Royal Ancestry of Henry VII of England: Part V.

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Earl of Richmond, Edmund Tudor, Edward III of England, Henry VII of England, House of Tudor, Jasper Tudor, John of Gaunt, King Henry VI of England, Kings and Queens of England, Margaret Beaufort, Owen Tudor, Prince of Wales, Wales

Today we will begin to examine the Paternal Ancestry of Henry VII of England. We begin with his father Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, born June 11, 1430 and died November 3, 1456. He was also known as Edmund of Hadham. Edmund Tudor was father of King Henry VII of England and a member of the Tudor family of Penmynydd, North Wales.

Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland.

Edmund’s parents were Owen Tudor and the dowager queen Catherine of Valois, (wife of Henry V of England) making Edmund a half-brother to Henry VI of England. Edmund was raised for several years by Katherine de la Pole, and King Henry VI took an interest in Edmund’s upbringing, granting him the title 1st Earl of Richmond and lands once he came of age. Both Edmund and his brother, Jasper, were made advisers to the King as they were his remaining blood relatives. The brothers were made the senior earls in the royal court and had influential positions in the Parliament of England. Edmund was also granted Baynard’s Castle, London and ran a successful estate.

As Earls, and recognised by court as the King’s half brothers, Edmund and Jasper Tudor had unparalleled precedence over the other laypersons in court with the exception of the Dukes. They were each given lands, although Jasper received a yearly stipend until the Earldom of Pembroke became available. After seven years of marriage to Margaret of Anjou, King Henry VI was still without children. After the death of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the royal line was at risk of extinction and considerations were made about the Tudor brothers inheriting the throne. There were concerns that while they had descended from the French royal line through Catherine, they only had little or distant blood relation to the English throne.

On November 1, 1455, Edmund married John Beaufort’s granddaughter, Margaret Beaufort, (John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset was the son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, third son of King Edward III of England). Prior to the start of the Wars of the Roses, Edmund liaised with Richard of York and supported him when the King fell ill during 1453 and 1454. After war began in 1455, York sent Edmund to uphold the authority of the King in South Wales. While he was there, York was overthrown by the King and in retaliation, Yorkist forces were sent to engage those of Tudor’s in South Wales. Edmund was captured at Carmarthen Castle, and died there of the bubonic plague on November 3 1456 aged only 26. The future Henry VII of England was born at Pembroke Castle on January 28, 1457 and automatically became the 2nd Earl of Richmond, for his father had died three months before his birth.

Edmund’s father was Sir Owen Tudor Sir Owen Tudor (c. 1400 – 2 February 1461) Asmentioned the Tudor’s were descendants of a prominent family from Penmynydd on the Isle of Anglesey, which traces its lineage back to Ednyfed Fychan (d. 1246), a Welsh official and seneschal to the Kingdom of Gwynedd. Tudor’s grandfather, Tudur ap Goronwy, married Margaret, daughter of Thomas ap Llywelyn ab Owain of Cardiganshire, the last male of the princely house of Deheubarth. Margaret’s elder sister married Gruffudd Fychan of Glyndyfrdwy, whose son was Owain Glyndŵr (sometimes called Owen Glendower in English, was a Welsh ruler and the last native Welshman to hold the title Prince of Wales). Owen’s father, Maredudd ap Tudur, and his uncles were prominent in Owain Glyndŵr’s revolt against English rule, the Glyndŵr Rising.

Owen’s original name in Welsh was Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur. When Owen Anglicized his name he abandoned the Welsh patronymic naming practice and adopted a fixed surname. When he did, he did not choose, as was generally the custom, his father’s name, Maredudd, but chose that of his grandfather, Tudur ap Goronwy, instead. This name is sometimes given as Tewdwr, the Welsh form of Theodore.

The Tudors of Penmynydd were the senior line of a noble and aristocratic family, connected with the village of Penmynyddin Anglesey, North Wales, who were very influential in Welsh (and later English) politic. The family descended from one of the sons of Ednyfed Fychan (died in 1246), the Welsh warrior who became seneschal to the Kingdom of Gwynedd in north Wales, serving Llywelyn the Great and later his son Dafydd ap Llywelyn. He claimed descent from Marchudd ap Cynan, Lord of Rhos and ‘protector’ of Rhodri the Great, king of Gwynedd, a founder of one of the so-called Fifteen Tribes of Wales. From Ednyfed’s many sons would come a ‘ministerial aristocracy’ in northern Wales. He left the manors of Trecastell, Penmynydd and Erddreiniogin, Anglesey to those of his sons born to his second marriage to Gwenllian, daughter of king Rhys ap Gruffydd of Deheubarth, and among these sons was Goronwy (died 1268), founder of the line of the Tudors of Penmynyth.

This is enough information for one day. More on the background of the Tudor dynasty in then next post in this series.

Royal Ancestry of Henry VII of England: Part IV

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Countess of Richmond, Frederick Barbarossa, Henry VII of England, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire, House of Stuart, Joan of Kent, Kings and Queens of England, Margaret Beaufort, Margaret Holland

I want to take a step back and look at another line of ancestors of Henry VII. The line in question stems from Lady Margaret Holland, Grandmother of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond who was the mother of King Henry VII.

Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland

Margaret Holland (1385 – December 30, 1439) was a medieval English noblewoman. She was a daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, who was the son of Joan “the Fair Maid of Kent” (herself a granddaughter of Edward I of England, wife of Edward the Black Prince and mother of Richard II of England). Margaret’s mother was Alice FitzAlan, daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel and Eleanor of Lancaster.

Margaret Holland’s mother was Alice FitzAlan, daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel and Eleanor of Lancaster. Eleanor of Lancaster was a great-granddaughter of Henry III of England (1216-1272) via his second son Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster. Margaret Holland’s great-grandmother was Maria of Hohenstaufen (April 3, 1201 – March 29, 1235) she was a member of the powerful Hohenstaufen dynasty of German kings and Holy Roman Emperors which lasted from 1138 to 1254. She is also known to history as Marie of Swabia. Maria herself was a granddaughter of the great Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich I (1152-1190), also known as Frederick Barbarossa.

Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich I (1152-1190), also known as Frederick Barbarossa.

Historians consider Friedrich I among the Holy Roman Empire’s greatest medieval emperors. He combined qualities that made him appear almost superhuman to his contemporaries: his longevity, his ambition, his extraordinary skills at organization, his battlefield acumen and his political perspicacity. His contributions to Central European society and culture include the reestablishment of the Corpus Juris Civilis, or the Roman rule of law, which counterbalanced the papal power that dominated the German states since the conclusion of the Investiture Controversy (a conflict between church and state in medieval Europe over the ability to appoint local church officials through investiture. By undercutting imperial power, the controversy led to nearly 50 years of civil war in the Empire.

Margaret Holland’s Maternal grandfather, Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel, was a member of the FitzAlan family. The FitzAlan family shared a common patrilinear ancestry with the Scots, and later English, royal dynasty, the House of Stuart. They are therefore also related to the current British royal family. They were descendants of the Bretonknight Alan fitz Flaad (d. 1120) grandson of the Seneschal of the Bishop of Dol. The FitzAlans held the earldom of Arundel during the period 1267 – 1580.

A FitzAlan descendant, Alan fitz Walter (1140–1204) was hereditary High Steward of Scotland and a crusader. His son by his second marriage to Alesta, daughter of Morggán, Earl of Mar, was Walter, 3rd High Steward of Scotland, and it was he that adopted the surname Stewart and became the founder of The House of Stewart (Stuart).

Joan of Kent

Margaret Holland’s grandmother was Joan of Kent (September 29, 1328 – August 7, 1385), known to history as The Fair Maid of Kent. Joan was the daughter of Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, and Margaret Wake, 3rd Baroness Wake of Liddell. Her father Edmund was the son of King Edward I by his second wife, Margaret of France, daughter of Philippe III of France. This brings the descendants of Edward I’s second marriage into the Ancestry of Henry VII.

The marriages of Joan of Kent is rather complicated and the topic is worthy of a separate blog post. Joan’s third husband was Edward the Black Prince, eldest son and heir to King Edward III. Two sons were born to the royal couple. The elder son, named Edward (1365 – 1370) after his father and grandfather, died at the age of six. Their younger son, Richard, became King Richard II of England when his grandfather, Edward III, died on June 21, 1377. Richard’s father, the Black Prince had died in his bed at the Palace of Westminster June 7, 1376.

Descendants of Joan of Kent through her children Lady Joan and Thomas Holland include Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (mother of King Henry VII), and queens consort Anne Neville, Elizabeth of York, and Catherine Parr.

This concludes the MATERNAL ancestry of Henry VII of England. In the next entry in the series I will begin to examine the Royal Ancestry of Henry VII’s Paternal side, the Tudors.