- Margaret Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury
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Margaret Beauchamp Countess of Shrewsbury Spouse(s) John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury Issue Sir Louis Talbot
John Talbot, 1st Viscount Lisle
Sir Humphrey Talbot
Elizabeth de Mowbray, Duchess of NorfolkFather Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick Mother Elizabeth de Berkeley Born 1404 Died June 14, 1468 Margaret Beauchamp, Countess of Shrewsbury (1404 – 14 June 1468) was the eldest daughter of Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick and Elizabeth de Berkeley. As the eldest child of a family without male issue, Margaret was expected to inherit from her father until her step-mother Isobel Despenser gave him a son.
Contents
Ancestry
She was the granddaughter and heir-general of Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley; however, the Barony and castle of Berkeley had passed to his nephew James Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley on his death in 1417. These lands were also claimed by her mother, to whom she and her two sisters were coheirs.
Her paternal grandfather was Thomas de Beauchamp, 12th Earl of Warwick who fought for John of Gaunt in Spain and imprisoned in the Tower of London by Richard III and pardoned by Henry IV. However he died 3 years before Margaret was born.[1]
Marriage
On September 6, 1425, she had married John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury; he and her two brothers-in-law, the Duke of Somerset and the Baron Latimer, vigorously maintained the claim to the Berkeley lands. By Talbot, she had five children:
- John Talbot, 1st Viscount Lisle (1426 – 17 July 1453)
- Sir Louis Talbot (c 1429)
- Sir Humphrey Talbot (before 1434 – c. 1492)
- Lady Eleanor Talbot (c February/March 1436 - 30 June 1468) married to Sir Thomas Butler and mistress to King Edward IV.
- Lady Elizabeth Talbot (c December 1442/January 1443). She married John de Mowbray, 4th Duke of Norfolk.
Lord and Lady Talbot were distantly related to each other, having a shared ancestor in King Edward I and both being descendants of the houses of Clare and Despenser. She received the title of Countess of Clermont through the bravery of her husband during the wars with France.[2]
Wars of the Roses
During the troubled years of the Wars of the Roses, the dispute frequently passed from litigation to actual violence.
Lord Berkeley sacked Margaret's manor at Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire, in return for which her son, the Viscount Lisle, stormed Berkeley Castle (1452) and took him prisoner.
Margaret also succeeded in having Lord Berkeley's wife, Isabel Mowbray, committed to prison, where she died that year.
Litigation from her Deathbed
Lord Berkeley married Joan Talbot, Margaret's stepdaughter, in 1457, temporarily quelling the feud. It broke out again in 1463, when William Berkeley, 2nd Baron Berkeley, acceded. Litigation continued, and on her death in 1468, she left her claims to her grandson Thomas Talbot, 2nd Viscount Lisle. She was buried in St Faith under St Paul's at London.[3]
Ancestry
Ancestors of Margaret Talbot, Countess of ShrewsburyNotes
- ^ John Ashdown-Hill, "Eleanor The Secret Queen", Page 22 The History Press, 2009 ISBN 978 0 7524 5669 0
- ^ John Ashdown-Hill, "Eleanor The Secret Queen", Page 21 The History Press, 2009 ISBN 978 0 7524 5669 0
- ^ Camden, p. 335
References
- Camden, William. "Of the Antiquity of Epitaphs in England." A Collection of Curious Discourses. Vol. 1, Ed. Thomas Hearne, Benjamin White, at Horace's Head, London, 1775.
Categories:- 1404 births
- 1468 deaths
- Women of medieval England
- English countesses
- Talbot family
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