MARGARET BEAUFORT Survivor, rebel, kingmaker

The story of a woman of substance. Margaret Beaufort's beginnings were inauspicious--her father died by suicide before she turned 1; her protector "married" her to his son when she was 7, but the protector was charged with treason and executed that same year. King Henry VI sent for Margaret and her mother, invalidated her first marriage since it was never consummated given Margaret's age, and married her instead to his half-brother, Edmund Tudor, who died of the plague in 1456, leaving Margaret pregnant. She gave birth to her only child, Henry, infant earl of Richmond who would later become Henry VII. Margaret, now a widow "married twice according to the whims of strangers" and a considerable heiress, was determined to make her own decisions, marrying one wealthy landowner and then, widowed again, another. With the English throne in upheaval, Margaret sent young Henry to Brittany, trying to keep him alive and maintain his potential claim to the throne. During the rebellion, Margaret saw an opportunity to marshal the different groups opposing Richard III into one, rallying around her son Henry. The story of the run-up to the battle at Bosworth Field covers only a few dozen pages of the book, but it reads like a breathtaking thriller, ending with the restoration of the Tudor dynasty. That dynasty was a bit shaky over the years, yet Margaret kept spies everywhere to protect Henry VII. When he died in 1509, she maneuvered the situation to keep that news secret over the days it took to capture and imprison false claimants to the throne so that her grandson could be crowned Henry VIII. During all this political skullduggery, Margaret maintained her own property, grew her personal wealth, and became a patroness for education, founding colleges in Cambridge still operating today. When Margaret died in 1509, she left a dynasty that would remain for nearly 100 years more. A well-documented and well-told life "forged in the furnace of the most turbulent era in English history." Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.