Edmund Tudor a (Beaufort-) Plantagenet?

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Tony Hoskins

Edmund Tudor a (Beaufort-) Plantagenet?

Legg inn av Tony Hoskins » 11 aug 2007 19:55:24

Hello Michael,

Jones did, as you point out, having first cited the reasons for
suspecting Edmund Beaufort might be Edmund Tudor's father then make the
"seems improbable" disclaimer. I find this comment to be careless, if
not disingenuous. The case is much more serious than that and does not
warrant such an offhanded dismissal.

I also agree with you that "morganatic" is the incorrect word. Also, it
is not impossible - though I this time would use the word "improbable"-
that the perhaps about 20-22 year old Edmund Beaufort (b.c.1406) may
have been Edmund Tudor's godfather. And, undeniably, Edmund Beaufort was
also a serious contender for Queen Catherine's hand, aged about 20. A
bit young to be a godfather for the child of a Queen - especially a
Queen with whom the young man in question may have been romantically
involved, and who certainly sought her hand in marriage.

Further, also in _Oxford DNB_:

"1427 was also the year of the only blot upon a hitherto copybook
career: Edmund [Beaufort]'s affair with the widow of Henry V, Catherine
of Valois (1401-1437). Almost everything is obscure about a liaison that
resulted in a parliamentary statute regulating the remarriage of queens
of England, but it is just possible that another of its consequences was
Edmund Tudor. It is all a question of when Catherine, to avoid the
penalties of breaking the statute of 1427-8, secretly married Owen
Tudor, and of when the association with Edmund Beaufort came to an end.
Neither of these dates, as might be expected, is known; nor is the date
of birth of Edmund Tudor.

As Gerald Harriss has written:

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. (Harriss, 178 n.34)

It seems unlikely that Edmund Beaufort would have taken so great a
political risk as getting the queen dowager with child, but he was a
dashing young man (recently released from prison) as well as a Beaufort,
and Catherine, who had fulfilled the only role open to her by
immediately producing a son for the Lancastrian dynasty, was a lonely
Frenchwoman in England, and at thirty or thereabouts was, the rumour
ran, oversexed. Many stranger things have happened, and the idea of
renaming sixteenth-century England is an appealing one.

Colin Richmond, 'Beaufort, Edmund, first duke of Somerset
(c.1406-1455)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford
University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2006
[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/1855, accessed 11 Aug 2007]

The case for Edmund Tudor being Edmund Beaufort's son is plausible on
many levels.

Coincidentally, I cannot but note that certain characteristics and
dynamics of this case are reminiscent of another case 100 years later,
involving other Beaufort-Plantagenet descendants.

Best wishes,

Tony

Anthony Hoskins
History, Genealogy and Archives Librarian
History and Genealogy Library
Sonoma County Library
3rd and E Streets
Santa Rosa, California 95404

707/545-0831, ext. 562

Brad Verity

Re: Edmund Tudor a (Beaufort-) Plantagenet?

Legg inn av Brad Verity » 11 aug 2007 21:15:52

On Aug 11, 11:55 am, "Tony Hoskins" <hosk...@sonoma.lib.ca.us> wrote:

Jones did, as you point out, having first cited the reasons for
suspecting Edmund Beaufort might be Edmund Tudor's father then make the
"seems improbable" disclaimer. I find this comment to be careless, if
not disingenuous. The case is much more serious than that and does not
warrant such an offhanded dismissal.

I don't know that I'd characterize "seems improbable" as an offhanded
dismissal. Jones presented the reasons for suspecting Edmund Tudor
may have been a bastard of the Queen by Edmund Beaufort. He just
doesn't agree that the reasons are sufficient to warrant the
conclusion. I feel the same way.

I also agree with you that "morganatic" is the incorrect word. Also, it
is not impossible - though I this time would use the word "improbable"-
that the perhaps about 20-22 year old Edmund Beaufort (b.c.1406) may
have been Edmund Tudor's godfather. And, undeniably, Edmund Beaufort was
also a serious contender for Queen Catherine's hand, aged about 20. A
bit young to be a godfather for the child of a Queen - especially a
Queen with whom the young man in question may have been romantically
involved, and who certainly sought her hand in marriage.

And who else in the royal family should stand as godfather to a son
borne by the queen as a result of a marriage to a man of lesser social
standing that was not known to the public, or even to the royal
council? If their relationship was indeed intimate (which doesn't
have to also mean sexual), then Edmund Beaufort was someone the queen
could trust to maintain discretion and who could also support the
future of the boy as a godfather. The only one of that status whom
she could turn to at the time.

The alternative is that Queen Catherine named her bastard son Edmund
because that was his father's name, which seems the best way of any of
trumpeting the child's true paternity - a stupid decision if the point
was to hide the fact.

Since arguably Edmund Tudor might just have easily have been born from
say about 1427-1432, his father might well have been Edmund Beaufort,
known to have been a suitor for Queen Catherine at least in 1427/8.
Jones also says:

"[S]he [Queen Catherine] may have taken Tudor as her husband to prevent
her true love, Edmund Beaufort, suffering the penalties of the statute
of 1428, since Owen had so few possessions to forfeit."

This argument also makes the Queen a rather stupid woman. She falls
in love with a young man (Edmund Beaufort) who is a member of the
extended royal family and indeed whose mother and stepfather had been
a heartbeat away from being king and queen of England while he was
growing up. So appropriate on a social level, but not a political one,
as their marriage would give the Beauforts even more power, and many
deem them to have too much already. The royal council takes steps to
prevent such a marriage by issuing the statute.

Then the Queen gets pregnant by Edmund, but, rather than marrying him
and approaching the council with the fait accompli and the pregnancy
to make the marriage undissolvable, the Queen secretly marries a low-
level chump instead in order to prevent the real man she loves from
losing his lands? All because of a statute that could be challenged
in Parliament, or modified by her son the king once he assumed
majority? It doesn't wash that she would take a secret lower-level
husband when she could take an appropriate, though politically-
challenging, one with a powerful family to back him.

Further, also in _Oxford DNB_:

"1427 was also the year of the only blot upon a hitherto copybook
career: Edmund [Beaufort]'s affair with the widow of Henry V, Catherine
of Valois (1401-1437). Almost everything is obscure about a liaison that
resulted in a parliamentary statute regulating the remarriage of queens
of England, but it is just possible that another of its consequences was
Edmund Tudor. It is all a question of when Catherine, to avoid the
penalties of breaking the statute of 1427-8, secretly married Owen
Tudor, and of when the association with Edmund Beaufort came to an end.
Neither of these dates, as might be expected, is known; nor is the date
of birth of Edmund Tudor.

A similar line of argument, with a similar line of making little
sense. Edmund Beaufort has impregnated the mother of the king of
England and is now going to allow his unborn child to be passed off as
a result of a secret marriage to her Welsh household squire? Rather
than fighting tooth and nail to secure his position as husband of the
queen mother, stepfather to the young king and father of the king's
half-brother?

As Gerald Harriss has written:

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. (Harriss, 178 n.34)

But this would've been known to King Henry VI and Edmund Beaufort in
1453 when the marriage of Margaret Beaufort and Edmund Tudor was
arranged, and a dispensation from the Pope would have been required
for this union of first cousins. By 1453, with the Queen long dead,
why not reveal the true paternity of Edmund Tudor at that point and
make it a public double Beaufort union?

Instead, when Edmund Tudor was created Earl of Richmond by the king at
that time, he was referred to as Edmund of Hadham, not as Edmund
Tudor, and great pains were taken in the creation charter and the Act
of Parliament confirming it to declare that he was borne of the Queen
in lawful marriage. Clearly Owen Tudor and his Welsh connection were
not something the King wanted emphasized.

One could argue that Queen Catherine could not have known for sure in
1428 what the reaction of her son the king would be once he grew up to
having half-siblings and a stepfather. But surely she must have been
aware enough to know that a Beaufort stepfather and half-siblings, as
opposed to Tudor ones, would go over much better with the king, on a
social level if nothing else?

It seems unlikely that Edmund Beaufort would have taken so great a
political risk as getting the queen dowager with child, but he was a
dashing young man (recently released from prison) as well as a Beaufort,
and Catherine, who had fulfilled the only role open to her by
immediately producing a son for the Lancastrian dynasty, was a lonely
Frenchwoman in England, and at thirty or thereabouts was, the rumour
ran, oversexed. Many stranger things have happened, and the idea of
renaming sixteenth-century England is an appealing one.

Colin Richmond seems to have gotten carried away here. That there was
a relationship between Queen Catherine and Edmund Beaufort is clear
from the council's reaction by passing the 1428 statute. But that the
relationship was hot and heavy and passionate is pure speculation. It
could as easily have been the suit of an ambitious young man with an
even more ambitious uncle (Cardinal Henry Beaufort) and a Queen
willing to consider it, and an over-protective council stepping in
before it got out of hand.

However, all evidence (secret marriage, lower social status) points to
the Queen's relationship with Owen Tudor being hot and heavy and
passionate. That she was far more fearful of the council's reaction
(and the reaction of the king once he grew older) to her Tudor
relationship - as opposed to her Beaufort relationship which was
already known to them - is demonstrated by the fact that she kept it
well hidden.

The case for Edmund Tudor being Edmund Beaufort's son is plausible on
many levels.

Those being
A) The Queen named her son 'Edmund'
B) The Queen was a slut
C) The Queen and Edmund Beaufort would not dare defy the 1428 statute

Coincidentally, I cannot but note that certain characteristics and
dynamics of this case are reminiscent of another case 100 years later,
involving other Beaufort-Plantagenet descendants.

Which one was that?

Cheers, -------Brad

D. Spencer Hines

Re: Edmund Tudor a (Beaufort-) Plantagenet?

Legg inn av D. Spencer Hines » 11 aug 2007 21:25:28

Tony is living in Fantasy Land.

The alternative is that Queen Catherine named her bastard son Edmund
because that was his father's name, which seems the best way of any of
trumpeting the child's true paternity - a stupid decision if the point
was to hide the fact.

DSH

"Brad Verity" <royaldescent@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1186863352.536776.225270@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com...

On Aug 11, 11:55 am, "Tony Hoskins" <hosk...@sonoma.lib.ca.us> wrote:

Jones did, as you point out, having first cited the reasons for
suspecting Edmund Beaufort might be Edmund Tudor's father then make the
"seems improbable" disclaimer. I find this comment to be careless, if
not disingenuous. The case is much more serious than that and does not
warrant such an offhanded dismissal.

I don't know that I'd characterize "seems improbable" as an offhanded
dismissal. Jones presented the reasons for suspecting Edmund Tudor
may have been a bastard of the Queen by Edmund Beaufort. He just
doesn't agree that the reasons are sufficient to warrant the
conclusion. I feel the same way.

I also agree with you that "morganatic" is the incorrect word. Also, it
is not impossible - though I this time would use the word "improbable"-
that the perhaps about 20-22 year old Edmund Beaufort (b.c.1406) may
have been Edmund Tudor's godfather. And, undeniably, Edmund Beaufort was
also a serious contender for Queen Catherine's hand, aged about 20. A
bit young to be a godfather for the child of a Queen - especially a
Queen with whom the young man in question may have been romantically
involved, and who certainly sought her hand in marriage.

And who else in the royal family should stand as godfather to a son
borne by the queen as a result of a marriage to a man of lesser social
standing that was not known to the public, or even to the royal
council? If their relationship was indeed intimate (which doesn't
have to also mean sexual), then Edmund Beaufort was someone the queen
could trust to maintain discretion and who could also support the
future of the boy as a godfather. The only one of that status whom
she could turn to at the time.

The alternative is that Queen Catherine named her bastard son Edmund
because that was his father's name, which seems the best way of any of
trumpeting the child's true paternity - a stupid decision if the point
was to hide the fact.

Since arguably Edmund Tudor might just have easily have been born from
say about 1427-1432, his father might well have been Edmund Beaufort,
known to have been a suitor for Queen Catherine at least in 1427/8.
Jones also says:

"[S]he [Queen Catherine] may have taken Tudor as her husband to prevent
her true love, Edmund Beaufort, suffering the penalties of the statute
of 1428, since Owen had so few possessions to forfeit."

This argument also makes the Queen a rather stupid woman. She falls
in love with a young man (Edmund Beaufort) who is a member of the
extended royal family and indeed whose mother and stepfather had been
a heartbeat away from being king and queen of England while he was
growing up. So appropriate on a social level, but not a political one,
as their marriage would give the Beauforts even more power, and many
deem them to have too much already. The royal council takes steps to
prevent such a marriage by issuing the statute.

Then the Queen gets pregnant by Edmund, but, rather than marrying him
and approaching the council with the fait accompli and the pregnancy
to make the marriage undissolvable, the Queen secretly marries a low-
level chump instead in order to prevent the real man she loves from
losing his lands? All because of a statute that could be challenged
in Parliament, or modified by her son the king once he assumed
majority? It doesn't wash that she would take a secret lower-level
husband when she could take an appropriate, though politically-
challenging, one with a powerful family to back him.

Further, also in _Oxford DNB_:

"1427 was also the year of the only blot upon a hitherto copybook
career: Edmund [Beaufort]'s affair with the widow of Henry V, Catherine
of Valois (1401-1437). Almost everything is obscure about a liaison that
resulted in a parliamentary statute regulating the remarriage of queens
of England, but it is just possible that another of its consequences was
Edmund Tudor. It is all a question of when Catherine, to avoid the
penalties of breaking the statute of 1427-8, secretly married Owen
Tudor, and of when the association with Edmund Beaufort came to an end.
Neither of these dates, as might be expected, is known; nor is the date
of birth of Edmund Tudor.

A similar line of argument, with a similar line of making little
sense. Edmund Beaufort has impregnated the mother of the king of
England and is now going to allow his unborn child to be passed off as
a result of a secret marriage to her Welsh household squire? Rather
than fighting tooth and nail to secure his position as husband of the
queen mother, stepfather to the young king and father of the king's
half-brother?

As Gerald Harriss has written:

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. (Harriss, 178 n.34)

But this would've been known to King Henry VI and Edmund Beaufort in
1453 when the marriage of Margaret Beaufort and Edmund Tudor was
arranged, and a dispensation from the Pope would have been required
for this union of first cousins. By 1453, with the Queen long dead,
why not reveal the true paternity of Edmund Tudor at that point and
make it a public double Beaufort union?

Instead, when Edmund Tudor was created Earl of Richmond by the king at
that time, he was referred to as Edmund of Hadham, not as Edmund
Tudor, and great pains were taken in the creation charter and the Act
of Parliament confirming it to declare that he was borne of the Queen
in lawful marriage. Clearly Owen Tudor and his Welsh connection were
not something the King wanted emphasized.

One could argue that Queen Catherine could not have known for sure in
1428 what the reaction of her son the king would be once he grew up to
having half-siblings and a stepfather. But surely she must have been
aware enough to know that a Beaufort stepfather and half-siblings, as
opposed to Tudor ones, would go over much better with the king, on a
social level if nothing else?

It seems unlikely that Edmund Beaufort would have taken so great a
political risk as getting the queen dowager with child, but he was a
dashing young man (recently released from prison) as well as a Beaufort,
and Catherine, who had fulfilled the only role open to her by
immediately producing a son for the Lancastrian dynasty, was a lonely
Frenchwoman in England, and at thirty or thereabouts was, the rumour
ran, oversexed. Many stranger things have happened, and the idea of
renaming sixteenth-century England is an appealing one.

Colin Richmond seems to have gotten carried away here. That there was
a relationship between Queen Catherine and Edmund Beaufort is clear
from the council's reaction by passing the 1428 statute. But that the
relationship was hot and heavy and passionate is pure speculation. It
could as easily have been the suit of an ambitious young man with an
even more ambitious uncle (Cardinal Henry Beaufort) and a Queen
willing to consider it, and an over-protective council stepping in
before it got out of hand.

However, all evidence (secret marriage, lower social status) points to
the Queen's relationship with Owen Tudor being hot and heavy and
passionate. That she was far more fearful of the council's reaction
(and the reaction of the king once he grew older) to her Tudor
relationship - as opposed to her Beaufort relationship which was
already known to them - is demonstrated by the fact that she kept it
well hidden.

The case for Edmund Tudor being Edmund Beaufort's son is plausible on
many levels.

Those being
A) The Queen named her son 'Edmund'
B) The Queen was a slut
C) The Queen and Edmund Beaufort would not dare defy the 1428 statute

Coincidentally, I cannot but note that certain characteristics and
dynamics of this case are reminiscent of another case 100 years later,
involving other Beaufort-Plantagenet descendants.

Which one was that?

Cheers, -------Brad

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