BBC Sounds In Our Time - Margaret Beaufort

Posted on 17 March 2026

Two CMS graduates appear on the latest episode

Portrait of Margaret Beaufort (1443-1509) dressed as a widow, mother of Henry VII of England. The portrait features the coat of arms of the House of Beaufort, and the words

Joanna Laynesmith, Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading

Katherine Lewis, Honorary Professor of Medieval History at the University of Lincoln and Research Associate at the University of York

BBC Sounds - In Our Time: Margaret Beaufort podcast

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the woman who, as a child bride, became mother to the boy who would eventually become the first king in the Tudor dynasty. Lady Margaret Beaufort (c1443-1509) was twelve when she married Edmund Tudor, half his age, and gave birth to their son Henry when she was thirteen and Edmund was already dead from the plague. Margaret Beaufort made it her life's work to protect Henry during the Wars of the Roses, which had begun soon before his birth and, as many more obvious successors to the crown died or were killed in the wars, she pivoted to supporting Henry when he became the strongest contender against Richard III. She was to survive Richard III declaring her a traitor and went on to see Henry become Henry VII, the first Tudor king, and herself become the King's Mother. Outliving her son by a few months, she was then to help her grandson Henry VIII succeed and the Tudor dynasty continue.