“Doutfull in her mynde”: Margaret Beaufort’s Eulogy as the Story of a Survivor

Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, later Henry VII, is well known for having a carefully crafted public persona. From signing official documents as “Margaret R” to a story of a dream vision in her youth which ordained her marriage to Edmund Tudor, all aspects of her identity were meticulously constructed. Yet the story of the vision, as told by her confessor John Fisher in a sermon a month after she died, has increasing relevance in light of current discussions of consent and sexual violence. It tells how St. Nicholas instructed Margaret to choose Edmund over her previous betrothed, John de la Pole, as her husband, despite the former being much older than her young years. Though scholars and biographers have described the story as an act of agency in her youth, or else a strategic lie, they do not consider how this story excuses what was likely a real trauma for Margaret: a child (on her part) marriage and a young and dangerous pregnancy and delivery. Drawing on recent scholarship on medieval and modern sexual violence, this paper looks at how the myth of Margaret’s marriage decision through the lens of a male authority figure justified a woman’s traumatic experience despite it not being the norm for royal women as has so often been assumed.