![]() It is assumed this act persuaded Edmund Beaufort to cease his relationship, real or otherwise, with Katherine de Valois, who would shortly become involved with Owen Tudor, a Welshman of no lands and no goods.įrom around 1430 until her death in 1437 it has commonly been accepted that Katherine de Valois and Owen Tudor were secretly cohabiting and together had four children – Edmund, Jasper, Owen and a daughter. In 1427 the king was only six years old, with the expectation he would not be able to grant his assent for another decade. Although evidence of the act no longer exists it was referenced by later historians, including mention by the seventeenth century writer Edward Coke who stated the act stipulated ‘ no man should contract with, or marry himself to any Queen of England, without special licence or assent of the King, on pain to lose all his goods and lands’. This was possibly the catalyst for an unusual parliamentary statue passed that year which expressly forbid the remarriage of any dowager queen without the consent of the king. It is often alleged that an affair was already in commencement by 1427 between the roughly 21-year-old Edmund and 26-year-old Katherine. ![]() This was compounded by rumours that she already had an admirer – the brash and ambitious young Edmund Beaufort. The council which governed in the name of her new-born son Henry VI were presented with the unusual scenario of a dowager queen still young enough to remarry – a potential situation which was a political issue. In 1422 Henry V died of dysentery in France and left a young, beautiful widow, Katherine de Valois. This quarrel turned deadly rivalry would form the foundation of what eventually became known as the Wars of the Roses. This method of overt favouritism did not sit well with Richard, Duke of York, who not unfairly viewed Beaufort as a rival for power. Although dynastically very powerful through his Lancastrian connection, Edmund was not blessed with a great inheritance and was often given many well-paid offices by his cousin Henry VI. So who was Edmund Beaufort? Edmund was born in 1406 and was the son of John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset and an illegitimate son of John of Gaunt. So should Henry Tudor, first king of the Tudor Dynasty…have in fact been Henry Beaufort? Lately however a theory has been put forward that Henry’s father Edmund was in fact the son of Edmund Beaufort and not Owen Tudor, thus casting the entire Tudor ‘myth’ into disarray. Traditionally it has been understood and accepted that Henry’s direct lineage was as the son of Margaret Beaufort, herself the daughter of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset and Margaret Beauchamp, and Edmund Tudor, the son of Owen Tudor and Katherine de Valois. For good measure Henry also ensured the people were aware of his descent from the ancient Welsh princes who had ruled the island before the arrival of the Norman Plantagenets and his close-kin to his uncle Henry VI (although he shared no blood ties to English royalty through this connection). Nonetheless it was prudent to put forward a blood claim to the throne which Henry duly did, emphasising his descent from Edward III through his mother Margaret Beaufort. ![]() Henry had wrested the crown from Richard III and claimed kingship through right of conquest – God had granted him victory through battle. When Henry Tudor won the crown of England at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, he acceded to the throne as the first sovereign of the House of Tudor, a cadet branch of the House of Lancaster.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |