page_title: Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset
section_title: Political power and conflict
hierarchical_section_title: Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset / Political power and conflict
caption_attribution_description: English: Edmund Beaufort surrenders towns and hostages to Charles VII at Rouen during the Hundred Years' War. Illuminated manuscript page from Vol 6 of the Anciennes chroniques d'Angleterre by Jean de Wavrin.
context_page_description: Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, KG, was an English nobleman and an important figure in the Hundred Years' War. His deadly rivalry with Richard, Duke of York, was a leading cause of the Wars of the Roses.
context_section_description: Edmund received the county of Mortain in Normandy on 22 April 1427. Edmund became a commander in the English army in 1431, and in 1432 was one of the envoys to the Council of Basel. After his recapture of Harfleur and his lifting of the Burgundian siege of Calais, he was named a Knight of the Garter in 1436. After subsequent successes he was created Earl of Dorset on 28 August 1442 (though he seems to have been styled as such since around 1438) and Marquess of Dorset on 24 June 1443. During the five-year truce from 1444 to 1449 he served as Lieutenant of France. On 31 March 1448 he was created Duke of Somerset. As the title had previously been held by his brother, he is sometimes mistakenly called the second duke, but the title was actually created for the second time, and so he was actually the first duke, the numbering starting over again.
  Somerset was appointed to replace York as commander in France in 1448. Fighting began in Normandy in August 1449. Somerset's subsequent military failures left him vulnerable to criticism from York's allies. Somerset was supposed to be paid £20,000; but little evidence exists that he was. He failed to repulse French attacks, and by the summer of 1450 nearly all the English possessions in northern France were lost, with Normandy having fallen after the Battle of Formigny and Siege of Caen. By 1453 all the English possessions in the south of France were also lost, and the Battle of Castillon ended the Hundred Years War.
  The fall of the duke of Suffolk left Somerset the chief of the king's ministers, and the Commons in vain petitioned for his removal in January 1451. Power rested with Somerset and he virtually monopolised it, with Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, as one of his principal allies. It was also widely suspected that Edmund 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 had 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 Lord Protector in April 1454 and imprisoned him in the Tower of London. Somerset's life was probably saved only by the King's seeming recovery late in 1454, which forced York to surrender his office. Henry agreed to recognise Edward as his heir, putting to rest concerns about a successor prompted by his known aversion to physical contact; subsequently he came to view Edward's birth as a miracle. Somerset was honourably discharged, and restored to his office 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 he spent the next nine years attempting to restore his family's honour.
caption: Edmund surrenders to Charles VII at Rouen in 1449. Illuminated page from the Anciennes chroniques d'Angleterre, Jean de Wavrin.[5]
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