01:03:14.680 Just go to vulgarhistory.com slash RSVP.

01:03:18.160 And I'll let you know where we're meeting.

01:03:19.460 But again, London, England, I'm coming for you on Sunday, March 15th.

01:03:23.860 And I'm really excited to see everybody there.

01:03:27.080 And we'll be back next week with another episode of Vulgar History.

01:03:31.160 we're diving right back into the the regency era the reason for the season anyway until then 0.98

01:03:36.480 my friends keep your pants on and your tits out vulgar history is researched scripted and hosted 0.97

01:03:44.580 by ann foster editor is christina lumagi theme music is by the severin duo regency era artwork 0.98

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01:03:56.580 at vulgarhistory.com by Aveline Malik.

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Vulgar History - March 11, 2026

Margaret Beaufort, The Original Tudor Icon

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