Summary

Owain ap Mredydd (c. 1385 - Feb. 2, 1461) was a Welsh military man and courtier.

A descendant of the Welsh prince Rhys ap Gruffydd (The Lord Rhys), Owen Tudor is best remembered as an ascendant of the royal branch of the Tudors and for his relationship and probable secret marriage to Catherine of Valois, widow of King Henry V of England. He is in fact the grandfather of Henry VII of England, the first Tudor ruler, and his ancestry should probably be traced to Anglesey where the Tudors of Penmynydd resided, whose patriarch could be traced to Ednyfed Fychan (c. 1170-1246) Siniscalco for the Kingdom of Gwynedd. One of Owen's aunts became the mother of Owain Glyndŵr, the last Welshman to hold the title of Prince of Wales. His father and uncles played a prominent role both at his court and during the Glyndŵr Revolt.

Owen Tudor was born in Anglesey around 1392 to Maredudd ap Tudur (died 1406) and Margaret ferch Dafydd. Historians are fairly unanimous in tracing Owen's ancestry back to the military man and Siniscalco for the Kingdom of Gwynedd Ednyfed Fychan who had taken one of Rhys ap Gruffydd's daughters as his wife, allowing him and the family to gain access to positions of leadership in Gwynedd and to attempt, along with them, to make Wales a united kingdom. Even after Edward I's Conquest of Wales, the ruling family of Gwynedd continued to rule, albeit in the name of the English king. However, this did not prevent them from feeling a sense of belonging to the Welsh people, and loyalty to their heritage led them to participate in the Glyndŵr Revolts. Of the early years of Owen's life in fact nothing is known probably because of the family's participation in the rebellions, from time to time it was said that he was the bastard son of a brewery owner, that his father was a murderer who had gone into hiding, that Owen had fought at the Battle of Azincourt, that he was a member of the household of Catherine of Valois as her cloakroom attendant, that he was a knight in the service of her husband Henry V of England, that their relationship had begun when he had ended up in the queen's lap while they were dancing, or again that the beginning was due to the fact that Catherine had seen him while swimming. The 16th-century Welsh historian Elis Gruffydd wrote that Owen was in Catherine's service, what is certain is that after the suppression of the revolt many Welshmen sought and obtained a secure place at court and, in May 1421, such Owen Meredith joined the retinue of Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford one of Henry's court leaders in office from 1415 until 1421.

Henry V died on August 31, 1422, leaving Catherine a widow; she initially lived with her young son Henry VI of England before going to live at Wallingford Castle. A few years later, in 1427, rumors spread that Catherine had embarked on an affair with a cousin of her husband, Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset, something that was far from certain, but it was enough for the need to regulate the queen's second marriage to be felt. Some historians believe that the affair was not only true, but that Edmund Tudor was born of it and that, in order not to break the laws enacted at the time, Catherine then quickly married Owen. Owen and Catherine had six officially recognized children:

To these must be added at least one illegitimate child Owen had by an unknown woman:

When Catherine died in 1437, Owen found himself without her protection and was imprisoned at Newgate Prison, escaping the following year he was captured and placed in the custody of the Constable of Windsor Castle. In 1439 Henry VI pardoned him by giving him back all his property and assets plus gave him an annual pension of £40 and got him a position at court by creating him Keeper of the King's Park at Denbigh. In 1442 Henry welcomed his half-brothers Edmund and Jasper Tudor to court, and ten years later they were created Earl of Richmond and Earl of Pembroke, respectively, which made public Henry's recognition of his own uterine brothers. In 1459 Owen had his pension increased to £100 and he and his youngest son were commissioned to arrest a House of York sympathizer, John Dwnn of Kidwelly, and a year later Owen expressed some interest in property confiscated from another Yorkist John, Lord Clinton. On Feb. 5, 1460, he and Owen were given appointments, life tenure, in the lordship of Denbigh, then the prerogative of the Duke of York, a sign that it might be theirs in the future. Owen found death during the War of the Roses, obviously siding with the House of Lancaster, Owen and Jasper participated in February 1461 in the Battle of Mortimer's Cross where they were soundly defeated by Edward of York's men. Two days after the battle he was executed and buried at a church in Hereford; it was February 4, 1461.

Sources

1. Owen Tudor
2. Owen Tudor
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m J. Williams (1869). "Penmynyth and the Tudors". Archaeologia Cambrensis. 15 (3rd ser): 278–294, 379–402.
4. ^ a b c d e Glyn Roberts (1959). "EDNYFED FYCHAN ( EDNYFED ap CYNWRIG ) and his descendants". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales.
5. ^ a b c d Griffiths, R. A. (2004). "Tudor, Owen (c.1400–1461)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press
6. ^ Carr, A. D. (2004). "Tudor family, forebears of (per. c.1215–1404)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press
7. ^ Richmond, Colin (2008). "Beaufort, Edmund, first duke of Somerset (c.1406–1455)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press
8. Il est le quatrième fils d'Édouard III et né après Jean de Gand.
9. Charles D. Ross: Edward IV. London 1974, S. 31.