Margaret Beaufort: From Widow to Kingmaker
Tudors Dynasty & Beyond
RedTop Media / Rebecca Larson
4.4 • 794 Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2025
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, I’m thrilled to welcome Lauren Johnson to the show for the very first time! Honestly, I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to have her on—but I’m so glad it finally happened, because we dive deep into the remarkable life of Margaret Beaufort.
Lauren’s new book, Margaret Beaufort: Widow, Rebel, Kingmaker, spans the entirety of Margaret’s extraordinary life—far too much to fit into a single episode! So in this conversation, we focus on her early years and end in the bedchamber with Elizabeth of York.
Don’t worry, though—I’ll be bringing Lauren back to explore the next chapter of Margaret’s story: her years as Queen Mother and her influence on her grandson, Henry VIII.
Her book is being published November 6th in UK, get a copy through Blackwells now! It won't be out in the US until March 2026!
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Join me over on Substack, where I’ll be sharing behind-the-scenes posts about my research process and much more!
✨ Exciting news: Paid subscribers ($5/month on Substack or Patreon) will receive exclusive access to my upcoming Thomas Seymour biography.
New book installments are released every Wednesday, and FREE posts every Monday, so don’t miss out on the journey!
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Host: Rebecca Larson
Guest: Lauren Johnson
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the Tudors Dynasty and Beyond podcast, history with a twist. |
| 0:07.2 | And now your host, Rebecca Larson. |
| 0:10.4 | Hello and welcome back to the show. |
| 0:12.4 | I'm your host, Rebecca Larson, and I am very pleased to welcome to the show, Lauren Johnson. |
| 0:17.8 | Welcome. |
| 0:18.9 | Hello, Rebecca. Hello, other humans, who I don't live with. |
| 0:24.8 | Oh, I can't read to tell we're going to have a good time today. |
| 0:28.8 | Yes. |
| 0:29.8 | I've mainly seen people who live in my house recently, so this is very exciting. |
| 0:34.5 | I am just, I'm pumped today to talk to you about the subject matter of your most recent book, |
| 0:41.1 | which is Margaret Beaufort, Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited. Okay, so the first |
| 0:48.5 | question is, is it Beaufort or is it Beaufort or how do you pronounce it? Oh, good question. I would say Margaret Beaufort. |
| 0:57.0 | But, I mean, it is kind of pretending to be a bit French. |
| 1:00.9 | So it probably would have been Beaufort, you know. |
| 1:03.6 | Oh, yeah, that sounds pretty fancy, doesn't it? |
| 1:07.0 | Yes. And Margaret, like, she did speak a lot of French and she also loved a marguerite pun. |
| 1:12.6 | Like, loads of her books are illuminated with daisies, which are marguerite in French. So, yeah. |
| 1:18.7 | Yeah, I just read about that in your book and I was kind of amazed. I did not know that the daisy was marguerite. |
| 1:25.0 | Yeah, and she just loves them. There's puns all over, all over everything, |
| 1:28.9 | her and Henry Tudor, big on puns. Not something you would think. When you look at historical |
| 1:35.1 | figures, you see them as kind of flat and dull, don't you? Yeah, I think especially Margaret and |
| 1:40.4 | her son, Henry Tudor, Henry the 7th, because the pictures of them are very much from later life. |
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