Edmund Beaufort (abt. 1439 - 1471)

Born about 1439 in London, Middlesex, England

Ancestors

Died 6 May 1471 at about age 32 in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England

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Biography

(Royal Ancestry) Edmund Beaufort was born about 1439. In 1460 he was captured in the Isle of Wight and sent to Calais in France where he was still a prisoner in 1461. He and his younger brother, John, were living in exile with Queen Margaret of Anjou at Saint-Mihiel in the Duchy of Bar in 1464. He was heir in 1464 to his older brother, Henry Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset. He was attainted of treason in 1465. In 1471 he was in Flanders. He commanded the Lancastrian center at the Battle of Barnet 14 April 1471. He commander the right of the Lancastrian army at the Battle of Tewkesbury 4 May 1471. After the Yorkist victory, he fled and took refuge in Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucestershire. Edmund Beaufort, styled Duke of Somerset, was beheaded by the Yorkists in the town of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire 6 May 1471, and was buried there in the Abbey Church. At his death, the house of Beaufort and all honours to which they were entitled became extinct.

(Royal Tombs of Medieval England) Edmund Beaufort assumed the Somerset title after the execution of his brother Henry while living in exile in France. In 1471 he returned to England and commanded the Lancastrian right at the battle of Tewkesbury. He was executed after the battle and buried in Tewkesbury Abbey with the other senior casualties, including his brother John, Lord Beaufort, and Henry VI's son and heir, Edward, Prince of Wales. The Beauforts may have been buried to the south-east of the chapel now occupied presently by the abbey shop. In 1485 Henry VII commissioned black hearse cloths at Tewkesbury for the Beaufort brothers and Edward of Lancaster, most likely for anniversary masses.

Source

• Royal Ancestry D. Richardson 2013 Vol. IV p. 653
• Royal Tombs of Medieval England M. Duffy 2003 p. 248-249