Henry VII is remembered as the first Tudor King, and it was he who defeated Richard III
at the Battle of Bosworth field.
His reign would change England forever, and his son Henry VIII who later came onto the
throne after him would be known for his brutal and barbaric reign.
But there was a Tudor who came before them who married a Queen, and who was considered
a skilled courtier and also a knight.
However Owen Tudor’s life caused a significant degree of controversy, and he was later executed
following a deadly battle during the wars of the roses.
Join us today as we look at the brutal execution of the grandfather of the Tudors, remember
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Owen Tudor was a man who had roots in Wales.
The Tudors as we know them were descendants from the Welsh, so when they took the throne
they were some of the first Welsh rulers of England.
Owen was a descendent of Ednyfed Fychan, and this made him part of one of the most powerful
14th century Welsh families.
Many of his relatives became leading nobles in Wales, and played a key part in governing
the land.
They were given privilege even after Edward I conquered the land and built castles over
Wales, but little is known about Owen Tudor’s early life.
It was alleged that he was illegitimate son of an alehouse keeper, or that his father
was in fact a murderer.
Some even claimed that he was a man who fought during the Battle of Agincourt, despite this
meaning he would have been a teenager when he would have done this.
But many believe that Owen Tudor eventually became an equine of Henry V, and later the
keeper of his wife Catherine of Valois’ household or wardrobe.
It’s not known how he managed to gain this position, however he then caught the attention
of the Queen.
During one dance at court, it’s alleged he fell into the lap of Catherine of Valois,
and that also he caught the Queen’s eye when he was swimming.
Several welshman had managed to secure positions at court following the Glyndwr Uprising, and
with this Owen Tudor could have come to court.
But Henry V died on the 31st August 1422, and his wife Catherine of Valois then became
a widow.
At the time she lived with her infant son King Henry VI who was proclaimed king after
his father’s death, and the Queen already had her eye on Owen Tudor.
Catherine it’s believed may have had an affair with the 2nd Duke of Somerset, Edmund
Beaufort, and there was opposition to a possible marriage between the two.
But Parliament even passed a law to regulate the marriage of widowed Queens to keep an
eye on this, and Catherine outraged said, ‘I shall marry a man so basely yet gently
born, that my lord regents may not object.’
She then married Owen Tudor, and the couple had three sons named Edmund, Jasper and Edward.
The couple were married for a number of years, but then Catherine of Valois passed away.
With this Owen Tudor lost the protection from the dowager Queen, and was imprisoned in Newgate
Prison.
But he managed to escape in 1438 and was then recaptured and was held inside of Windsor
Castle.
But in 1439 he was granted a pardon by his step son Henry VI, and he was restored to
his lands and was given a pension of £40 a year to live off.
He was also restored to court, and was then made the Keeper of the King’s Parks.
Henry VI then allowed his two half brother’s Edmund and Jasper to court, and they were
then made the Earls of Richmond and Pembroke.
Owen Tudor’s pension was then increased, and he was a valued member of Henry VI’s
court.
He also later acquired more land, and his sons also prospered.
However the Wars of the Roses then erupted across England.
The House of York and the House of Lancaster, of which the King belonged to went to war
over the throne, and it would plunge the whole country into civil war.
Owen Tudor joined his son Jasper in battle in January 1461, and they then fought at the
Battle of Mortimer’s Cross.
This battle was fought on the 2nd February 1461, and was fought close to the Welsh border.
The Lancastrian forces were led by Jasper Tudor and Owen his father, and these were
forces loyal to Henry VI the King.
They were fighting against the Duke of York, the future Edward IV and his army.
The Lancastrian army was 1000 men smaller than the Yorkist army, and the Tudor men tried
to hold back Edward’s division but they could not.
Owen Tudor tried to encircle the Yorkist left wing, but this didn’t work and his battle
was defeated and his men were routed.
Many of his men fled the battlefield, and Owen tudor was then captured.
He expected to be imprisoned and be held as a captive to be ransomed by the Lancastrians,
but this never occurred.
He was taken to the nearby town of Hereford, and he was then paraded throughout the streets.
He was taken to a scaffold where an executioner met him, and there he had his head taken clean
off by an axe.
It was said that his head after it was cut off, was placed on the market cross there,
‘and that a mad woman came and washed the blood from his face,’ and then surrounded
his head with 100 candles.
Moments before his execution he realised he was about to die and he said, ‘that head
shall lie on the stock that was once to lie on Queen Catherine’s lap.’
Following his execution his body was buried in a chapel in the Greyfriar’s church in
Hereford.
Later his illegitimate son paid for his tomb.
But Owen Tudor today is considered the grandfather of the Tudor dynasty, and his grandson would
go on to defeat the Yorkist threat forever during the Wars of the Roses.
He would defeat Richard III, and would begin to unite England in the aftermath of the Wars
of the Roses.
His great grandson would be Henry VIII, the infamous 6 wives King who even executed two
of his own wives.
But Owen Tudor’s execution was one of the first of the Wars of the Roses, a civil war
that changed the country forever.
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