A/N: This is my first Tudor fanfiction as well as my first story, so please those of you review, be nice.

The Red and White Rose

28 January 1457

"One more push, my lady. Just one more."

A woman or should I say a girl of the age of thirteen, the Lady Margaret Beauford, was about to give birth to the hopeful heir to the Lancaster. Her husband, the late Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond's father, Owen Tudor, originally from the Isle of Anglesey in Wales, had been a page in the court of Henry V. He rose to become one of the 'Squires to the Body to the King' after military service at Agincourt. He is said to have secretly married the widow of Henry V, Catherine of Valois. Edmund had been created Earl of Richmond in 1452, and 'formally declared legitimate by Parliament'.

Lady Margaret Beauford claimed royal blood as a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, third son of Edward III, and his third wife Katherine Swynford, Duchess of Lancaster. Katherine was John's mistress for 25 years and they had four children; John, Henry, Thomas and Joan Beaufort, when they married in 1396.

John of Gaunt ensured his and Katherine's children were legitimized. His nephew, Richard II, issued Letters Patent, confirmed by an Act of Parliament in 1397, that legitimized John of Gaunt's Beaufort children. In 1407, Richard's cousin and successor, Henry IV, son of John of Gaunt and his first wife Blanche of Lancaster, issued an order confirming the legitimacy of the Beaufort children, but barring them from the throne. The legality of Henry's order was doubtful, given the Beauforts were previously legitimized by an Act of Parliament. The Yorkist kings were as well. Joan Beaufort, only daughter of the Gaunt-Swynford union, was the mother of Cecily Neville, wife of Richard, Duke of York and mother of Edward IV and Richard III.

In November, Margaret and Edmund were married when Margaret was only twelve years old. A year later though, Edmund Tudor was gone, died of an illness after being held captured the Yorkist Herbert family. They imprisoned him at Carmarthen Castle in south Wales, where he caught the plague and died while she was heavily six months pregnant. Her brother-in-law, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke took her in for safety, where she'll give birth to her child. Now the moment has come, if she succeeds on giving birth to a male heir, there might be hope for the Lancaster family.

A cry interrupted Margaret's thoughts as the child entered the world. "What is it?"

The nurse wrapped the newborn in white linen as she handed the child to its mother. "A boy. A healthy baby boy."

Margaret was shock at what she had heard. She had a son, a Lancastrian heir. She held out her hand as the nurse placed her newborn son in her arms. The new mother looks at her newborn son as he cried. Margaret bounces him up and down to calm him.

"Hush, my child. Hush, my beautiful Henry Tudor."

And so, on the twenty-eight of January, the Year of our Lord 1457, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, son of the late Edmund Tudor and the Lady Margaret Beaufort, heir to the house of Lancaster was born.