Category Archives: Queens of England

Henry VIII’s wives

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Two posts in one day.  I’m sorry if I seem to be going slightly overboard.  However, as other folks have pointed out I’ve not really begun to scratch the surface of Henry and his spouses, not that this is even taking me beyond the veneer.  It’s more of a trip down memory lane.  I couldn’t resist this image.  I recognised it from a text book I used at school.

quick guide to h8's marriages.jpg

Of course there’s the rhyme about the wives as well:

Divorced, beheaded, died.

Divorced, beheaded, survived.

 

There’s also the mnemonic: All boys should come home please.

The first letter of each word equating to -Aragon, Boleyn, Seymour, Cleves, Howard and Parr.

 

Having got that out of my system I intend to look at each wife in more detail, or some of the key people around them over the next few weeks.  I also intend to use some of the wonderful Tudor related images that are available from Holbein to more contemporary interpretations.  Here’s one to be going on with from the Guardian.  Double click on the image to open a new window and access the Guardian’s two part guide to the kings and queens of England printed in 2009.  I still have my paper copy in the proverbial safe place.

Henry-VIII-enjoyed-gambli-008.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

Katherine Parr

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kathparr emblem.pngKatherine Parr, the wife who survived, was the daughter of Thomas Parr of Kendal who died in 1517. She was also twice widowed; first married to Sir Edward Burough when she was about fifteen, but was widowed shortly after in 1529. Her second husband was Sir John Nevill, Lord Latimer. He was a wealthy landowner in Yorkshire, his land was in the path of the pilgrims of the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace and the family were held hostage. He died in 1542 just as Henry was looking for another wife.

 

Katherine had moved into the household of Princess Mary and was courted by Thomas Seymour, one of Jane Seymour’s brothers. Whatever Katherine’s thoughts on the matter she attracted the attention of Henry and when Henry proposed there wasn’t really a polite way out of it. They married on 12 July 1543. Katherine had yet another old husband and this one was probably the most dangerous of all of them.

 

 Like all of his wives Henry was related to Katherine. The Parrs were descended from King John and Edward III as well as Joan Beaufort who became the Countess of Westmorland. There was rather more Plantagenet blood in Katherine’s veins than in Anne Boleyn’s or Jane Seymour’s for that matter.

 

The maiden with flowing hair in Katherine’s emblem is St Catherine of Alexandria – she of wheel fame who was martyred by the Emperor Maxentius after she’d bested his scholars in a debate about Christianity. It probably didn’t help that many of the scholars she argued with became Christians on the strength of Catherine’s argument and were promptly put to death. Maxentius’s wife apparently suffered a similar fate leaving the way clear for Maxentius to try and win Catherine over with a marriage proprosal which she rejected. The alternative turned out to be death on a wheel. She was one of the most important medieval saints.

The Tudor rose needs no explanation.

 

Her motto was “To be useful in all that I do.” And she was. She brought the royal family together, advised Henry to get himself some reading glasses and forwarded the Protestant faith. She even had books of her own work published.

 

After Henry’s death she married Thomas Seymour – the ambitious admiral who turned his attentions to Katherine’s step-daughter. Katherine died at Sudeley Castle in 1548 having given birth to a daughter called Mary. She left all her possessions to Thomas who would shortly afterwards find himself condemned to a traitor’s death.

 

Katherine Howard

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katherine howard emblem.pngHenry’s ‘rose without a thorn’ and ‘jewel’ was Anne Boleyn’s cousin and the Duke of Norfolk’s niece. Her father was the duke’s youngest brother. The Howard family together with every other noble house in the country seemed to have spent considerable time and effort dangling promising young women in front of Henry following the Cleves debacle.  Of course, she was also descended from the Plantagenets so a dispensation was required but more importantly Katherine required a dispensation because of cousin Anne – Henry didn’t want a rerun of the Leviticus/Deuteronomy argument.

 

She was at most twenty-one-years-old if Chapuys is to be believed with a spouse some thirty years older. In all likelihood she was much younger, estimates have been placed her between fourteen and sixteen when she married the king. The Spanish envoy placed her at fifteen-years-of-age. She chose as her motto “No other will but his,” she would perhaps have done well to remember it.   Her emblem was the crowned Tudor rose.

 

Katherine’s life was not a straight forward one. Her mother had died when she was nine at the most. She’d seen her cousin as queen, disgraced and then executed. She’d been sent to live with her step-grandmother the Duchess of Norfolk who lodged many family members in straitened circumstances. Except, the dowager was often at court and didn’t seem to have a very well organised household management which allowed Henry Manox, Katherine’s music teacher, and then Francis Dereham to take the kind of liberties that would get them sent to prison and placed on a register on their release in this day and age. And if the Spanish Ambassador’s information was correct Henry wasn’t any better except of course these were Tudor times rather than modern ones. Childhood was brief and girls a marriageable commodity so far as their parents – and in this case their uncle- was concerned.

 

Henry showered gifts and attention on his young bride. In fact some accounts suggest that he couldn’t keep his hands off her but Katherine did not have the education of Henry’s other wives. Katherine Parr was extremely well educated as was Catherine of Aragon . Elizabeth of York used to send her  Spanish daughter-in-law books as presents and it was Katherine who some historians suggest drew Henry to Humanist literature. Anne Boleyn was no less well read and her wit which turned shrewish was certainly sharp. Perhaps Henry thought his bride was closer in character to Jane Seymour but she’d borne him a son and then died before becoming boring. Anne of Cleves had the common good sense not to protest when her marriage was annulled. Katherine Howard on the other hand made rather good friends with a certain Thomas Culpepper who was a cousin – her mother’s maiden name was Culpepper. Cheating on the king cannot have been straightforward and somewhat ironically the woman who helped her with her assignations was Jane, Lady Rochford – the same woman who’d accused her own husband of incest with Anne Boleyn.

 

On the 2nd November 1541 Thomas Cramner sent Henry a letter breaking the news of Katherine’s betrayal. Katherine was executed on the 13 February 1542 and unlike Anne who’d been buried in an arrow chest Katherine’s body was destroyed by lime on the orders of the king. If Katherine did not have a body she could not arise on the day of judgement. Henry believed that he’d wiped his rose without a thorn from this world and the hereafter – or so the Yeomen of the Guard giving the tour of the Tower would have their visitors believe.

 

A new law was passed. Women hoping to marry Henry VIII had to reveal their past love lives before they could marry the monarch.

 

 

 

The Flanders Mare – Anne of Cleves

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annecleeves emblemPrior to her marriage Anne of Cleves used the emblem of two white swans which stood for innocence and honesty or sincerity. They were also supporters of the Cleves badge coming as they did from the story of one of Anne’s ancestors who was guided down the Rhine by a pair of swans. It should be added that more factually, like all his wives, Henry was related to Anne – through a daughter of Edward I.

 

Anne’s motto, which seems rather tongue in cheek to modern eyes, was “God send me well to keep.” However, rather than casting aspersions on her spouse’s marital record it was rather an attestation of her Lutheran background, no doubt one of the reasons why Thomas Cromwell was so keen on the marriage. The couple married in January 1540 despite the fact that Henry had taken one look at his bride and decided that he didn’t like her overly much and after the marriage declared that she hadn’t arrived in England in a state of maidenly virtue – which was hardly chivalrous especially as Anne’s upbringing was cloistered and it had to be explained to her that Henry would need to kiss her more than goodnight for there to be any Tudor heirs- either that or Anne was playing a very clever game indeed.

 

anne of clevesIt’s odd too that poor Anne should have been lumbered with the title Flanders Mare when the portrait by Holbein shows someone very different to that particular sobriquet. It has been suggested that Holbein had played up Anne’s beauty when he visited the court of Cleves to paint Anne and her sister Amelia but there again no one accused him of making the full length portrait of Christina more striking than the lady in question really was. Anne of course hadn’t turned down the opportunity to marry Henry, Christina said that she’d be more than happy to marry him if she had a spare head.

 

The Cleves ‘marriage’ after a disastrous start with Henry bursting in on Anne incognito when she first arrived in England lasted only six months and Cromwell’s head was on the block because of his unfortunate matchmaking skills. To be fair a portrait doesn’t show what a person is actually like and Anne swiftly developed a reputation for being unlearned and not very witty, though it didn’t stop her learning English, besides Henry had met another girl and it was easy enough to get an annulment from his Cleves marriage. The teenage Katherine Howard had been dangled in front of the Tudor monarch and he’d taken the bait. Anne must have heaved a huge sigh of relief when she became as a ‘sister’ to the king and popular with the aforementioned king’s subjects and daughters. She stayed in England until her death in 1557.

 

Her emblem is the ducal badge of Cleves which is apparently an escarbuncle- and that, as we all know, is a eight spindled wheel without a rim.

Jane Seymour – Plain Jane

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jane seymour emblem.pngJane Seymour, perhaps the original Plain Jane if Chapuys comments are to be believed, became wife number three on 30th May 1536. She was another descendent of Edward III via Hotspur. She’d also been a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon and also to Anne Boleyn. One story said that Anne was deeply distressed to encounter Jane sitting on Henry’s lap. Her chosen motto was “Bound to serve and obey” – a wise choice given Henry’s complaints about wife number two and presumably wife number one’s implacable logic and argument. Her emblem is the phoenix rising from a tower  surrounded by those burgeoning roses reflecting both a Plantagenet and Lancastrian inheritance. The pheonix is a symbol of love and renewal. Jane is the renewed Tudor hope for an heir.

 

Jane would also be the queen who oversaw Henry’s return to a more traditional set of beliefs.  She tried to reconcile him to Princess Mary and also interceded on behalf of the catholic pilgrims who’d revolted during the Pilgrimage of Grace.  Her clemency wasn’t welcome so far as Henry was concerned and she swiftly retreated from the political field.

 

It was February 1536 when word of Henry’s interest in Jane Seymour was first mentioned in ambassadorial dispatches and it wasn’t long before her brothers found themselves being rewarded with important posts and preferments.

 

In 1537 Jane fell pregnant, a fact recorded by Edward Hall. The rejoicing must have been a little bit cautious given all the previous disappointments but on the 12 October she produced a boy, Edward, and then promptly died from complications on 24th October. Cromwell would later blame her attendants for giving her rich food and sweets but in reality it was likely to have been childbed fever that carried Jane off.

 

Panther-close-blog.jpgJane was very different from her predecessor, although Anne’s leopard was very swiftly adapted into Jane’s other symbol – the panther. The panther, heraldically speaking, is a more gentle animal than a leopard and can also represent Christ.  He was also white and covered in multicoloured spots rather than being black.  Examples can be found at Hampton Court looking rather splendid but it should also be remembered that Henry VI used a panther as a symbol as did the Beauforts.  Double click on the image of the panther to find out more about the garden at Hampton Court.  Jane wasn’t particularly well educated and reverted to older fashion styles when she became queen. Perhaps she thought that the higher neck lines would stop Henry being too attracted to her own ladies-in-waiting, she had after all had plenty of opportunity to watch what went on at court. Historians can’t agree as to whether she was an active player in inveigling Henry away from Anne or whether she was a pawn in the hands of her family. She kept her own counsel and did not live long enough to prove a disappointment to Henry.

Anne Boleyn – ‘Most Happy’

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anneboleyn emblemIt was 1514 when the first rumour of a possible annulment in Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon drew breath. In 1516 a princess was born and for a time there was hope but by 1525 Catherine was beyond the age of childbearing and Henry ceased to cohabit with his wife.  He’d been involved romantically with several of Catherine’s maids by that time and had been dallying with Mary Boleyn since 1522.  In 1526 Henry found himself falling in love with Mary’s sister Anne.  The following year he proposed and started proceedings to remove Catherine from the picture.  She didn’t go without a fight. Of course there was  also the small matter of getting rid of all of Catherine of Aragon’s pomegranate symbols from buildings, furniture etc and replacing it with Anne’s emblem and initials.

Anne’s emblem when she became queen in 1533 after a secret marriage ceremony before Henry’s marriage to Catherine had been formally annulled was the white falcon.  The white falcon was part of the crest of the Earls of Ormonde from whom Thomas Boleyn, Anne’s father, claimed descent via his mother.  Piers Butler was forced to hand over the title to Henry in 1528 and, in turn, he graciously awarded it to his future father-in-law in 1529.

This particular white falcon is alighting onto a barren tree stump, incidentally a Plantagenet badge, which is sprouting a crop of roses – hardly complicated imagery.  The old queen had failed to produce a male heir; Anne carrying all before her was going to produce a Tudor sprig.  The arrival of another princess, this time called Elizabeth, in September 1533 must have come as a blow.

The crown and the sceptre are doing the job you might suppose them to do.  They are reminding everyone who cares to look that God, rather than Henry VIII, has made Anne queen of England.

As well as the falcon Anne also used the leopard which derived from the coat of arms of Thomas of Brotherton who was a son of Edward I and the First Earl of Norfolk – and yes, Anne claimed descent from him  as her mother was Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk.  Clearly Anne was keen to identify her royal connections.  Having supplanted bona fide Spanish royalty she went to some lengths to demonstrate the rather thin trickle of Plantagenet blood flowing through her veins.

On her marriage Anne chose as her motto “Most happy.” Before then she’d had the words, in Latin, “Grumble all you like, this is how it’s going to be.”  You’ve got to admire the woman’s panache but you can see how she might have irritated the great and the good with her abrasive sense of humour.  She is also purported to have had a third motto meaning, “Always the same.” This was the one that Elizabeth I chose to use.

How happy Anne remained is a moot point given that there were rumours of Henry VIII’s attention wandering less than a year into his second marriage.  Hart mentions his six month affair with Anne’s cousin in 1535. By this time Anne was proving a disappointment.  As well as meddling in political and religious affairs she miscarried two or possibly three babies. There then followed a miscarriage of a boy on 29th January 1536- the same day as Catherine of Aragon’s funeral.

That same year as the monasteries were dissolved and the machinery of Catholicism demolished to furnish Henry’s bank account and ego,  Anne found herself arrested and carted off to the Tower where she was duly executed on the colourful, not to mention highly dubious charges, of treason, adultery and incest on the 19th May with a sword rather than an axe. Having made the famous comment about a small neck she also beseeched , “Jesu save my Sovereign and master the King, the most goodliest, and gentlest Prince that is, and long to reign over you.”

Eleven days later Henry, that “goodliest” monarch, wed wife number three and all those master masons, carpenters and glaziers found themselves removing the letter A and replacing them with a J.

Catherine of Aragon – humble and loyal

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catherine of aragon emblemEach of Henry VIII’s wives chose their own motto and emblem. Anne Boleyn’s motto was ‘Most Happy.” After that Henry’s queens must have chosen their motto with rather a lot of care and not a little dread.

 

Catherine of Aragon was Henry VIII’s first wife. They married in 1509 with Henry honouring a promise to marry his brother’s widow.  Catherine had become a penniless princess after Prince Arthur’s death in 1502 whilst her father-in-law and father argued about her dowry and whether she would marry Prince Henry or Henry VII or be sent home.  The death of Henry VII enabled seventeen-year-old Henry to rescue his princess.  Thomas More’s collection of poems celebrating the marriage of the royal couple, the so-called Coronation Suite, is liberally decorated with intertwined Tudor roses and pomegranates. The Museum of London houses a badge showing a pomegranate and a Tudor rose combined. Other examples of a rose morphing into a pomegranate have been found elsewhere and help demonstrate the popularity of the marriage between Henry and Catherine. Click on the image at the start of the post to open up a new window. For a while they were a fairy tale couple.

pomegranate and tudor rose

 

Catherine’s motto was ‘humble and loyal’ and her emblem was a crowned pomegranate. The pomegranate, originally the heraldic symbol for the city of Granada, represents life, fertility and marriage. The representation of marriage comes from the Greek myth featuring Hades and Persephone. Persophone was kidnapped by Hades and while she was in the Underworld she ate six pomegranate seeds. Persophone, as a consequence of eating the seeds and a ruling by Zeus, was required to spend six months of the year with Hades. The pomegranate came, somewhat ironically in Katherine’s case, to represent the insolubility of marriage. Clearly Katherine’s spouse had other ideas given that in May 1533 having failed to acquire a papal annulment he simply severed the insoluble tie by declaring himself to be head of the Church in England and divorcing himself from his wife of twenty-four years in order to marry Anne Boleyn who was a little bit pregnant.  It had taken eight years for Henry to get what he wanted but ultimately Catherine, despite her stubbornness and determination, was removed and exiled to Kimbolton Castle where she would die in 1536 little mourned by Henry but revered by her subjects, by her friends and enemies alike – Thomas Cromwell, the agent of her fall, admired her immensely for her intellect and powers of argument.

During that all that time Catherine had indeed been humble and loyal.  She’d done everything required of a queen from hand stitching Henry’s shirts, making blackwork popular and giving it its alternate name of Spanishwork, to being regent in his absence.  Whilst Henry VIII was off on a jolly in France pretending to have a war in 1513 it was Catherine who oversaw the victory at Flodden which also saw the death of her brother-in-law James IV of Scotland.

In the Bible the pomegranate represents fertility and abundance. Sadly for Katherine the arrival of heirs produced one tragedy after another. One baby boy lived a month before dying. In 1516 the Princess Mary was born but the passage of time and one pregnancy after another was taking its toll on the queen in both her looks and outlook on life. The one thing that was required of a queen was to produce a male heir.  Always pious, she turned increasingly to prayer for comfort bringing us to the final meaning of the pomegranate. In medieval art pomegranates are linked to resurrection and eternal life.   Henry also turned to the Bible, for an explanation rather than consolation.  He reasoned that he had sinned in taking his brother’s widow as his wife.

Henry_VIII_Catherine_of_Aragon_coronation_woodcut

 

Katherine’s daughter Mary took her mother’s pomegranate emblem for her own. The British Library houses a book of Mary’s depicting the pomegranate on its cover.

 

 

 

 

The End of Elizabeth Woodville

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elizabeth woodville

Henry VII’s year didn’t get off to a good start in 1487.  A priest from Oxford turned up in Dublin with a young lad in tow.  Depending upon the source you read the lad, Lambert Simnel, was to be passed off either as Richard, Duke of York – the younger of the two princes in the tower or as Edward, Earl of Warwick who was very much alive and well but in Henry’s custody.  Unsurprsingly Henry VII summoned a council meeting.  What happened next so far as Elizabeth Woodville, dowager queen of England, mother-in-law of Henry VII and mother of Elizabeth of York, Edward V and Richard of York  is open to debate.  Its a certainty that she was deprived of her dower lands which were given to Elizabeth of York.  Elizabeth Woodville was packed up and sent off to the Abbey at Bermondsey where she remained for the next five years until she died.

Polydore Vergil in his official history said that she was sent there by Henry VII as punishment for having made her peace with Richard III in 1484 – when she came out of sanctuary having received written guarantees that no harm would come either to her or to her daughters.  If this is the case then Henry must have found out something about Elizabeth Woodville that made him very cross indeed to have delivered such a belated relegation to the ‘naughty step’.  Certainly there hadn’t been any problem when the doting granny was allowed to be Prince Arthur’s godmother in September 1486.

Franics Bacon, taking his lead from Vergil, writing in 1622 suggested that she was up to her neck in the Lambert Simnel conspiracy arguing that Simond, the priest, couldn’t have known how to train the young impostor.  Therefore someone must have been in the background pulling the necessary strings.

So it cannot be, but that some great person, that knew particularly and familiarly, Edward Plantagenet, had a hand in the business, from whom the priest might take aim. That which is most probable, out of the precedent and subsequent acts, is, that it was the Queen Dowager from whom this action principally originated. For, certain it is that she was a busy, negotiating woman, and in her withdrawing chamber had the fortunate conspiracy for the king against King Richard III. been batched, which the king knew, and remembered perhaps but too well, and was at this time extremely discontent with the king, thinking her daughter, as the king handled the matter, not advanced, but depressed; and none could hold the book so well to prompt and instruct this stage play as she could.

 

Bacon may have had a point but he does ignore the fact that if Elizabeth was plotting against her son-in-law then she was also plotting to turf her daughter off the throne and endanger her new grandson.  This then, surely, would raise the question that maybe she believed that rather than Edward, Earl of Warwick that she thought that the young man was her son Richard of York – the chronicles of the time can’t make their mind up about which Plantagenet sprig Simnel started off as which further muddies the water.  Of course, all that aside, may be Henry didn’t trust Elizabeth’s son from her first marriage Lord Grey.  In any event since there’s no evidence its all rather circumstantial.

Henry VII had good cause for his paranoia whether Elizabeth Woodville was innocent or not. John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln was in London by Henry’s side at the beginning of 1487.  It was he who met with Edward, Earl of Warwick when he was paraded through London and then fetched to Sheen.  He stated categorically that the unfortunate young man was the son of George, Duke of Clarence.  It didn’t stop him sneaking away a few days later in order to join the Yorkists.  By the time of the Battle of Stoke in June that year Henry was demanding that John be taken alive as he wanted to know who else had been conspiring against him.  Perhaps unsurprisingly John de la Pole did not survive the battle.

As for Elizabeth Woodville,  she appeared at court from time to time and she was allowed visitors in Bermondsey. In 1490 she received an annuity and at Christmas 1491 she received a prettily worded Christmas gift of 50 marks from Henry VII. She was even considered as a bride for King James III of Scotland (d. 1488), an unlikely match for Henry VII to make if he believed that Elizabeth had been plotting against him. Henry wasn’t that silly – but there again Elizabeth Woodville didn’t end her days having been queen of two countries either.

We are left with a further option that Elizabeth chose, voluntarily or with a hefty shove from Margaret Beaufort perhaps (but that’s another story), to end her days at Bermondsey, a perfectly respectable decision for a dowager queen in her twilight years.  Historians have observed that she’d rented a house in the precincts of Westminster Abbey in 1486 so perhaps she simply chose to retreat further from the heart of politics; perhaps Westminster held too many memories.

She died in June 1492 and was buried without fanfare next to Edward IV in Windsor having left a will that reflected how far she’d moved away from the world she’d once inhabited,  “I have no wordely goodes to do the Quene’s Grace, my derest doughter, a pleaser with, nether to reward any of my children, according to my hart and mynde, I besech Almyghty Gode to blisse here Grace, with all her noble issue, and with as good hart and mynde as is to me possible, I geve her Grace my blessing, and all the forsaide my children.”  She goes on to request that her “small stuff” and other goods be used to settle any outstanding debts.

So ended the life of the woman who’d created chaos when Edward IV married for love, broke with convention and irritated the Kingmaker.  Before him, the only other monarch or royal heir to marry for love was the Black Prince; after Edward IV and rather more frequently – Henry VIII.  The Stuarts all married diplomatically but not necessarily with any more success.

Elizabeth Woodville was not of a suitable status, she was not a diplomatic asset and when she arrived at court she also come with a huge extended family who upset the balance of power and snaffled all the best marriages but she remains the consort that anyone with an interest in English History can name – apart from those unfortunate ladies of her grandson’s choosing.

 

Baldwin David, (2002) Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower.  Stroud: The History Press

 

Owain Tudor

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Katherine of Valois was widowed at just twenty-one years of age when Henry V, victor of Agincourt, died of dysentery. Her infant son’s protectors-he uncles and great-uncles- could see that she might wish to marry again. However, they don’t appear to have been terribly keen on the idea given some of the strictures that they imposed. Firstly Katherine’s prospective spouse had to be prepared to give up his titles and his lands. Secondly she had to get her son’s permission and in order for young Henry VI to give it he had to have reached his majority – so sixteen. These rules seem to have been proposed by Duke Humphrey of Gloucester who became concerned in 1428 that Katherine was showing a bit too much interest in Edmund Beaufort, Earl of Somerset.

 

As luck would have it the lonely young woman did encounter a man that she wished to marry, her Keeper of the Wardrobe – one Owain Tudor as he would eventually become known. Depending upon which version of events you read she either spotted him whilst he was swimming or he fell into her lap whilst dancing. There is, it would have to be said, no historical evidence for either.

 

Owain ap Maredudd was born, we think, the same year his father Maredudd’s cousin Owain Glyndwr raised a rebellion against English rule- so about 1400. Maredudd’d brothers were heavily involved in the conflict. Owain Glyndwr had vanished by the time young Owain was six – another subject for legend despite his uprising against the English being quelled.   Maredudd’s fortune was in a state of parlous repair so, in one history, he went to London to make his fortune. Other accounts say that he murdered someone and fled into Snowdonia…so take your pick. In any event young Owain did not have a settled childhood.

Maredudd and his brothers claimed a line of descent from Cadrod of Calchfynedd and were relations of the Princes of  Deheubarth (South-West Wales). Maredudd himself held land inAnglesey.  Prior to Glyndwr’s rebellion he’d served both Welsh and English kings in important posts. In 1392, for example,  he  was Escheator of Anglesey.  He was also the Bishop of Bangor’s  steward.

Despite his rebellious father, cousin and uncles by the time he was seven Owain was at the court of Henry IV – the very man that his family were revolting against on their native Anglesey.

It is possible that Owain was at the Battle of Agincourt as a squire but we cannot be certain. He turns up in the records in 1421 in the service of Sir Walter Hungerford and then he must have entered the household of Katherine of Valois but we can only guess that Hungerford recommended him for the post. Equally we only have the two romanticized tales of how a dowager queen and her keeper of the wardrobe fell in love.

 

Inevitably Tudor ‘spin’ was bought to bear on proceedings by Henry VII. His historian Polydore Vergil wrote of “Owen Tyder” that he was “a gentleman of Wales, adorned with wonderful gifts of body and minde, who derived his pedigree from Cadwalleder, the last King of the Britons.” Henry VII needed to bulk his ancestry out a bit and since he was rather short on Plantagenet genes had to look back into the mists of time in order to garner some shreds of royalty.

 

Of course, Henry’s desire to justify his right to the crown by blood rather than right of conquest- was somewhat thwarted by the fact that Owain and Katherine couldn’t exactly publicise their nuptials so had married in secret and the problem with secrets is that there are no records. Katherine certainly hadn’t got Henry VI’s consent and she’d married beneath her another issue that the parliamentary act regarding any marriage she might have made had issue with– but at least Owain didn’t need to worry about losing his titles and his lands. He may perhaps have been a bit more concerned about losing his life when the various uncles of Henry VI’s protectorate found out what the dowager queen had been up to.

 

We can surmise that the couple married somewhere between 1428 and 1430 when Edmund Tudor was born.  We know that they went on to have at least four children – Edmund, Jasper, Owen and Margaret. There may have been others. We also know that Humphrey of Gloucester wasn’t terribly amused when he found out that Katherine had not only married but was producing the king’s half-siblings who were to be treated, according to the parliamentary act which had laid so many stipulations upon Katherine’s remarriage, as members of the royal family.

In 1436 politics caught up with Katherine and Owen, despite their quite life it is ultimately quite difficult to hide such a rapidly growing family.  The children were removed and Katherine retired to Bermondsey Abbey where she gave birth to her last child- Margaret.  The dowager queen died on January 3rd 1437.

Owain was ordered to come to court but he very sensibly refused without a letter of safe conduct.  He did set out for London but decided that it would be better for his safety if he took sanctuary in Westminster rather than throw himself on the Protectorate’s mercy.

Ultimately Owain was acquitted of all charges against him but the establishment can be a spiteful thing.  Owain was retrieved from Wales and imprisoned by Lord Beaumont who handed him over to the Earl of Suffolk.  He spent time in Newgate Prison and in 1438, following his escape from Newgate and recapture was sent to Windsor.  In 1439 he was finally released.

By that time Henry VI was of age.  He pardoned Owain for any crime that may have been committed, took Owain into his own household and welcomed his half-brothers.  Owain, unlike some more nobly born Englishmen remained loyal to Henry for the rest of his life. He must have dreamed of returning to his home in North Wales because in 1460 Henry VI made him Keeper of the Parks at Denbigh.

The following year Owain took part in the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross.  The old man was captured and executed in Hereford market square on the orders of Edward IV who was furious about the death of his own father.  Owain believed that he would be ransomed until the moment that he was faced with the executioner’s block.  Owain’s head was put on display at the market cross where a young woman combed his hair and washed his face before placing lit candles around it.  Contemporary sources describe her as mad but Leanda de Lisle contemplates the possibility that the young woman was the mother of Owain’s illegitimate son Daffyd who was about two in 1461.

 

de Lisle, Leanda. (2013) Tudor: the family story London: Chatto and Windus

 

Cards at Christmas

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elizabeth of yorkIn 1461 Edward IV’s parliament  passed a law that permitted the playing of card and dice games at Christmas…they were banned the rest of the time.  It was an old problem.  One of Edward II’s parliaments banned dice games because they interfered with archery practise.

Henry VII passed a similar law but his law banned servants from playing cards and dice throughout the year except for the twelve days of Christmas.  Henry’s accounts reflect the fact that he liked the odd flutter at a game of cards and that he lost more often than he won.  Henry’s spouse, Elizabeth of York is the model for the queen on English cards.