The Mother of All Tudors: Child Bride to Kingmaker
Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
History Hit
4.8 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 December 2025
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ever heard of Margaret Beaufort? Probably not. But whilst her name has been overshadowed by those of her son, grandson and great-grandchildren, her impact on history remains.
Lauren Johnson joins Kate for this episode to explain how this woman put the Tudors on the throne. Why was she married aged 12? How did she use marriage to her advantage? And was she as manipulative as she has been portrayed?
Lauren's new book is ‘Margaret Beaufort: Survivor, Rebel, Kingmaker’.
This episode was edited by Tim Arstall and produced by Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.
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All music from Epidemic Sounds.
Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. Thank you for listening to Bertwikster Sheeds, |
| 0:06.6 | home of as much historical smut as your little hearts can handle. But before we can have any |
| 0:12.6 | of that said smut, I do have to remind you that this is quite a smutty show, apparently. |
| 0:17.7 | Here it is. This is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about |
| 0:21.4 | adulty things in an adulty way covering a range of adults subjects and you should be an adult |
| 0:24.7 | too. And I do have a note to hear from my producer, hello Sophie, to let everybody know that |
| 0:29.6 | this is quite a spicy episode. We will be covering themes of child abuse and you just might not |
| 0:34.9 | want to listen to that one today in which case get out now while |
| 0:37.7 | you still can and we'll catch you in the next one right on with the show henry the eighth |
| 0:45.2 | henry the one two four five six seven eight eight eight henry the eighth arguably one of the most |
| 0:50.9 | famous names in history it is it just is we don. We don't like him, but he's famous. |
| 0:56.0 | In fact, he's so famous. He kind of encompasses the very word Tudor, doesn't he? He is the Tudor, |
| 1:03.7 | the original. Or is he? Hmm, what about his dad? Henry the 7th, we never hear very much about him. |
| 1:28.1 | We hear quite a bit about his children, Eddie, Liz and the first Bloody Mary. But there were Henry's before him. And of course, what about the source of the Tudors, his grandmother, Margaret Beauford. Not a Tudor, but a Tudor maker, that's for sure. |
| 1:32.1 | And certainly quite a formidable woman in her own right, |
| 1:39.7 | and her fault that now we have a Tudor onslaught on TV, on podcasts and film, it's everywhere. |
| 1:41.6 | And we're going to do another one today. |
| 2:08.2 | So let's get cracking and learn more about Margaret Beauford. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, |
| 2:10.9 | The History of Sex Scandal in Society with me, Kate Lister. |
| 2:14.5 | Matriarch is a bit of a dry word, isn't it? |
| 2:16.3 | My do, it depends how it's being deployed. |
| 2:18.3 | I wouldn't mind living in a matriarchy, that's for damn sure. But if you say matriarch, it kind of brings to mind, I don't know, an elderly woman doing |
... |
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