On 23 Jan 1484 Margaret Beaufort Countess Richmond (age 40) was subject to an attainder in the first Parliament of Richard III for her involvement. Whilst the Act was described as an Attainder Richard in effect transferred all of Margaret's property to her husband Thomas Stanley 1st Earl of Derby (age 49) as follows:

An act for the attainder of Margaret, countess of Richmond (age 40):

Because Margaret, countess of Richmond, mother of the king's great rebel and traitor, Henry, earl of Richmond, has lately conspired, leagued and committed high treason against our sovereign lord King Richard III in various ways, and in particular by sending messages, writings and tokens to the said Henry, urging, instigating and stirring him by them to come into this realm to make war upon our said sovereign lord; to which urging, instigation and stirring the said Henry applied himself, as experience has recently shown. Also, the said countess supplied great sums of money within the city of London as well as elsewhere in this realm to be employed in the execution of the said treason and malicious purpose; and the said countess also conspired, leagued and plotted the destruction of our said sovereign lord, and knew of and assented to, and assisted in the treason planned and committed by Henry, late Duke of Buckingham, and his supporters, for which he and some of his supporters have been attainted by an act in this present parliament. Nevertheless, our said sovereign lord, of his special grace, mindful of the good and faithful service which Thomas, Lord Stanley, has given and intends to give our said sovereign lord, and for the sincere love and trust which the king has in him, and for his sake, remits and will forbear the great punishment of attainting the said countess, which she or anyone else doing the same has deserved; and in consideration of the foregoing, our said sovereign lord wills that it be enacted, ordained and decreed, by the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons assembled in this present parliament, and by authority of the same, that the said countess henceforth shall be legally unable to have, inherit or enjoy any manors, lands or tenements, or other hereditaments or possessions whatsoever, and also henceforth shall be unable to bear or have any name of estate or dignity; and that the said countess shall forfeit to our said sovereign lord the king and his heirs all the castles, manors, lordships, lands, tenements, rents, services, reversions and other hereditaments and possessions, whatsoever they may be, of which the said countess, or anyone else to her use, is now seised or possessed of estate of fee-simple, fee-tail, term of life, in dower or otherwise. And be it ordained by the said authority that all the said castles, manors, lordships, lands, tenements, rents, services, reversions and other hereditaments with the appurtenances of which the said countess, or anyone else to her use, is now seised of estate of fee-simple or fee-tail, shall remain to the said Thomas for term of his life, and after his death to our said sovereign lord the king and his heirs. And moreover, all the lordships, manors, lands, tenements, rents, services and reversions of which the said countess, or any other person to her use, is now seised of estate, term of her life or in dower, shall remain to the said Thomas during her life. And if the said Thomas dies during the lifetime of the said countess, they shall remain to the king; saving to every person and persons, except the said countess and her heirs, their right, title and interest in the said lands and tenements.

The History of King Richard the Third by Thomas More. For hereupon, soon after, began the conspiracy, or rather good confederation, between the Duke of Buckingham and many other gentlemen against him. The occasion whereupon the King and the Duke fell out is by different folk, different ways presented. This duke, as I have for certain been informed, as soon as the Duke of Gloucester, upon the death of King Edward, came to York and there had solemn funeral service for King Edward, sent thither, in the most secret way he could, one Percival, his trusty servant, who came to John Ward, a chamber-man of like secret trust with the Duke of Gloucester, desiring that in the most close and covert manner he might be admitted to the presence and speech of his master. And the Duke of Gloucester, informed of his desire, caused him in the dead of the night, after all other folk left, to be brought unto him in his secret chamber, where Percival, after his master's recommendation, showed him what his master had secretly sent him to show him that in this new world he could take such part as he would, and Buckingham would wait upon him with a thousand good fellows if need were. The messenger, sent back with thanks and some secret instruction of the Protector's mind, yet he met him again with further message from the Duke, his master, within a few days after at Nottingham, to where the Protector from York with many gentlemen of the north country, up to the number of six hundred horse, was coming on his way to London. And after secret meeting and communication had, at once departed. Whereupon at Northampton the Duke met with the Protector himself, with three hundred horse, and from there still continued with him, partner of all his devices, such that after his coronation they departed, as it seemed, very great friends at Gloucester.

From whence, as soon as the Duke came home, he so lightly turned from him and so highly conspired against him that a man would marvel whereof the change grew.

And surely the occasion of their variance is of different men differently reported. Some I have heard say that the Duke-a little before the coronation, among other things-required of the Protector the Duke of Hereford's lands, to which he pretended himself just inheritor. And forasmuch as the title that he claimed by inheritance was somewhat interlaced with the title to the crown by the line of King Henry VI, before deprived, the Protector conceived such indignation that he rejected the Duke's request with many spiteful and threatening words, which so wounded his heart with hatred and mistrust that he never after could endure to look aright on King Richard, but ever feared his own life, so far forth that when the Protector rode through London toward his coronation, he feigned himself sick because he would not ride with him. And the other, taking it in evil part, sent him word to rise and come ride, or he would make him be carried. Whereupon he rode on with evil will and, that notwithstanding, on the morrow rose from the feast feigning himself sick, and King Richard said it was done in hatred and contempt of him. And they say that ever after, continually, each of them lived in such hatred and distrust of other that the Duke verily looked to have been murdered at Gloucester, from which, nevertheless, he in fair manner departed.

But surely some right from those days' secrets deny this; and many right wise men think it unlikely (the deep dissimulating nature of both those men considered, and what need in that green world the Protector had of the Duke, and in what peril the Duke stood if he fell once in suspicion of the tyrant) that either the Protector would give the Duke occasion of displeasure, or the Duke the Protector occasion of mistrust. And men in fact think that, if King Richard had any such opinion conceived of the Duke, he would never have suffered him to escape his hands.

Very truth it is, the Duke was a high-minded man and could ill bear the glory of another, so that I have heard of some who said they saw it that the Duke, at such time as the crown was first set upon the Protector's head, his eye could not abide the sight thereof, but turned his head another way. But men say that he was, of truth, not well at ease, and that to King Richard was both well known and not ill taken, nor any demand of the Duke's discourteously rejected, but he with great gifts and high promises both, in most loving trusty manner departed at Gloucester. But soon after his coming home to Brecknock, having there in his custody by the commandment of King Richard, Doctor Morton, Bishop of Ely, who as you heard before was taken in the Council at the Tower, growing familiar with him, whose wisdom deceived his pride-to his own deliverance and the Duke's destruction.

The Bishop was a man of great natural wit, very well learned, and honorable in behavior, lacking no wise ways to win favor. He had been loyal to the part of King Henry while that part was in wealth, and nevertheless left it not, nor forsook it in woe, but fled the realm with the Queen and the Prince, and while King Edward had the King in prison, he never came home but to the battlefield. After this loss, and that part was utterly subdued, King Edward, for Morton's steadfast faith and wisdom, not only was content to receive him, but also wooed him to come and had him from thence forth both in secret trust and very special favor, in which he nothing deceived. For he was, as you have heard, after King Edward's death, first taken by the tyrant for his loyalty to the King, but found the means to turn this Duke to his plans, joining gentlemen together in the aid of King Henry, devising first the marriage between him and King Edward's daughter, by which he declared his faith and good service to both his masters at once, with infinite benefit to the realm, by the conjunction of those two bloods in one, whose several titles had long left the land without quiet. Afterwards, he fled the realm, went to Rome, never minding more to meddle with the world till the noble prince, King Henry the Seventh, got him home again, made him Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England, whereunto the Pope joined the honor of Cardinal. Thus living many days in as much honor as one man might well wish, ended them so godly that his death, with God's mercy, well changed his life.

This man, therefore, as I was about to tell you, by long and often alternate proof, as well from prosperity as adverse fortune, had gotten by great experience, the very mother and mistress of wisdom, a deep insight in political, worldly drifts.

Whereby, perceiving now this Duke glad to come with him, he fed him with fair words and many pleasant praises. And perceiving by the process of their communications the Duke's pride now and then to let slip a little outburst of envy toward the glory of the King, and thereby feeling him easy to fall out if the matter were well handled, he craftily sought the ways to prick him forward, taking always the occasion of his coming, and so keeping himself close within his bonds that he rather seemed to follow him than to lead him.

For when the Duke first began to praise and boast of the King and show how much profit the realm should take by his reign, my Lord Morton answered, "Surely, my Lord, folly it were for me to lie, for if I would swear the contrary, your Lordship would not, I know, believe it, but that, if the world would have gone as I would have wished, King Henry's son had had the crown and not King Edward. But after God had ordered him to lose it, and King Edward to reign, I was never so mad that I would with a dead man strive against the living. So was I to King Edward faithful chaplain, and glad would have been that his child had succeeded him. However, if the secret judgment of God has otherwise provided, I propose not to spurn against a spur, nor labor to set up what God pulls down. And as for the late Protector and now King...." And even there he left off, saying that he had already meddled too much with the world and would from that day meddle with his book and his beads alone, and no further.

Then longed the Duke sore to hear what he would have said because he ended with the King and there so suddenly stopped, and so exhorted him familiarly between them to be so bold to say whatsoever he thought, whereof he faithfully promised there should never come hurt and perchance more good than he would know, and that he himself intended to use his faithful, secret advice and counsel; this counsel, he said, was the only cause for which he procured of the King to have him in his custody, where he might reckon himself at home, or else had he been put in the hands of them with whom he should not have found the like favor.

The Bishop right humbly thanked him and said, "In good faith, my Lord, I love not much to talk much of princes, as things not all out of peril even though the word be without fault-forasmuch as it shall not be taken as the party meant it, but as it pleases the prince to construe it. And ever I think on Aesop's tale, that one in which the lion had proclaimed on pain of death that no horned beast should abide in that wood. Then one who had on his forehead a lump of flesh fled away at great pace. The fox who saw him run so fast asked him why he made all that haste. And he answered: 'In faith, I neither know nor care, so I were once hence because of this proclamation made about horned beasts.'

"'What, fool!' said the fox. 'Thou may abide well enough; the lion meant not thee, for it is no horn that is on your head.'

"'No, marry,' said he. 'That know I well enough. But what if he call it a horn? Where am I then?'"

The Duke laughed merrily at the tale, and said, "My Lord, I warrant you, neither the lion nor the boar shall find any problem with anything here spoken, for it shall never come near their ear."

"In good faith, Sir," said the Bishop, "if it did, the thing that I was about to say, taken as well as before God as I meant it, could deserve but thanks. And yet taken as I know it would, might happen to turn me to little good and you to less."

Then longed the Duke yet much more to know what it was. Whereupon the Bishop said: "In good faith, my Lord, as for the late Protector, since he is now King in possession, I propose not to dispute his title. But for the welfare of this realm, whereof his Grace has now the governance and whereof I am myself one poor member, I was about to wish that to those good abilities, whereof he has already right many, little needing my praise, it might yet have pleased God for the better store to have given him some of such other excellent virtues suitable for the rule of a realm, as our Lord has planted in the person of your Grace."