Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset (26 January 143615 May 1464) was an important
Lancastrian military commander during the English
Wars of the Roses
The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, were a series of armed confrontations, machinations, battles and campaigns fought over control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The conflict was fo ...
. He is sometimes numbered the 2nd
Duke of Somerset, because the title was re-created for his father after his uncle died. He also held the subsidiary titles of 5th Earl of Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Dorset and 2nd Earl of Dorset.
Biography
Somerset, born about January 1436, was the son of
Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, and
Eleanor
Eleanor () is a feminine given name, originally from an Old French adaptation of the Old Provençal name ''Aliénor''. It was the name of a number of women of royalty and nobility in western Europe during the High Middle Ages">Provençal dialect ...
, daughter of
Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick and widow of Thomas, fourteenth baron Roos of Hamlake. From 1443 to 1448 Henry was styled Count of Mortain or Morteign, and from 1448 to 1455 Earl of Dorset. While still a youth he fought at the
First Battle of St Albans (1455), where he was wounded and his father was killed; thereby he inherited the title of
3rd Duke of Somerset.
He was regarded as "the hope of the
ancastrianparty", but he also inherited the "enmities entailed upon him by his father's name". He was brought to the council at Coventry, where in October 1456 an effort was made to reconcile the two parties; but the meeting was disturbed by quarrels between Somerset and Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, and by a brawl between Somerset's men and the town watch of Coventry. In 1457 Queen
Margaret of Anjou suggested a marriage between Somerset and his cousin
Joan, sister of
James II of Scotland
James II (16 October 1430 – 3 August 1460) was King of Scots from 1437 until his death in 1460. The eldest surviving son of James I of Scotland, he succeeded to the Scottish throne at the age of six, following the assassination of his fathe ...
, but the proposal came to nothing. On 14 October of that year Somerset was made lieutenant of the
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...
and warden of
Carisbrooke Castle. Early in 1458 he took part in the council at London which again endeavoured to effect a political reconciliation, and it was agreed that
Richard, Duke of York should pay the widowed Duchess of Somerset and her children an annual pension of five thousand marks as compensation for the death of the 2nd Duke. He then participated in
The Love Day with the King, Queen and other leading nobles.
The truce, however, was hollow; Margaret continued to intrigue against York, and in October 1458 proposed that Somerset should be appointed
captain of Calais in place of Warwick. War broke out in 1459, and Somerset nearly encountered Warwick at Coleshill just before the
Battle of Blore Heath. After the defeat of Lancastrians at Blore Heath and before the Lancastrian victory at Ludford Bridge, he was on 9 October nominated captain of Calais. He crossed the Channel and was refused admittance to Calais by Warwick's adherents, but made himself master of the outlying fortress of
Guisnes (appointing
Andrew Trollope its bailiff). Somerset fought several skirmishes with the Yorkists between Calais and Guisnes until on 23 April 1460 he suffered a decisive reverse at the Battle of Newnham Bridge (called ''Pont de Neullay'' by the French).
During his absence the Yorkists had won the
Battle of Northampton, but Somerset joined the Lancastrians at Pontefract in December 1460, captured a portion of the Yorkist forces at Worksop on 21 December, and won the Lancastrian victory at the
Battle of Wakefield on 30 December. He marched south with Margaret and fought at the
Second Battle of St Albans
The Second Battle of St Albans was fought on 17 February 1461 during the Wars of the Roses in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England (the First Battle of St Albans had been fought in 1455).
The army of the Yorkist faction, under the Earl of War ...
(17 February 1461). This second victory was not followed up; the Lancastrians retired north, and on 29 March
Edward IV
Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England ...
won the
Battle of Towton (29 March 1461). Somerset escaped from the battlefield, and in the following July was sent by Margaret to seek aid from
Charles VII of France
Charles VII (22 February 1403 – 22 July 1461), called the Victorious () or the Well-Served (), was King of France from 1422 to his death in 1461. His reign saw the end of the Hundred Years' War and a ''de facto'' end of the English claims to ...
. Charles died before their arrival, but
Louis XI
Louis XI (3 July 1423 – 30 August 1483), called "Louis the Prudent" (), was King of France from 1461 to 1483. He succeeded his father, Charles VII. Louis entered into open rebellion against his father in a short-lived revolt known as the ...
summoned Somerset to
Tours
Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabita ...
and sent him back in March 1462 laden with promises of support, but with very little else.
Somerset now began to consider making his peace with Edward IV. He had been
attainted by parliament on 4 November 1461, and most of his lands had been granted to Edward's brother
Richard, Duke of Gloucester and other Yorkists. On his return from France he took command of the Lancastrian forces in Scotland while Margaret went to France, and in the autumn of 1462 he was holding
Bamburgh Castle
Bamburgh Castle, on the northeast coast of England, by the village of Bamburgh in Northumberland, is a Grade I listed building.
The site was originally the location of a Celtic Britons, Celtic Brittonic fort known as ''Din Guarie'' and may have ...
for the Lancastrians. On 24 December, however, he and Sir Ralph Percy, the Governor of Bamburgh Castle, surrendered the castle and submitted to King Edward. The king took him to London, and treated him with marked favour. He received a general pardon on 10 March 1462/1463, and was restored to his dignities by act of the parliament which met on 29 April following.
Somerset, however, soon returned to his old allegiance. Early in 1464 he escaped from
Holt Castle in North Wales, where he seems to have been kept in some sort of confinement, and after nearly being recaptured made his way to Margaret on the borders. The Lancastrians now made one more effort to recover the crown, but at the
Battle of Hexham on 15 May 1464 they were utterly defeated by
John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu. Somerset was captured in a barn at the site of what is now known as Dukes House, and beheaded shortly afterwards that same day. He was buried at
Hexham Abbey
Hexham Abbey is a Grade I listed church dedicated to Saint Andrew, St Andrew, in the town of Hexham, Northumberland, in the North East England, North East of England. Originally built in AD 674, the Abbey was built up during the 12th century ...
. Parliament annulled the act restoring him to his dignities, which again became forfeit and were never restored. Somerset was unmarried, and his younger brother,
Edmund Beaufort, was styled 4th Duke of Somerset by the Lancastrians.
In 1485, some twenty-one years after his death, Somerset, along with
Jasper Tudor, had all acts of attainder against him annulled in the first Parliament of Henry VII, "for their true and faithfull Allegeaunces and Services doune to the said blessed King Herrie
I"
Character
Somerset was described by Chastellain as "''un très grand seigneur et un des plus beaulx josnes chevaliers qui fust au royaume anglais''" ("A very great lord and one of the most handsome knights in the English kingdom").
Illegitimate progeny
By his mistress Joan Hill he had an illegitimate son:
*
Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester, 1st Baron Herbert (c.1460-1526), KG, who was given the surname "Somerset" and was created
Baron Herbert in 1506 and
Earl of Worcester in 1513. From him descend the Earls and Marquesses of Worcester and the
Dukes of Beaufort, who are the last known surviving male-line descendants of King Henry II (1154-1189) of England, Count of Anjou, founder of the
Plantagenet dynasty, of which King Richard III (1483-1485) was the last ruling member in the male line.
Ancestry
Notes
References
*
*
Attribution
* Endnotes:
** ''Cal. Rot. Pat.''
** Rymer's ''Fœdera''
** ''Rotuli Parl.''
** William of Worcester and Stevenson's ''Letters'' (Rolls Ser.)
** ''English Chron.,'' ed. Davies, Gregory's Collections, Three English Chron., and Warkworth's Chron. (Camden Soc)
** ''Polydore Vergil''
** Hall's ''Chronicle''
** Paston ''Letters'', ed. Gairdner
** Fortcseue's ''Governance of England'', ed. Plummer
** ''Arthur de Richemont, Matthieu D'Eseouchy and Chastellain's Chroniques'' (Soc. de l'Hist. de France)
** Beaucourt's ''Charles VII''
** Stubbs's ''Const. Hist.'' vol. iii. passim
** Ramsay's ''Lancaster and York''
** Doyle's ''Official Baronage''
** G. E. Cokayne's ''Complete Peerage''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Somerset, Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke Of
1436 births
1464 deaths
Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset
202
Marquesses of Dorset
People of the Wars of the Roses
People executed under the Yorkists
Executed English nobility
People executed under the Plantagenets by decapitation
Burials at Hexham Abbey
Earls of Somerset