The amazing marriage of Katherine of Valois, widow of Henry V, with Owen Tudor, possibly accounts for much that was abnormal in the character of their royal descendants of the redoubted House of Tudor. The queen dowager was the daughter of the mad King Charles VI of France and of his licentious consort, Isabeau of Bavaria—bad blood, indeed; and Owen was a mere soldier of fortune. In his grandson Henry VII’s day, a goodly pedigree was discovered for him, which set forth that far from being a “mean born pup,” as was popularly reported, Owen was descended from Kenan, son of Coel, who was king of Britain, and brother of Helen, the mother of Constantine the Great. As to Owen ap Merideth ap Twydder or Tudor, good old Sandford affirms that “the Meanness of his Estate was recompensated by the Delicacy of his Person, so absolute in all the Lineaments of his Body, that the only Contemplation of it might make a Queen forget all other Circumstances”—which it did! Stowe, who lived near enough to those times to receive direct tradition concerning this brave soldier, says, in his Annals,[4] that he was “as ignorant as any savage.” Tall beyond the average, the founder of the House of Tudor carried himself with “a perfect grace.” He was well featured, with hair that was curly and “yellow as gold.” At an entertainment given in 1423, and attended, notwithstanding her recent bereavement, by the widowed queen, this Adonis, while in the act of executing an intricate pirouette, fell at the royal lady’s feet. Whether the passion kindled by this ludicrous accident was reciprocated, we are not told; but so ardent was it, on Katherine’s part, at least, that she soon afterwards clandestinely married the handsome Welshman.[5]
The enemies of the House of Tudor averred that this secret marriage never really took place, and it is a singular fact that no allusion whatever is made to it in the hearse verse originally placed over the tomb of Queen Katherine in Westminster Abbey, and quoted in full in the contemporary Chronicle of William of Worcester. But when Henry VII became king, this inscription was removed and another hearse verse, containing the following significant lines, was substituted and hung over his grandmother’s monument:—
“Of Owen Tudor after this,
The next son Edmund was,
O Katherine, a renowned Prince,
That did in Glory pass.
Henry the Seventh, a Britain Pearl,
A Gem of England’s Joy,
A peerless Prince was Edmund’s Son,
A good and gracious Roy.
Therefore a happy Wife this was,
A happy Mother pure,
Thrice happy Child, but Grandam she,
More than Thrice happy sure.”
For more than seven years, during which time she gave birth to four children, the queen’s household observed profound secrecy with respect to her marriage—a fact which honours the fidelity and discretion of its members.
Notwithstanding all these precautions, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, who was regent during the minority of Henry VI, suspected the existence of something unusual, and, according to Sir Edward Coke,[6] forthwith framed a statute that “anyone who should dare to marry a queen dowager of these realms without the consent of king and council should be considered an outlaw and a traitor.” Spies were placed about the queen; but they either failed to discover anything unusual, or were bribed to secrecy: for the fact of the clandestine marriage was not really established until shortly before her death. When it became known, there must have been a terrible storm in the royal circle, for Owen was arrested and sent to Newgate, and the queen banished to Bermondsey Abbey,[7] where she died, six months later, on January 1, 1447, of a lingering illness and a broken heart. Katherine de la Pole, Abbess of Barking, took charge of the children, but she did not reveal their existence to Henry VI till some months after the queen’s decease, and then “only because she needed money for their sustenance.”
Meanwhile the London Chronicle, a most valuable contemporary document, thus relates the subsequent misadventures of the unfortunate Owen: “This year [1447] one Owen Twyder, who had followed Henry V to France, broke out of Newgate at searching time, the which Owen had privately married Queen Katherine and had four children by her, unknown to the common people until she was dead and buried.” Owen Tudor was three times imprisoned for marrying the queen, but each time he contrived to baffle the vigilance of his gaolers, only, however, to be promptly recaptured. As years went by, he came to be received into a certain measure of favour by his stepson, the king; and he fought so valiantly for the Lancastrian cause at Northampton, in 1460, that the king made “his well beloved squire Owen Tudyer” [sic] keeper of his parks in Denbigh, Wales.[8]
Later on, at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross, he again unsheathed his Agincourt sword in the Lancastrian cause, but, being taken prisoner by Edward IV, he was beheaded in Hereford market place. Many years later, by a strange and romantic concatenation of events, Edward’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, married the fallen Owen’s grandson, Henry VII, thereby becoming the first queen of England of the Tudor line, and the great-grandmother of the Ladies Jane, Katherine and Mary Grey.
There was, it seems, a rugged grandeur about Owen Tudor, which stood him in lieu of gentle accomplishments. The physical power, persistent obstinacy and bluff address of his royal descendants may indeed have been derived from this fine old warrior; and from him surely it was that they inherited the magnificent personal appearance, the lofty stature, the fair complexion and leonine locks, that distinguished them from the dark but equally splendid Plantagenets. May we not also justly conclude that their violent passions were an inheritance transmitted to them by the amorous Katherine and her vicious mother?—passions which played so fateful a part in the tragic stories of Lady Katherine and Lady Mary Grey—the two younger sisters of the unfortunate “Nine-days’ Queen,” Lady Jane Grey.
[To face p. xxviii
MARGARET BEAUFORT, COUNTESS OF RICHMOND
(From National Portrait Gallery)
Soon after Queen Katherine’s decease, Henry VI brought his Tudor brethren into the royal circle. When the eldest, Edmund of Hadham, grew to manhood, he created him Earl of Richmond (November 23, 1452), with precedence of all other earls. This stalwart nobleman married the dwarfish Princess Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Beaufort, great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt by his last wife Catherine Swynford, and daughter and heiress of the last Duke of Somerset of the first creation. He was one of the pillars of the Lancastrian party, lending great help at the temporary restoration of Henry VI; afterwards, under Edward IV, he was compelled, with other Lancastrians, to seek safety in Brittany. He died shortly after his return to England, within a year of his marriage, leaving a son, who succeeded to his father’s title of Earl of Richmond, and eventually became King Henry VII. Edmund’s next brother, Jasper of Hatfield, so called from the place of his birth, was raised at the same time to the rank of Earl of Pembroke. He was with his father at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross; but escaped, and later, at the accession of Henry VII, he was created Duke of Bedford in the place of George Nevill, elder brother of the famous “Kingmaker,” whose titles and lands were confirmed in his favour. He died young in 1456 and was buried in St. David’s Cathedral. He never married, but left an illegitimate daughter, who became the wife of William Gardiner, a citizen of London. Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, was reputed to be their son. Owen, third son of Katherine of Valois and Owen Tudor, embraced the religious life and lived a monk, at Westminster, into the first half of the sixteenth century. Their only daughter—who was blessed with the curious name of Tacina, and whose existence is ignored by most historians—married Lord Grey de Wilton, an ancestor of the ill-fated subjects of this book.
It is worthy of note that whereas most of the Tudor Princes were very tall, several of them, thanks to a well-known law of atavism, reverted to the tiny type of their ancestress, Margaret Plantagenet. Mary I was a small woman, and the three sisters Grey were not much above the height of average-sized dwarfs.