Fourteen years later, Henry and Jasper sailed from the mouth of the Seine to the Milford Haven Waterway, a voyage which led to Henry’s victory over the House of York at Bosworth and his coronation as Henry VII. It was concern for his safety that led Jasper, Henry’s guardian, to take his 14-year-old nephew into exile in mainland Europe. Following the murder of Henry VI and his son, Edward, in 1471, Henry Tudor became a figure of importance for he was, as Edward IV put it, ‘the only imp now left of Henry VI’s brood’. Henry Tudor spent his childhood at Raglan Castle, the home of William Herbert, a leading Yorkist – a castle which was an important centre of Welsh cultural activity.

On 28 January 1457, his widow, who had just attained her fourteenth birthday, gave birth to a son, Henry Tudor, at her brother-in-law’s castle of Pembroke. Jasper became earl of Pembroke and by 1460 had collected so many offices in Wales that he had become the virtual viceroy of the country. Edmund became earl of Richmond and was married to Margaret Beaufort, the great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt, the progenitor of the house of Lancaster.

The House of York, in turn, was descended through the Mortimer family not from the seneschal of Llywelyn the Great, but from Llywelyn the Great himself. They were half-brothers of Henry VI, and were among the most loyal supporters of the Lancastrian dynasty in its struggle against the House of York Two sons, Edmund and Jasper, were born of the marriage. The marriage was secret, and although perhaps it was not illegal, it was certainly audacious. There is evidence which suggests that Owain and Catherine married in 1429. Nevertheless, by the late 1420s, Owain was a member of the bodyguard of the dowager queen Catherine (daughter of Charles VI, King of France) whose husband, Henry V, had died in 1422. Owain Tudor included among his cousins some of the most devoted allies of Owain Glyndwr, whose long rebellion against Henry IV did not come to an end until circa 1412, and, as a Welshman, he was subject to the Penal Laws, which forbade the Welsh from carrying arms and from living in incorporated boroughs. He opted instead for his grandfather’s name – a prescient choice, for Tudur or Tudor comes from the Brythonic tud (territory) and rhi (king). Had he, as was generally the custom, adopted his father’s name, the English throne would have been occupied for a century by the Maredudd dynasty. The Tudor surname first appeared in the ancestry of Henry VII in the 1420s, when Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur ap Goronwy ap Tudur ap Goronwy ap Ednyfed Fychan abandoned the Welsh patronymic system and adopted a fixed surname. Thus, it could be claimed that the Stuart dynasty had been preceded on the throne of England by a dynasty which could also claim the Stuart title. Henry’s ancestor had provided the same services to the greatest of the Welsh princes as Walter the Steward, founder of the Stuart dynasty, had provided for Robert Bruce, the greatest of the Scottish kings.

The Tudor king Henry VII was descended in direct male succession from Ednyfed Fychan, seneschal (steward) of Llywelyn the Great.

Was there a jasper tudor