page_title: Lady Margaret Beaufort
section_title: Portraits
hierarchical_section_title: Lady Margaret Beaufort / Portraits
caption_attribution_description: English: Christ's College - detail The arms of the founder Lady Margaret Beaufort are supported by Yales, mythical beasts related to mountain goats.
context_page_description: Lady Margaret Beaufort was a major figure in the Wars of the Roses of the late fifteenth century.
  A descendant of King Edward III, Beaufort passed a disputed claim to the English throne to her son, Henry Tudor. Capitalising on the political upheaval of the period, she actively maneuvered to secure the crown for her son. Beaufort’s efforts ultimately culminated in Henry’s decisive victory over King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. She was thus instrumental in orchestrating the rise to power of the Tudor Dynasty, which would produce two of Britain's most famous monarchs: Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.
  With her son crowned Henry VII of England, Beaufort wielded a considerable degree of political influence and personal autonomy – both unusual for a woman of her time. She was also a major patron and cultural benefactor during her son’s reign, initiating an era of extensive Tudor patronage.
  She is credited with the establishment of two prominent Cambridge colleges, founding Christ's College in 1505 and beginning the development of St John's College, which was completed posthumously by her executors in 1511.
context_section_description: There is no surviving portrait of Margaret Beaufort dating from her lifetime. All known portraits, however, are in essentially the same format, depicting her in her later years, wearing a long, peaked, white headdress and in a pose of religious contemplation. Most of these were made in the reign of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I as symbols of loyalty to the Tudor regime. They may be based on a lost original, or be derived from the sculpture on her tomb in Westminster Abbey, in which she wears the same headdress.
  One variant of the portrait by Meynnart Wewyck in 1510 by Rowland Lockey from the late 1590s shows her at prayer in her richly furnished private closet behind her chamber. The plain desk at which she kneels is draped with a richly patterned textile that is so densely encrusted with embroidery that its corners stand away stiffly. Her lavishly illuminated Book of Hours is open before her, with its protective cloth wrapper (called a "chemise" binding), spread out around it. The walls are patterned with oak leaf designs, perhaps in lozenges, perhaps of stamped and part-gilded leather. Against the wall hangs the dosser of her canopy of estate, with the tester above her head (the Tudor rose at its centre) supported on cords from the ceiling. The coats-of-arms woven into the tapestry are of England (parted as usual with France) and the portcullis badge of the Beauforts, which the early Tudor kings later used in their arms. Small stained glass roundels in the leaded glass of her lancet windows also display elements of the arms of both England (cropped away here) and Beaufort.
caption: Coat of arms at Christ's College, Cambridge with two yales as supporters
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