Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset

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Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset
  • John Beaufort, Marquess of Dorset
  • Parent(s)John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset
    Margaret Holland
    FamilyBeaufort
    Military career
    Battles/warsHundred Years' War
    Wars of the Roses
    AwardsOrder of the Garter
    difference of Beaufort

    Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, 4th Earl of Somerset, 1st Earl of Dorset, 1st Marquess of Dorset styled 1st Count of Mortain,

    Richard, Duke of York, was a leading cause of the Wars of the Roses
    .

    Origins

    Edmund Beaufort was the fourth surviving son of

    Career

    Although he was the head of one of the greatest families in England, his inheritance was worth only

    and Morgannwg may have forced the leader of the younger Nevilles into York's camp.

    His brothers were taken captive at the Battle of Baugé in 1421, but Edmund was too young at the time to fight. He acquired much military experience while his brothers were prisoners.

    Affair with Catherine of Valois

    In 1427 it is believed that Edmund Beaufort may have embarked on an affair with Catherine of Valois, the widow of King Henry V. Evidence is sketchy; however, the liaison prompted a parliamentary statute regulating the remarriage of queens of England. The historian G. L. Harriss surmised that it was possible that another of its consequences was Catherine's son Edmund Tudor and that Catherine, to avoid the penalties of breaking the statute of 1427–1428, secretly married Owen Tudor. He wrote: "By its very nature the evidence for Edmund Tudor's parentage is less than conclusive, but such facts as can be assembled permit the agreeable possibility that Edmund 'Tudor' and Margaret Beaufort were first cousins and that the royal house of 'Tudor' sprang in fact from Beauforts on both sides."[3]

    Political power and conflict

    Edmund surrenders to Charles VII at Rouen in 1449. Illuminated page from the Anciennes chroniques d'Angleterre, Jean de Wavrin.[4]

    Edmund received the

    his brother, he is sometimes mistakenly called the second duke,[11] but the title was actually created for the second time, and so he was actually the first duke, the numbering starting over again.[citation needed
    ]

    Somerset was appointed to replace York as commander in France in 1448. Somerset was supposed to be paid £20,000; but little evidence exists that he was. Fighting began in Normandy in August 1449. Somerset's subsequent military failures left him vulnerable to criticism from York's allies.

    Hundred Years War
    .

    The fall of the duke of Suffolk left Somerset the chief among King Henry VI's ministers, and the Commons in vain petitioned for his removal in January 1451.[6] Power rested with Somerset and he virtually monopolised it, with Margaret of Anjou, wife of King Henry, as one of his principal allies. It was also widely suspected that Somerset had an extra-marital affair with Margaret. After giving birth to a son in October 1453, Margaret took great pains to quash rumours that Somerset might be his father. During her pregnancy Henry suffered a mental breakdown, leaving him in a withdrawn and unresponsive state that lasted for one-and-a-half years. This medical condition, untreatable either by court physicians or by exorcism, plagued him throughout his life. During Henry's illness, the child was baptised Edward, Prince of Wales, with Somerset as godfather; if the King could be persuaded, he would become legal heir to the throne.

    Somerset's fortunes, however, soon changed when his rival York assumed power as

    Captain of Calais
    .

    By now York was determined to depose Somerset by one means or another, and in May 1455 he raised an army. He confronted Somerset and the King in an engagement known as the First Battle of St Albans, which marked the beginning of the Wars of the Roses. Somerset was killed in a last wild charge from the house where he had been sheltering. His son, Henry, never forgave York and Warwick for his father's death, and spent the next nine years attempting to restore his family's honour.

    Marriage and children

    At some time between 1431 and 1433, Somerset married

    Anne de Beauchamp, 16th Countess of Warwick, wife of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, known as the "Kingmaker
    ". The marriage was without royal licence, which offence was pardoned on 7 March 1438. By his wife he had issue including:

    Sons

    Daughters

    Following the death of all their brothers without issue, fighting for the Lancastrian cause, they became co-heiresses to their father, and their descendants were thus entitled to quarter the arms of Beaufort.

    Arms of Cary, Viscount Falkland (extant family and title), quartering Spencer and Beaufort[19]

    Ancestry

    Footnotes

    1. ^ He was actually the first Duke of Somerset of the second creation of that title since his elder brother's title was extinct.[1]

    Notes

    1. ^ GenUK[bare URL]
    2. ^ Farquhar 2001.
    3. ^ Richmond 2004, p. 1
    4. , the start of Chapter 3 of Volume 6
    5. ^ Cokayne & White 1953, p. 49.
    6. ^ a b  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainKingsford, Charles Lethbridge (1911). "Somerset, Edmund Beaufort, Duke of". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 386.
    7. ^ Cokayne & White 1953, p. 49–50.
    8. ^ Cokayne & White 1953, p. 50.
    9. ^ Richardson 2011, p. 43.
    10. ^ Cokayne & White 1953, p. 51.
    11. ^ Humphrys Family Tree
    12. ^ Kingsford 1911.
    13. , Chapter 3
    14. , Chapter 3
    15. ^ a b c d Weir, page 105
    16. ^ G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, n.s., XII, Part 1, p.58
    17. ^ Richardson, Vol. IV. p. 653
    18. ^ a b c d e f Alison Weir, Britain's Royal Family: A Complete Genealogy (London: The Bodley Head, 1999), p. 106
    19. ^ Kidd, Charles, Debrett's Peerage & Baronetage 2015 edition, London, 2015, p. 441
    20. ^ Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial And Medieval Families, 2nd edition, p. 480 [1]
    21. ^ i.e. Debrett's Peerage, The Complete Peerage
    22. ^ Vivian, Lt. Col. J.L. (ed.), The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895, pedigree of Cary, pp. 150–155
    23. ^ Paget, Gerald. The Lineage and Ancestry of H.R.H. Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, Vol. I, p. 23
    24. ^ Douglas Richardson (2013) Royal Ancestry, Vol. IV, p. 654
    25. ^ Richardson, Vol. IV, p. 502
    26. ^ Davis 1971, p. lvii.
    27. ^ Cokayne, George Edward. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, Vol. II, p. 422
    28. ^ Richardson, Vol. IV, p. 503
    29. ^ Richardson, Vol. IV, p. 655
    30. ^ a b c d Brown 2004.
    31. ^ Marshall 2003, p. 50.
    32. ^ Weir 2008, pp. 94, 125.
    33. ^ Weir 2008, p. 232.
    34. ^ a b c Weir 2008, p. 93.
    35. ^ Weir 2007, p. 6.
    36. ^ a b c Weir 2008, p. 125.
    37. ^ a b c Weir 2008, p. 77.
    38. ^ a b Weir 2008, p. 92.
    39. ^ a b Browning 1898, p. 288.
    40. ^ a b Weir 2008, pp. 94–95.
    41. ^ a b Weir 2008, pp. 97, 104.

    References

    Further reading

    External links

    Legal offices
    Preceded by
    The Duke of York
    Justice in eyre
    south of the Trent

    1453–1455
    Possibly vacant
    Peerage of England
    New creation Duke of Somerset
    2nd creation (1448)
    1448–1455
    Succeeded by
    Henry Beaufort
    Marquess of Dorset
    1443–1455
    Earl of Dorset
    1442–1455
    Preceded by
    John Beaufort
    Earl of Somerset
    1444–1455