Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso

Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso
Duchess of Somerset Lady Welles
Spouse(s)	Sir Oliver St John John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset Lionel de Welles, 6th Baron Welles
Issue
Sir John St John Oliver St John Edith St John Elizabeth St John, Baroness Scrope of Bolton Mary St John Anges St John Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby John de Welles, 1st Viscount Welles Cecily de Welles
Father	John Beauchamp of Bletso
Mother	Edith Stourton
Born	1 January 1405/1406
Died	8 August 1482 (aged 76/77)

Margaret Beauchamp, of Bletso, Bedfordshire, Spelsbury, Oxfordshire and Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire (1 January 1405/1406 – 8 August 1482) was the daughter of John Beauchamp, of Bletso and Edith Stourton. She was the maternal grandmother of Henry VII.

Biography

First marriage

She firstly married around 1425 to Sir Oliver St John, of Bletsoe, Bedfordshire, Spelsbury, Oxfordshire and Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire, son of John St John and Elizabeth Paullet, with whom she had two sons and four daughters, all of whom survived into adulthood.

• Sir John St John, of Bletso (1426–1488), married Alice Bradshaigh, daughter of Thomas Bradshaigh, of Haigh, Lancashire.
• Oliver St John, of Lydiard Tregoze (bef. 1437 – Fuenterrabía, Navarre, 10 April 1497), married Elizabeth Scrope (- 12 June 1503 – some sources say died 31 May 1503), widow of John Bigod and Henry Rochford, of Stoke Rochford, Lincolnshire, and daughter of Henry Scrope, 4th Baron Scrope of Bolton and Elizabeth le Scrope.
• Edith St John, married Sir Geoffrey Pole, of Wythurn, in Medmenham, Buckinghamshire; ob 4 Jan 1479; interred in Bisham Abbey.
• Elizabeth St John, Baroness Scrope of Bolton, married William la Zouche, 6th Baron Zouche, 7th Baron St Maur (c. 1432–1468).
• Mary St John, married Richard Frogenhall.
• Agnes St John, married David Malpas.

Second marriage

Following Sir Oliver's death in 1437, she remarried in 1439 to John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset. By this marriage she had her most famous child and became a grandmother of a King.

• Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, who married Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, and became the mother of Henry VII of England.

Third marriage

After Somerset's death, she married the Lancastrian Lionel de Welles, 6th Baron Welles on 14 April 1447 who later became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland; with Lionel she had a further two children.

• John Welles, 1st Viscount Welles, who married Cecily of York the daughter of Edward IV of England.
• Cecily de Welles, who married Sir Robert Willoughby of Parham (- 1465)

Her third husband died at the Yorkist victory of the Battle of Towton in March 1461. Margaret never remarried.

Titles from birth to death

• 1 January 1405/1406-c. 1425: Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso
• c. 1425–1437: Lady St John
• 1439–1443: The Countess of Somerset
• 1443-27 May 1444: The Duchess of Somerset
• 27 May 1444 – 14 April 1447: The Dowager Duchess of Somerset
• 14 April 1447 – March 1461: The Lady Welles
• March 1461-8 August 1482: The Dowager Lady Welles

References

• thePeerage.com entry