Gone Medieval - The Medieval Tudors

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

We don't often use the word 'Tudor' on Gone Medieval but we can't ignore how the Tudors have a sensational medieval story. Henry VII was descended from the greatest Welsh princes and when word spread that he had a chance to sit on the English throne the Welsh prophecies, which foretold that one day one of their own would become king of the islands and would be crowned in London, looked to be coming true.Nathan Amin joins Matt Lewis to share the surprising story of the medieval ancestors of the Tudor monarchs, the greatest dynasty that's ever reigned over this country.Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis and edited by Max Carrey. The producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off your first 3 months using code ‘MEDIEVAL’ https://historyhit.com/subscriptionYou can take part in our listener survey here: https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MK Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From long-loss Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Jarniger, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on history hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries

with a brand-new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world, to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. Now, you and I know that the T word is just about the worst curse word that we can use on Gone Medieval. One person repeatedly makes it impossible not to say it though. My greatest history friend and enemy, my frenemy Nathan Amin, was here for the very first ever episode of Gone Medieval. He's been back since and it appears that I can't shake him off because he's gone and written another fantastic and enthralling book

that I couldn't help but read. Usually, I'm keen to say that everything is medieval. That can mean the bad things too, unfortunately. And here, I have to use the T word, I'm afraid, because the Tudor family have a medieval story. And it's an incredible one of making allies of enemies and a steady rise that ends, well, we all know where. Nathan's new book, Son of Prophecy, tells the surprising story of the medieval ancestors of the Tudor monarchs, with his trademark rigor and narrative flair. So welcome back to Gone Medieval, Nathan. Thank you very much for having me back, Matthew. You know, I'm always happy to squabble with you over history, and in particular, the Tudor, it's the greatest dynasty that's ever reigned over this country. It's always a great pleasure to talk to you.

I guess the first question I have is why is this book called Son of Prophecy? You've avoided using the T word in that main title there. Well, I think the Son of Prophecy, first and foremost, is a very catchy title. I mean, at the end of the day, we are in the business of marketing and selling books. We have to draw the audience in. So I think Son of Prophecy is a fantastic eye-catching title. You know, let's just be honest about that, first and foremost. But it is also the main narrative theme of this entire book.

What I'm intending to show with the book is where did Henry Tudor come from? He is a relative nobody who rises from obscurity. It's important to try and understand how people understood that during his age, how he himself understood that. And a lot of this ties into this wonderful bardic tradition that we have or had in Wales, which revolves around a messianic figure. who was foretold would rise and would save his people, would liberate his people from servitude. Now, a central element of that is this figure, the son of prophecy, or in Welsh, Umab Darogam.

This has roots as far back as the 9th century. You know, prophetic poetry is very important to Wales because it was all about the struggle for independence. Now, the people of Wales, the Camberie, they obviously had existential struggles throughout this period with their interactions with invading Saxons, Vikings and later Normans. So this Welsh poetry, this prophetic poetry, really caught the imagination of the Welsh. We have to remember that Henry Cedar was born and bred in Wales that is often overlooked. He's often treated like somebody who is an out-eastern. outsider who just exploited a minor Welsh connection. He was born and bred in Wales. He was educated

in Wales. He didn't leave Wales until he was 14 years old. As a child, he would have been immersed in this poetry. Now there were various Welsh figures who rose to the four, who were given the title Son of Prophecy by the Welsh bars. These include men like Erchuel in the last. Oain Laugogh, and Muslim. famously Owein Glendul. Welsh figures who were believed to be the Messiah who would come and free the Welsh. Now they all failed ultimately. They were all killed in various ways. When Henry Tudor starts to come to the fore in the 1480s, all of the attentions of the barbs suddenly turn to him. He is a Welshman born and bred. He is from the famous line of Welsh figures. He has descended

from some of the greatest Welsh princes that ever was. So, when words start to spread that he has a chance of going for the English throne, this interests the bards because their prophecies always foretold that one day, one of their own, would become king of these islands and would be crowned in London. And of course, Henry Tudor, that is exactly what happens to him. He becomes a king of at least a half of these islands. He is crowned in London and he is of Welsh. dissent. And that's very important because he is the son of prophecy in the eyes of the

barbs. After four or five hundred years, they finally put down their quills. The prophecies have been answered. And it's very interesting that it does seem that Henry himself believes this. Straightaway, he talks about how divine judgment has made him king at Bosworth Field. He starts to spread the idea that he is a liberator who's come to free the people from tyranny. This is something that his writers run with. Polydor Virgil writes an apocryphal story about how Henry the 6th had predicted Henry Tudor's rise. This is the boy over whom we give the dominion. And most famously, William Shakespeare takes their idea and completely invents a scene where Henry Tud as a boy is presented at the court of Henry the 6th. He has a fame that is framed for a crown.

He has a hand that is made to hold a scepter. So this story takes root in England that Henry was a prophesied king, but it all comes from contemporary Welsh barths who always betrayed this. And I'm sure Henry did believe it to extent, and that might make sense why he had the confidence to actually dare to invade England and go up against a more powerful king. Maybe he truly believed God and faith was on his side. And I guess when we think about the welshness of Henry the 7th, we need to be aware that he is connected enough to that part of his heritage to understand the power of those prophecies and the power of those messages and the fact that he could fulfill those roles.

You know, he is Welsh enough to know that centuries of law going back through the Bardric tradition, through all of these various people who have failed to show themselves to be the son of prophecy, that he knows. to position himself as someone who is going to fulfil that. Well, yeah, I mean, Henry was raised at Ragland Castle under the guardianship of William Herbert. And Ragland was the greatest hub of Welsh cultural learning there was in the 15th century. He would have encountered the Welsh bards and the Welsh poets telling him these stories

of Welsh mythology, of his apparent ancestor, King Arthur. Henry would have been raised with these stories. but he would also have been made aware of his own family history. Henry comes from what could only be termed a nest of Welsh rebels, successive generations of Welshmen who repeatedly rebelled against the English crown. Henry would have known his family history, he would have understood his place in this story. It just makes it more remarkable that yet another Welsh rebel doesn't just go up against the English crown. He actually becomes the English.

King himself. It's one of the most remarkable turnarounds we have in medieval history. Yeah. Right. That's enough about the wrong end of the Tudor dynasty. Can we talk about the other end of it? At least in terms of your book and your research, when can we talk about the beginnings or the emergence of a Tudor family? There is a very specific figure that you kind of start the story with. Yeah. So when Henry the 7th becomes king, he issues a commission for people to got into Wales to research his family history. He wants to write all of these slanderous assertions that have been made about him in the run-up to Bosworth

by people like Richard III, who have kind of mocked Henry's Welsh ancestry. So Henry wants to learn more about this. So from this commission, we get this amazing genealogy report that the first figure of historical note that we can really pinpoint is a chap called Ednafad Vachan. And he was born about 1170, in what we would now call Dembyshire.

The genealogy report after Ednaffert, it does become a bit more, I would say, inventive in its accuracy. But Ednaffat is the first real historical figure we can draw out. And he's a fascinating figure, a very powerful and influential North Welsh figure. It was given the nickname the terror of England. Because during this period, the independent Welsh, we're doing a lot of battles with the English.

And there is one famous episode, where he apparently goes into England and he comes back with a present for his liege lord, his prince, which is three English heads. And for this, he was given the name, the Terror of England. So he was an incredible military figure, it seems, but he was also a great diplomat. And he was essentially appointed as this Welsh position of Distine. And this is essentially the Prime Minister of the day. So for the independent kingdom of Gwynedd, which is most of north-west Wales,

he was given the administrative, the judicial and the military responsibility for running that kingdom. He was the most trusted confident of the prince of the day, Prince Kowellin, the Great. So it was a remarkable figure, and he did bequeath this legacy to his descendants who were also able to retain that great standing amongst the. North Welsh. Of course, the term the Tudors, the Welsh Tudors, that is not really a term we can apply to these people because they wouldn't have used a surname. It's a later term we use for convenience and we have to use it for convenience, otherwise it would make for a very confusing podcast and a very confusing book to read. But he's the first, the father I would suggest, of the Tudors. Yeah, so kind of he's the guy we can pin the beginning of the family's rise on. He's

created this foundation on which his descendants will be able to build. I guess a really interesting point to talk about the Welsh naming tradition because we're talking about Edna Fitzfekin and Tudor appears nowhere in there. So there is this tradition in Welsh naming that you would have a forename and then kind of app which is son of and then sort of your father's name would be what we would call a surname. Is that right? Yeah, exactly. So let's take Ednaffi. Vachan to begin with. His name in truth is Ednaffod Ap, Kinrig. So Ednaffod, son of Kinrig. Now he was given the epithet Vachan, and that means something like the younger, and it actually becomes the name Vaughan, which we still have in Britain today. So it does suggest that somewhere

in Ednafford's family line, there was another Ednaffert. So they had to give him the epithet Vachan, Vaughan, Vaughan, to differentiate himself. And it does get confusing because if we go through generations down the line, we have a Tidir Ap-Garoni, who has a son, who is called Garoni, up Tidir, who has a son who is then called Tidir-up-Gronwy. It becomes quite repetitive. In the same way in England, people have given, repeated the same names, Henry, Richard, Edward. In Wales, they were using the same names, but because there was no surname, you really had to know the family lineage, and the The one thing the Welsh were very obsessed with was family lineage. Gerald of Wales tells us that any Welshman of this day could list his ancestors up to the eighth degree.

They could just list their entire lineage and that is all the Welsh stood on for pride, for standing. It wasn't to do with how rich you were. It wasn't to know how much a lands or castles you had. It was your name. Your name was everything. They would have known about it. Yeah. So we begin kind of in the 12th century, and I'm going to skip forward a little bit,

if you want to find out the bits in between, get the book and read the book. But I wanted to skip forward a little bit to when the, what we will call the Tudor family, become attached to O'Englinduah's rebellion. So in the early 15th century, how do they become attached to O'Englinduah, and are we seeing them here as Welsh kind of independence freedom fighters? I think it's very complex. I mean, if you speak to many Welsh people today, they do have this concept of Owen Glendur being a Welsh nationalist hero who stood up for the Welsh people. It, of course, overlooks his long record of service to the English crown up to the point that he does eventually lead the Welsh into revolt. So things do become quite simplified as the centuries go down and it is a lot more complex when we look back.

So yes, Owen Glendur and the Tiddir brothers. of Anglesea were fighting for Welsh independence. But up to that point, they had also been servants of the English Crown. Now things change, obviously, kings change in England. During this point, we have Richard II

being deposed. Richard II was somebody who the men of North Wales did respect. But Richard the 2nd is deposed, there's no longer that connection some of the North Welsh have to the King of England. You know,

that link has been broken and there is a period of oppression that is taking place during the 14th century the Welsh have been conquered now by the English and it's very much a racial ceiling at play all of the offices, all of the lands, the castles, the positions, they are being denied to the Welsh

so it's very much an undercurrent of resentment building up and this comes to the fall in 1400 when Owen Glendur has finally had enough. He raises the balance, manner of revolt. He calls it after the Prince of Wales and he goes to work trying to free Wales. Now his first cousins are the Tudors. So very quickly they join their first cousin in this revolt. And what we have is we have the Tudor brothers, Reese, Gwilim and Merediv, who become an integral part of this revolt. Now their role in history has been underplayed

somewhat because, you know, a lot of the focus has been given to Owein Glendul. But when the English king offers a pardon to every single Welshman who's risen in revolt, only three people are excluded from this pardon. One is Owen Glendur and two of the Tudor brothers. So we can see how potent their support must have been, how much the English crown feared they're involved with because they had such a great standing amongst the Welsh. Now, shortly into the rebellion, into the revolt, the War of Independence,

whichever loaded term we want to give to these wars of 1400, O'anglindu's uprising quickly loses some steam. So the Tudor brothers decide, you know, what we're going to take action into our own hands, we're going to get this movement going. And they determine that they're going to capture one of the most impregnable fortresses the English king has anywhere within his dominion.

And this is Conway Castle. Conway Castle was built to be, you know, a visible symbol. of intimidation to the Welsh. So the Tudor brothers decide we're going to capture it. When we think about Edward I first kind of ring of steel, Conway was kind of the jewel in that crown. That was the royal palace.

It wasn't just a castle. It was meant to be Edward I's the first palace in Wales. And it's not just a castle. It's a whole walled town as well. So this is a real symbol of the English being in Wales. and it's no mean feat that the Tudors would target that. They deliberately target it, and it's not an easy target either. Absolutely. Again, it's designed to be impregnable,

and that's pretty much what it was, apart from this one day of the year, where the English Garrison were busy in church, because the 1st of April 1401 was Good Friday. The church were busy, you know, doing their religious observations, but it also happened to be April Fool's Day and the Tudor brothers decided to take the English for fools they approached the garrison and they send one of their men up to the gateway and there are only two men on duty at this time

and the Welsh rebel or Freedom Fighter whatever term you want to use he impersonates a carpenter and while the guards well guard is down the carpenter kills the two guards and the Welshman flock into the castle and as easy as that they have taken the greatest castle

in Wales you know the greatest royal castle in Wales certainly and they've captured the castle and this is hugely embarrassing for King Henry the 4th and his son Prince Henry the future Henry Vth

you know it's an incredible propaganda victory for the Welsh and it really does reinvigorate Owein Glendour's campaign. And as history tells us, this campaign lasted for much of the next 10 years. And O'Ein did come very close to securing some sort of freedom for the Welsh. Now, ultimately, English power was too great. You know, after a decade of war, the English might,

the wealth, the ability to call on unbelievable resources. of power does cause this revolt to collapse. And O'ang Glinder slinks your way into the mountains, never to be seen again. And the Tudor family are completely destroyed as a unit. One of their number, Rysap Tudor, Rys up Tiddir, he was actually hanged drawn and quartered in Chester Marketplace. The family, after 200 years, this incredible family that has huge influence and standing amongst the Welsh is wiped out.

They gambled and they lost. Yeah, it's an incredible story and when we're looking for the reasons why two of the Tudor brothers are excluded from that general pardon along with Owen Lind Dewa, the fact that they embarrassed the English crown by taking this key castle

and in the process reinvigorate what had been a flagging revolt are pretty good reasons for them to be singled out to be excluded. But I mean, you know, they show them. themselves as well to be pretty ruthless to their own comrades in the ending of that incident at Conway, don't they? Yeah, it's quite interesting because one of the main reasons

that they try and take the castle is they're trying to force the king to give them a pardon. So they decide to get a pardon for their treason by committing another act of treason, which is odd, but it works. The King of England decides to issue a pardon to them to get his castle back. but the condition is that somebody's got to pay for this. So what Gwilim and Rhys Aptider do is during the night, they apprehend nine of their followers and they turn them over to the English king to be hanged. That's quite a distasteful act of betrayal to your own men,

but it shows just how importance self-preservation is during this day. I mean, they have nine of their men hanged, they receive their pardon, and then they go back to war. So it's making the whole episode kind of pointless, apart from the fact we could still talk about it five, six hundred years later. Yeah, and it makes a good story, apart from for those nine guys and the two guards who it ends badly for. And you mentioned that this, to some extent,

this was the ruination of the building of the Tudor family's power and influence and authority. But it had a wider impact on Wales more generally as well. episode, didn't it? Yeah, it did. I mean, Wales was severely punished as a consequence of this rebellion. It's quite interesting. When we consider Owen Glinder in today's modern Wales, a lot of people ascribe to him

this heroic status. But the fact is that his rebellion and its defeat made life worse for the Welsh of the 15th century. You know, they were subjected to what we call the penal laws. which made it very difficult for the Welsh who were already unoppressed people to exist in their homeland. As mentioned, most of Wales have been reduced to wasteland

by the actions of this war. Food was hard to get hold of. Land was non-existent. Laws made it illegal for the Welsh to hold office, to hold land, to marry the English. I know Englishmen could be indicted on the mere word of a Welshman.

You know, they were severely oppressed. And this means that a lot of young Welshmen actually leave Wales in the first part of the 15th century. Many of them join the French Wars of Henry V. Because there's nothing left a home for them so they may as well go across to France

and try and get some war booty. One young man, Owen, up Meredith, up Tiddir, Owen, the son of Meredith, the son of Tudor, he makes his way out of Wales as well during this period.

He is a son of these Welsh rebels. He's a son of the Welsh tutors, but there's nothing at home for him. He decides to cross the border and try and seek his fortune in England. You know, there's nothing keeping him at home. He may as well see what else you can get. We would call that today an economic migrant. And it's interesting, I guess, as the O'Englinduah Rebellion fails, that we're seeing the tightening of that screw of English control,

which must contribute to the intensification of that desire. for the son of prophecy to come, for those old bardic stories to be true. People are wanting that more and more as they're being more and more repressed by the English. Absolutely. The 15th century sees an upturn in the Welsh bards. You know, in the words of Bonnie Tyler, they're holding out for a hero. They want somebody to come and save their people. And it's quite interesting. It reaches the point during the mid-15th century, whether anyone who's got a modicum of Welsh blood in him or he must be the son of prophecy. They even refer to Edward the 4th at one point as possibly being the son of prophecy because he has a very slight Welsh blood in his veins

through his mortimer ancestry. Well he's got a sliver of Welsh blood in him. Okay, he must be the son of prophecy. Let's just go with him, King Edward IV of England. And that's how it works. They were guarantee desperate. But luckily for them, the son of prophecy was soon to reveal himself because young O'Ine who had migrated to England, he makes waves in the English political circle. Yeah, I can't believe you've just stolen holding out for a hero, I need a hero, by Bonnie Tyler as Henry the 7th theme tune in some way. I'm not having that at all. I need to claim that back. So, yeah, so Owen Tudor, just to make that connection, who is he in relation to the Tudors who assaulted Conway Castle?

So the two principal too does you assaulted Conry Castle were his uncles, Reese and Gwilling. He was the son of their younger brother, Meredith. Now, Meredith's role in the whole revolt is quite low key. And there's a suggest that he died perhaps quite early into this decade of war. But he is the nephew of those rebels who took Conway Castle. So he's very much stained with this idea of being a Welsh rebel. and it's probably best for him just to make himself scarce from Wales.

Perhaps even he was taken out of Wales. That's just a thought that's come to me. Perhaps they didn't want this son of a great family being in his homeland in case he continued to foment rebellion. Because we do see later on down the line that Owen is very specifically banned from returning to Wales. So I wonder if he was actually taken out of England. I'll have to go and rewrite the book now. it's perhaps a deliberate effort to disconnect him from his Welsh heritage and, you know, the thriving

of this Bardic tradition. Owen could have been the son of prophecy. He's the kind of person that people might have looked to next. So if you disconnect him from that, then perhaps you can sever that link. And does the emergence of this idea, this name of Owen Tudor and this idea of Tudor as a surname in the English tradition, distinct from the Welsh naming traditions. Is that born of a desire to distance himself from his Welsh heritage? Or given what you just said, you know, could it be an effort by the English to anglicise him and sever him from that? I think it's difficult to say for certain, but I would probably suggest it's just borne

up meredith, up Tidder, was very difficult for English clerks in. you know, 14-20s, England. I had done quite a lot of research in trying to track him down during this period and we have so many references to him under various names. There's Owen Ap tider. There's Owen Fitzmeridif.

There's Oweni up to Dere. There's various false contractions of his name taking place. At some point he just seems to become Owen up Tidir, which is Owen son of Tudor, which is incorrect, because Tudor was his grandfather's name, but I can see from an English

clerk's point of view, they don't understand that actually it's that middle name that is what the English would use as a surname. So they contract it incorrectly. So suddenly, Owein, up Meredith, App Tidir, becomes Owein Tidir, which gradually becomes Owen Tudor. And certainly by later in his life, that is a name he is consistently given and is of course the name that he would bequeath to his grandson Henry Tudor who if we were following the correct Welsh patronymics his name should have been a Harry App Edmund so maybe we should have the the Edmund dynasty rather than the Tudor dynasty yeah I mean I could take the E word better than the T word I guess so it's it's interesting I think that you can see a way in which

his name is almost accidentally anglicised. And I guess you can see the English clerks going, well, here's a guy who is the son of Meredith Aptuder, the nephew of Reese and Gwillam Aptuda, therefore he must be Tudor. If you don't get that, how you've arrived at that name, you would assume Tudor is his surname, and so that assumption becomes fact in the repetition, eventually, I guess.

And I wondered what you make of the story, of Owen and Catherine of Valois. So there are lots of variations on how they met. Was it a genuine love match? Was there a physical attraction? Was it a political game that Catherine of Valwar is playing to get around these rules that have been put in her way to get married again?

What's your take and what's going on? What is it love, attraction or political gaming? We could argue all of those could have played a part in this. You know, could a political game have turned into love? could attraction have turned into love? Could all of these component parts could have contributed to Owen and Catherine getting together? There are a few theories. One is that she saw him bathing one day and simply took a fancy.

That always sounds to me like the Mr Darcy coming out of the lake thing, you know, it's got heirs of that, hasn't it? The idea that Owen is just there bathing in a lake and she catches him and she's like, ooh. Absolutely. I mean, there's another one that he got drunk. and fell into her lap. There's perhaps another more distasteful one where he was essentially,

we would probably call a sexual assault in one of her maidens these days and the queen decided to disguise herself and put herself in harm's way and Owen got a bit too forward and then somehow that turned into love from Catherine's side. That seems a bit an odd one for me.

We have a poet called Robin Vee who is an Anglesey man, a Welsh poet who knew Owen personally. And he simply says that Owen clapped his ardent affection on the daughter of the king of the land of wine and she responded positively. I mean, Welsh charm, basically. This lowly Welsh squire has used his Welsh charm to make a queen fall in love with him. Now, there is one other possibility that I've seen nobody else raised, which is quite simply, Catherine Ovalua had a series of Welsh lands in North Wales as part of her her dower. Could Owen have been appointed as a Welshman

to go and inspect these lands for her? And gradually, we have two young people in their early 20s who were both away from home. They are both living in a land that is not theirs. Could they simply have fallen in love through, you know, a shared experience? That happens every day of the year. It's happening right now as we speak. Just a share this common experience that turned into love. But however they met, clearly, this Welsh squire and this French princess, who was also an English queen, met, found in love and had children. Yeah. And I mean, you know, Catherine of Valois, as you said, daughter of the king of the land of wine, I like that, the daughter of the king of France, the widow of Henry V, the mother of

Henry the 6th. And, you know, my question about political gaming is really around the fact that they, when it looked like Catherine of Valois might have been perhaps going to marry one of the Beaufort family, Duke of Somerset, they kind of created this suite of laws to prevent her doing that and impose penalties on the man that she married because they were concerned about the influence someone might get over the young king. And there's a way in which perhaps what Catherine is doing here is slightly thumbing her nose at those laws by marrying a man who has nothing that they can take off him and nothing to lose by doing it. So it's kind of a way to cheat what was imposed upon her. Yeah, it's absolutely possible.

That could have been her motivation, her drive for doing that. Because as you see, any person who would marry this queen without the specialist sent a license of the king, who is still a boy, would have lost all of their lands. But O'Nuda had no lands. She had no possessions. It's a possibility. Yeah, and it's possible to see, you know, all of those things at work.

She fancied this guy who happened to fit with a political game, or she wanted to fix this political game and her gaze fell on this really good-looking Welsh chap who fit the bill perfectly and actually she could imagine herself being married to. Yeah, up here. I mean, life is not binary at the end of the day in history as we look into.

We're always trying to look for, were they good or were they bad? You know, were they right or were they wrong? It simply cannot work that way with humans. Yeah, yeah. And I guess one of the other big debates around Owen and Catherine that crops up regularly is whether they were ever in any kind of legal or official way properly married?

What do we know about that? I mean, look, we have no evidence of a marriage taking place, but that shouldn't be surprising for this period. We don't have next to any evidence of anyone getting married during this period outside of Kings and Queens. And if we could even argue when it comes to Edward IV, later on, we still don't know who or when he married. So I think it's not surprising we don't have a...

wedding certificate that we can show, prove they got married. But I think what is important to see how other people react to the union? Later on, Richard the 30s trying everything he can during his propaganda campaign to discredit Henry the 7th's, Henry Tudor's lineage. Wales against everyone being born illegitimate and so on. He never makes any mention whatsoever of Owen and Catherine's marriage. At no point did you make any reference to that. He makes any reference to that. If they were not married legally officially, that is an open goal for Richard. So he doesn't make mention to that. Owen Tudor is later arrested for his involvement with Catherine Ovalua and he is thrown in prison. At no point do his enemies at court, including the great and powerful Duke

Humphrey of Gloucester, make any reference whatsoever to this marriage not taking place. In fact, by the very arrest, they're almost given evidence that he had married Catherine without the king's assent. I was going to say the fact of his arrest is strongly suggestive that he's done something very serious. This isn't just that he was dancing and fell in the lap of the queen and maybe they spent the night together. The fact that he's arrested and thrown in prison is suggestive that there is a really serious problem there that the crown is keen to get to the bottom of. Yeah, and finally when we come to his sons, or they are saying, sons, Edmund and Jasper Tudor, there is no act of legitimation taking place, there's no question of them being bastard children, they are immediately brought into the nobility, they are given

grants, they are given royal titles, you know, they are made earls of Richmond and Pembroke, there's nothing ever done to correct any apparent stain. So I would say in light of all of that evidence, and nothing being raised specifically by the marriage, we have to assume they were married. This is how people treated Owen, his sons and his grandson as though they were the product of correct marital status. Yeah. Absence of evidence isn't necessarily

evidence of absence, as you and I are keen of fond of saying to each other. Absolutely. How does all of this several centuries of background of the rise of the Tudor family, the rocks that they kind of threw themselves on in the early 15th century, how does that help to explain? How does that it helped to explain the rise of Henry Tudor and perhaps his keenness to embrace his Welsh heritage and this idea of a son of prophecy? I think you just have to speak to any modern Welshman to

understand just how important and important the concept of Welshness is to us. You know, it is innate this pride we have in our background, this pride we have in our lineage. And it would have been all the more palpable in the first. 15th century, particularly for a people who were living under such heavy, again, used that term oppression. The Welsh were not equal citizens in their own land during this period. They were a conquered and cowed people who could only resort to poetry to keep their spirits up. This is a world that Henry was born into. This is a world he knew. Now, yes, he did have connections with the English Royal Court, but he was very much

quite a unique person. It was a unique figure who's straddling to cultures. I mean, we would call our mixed race almost today a global figure to many extent. And he was able to use both parts of his background, of his family tree, to his own benefit. Of course, he lays claim to the English throne through his mother's side. And that comes

almost out of nowhere. No one's raising Henry Teudor as a potential. king until the final moment it happens, which is because some guy called Richard did something and upset some people or something happened. I can't quite remember. The consequence is that Henry is suddenly reinvented as a potential king. Now, in Wales doing that period, they are more focused on simply his great Welsh lineage. He is regarded in poetry as a young swallow who will one day be great. when he has started to be reinvented as a potential king of England, the Welsh bards remember this is the son of the Tudors.

This is our last hope. And they start to really go to town on regarding him as a high-born Britain, who will be the saviour and the hope of our race. They really start to raise him up as being a national deliverer. And I imagine that's something Henry himself used as confidence. It's something he used to also turn to the English and say, I am my saviour, I am the chosen one, and you will believe me. And I think Henry was quite a charismatic man.

He gets this reputation for being dower, of course, but we've got to remember this is a man who held a disparate army together across a seven-day sea voyage. It was a 200-mile march to almost certain death. You know, he must have had something in him, giving his speeches in person, that invoked loyalty and belief from his men. And that comes from being real to oneself. Henry, I presume, must have had some belief that he was the son of prophecy. He was the chosen

man. He makes a lot of play in the fact that his ancestry predates the normal invasion. It's all well and good Richard and Henry and Edward all having connections to Henry III or William the Conqueror. Henry saying he's descended from the 6th century king of the Britons, Cadwallader. His lineage goes all the way back. And Henry wears now with pride because he features the Red Dragon of Cadwalader as his principal emblem. So Henry believes this. He's all in on his Welsh ancestry and he uses it as the fuel to power him onto greatness. And I'm struck, I think, by the symmetry there between the idea that his

his ancestors, particularly in that Conway moment, so his ancestors are kind of infiltrated the enemy's stronghold and taking it over from the inside. And what has Henry Tudor done, through his dad, they have infiltrated the enemy's stronghold in England right at the heart of it and then taken the whole thing over and made themselves king. It's almost like a national version of what happened at Conwy Castle. It's just been taken to the nth degree and is now, instead of controlling one little castle in Wales, you're controlling the whole of England and Wales. You almost sound quite impressed by the Tudors there, Matt.

Oh, God, no. We better stop. We better stop. It sounds like you're finally coming around to my way of thinking that this is what, this was such an incredible arc that this family goes to. And I think just to take a couple of steps back, we should also just try and remember. But in 1400, there is a generation of Tudors going to war, with the House of Lancaster. Just one generation later, Owen Tudor marries a dowager queen of Lancaster.

And two generations later, Jasper and Edmund Tudor are the brothers of the King of Lancaster and the most loyalist and devout supporters of Lancaster. The transformation from Warwick's Lancaster to be in Lancaster is incredibly rapid. Yeah, it's a really good point. So at Conway, they're opposing Lancasterian kingship of England. In the next generation, Owen, and then the one after that, Edmund, will die fighting for the House of Lancaster effectively. Absolutely, yeah.

Edmund and Owen give their life for Lancaster. And Jasper was possibly the most willing and redoubtable supporter. Any king could ever have hoped for during this period. I mean, look at Henry Tudor. He is reinvented. Son of Prophecy in Wales, in England, he's reinvented as the hope of Lancaster, even though just a couple of generations earlier his ancestors were doing everything they could to shake off the chains of Lancasterianism.

I mean, you know, reading your book, I have to confess, it is an incredibly exciting and impressive story, and there is a really great arc to it. You know, you have this rise, this fall and then this rise again, that it is a really great. is proper Hollywood in its scope and everything else. So I can be impressed by the medieval Tudors because they're medieval. I'm going to leave it at that. Yeah. So just to end on, who would you say is your favourite ancestor of Henry the 7th that you encountered in writing this book? I mean, I think it's hard to see beyond the person who we spent quite a lot of time talking about today, and that's Owen Tudor. I mean, his story is remarkable. I really hope I don't

come across any discoveries one day that proves what a horrible human being he was. But based on the basic facts that we have about him, he's a kid who left a war-torn country, who moved to England and was able to rise far further than his station merited. And I think that's a lot to do simply with his personal character. I mean, he did attract a woman far above his ranking life. He did marry her, have children with her. He does seem to be in a man of quite robust integrity, actually. There's a great quote from Paul Adolf Virgil who, you know, he didn't know him, but Paul Dolvergil will have taken a lot of his quotes from people who did know him. He says that Owen Tudor was a man blessed with wonderful gifts of mind and body. I think that's quite a nice

a phrase for him. And of course, we see as late as his death. He even does this tragic but quite heroic death. At the age of 60, he's still fighting in battles, he gets captured, and he does get beheaded in Hereford. And his last words are, the head that lies on the block, on the chopping block, is the head that once lay in Queen Catherine's lap.

I think it's just a remarkable story. If any story needs to get told on the big screen, it's Owen Tooters. And there's also a story that after Owen's execution, his head is left in Herefordshire Marketplace and this old lady kind of cares for it, lights candles around it, washes his face and brushes his hair. And I think from now on, I'm going to think of you as that old lady, washing Owen's face and combing his hair for him. I mean, I think it's quite interested just on that part. I mean, she's always been written as being a mad woman who brushed his hair.

I think that was, I guess what we would call today, his girlfriend, his partner, because Owen has an illegitimate child during this period very late in life, a son who is called David Owen. You know, David, the son of Owen, but it becomes contracted as David Owen, not David Tudor. And I can almost imagine this woman was not just a random madwoman. It was a bereaved partner of his who was doing this. And this son, David Owen, goes on to join the exile of his nephew, Henry Tudor, and David Owen becomes very close to the Tudor king throughout the rest of his reign. He becomes his chief carver. So just once more, we said, Dea that Henry Tudor was ashamed of his Welshness. He always kept his Welsh family of those that he had left

very close to him. Yeah, that's a really interesting story. And for me now, Owen's partner will always have a beard. and look a lot like you. Thank you so much for joining us, Nathan. It's always a pleasure to have you back. It's been great to talk to you again about the medieval Tudor family. Thank you very much for joining us.

No problem. Thank you, Harvey, Matt. Nathan's newest book, Son of Prophecy, is out now. So grab a copy and drag the Tudors back into the medieval world. You can also hear more from Nathan on God Medieval in our first ever two episodes in which we talked about Henry the 7th, even more than we have today, as well as an episode on the Beaufort family in the 15th century 2,

on which Nathan also has a fantastic book. If you enjoyed this episode, you might also like our deep dive into the medieval Berlin family with Claire Martin. There are new episodes of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday, so please join us next time for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcasts from, and drop us a review and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can listen to us on Spotify too where you'll find our entire back catalogue.

Anyway, I'd better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with history hit.