Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Somerset

Who was Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Somerset?

Margaret Holland, Countess of Somerset was the daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, who was the son of Joan "the Fair Maid of Kent". Margaret's mother was Alice FitzAlan, daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel and Eleanor of Lancaster.

Margaret married John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset, son of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster' and his mistress Katherine Swynford. They had six children:

⁕Henry Beaufort, 2nd Earl of Somerset.

⁕John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset.

⁕Thomas Beaufort, Count of Perche.

⁕Lady Joan Beaufort, who married James I of Scotland and Sir James Stewart, the Black Knight of Lorn.

⁕Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset.

⁕Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Devon, married Thomas de Courtenay, 13th Earl of Devon.

In 1399, she was invested as a Lady Companion, Order of the Garter. After Beaufort died in 1410, she married his nephew Thomas of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Clarence, the son of King Henry IV. They had no children. She died on 31 December 1439 at St. Saviour's Abbey, Bermondsey, in London, England. Margaret and both her husbands are buried together in a carved alabaster tomb in Canterbury Cathedral that shows her lying between the two of them.