Owen TUDOR (c. 1400-1461)

1. Owen TUDOR (also known as Owain ap MAREDUDD) was born circa 1400. He died on 2 February 1461. He married Catherine de Valois.

 

He was from Anglesey, and was a Welsh soldier and courtier, directly descended from The Lord Rhys but remembered only because of his role in founding the Tudor dynasty and for his relationship with Catherine of Valois, widow of King Henry V of England. At some point Owain anglicised his name from the Welsh Owain ap Maredudd to Owen Tudor, taking his grandfather's name for a surname rather than the more common practice of taking his father's.

Owain entered the service of Queen Catherine of Valois as keeper of the Queen's household (or her wardrobe) some time after the death of her husband Henry V of England on 22 August 1422. The Queen at first lived in the household of her infant son, King Henry VI, before moving to Wallingford Castle early in his reign, taking Tudor with her. No documentation survives of her marriage to Owen Tudor, which is believed to have taken place in around 1428. As Parliament had passed a resolution in 1428 forbidding queens dowager to remarry without the king's permission, their marriage would not have been legally valid.

 

Catherine de Valois and Owen TUDOR had the following children:

 

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Edmund Tudor 1ST EARL OF RICHMOND (1430-1456)

Second Generation

2. Edmund Tudor 1ST EARL OF RICHMOND, son of Owen TUDOR and Catherine de Valois, was born in 1430. He died on 1 November 1456. He married Margaret BEAUFORT.

 

Edmund was the father of king Henry VII who won the crown of England at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. The partial Welsh ancestry of the Tudor monarchs was ultimately responsible for better relations between England and Wales.

Edmund's own father Owen Tudor, from the Isle of Anglesey in north Wales, had followed king Henry V and gained glory in the wars against the French. He became a courtier and after the death of Henry V became the lover of his widow Katherine of Valois, known as "Katherine the Fair". The couple had three sons and seem to have married in secret.

Before their marriage Katherine, a daughter of the queen of France, had asked about Owen's pedigree. He was asked to produce some relatives for inspection at Windsor Castle. Sir John Wynne writes: "Whereupon he brought into her presence John ap Meredith and Howell ap Llewellyn, his near cousins, men of the goodliest stature and personage, but wholly destitute of bringing-up and nurture; for when the Queen had spoken to them in divers languages, and they were not able to answer her, she said 'they were the goodliest dumb creatures she ever saw'; a proof that Katherine knew several languages, but had no skill in Welsh".

 

Margaret BEAUFORT was the daughter of John Beaufort DUKE OF SOMERSET (1404-1444) and Margaret BEAUCHAMP ( -1482). She and Edmund Tudor 1ST EARL OF RICHMOND had the following children:

 

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Henry VII KING OF ENGLAND ( -1509)

Third Generation

3. Henry VII KING OF ENGLAND, son of Edmund Tudor 1ST EARL OF RICHMOND and Margaret BEAUFORT, married Elizabeth of York in 1486. He died in 1509.

 

He reigned 1485-1509.

 

Elizabeth of York and Henry VII KING OF ENGLAND had the following children:

 

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Henry VIII KING OF ENGLAND ( -1547). Henry married Katherine of Aragon in 1509. He married Anne BOLEYN in 1533. He married Jane SEYMOUR in 1536. He married Anne of Cleves in 1540. He married Katherine HOWARD in 1540. He married Katherine PARR in 1543. He died in 1547.

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Arthur TUDOR ( -1502). Arthur died in 1502.

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Margaret TUDOR (1489-1541). Margaret was born in 1489. She died in 1541.

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Mary TUDOR (1496- ). Mary was born in 1496.