'The Welsh habit of revolt against the English is an old-standing
madness ... from the sayings of the prophet Merlin they still hope to
recover their land. Hence, they frequently rebel ... but because they do
not know the appointed time, they are often deceived and their labour is
in vain.' (Vita Edwardi Secundi) The appointed time, it turned out, was
1485. For generations, the ancestors of Welshman Owen Tudor had fought
Romans, Irish Picts, Vikings, Saxons, Mercians and Normans. His uncles
had been executed in the Glyndwr Welsh War of Independence. Owen fought
for Henry V in France and entered the service of Henry's queen,
Catherine of Valois. Soon after the king's death he secretly married
her, the mother of the eight-month-old Henry VI. Owen and Catherine
would have two boys together. Henry VI would go on to ennoble them as
Edmund Earl of Richmond, and Jasper Earl of Pembroke, but upon
Catherine's death Owen was imprisoned. Escaping twice, Owen was thrown
into the beginnings of the Wars of the Roses with his two sons. It would
be Edmund's son, Henry Tudor, who would take the English throne as Henry
VII. When Jasper led the Lancastrian forces at Mortimer's Cross in 1461,
the ageing Owen led a wing of the defeated army, was captured and
executed. Without his earlier secret marriage for love, there would have
been no Tudor dynasty.
