Of Virtue Rare Read online

  OF VIRTUE RARE

  Margeret Beaufort, Matriarch of the House of Tudor

  Linda Simon

  © Linda Simon, 1982

  Linda Simon has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1982 Houghton Mifflin Company.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  For Anita McClellan

  Table of Contents

  I - The Heiress

  II - A Mervaylous Thyng

  III - Murdre & Much Pride

  IV - Troublous Times

  V - While Lions War

  VI - The Thorn

  VII - The Rebel

  VIII - Bosworth

  IX - A Cheerful Strain

  X - Of Virtue Rare

  XI - The House of Mourning

  XII - The Legacy

  Acknowledgments

  Bibliography

  I - The Heiress

  IN BEDFORDSHIRE, on the last day of May 1441, a daughter was born to the great-great-grandson of Edward III, John Beaufort, and his wife, Margaret Beauchamp. The child was named for her mother and her paternal grandmother, and the event was delicately inscribed in the family’s illuminated Book of Hours.

  The infant girl was an heiress of both her parents’ fortunes. Margaret Beauchamp had been the widow of a knight when she married Beaufort, and her husband’s estates augmented the considerable holdings she already had inherited from her father. John Beaufort had claimed his title of earl of Somerset and with it large estates and important responsibility. He was treated well by the present king, Henry VI, and given positions appropriate to his rank. For years, he had served England in the seemingly endless Hundred Years’ War with France. Though his record as a soldier was not startling — he had been taken prisoner in 1421 — the king, in 1443, made him captain general in two strategic areas of France, Aquitaine and Normandy, then still under English control.

  For the first two years of her life, Margaret lived at her mother’s ancestral home at Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, some sixty miles north of London, with both parents and a constellation of servants making up her small world. As an infant, she was swaddled, each limb wrapped separately in bandages of wool strips about two inches wide. Larger bandages enwrapped her whole body, from toes to neck, in an effort to ensure that her limbs would grow straight and sturdy. She was rocked to sleep in a hand-hewn wooden cradle, suckled for brief periods at frequent intervals to prevent her from gorging herself, bathed carefully and rubbed with oil of almonds or acorns, and, as their only child, was treated tenderly by her parents.

  Dark-haired, pale, thin, and somewhat frail, Margaret was bright and alert, with an intelligence evident from the first. With few companions other than the children of visiting nobility, she learned to amuse herself, depend on her own resources, and ask little from those around her. Her world at Bletsoe was comfortable and secure; holidays relieved the tedious routine at the manor, and occasional feasts replaced the usual dinner at midday. When her father traveled to London she shared in the pleasure of the minstrels who joined the entourage to brighten the long and dull medieval journey, fascinated as much by their bright array as by the joyful airs that seemed to linger long after the retinue had disappeared from her sight.

  But in April 1443 she saw her father leave on a journey that would last more than just a week or a month. He was going to take his position in France, and one could only guess when he might return. Not understanding the reasons for his departure, the small girl watched as servants gathered his clothing and personal possessions into numerous parcels. He was not there to celebrate her second birthday. By her third birthday, he was dead.

  It was only later, long after she had grown from a woman-child into a woman, that Margaret was able to piece together the circumstances of her father’s death. Even then, she never knew the truth, for as the years passed, truth and rumor intermingled with myth. Only one thing was sure: John Beaufort was a victim not of battle, but of the pervasive sensibility of war.

  He had landed at Cherbourg with some seven thousand troops and began to march through Maine and into Brittany. But his command wavered. He was an arrogant general, refusing to divulge his strategy to his captains. “I will reveal my secret to no one,” he told them. “If my shirt knew my secret I would burn it.”[1] His captains believed that his “secret” did not exist and that their leader was marching to defeat. He managed to seize one town in Brittany, then returned it for a large cash payment. No one understood that escapade: he was left with neither the town nor the promise of neutrality, which many considered vital in Brittany.

  By the following year he returned to England, having made no advances in France. Among the commoners and much of nobility there was a great sense of frustration that one hundred years of war might come to loss for England. Though the king himself, and a small party of supporters, wanted peace more than the crown of France, that peace party was clearly the minority. Most Englishmen could not believe in the increasing strength of French nationalism and the weakness — in morale, in leadership, in physical endurance — of the English soldiers. Victorious leaders were hailed when they returned to London, but any who lost battles and conceded defeat in cities and towns were severely derided.

  By the time John Beaufort returned, he found that his reputation had preceded him. He was mocked by his peers and banished from court. Disgraced, he died on May 27, 1444, a probable suicide. At least one poet saw in John Beaufort an example of the “Mutability of Wordly Changes” and commemorated him in verse:

  The noble duke of somersett, John,

  whome all brytayne and also normandye

  hadde In grett drede (& his enemyes everichon)

  for in his manhode, puissance, & chevalrye,

  when he was weddyd & In estate most hye

  In the best age (right as hys fortune was)

  The bull to gronde hym cast cruellye,

  that after soone he dyed: suche was hys grace.[2]

  Later, even his daughter could find no evidence of a papal bull that dishonored him, yet rumors circulated that the pope, too, was disgusted with Beaufort’s poor service to the king.

  Beaufort’s death was never spoken of as suicide. At Bletsoe, where his family continued to reside, those who visited the grieving widow alluded only to the strain under which he had worked in France, the weakness of his health before he returned, the epidemics of dysentery and other debilitating illnesses that often swept through the troops. To his family, he died a hero.

  John Beaufort left estates in Lincoln, Worcester, Kent, Southampton, Middlesex, Norfolk, Essex, Somerset, Lancaster, Westmoreland, York, Gloucester, Sussex, and Stafford. Though some lands had been bequeathed to his brother, most of his possessions ensured the financial independence of his widow and daughter.

  Margaret was raised at Bletsoe under her mother’s guidance and given an unusual education for a female at the time. She was taught the obligatory skill of needlework as well as reading, writing, and French. Her tutors remarked on her excellent memory and the speed at which she was able to assimilate material and advance in her studies. She wanted to learn Greek and Latin, languages reserved for men who would one day join the clergy, but her request was refused. Her mother would not engage a tutor for such esoteric studies. Margaret had no choice but to obey. Years later, she admitted her regret that both languages had been denied to her. She could translate works from French, but it seemed to her that the greatest works were hidden from her in tongues she could not understand.

  With no one to share her nursery and then her schoolroom, Margaret withdrew into a world of studies and books. She enjoyed solitude, and her most fulfilling moments were those devoted to scholarsh
ip or to religion. Like all young noblewomen of the time, she was duly instructed in the teachings of the church, but unlike most of them, she approached the teachings with an inquiring and receptive mind. Instead of docilely memorizing Christian doctrine, she sought to make it her own and to live by it. Her prayers were not mindless recitations, but fervent communications with a deity in whom she firmly believed and completely trusted. Quiet, introspective, she watched as visitors from the cities and the court came and went at Bletsoe, listened as servants gossiped about a world they could not comprehend, and came to her own conclusions.

  When she was eight, her mother married Lionel Welles, one of the king’s knights. For widows, remarriage was a sound financial investment, although the wealthy Margaret Beauchamp hardly needed more riches. If a woman outlived her husband — probable, if her husband was destined for combat — she was entitled to a minimum inheritance of her dower, or approximately one third of the man’s estate. The more often a woman was widowed and remarried, if she chose her spouses wisely, the more her own wealth increased. Though Lionel Welles would affect his wife’s future, he would have very little to do with that of his stepdaughter.

  Shortly after John Beaufort’s death, Henry VI disposed of Margaret’s wardship by assigning a guardian to whom he believed he owed a great favor. Wardships were often extremely lucrative grants, with the guardian receiving ten per cent of the ward’s property each year and a substantial payment for the child’s marriage. Until the heir came of age, both the land and the person were at the disposal of the guardian.

  Margaret, because of her status as an heiress, was a great prize, and she was awarded to a powerful ally of the king, William de la Pole. “We, considering the notable services that oure Cousin therl of Suffolk hath doon unto us and tendering hym therfore the more specially as reson wol, have oure grace and especially propre mocion and mere deliveracion graunted unto hym to have the warde and mariage of the saide Margarete withouten eny thing therfore unto us or oure heires yelding …”[3] The king’s warrant was sent only days after Beaufort’s death. Though left to the care of her mother, Margaret was under the complete control of a man who saw her solely as property, to be held until maturity, and then sold into marriage.

  *

  The earl of Suffolk and his family had risen from prosperous merchants to wealthy barons on profits from generations of war. William de la Pole’s father had lent money to Edward III to help finance the war with France, and his sons had fought on battlefields whenever they were called. After William’s elder brother was slain during Henry V’s attack at Agincourt in 1415, William himself inherited the title and became earl of Suffolk at the age of nineteen. His record as a commander was impressive. At thirty-two he joined the earl of Salisbury in his important campaign against the French.

  In the 1420s, when Suffolk sailed for France, he faced a situation very different from that which confronted John Beaufort nearly twenty years later. In the mid 1420s, the French were ready for a leader to raise them from despair. Their political uncertainty rising from the recent death of their king, Charles VI, was compounded by a long series of raids from independent mercenary English armies. These armies, assembled and maintained by one or another of the nobility solely for profit, were illegal but could not be abolished. Their effect on the already demoralized French populace was devastating.

  France’s prayers were answered in the form of an adolescent girl, Jeanette of Domremy, the daughter of a farmer, Jacques d’Arc, and his wife, Isabelette. Jeanette, or Joan, as she came to be known to the English, heard voices — from angels and from God — that told her the dauphin of France, the heir to the French throne who had been dispossessed in favor of the English king, must be installed to his rightful position. The voices insisted, further, that Joan herself effect that miracle.

  The girl left Domremy, gained an audience with the dauphin, and repeated her tale. The dauphin was cautious. He assigned priests and scholars to question her and deliberate. Their investigations took a month. None could find any cause to disbelieve her. God had sent a message through a peasant girl, they concluded, and the French military had only to act.

  Meanwhile, the English had begun a siege on an important city, Orléans. One Sunday in October of 1428, English cannon, hurling stones weighing more than one hundred pounds, damaged buildings and mills. Soldiers mined a vital road and demolished a bridge. Exactly a week later, the earl of Salisbury, then in command, was struck by a cannon shot. Half of his face was crushed, one eye completely put out. When he died three days later, Suffolk replaced him.

  It was up to Suffolk, then, to deal with the mystical young woman fast advancing on English troops. Joan, despite her claim of communication with supernatural beings, did not awe or frighten the English commander. Life in the fifteenth century provided a fair mixture of the supernatural and the mundane. Ghosts, spirits, angels, and shades did not hover only around uneducated peasants; they figured in the lives of gentlemen and ladies of all rank. Prayer, of course, was a first resort in any momentous decision, but receptive ears awaited an audible reply. Sorcerers could be found in unlikely places: a bored duchess was as prone to magic as a wizened farmer’s wife. Like the ancient Greeks, who believed their gods cavorted among them, the medieval English were not surprised that saints would descend to right sinners’ wrongs. Suffolk, therefore, dealt with Joan just as he would have handled any opposing commander: he ignored her attempts at diplomacy and assembled his men.

  In March, Joan wrote to the English commanders, among whom was “Guillaume de la Poule”:

  I call upon you to make submission to the King of Heaven, and to yield into the hands of the Maid, who has been sent hither by God, the King of Heaven, the keyes of all the fair cities which you have seized and ravished in France … Most gladly will she make peace with you if you be willing to hearken to her demands, which are that you shall leave France in tranquility and pay what you owe …[4]

  The English sent no reply to the Maid’s letter. Joan had promised that if they did not leave Orléans in peace, “then great misfortune shall fall upon you, which you shall soon remember to your cost.” Still, they persisted in campaigning against the city and in proving to themselves that God was on their side.

  Finally, on April 29, at eight in the evening, Joan of Arc entered Orléans, “armed at all points, riding upon a white horse; and she caused her standard to be borne before her, which was likewise white, on which were two angels, holding each a fleur-de-lys in their hands; and on the pennon was painted an annunciation.” A procession of nobility met her, “bearing great plenty of torches and making such rejoicing as if they had seen God descend in their midst … And there was marvellous crowd and press to touch her or the horse upon which she was.” One of the torch bearers pressed too close; Joan’s pennon caught fire. The Maid acted quickly, “struck spurs to her horse and turned him right gently towards the pennon and extinguished the fire of it as if she had long served in the wars …”[5]

  On May 5 she again wrote to the English, this time tying the letter to an arrow and ordering an archer to shoot it to the enemy troops. The English were not moved. No mere child would cause their defeat. Yet the French were profoundly inspired. The girl would lead them to victory, and by the end of May Suffolk’s troops were driven from Orléans. On June 12 Suffolk himself was captured; he was held prisoner, ransomed, and at last returned to England. Legend had it that when he surrendered, he said it was to “the bravest woman on earth.”

  The dauphin was crowned at Rheims in 1429, but he could not save Joan from the fate of a martyr. She was captured by the Burgundians and handed over to the English. Henry’s advisers thought it best that the English have nothing to do with a woman so closely bound up with the supernatural, but they had no doubt she must be put to death. They confidently placed her in the hands of French clergy who had long been in English employ. Her inquisitors staged a trial whose outcome had already been firmly decided.

  She was kept imprisoned by Englis
h guards, a surly group who both hated and feared her and, on orders from her captors, repeatedly tried to rape her in an effort to discredit her claim to virginity. Humiliating examinations, which confirmed that Joan was a virgin, were conducted by matrons and midwives, supervised by the duchess of Bedford. According to rumor, the duke of Bedford was stretched out on the floor above, with his eye to a crack in the slats. Again and again, to establish heresy, the judges questioned her on her wearing of men’s clothing, an abomination in the eyes of God. But Joan insisted that it was God’s command that she wear men’s clothing to carry out the divine instructions. The judges were concerned, too, with her communion with the saints, especially with St. Michael, and wondered if these apparitions were clothed, vibrant, or warm. Did they have a pleasant odor, they asked her. Did she embrace the upper part or the lower part of the spirits? Joan would tell them little: they were true and divine apparitions; that was all she would admit.

  The judges intended to prove Joan’s impurity, not to bring to light any interior cause for her vision and actions, but their incessant interrogation about sexual matters led future historians to conclude that Joan’s repressed sexuality led to hysterical or psychotic behavior. Her contemporaries, however, were not concerned with such analysis. The judges believed that there were three charges, for any of which Joan might be executed: witchcraft, impurity, or heresy. They circled slowly around the accused woman with their mental bludgeons until they realized that only on a charge of heresy could they condemn her. The proof, for them, was her persistent wearing of men’s clothing, an act banned by the Church.

  On Wednesday, May 30, 1431, as soon as her sentence was read, Joan was taken to the Old Market Place at Rouen, where a fire had already been kindled. An Englishman standing in the crowd was so moved by the sight of the unfortunate young woman that he handed her a small, crude wooden cross. Bearing her gift, Joan was tied to a stake and consumed by flames.