Welsh Journals

Romance of the House of Tudor. By Mrs. Florence M. Loxdale. FATE, bravery and beauty of person were the three potent factors which made Owen Tudor, a simple country gentleman of Wales, the progenitor of Kings. It is on the field of Agincourt, where his courage attracted Henry V, that Owen Tudor first enters the pages of history. After the battle the King appointed him one of the Squires of his body, an office that the Welshman con- tinued to hold under his son and successor, the infant Henry VI. In the beginning of the new reign, Owen was also made Clerk of the Queen's wardrobe, a post which threw him into close and intimate contact with the widowed Katherine. She was young and beautiful, he brave, hand- some and debonair. So, though she was daughter of one king, widow of another and mother of a third, while he was without either rank or wealth, they fell in love with one another and were secretly married. It was some years before any hint of the romantic union leaked out. During this happy time, the loving couple became the proud parents of four beautiful children. A fifth was expected, but just before its birth the first mutterings of the impending storm reached Owen. He imme- diately hurried his cherished darlings into sanc- tuary at Bermondsey Abbey, where soon after their arrival another little daughter came into the world to live, however, only a few days. The father, meantime had been seized and thrown into Newgate by the orders of the Duke of Gloucester, who, since, his brother's death, had acted as regent of the kingdom. To Katherine's natural concern on her husband's account this powerful noble next added further persecutions. With almost incredible cruelty he tore her children from her, consigning them to the care of a sister of the Earl of Suffolk. The former Queen never saw them again. She died shortly after this last and most merciless blow. Owen escaped from Newgate twice, and on the second occasion managed to reach the mountains of North Wales, where he lay hidden till his step- son, Henry VI, was old enough to be his own master. One of the young King's first acts on taking over the reigns of government was to summon Tudor to court, where, though he was never given any title or his connection with the royal family acknowledged, he was still high in favour. His enemy and destroyer of his home, was, on the other hand, never forgiven by the King, who bitterly resented the treatment meted out by Gloucester to his mother. Similar filial considerations influenced Henry in deciding to do all in his power for the off- spring of Katherine's marriage. When Edmund, the eldest son, was of proper age, he was created Earl of Richmond and granted precedence over all other English earls. By the King's influence, also, his marriage to Margaret Beaufort, the heiress of the princely House of Somerset and a direct decendant of John of Gaunt, son of Edward III, was arranged. It was the son of this union, Henry Tudor, who eventually ascended the English throne as Henry VII after the battle of Bosworth. Edmund, Earl of Richmond, died in his twenti- eth year, but there were left to Owen a daughter, Tacona, who married Lord Grey de Wilton, a son who lived and died a monk, and Jasper, raised to the peerage as Earl of Pembroke. The end of Owen Tudor was both splendid and pathetic. Loyal to his stepson throughout the changing fortunes of the Wars of the Roses he fought at Mortimer's Cross, where the Lancas- trians were nearly annihilated. His son Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, was in command, and when he ordered a retreat the old Welshman refused to turn his back on the enemy, and, fighting to the end, was captured. The victors had the deaths of York and Rutland to avenge-Tudor was a victim of sufficient note. He was beheaded in Hereford Market Place, his body being even- tually buried in the Grey Friars Church. So died Owen Tudor, from whom every English sovereign from his grandson, Henry VII, to the present King is descended. In Scotland, also, two Kings, James V and James VI, one Queen Consort, the wife of James IV, and one Queen in her own right, the ill- fated Mary Stuart, all numbered him among their ancestors. Nor is this all, five Kings of France, Louis XV, Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, Charles X and Louis Phillippe, four Queen Consorts, Mary, wife of King Louis VII, Mary Stuart, Marie Antoinette, and Marie Amelia, and one Empress, Marie Louise, consort of the great Napoleon, were all descendants of Owen Tudor. The Austrian Emperors from 17"8, through the union of Prince Charles of Lorraine and the Empress Marie-Theresa had also his blood in their veins. Even so, the tale is not yet completed. In Germany, from 1713, the descendants of the Welshman included Frederick the Great, the Emperor William I, the Emperor and Empress Frederick, and the ex-Kaiser, and in Russia, the Dowager Tsarina and the late Tsar. Further the Kings and Queens of Spain, Norway and Greece, the Queen of Roumania, the Kings of Italy, Denmark, Bulgaria and Belguim are all descended from Owen Tudor. Among those of his royal descendants who met with a similar death to his own, may be men- tioned, Lady Jane Grey, Mary Queen of Scots, Charles I of England, and Louis XVI of France, and Marie-Antoinette.