Death of John Beaufort, Ist Duke of Somerset

Death of John Beaufort, Ist Duke of Somerset

John Beaufort was the second son of John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset and Margaret Holland.

John’s father was the illegitimate son of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford.

At the age of fifteen, John fought in his cousin Henry V’s 1419 French campaign.

He served in the Hundred Years War in France again in 1421 when he accompanied the King’s brother Thomas, Duke of Clarence to Anjou.

John and his younger brother were taken prisoner at the Battle of Baugé where the Duke of Clarence was killed.
Although his brother Thomas was released in 1427, John Beaufort spent thirteen long years as a prisoner of the French.

Finally, in 1438, he was released after being ransomed. During this time King Henry V had died of dysentery while on campaign in France, and had been succeeded by his infant son Henry VI.

In 1439 John married the widowed Margaret Beauchamp.
The marriage produced one child, Lady Margaret Beaufort.

John also fathered two illegitimate children, Thomasine Beaufort and John of Somerset.

In 1443 John returned to France with his younger brother Edmund.
John was appointed Captain-General of Guyenne in 1443.

However he proved to be a poor general and presided over a period during which England lost much of the great Henry V’s conquests in France.

A strong rivalry developed between John and Richard Duke of York, one of the richest magnates in the land.
The Duke of York landed in Normandy in 1441 to conduct a campaign.

The Duke of York was informed that a large army had been sent under the command of John Beaufort, to relieve Gascony.
The negotiations John had commenced were not met with success.

This resulted in York turning against his relations the Beauforts, and ended in much ill-feeling on York’s part, who was denied the required resources to maintain the borders of Normandy.

John returned to England in disgrace.

John’s death on 16th March 1444 at the age of forty, was thought by many to have been suicide.

Unable to cope with the disgrace of his failure in France, it’s widely presumed John took his own life.

Ingulph’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland records John’s death –

“The business on which he had crossed over, being settled in a short time, the duke returned amid much pomp to England; but being accused of treason there, was forbidden to appear in the king’s presence.

The noble heart of a man of such high rank upon his hearing this most unhappy news, was moved to extreme indignation; and being unable to bear the stain of so great a disgrace, he accelerated his death by putting an end to his existence”

John Beaufort, Ist Duke of Somerset, was buried at Wimborne Minster, in Dorset.
His title was inherited by his only surviving brother Edmund Beaufort.

After her husband’s death, Margaret married for a third time to Lionel, 6th Baron Welles and had two further children.

John Beaufort’s daughter, Lady Margaret Beaufort would later marry Henry VI’s half brother Edmund Tudor.
She then became the mother of England’s first Tudor king, Henry VII.

? Tomb of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset and his wife Margaret, in Wimborne Minster, Dorset.

Picture credit – Memorino.