MARGARET BEAUFORT AND WIMBORNE MINSTER. 221 



visible. The collars of SS. are round the necks of both figures, 

 but the drop pendants are gone. The sword has unfortunately 

 been damaged, and only the handle remains, and on top of the 

 scabbard are the letters I.H.S. He wears a garter on his left 

 knee, and holds a gauntlet in his left hand, and the right hand of 

 his wife in the other. The lady is clad in a richly ornamented 

 dress gathered together at the waist, with a jewelled belt, and 

 holds the tasselled cords of the hood which hangs from her 

 shoulders. Around her head is a coronet, and she wears 

 jewelled rings on three fingers. The heads of both figures rest 

 on pillows, which are supported by angels, and at the feet of the 

 Duke is a lion, and at those of the Duchess a boar. On an iron 

 bracket above the tomb is fixed an ancient tilting helmet, but 

 there is no record to show why it is placed in the position, or if 

 it has any connection with the Beaufort family. After the death 

 of the Duke of Somerset in 1444, the Countess and her daughter 

 returned to their estates at Bletshoe in Bedfordshire. The 

 Duchess of Somerset married Lord Wellis about four years 

 afterwards, and the Lady Margaret was betrothed to Edmund 

 Tudor, Earl of Richmond, half brother to King Henry VI., and 

 they were married in 1455, when she was in her fifteenth year, 

 and her husband just twenty-five. They went to live at Pem- 

 broke Castle, where on the 26th July, 1456, a son and heir was 

 born, " Henry of Richmond," who afterwards became King 

 Henry VII., and a few months after this happy event, the Earl of 

 Richmond, her beloved husband, was taken away on ist 

 November, 1456. At the time of his death the Lady Margaret 

 was only in her sixteenth year. She continued to reside at 

 Pembroke Castle with her infant son, avoiding all connection 

 with the political contentions going on in England at that time. 

 About the year 1459 she married Sir Humphrey Stafford, son 

 of the Duke of Buckingham, and appears still to have continued 

 to reside at Pembroke Castle. Two years after Henry VI. was 

 deposed, the Duke of York was proclaimed King and crowned 

 as Edward IV., and one of his first acts was to deprive the young 

 Duke of Richmond of all his estates, and bestow them on his 



