Read Online Margaret Beaufort: Mother of the Tudor Dynasty by Elizabeth Norton - Free Book Online

March, had entered the capital and had himself declared king as Edward IV. On 29 March, Margaret of Anjou’s army met the new king’s in battle at Towton, and she was defeated. The Queen, her son and the hapless Henry VI were driven as fugitives towards Scotland.
    The events of 1460 were dramatic and affected the lives of most people in England to some extent. Jasper Tudor remained loyal to his half-brother throughout the turmoil of the year, and in late January 1461, he moved towards the Herefordshire border raising troops in the company of his father, Owen Tudor. Whilst Edward IV concentrated his efforts on defeating Margaret of Anjou and the main Lancastrian army, he instructed his ally, Sir William Herbert to raise a force to face the Tudors. On 3 February 1461, the two armies met at Mortimer’s Cross in Herefordshire in an engagement that proved to be disastrous for the Tudors. During the course of the battle, Owen Tudor was captured by Herbert and later executed on the orders of the Yorkist king. Jasper managed to escape and fled towards Pembroke Castle. Margaret, whose whereabouts during this period are not recorded, must have listened anxiously for news of all that was happening in Wales, and it is almost certain that the four-year-old Henry Tudor was present at Pembroke Castle during the turbulent events. Throughout much of the year, Jasper remained at large and loyal to his half-brother, but it soon became obvious that his position was unsustainable. On 30 September 1461, Pembroke Castle surrendered to Sir William Herbert, and the following month, Jasper sailed to Scotland to join Margaret of Anjou and Henry VI in their efforts to regain the English throne.
    Margaret suffered troubles of her own during 1461, as both her husband, Henry Stafford, and her stepfather, Lord Welles, fought for Henry VI at Towton. If, as seems likely, Margaret’s relationship with her third husband was a loving one, she must have been horrified to see him leave for battle, and it was a great relief when he returned to her unharmed, albeit as a member of the losing army. Margaret’s mother did not prove so fortunate in her own husband, as Lord Welles fell in the field, leaving his widow to manage his estates on behalf of their young son, John. Margaret later secured an advantageous marriage for her youngest half-brother to Cecily of York, the daughter of Edward IV, and it is clear that she felt the same sense of responsibility towards him that she did for her elder St John half-siblings. He also paid her the compliment of making her one of the executors of his Will, demonstrating that the pair had a close relationship, and it is likely that Margaret was also grieved by her stepfather’s death, as he must have played a prominent role in her early childhood. It was a relief for Margaret when, on 25 June 1461, Edward IV, who was in a mood to be conciliatory towards former Lancastrian supporters, granted Henry Stafford a pardon for opposing him at Towton, and whilst the couple would still have been uncertain about the favour in which they were held by the King, they were at least aware that Stafford would not face prosecution as a supporter of Henry VI.
    Whilst Margaret was worried about herself, her husband, her mother and her half-siblings, her chief concern during 1461 would certainly have been her son. With the accession of Edward IV and Jasper Tudor’s continued loyalty to the old Lancastrian regime, Henry’s wardship had effectively lapsed, and when Sir William Herbert finally entered Pembroke Castle at the end of September, he found Henry Tudor there. Although he was a nephew of Henry VI, Henry Tudor was not closely related to him on the paternal line, and in 1461, with both Henry VI and his son still living, any Beaufort claim to the throne was remote. Henry Tudor therefore presented no political threat to the new king, and whilst his lands were taken away from him and given to the new king’s brother George, Duke of Clarence, a