Margaret Beaufort and the Making of the Tudor Dynasty

Margaret Beaufort is one of the most controversial figures in the Wars of the Roses. She managed to stay in favor on both sides of the battle, a prominent family member of the Lancastrians and a favored courtier of the Yorkists. But she had an endgame that would change everything: assuring the royal future of her son Henry Tudor, later King Henry VII.

Tudor scholar Carol Ann Lloyd-Stanger explores the powerful personality of this matriarch, from her early days as a teenage wife and mother, through the turbulent years of civil war, to her final years as one of the most powerful women in England. She analyzes how Margaret used her personality and family contacts to pacify the Yorkist kings even while she promoted the fortunes of her son.

Lloyd-Stanger considers the impact of Margaret’s relationship with rulers Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III, as well as with their wives. She traces Margaret’s success building a coalition of support for Henry and then her role in helping her son navigate the fractious court of late 15th-century England. She also examines the various ways Margaret is remembered: the pious mother of a king, the creator of the Tudor dynasty, and even the possible killer of the young princes in the Tower.

Lloyd-Stanger is former manager of visitor education at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

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