The Rise of Henry Tudor with Nathen Amin

Though he’s remembered as the man who united the two royal houses of England, Henry Tudor was more than just the red rose of Lancaster: he was also the red dragon of Wales. This week, Danièle speaks with Nathen Amin about Henry Tudor's Welsh ancestry, how generations of royals and rebels shaped him, and how he managed to claim the English throne despite desperately long odds.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hi everyone, and welcome to episode two hundred and eighty
seven of The Medieval Podcast. I'm Danielle Sabolski, also known
as the Five Minute Medievalist. It's not a stretch to
say that the Tutors are some of the most popular
figures in all of history. The stars of countless nonfiction books, novels,
TV shows, podcasts, and even video games. Elizabeth and her father,

(00:39):
Henry the Eighth are seemingly endless sources of fascination. Strangely,
the founder of the dynasty, Henry the Seventh, is often
left behind in the excitement of Tudormania. Though he's remembered
as the man who united the two dynastic royal houses
of England, Henry was more than just the Red Rose
of Lancaster. He was also the Red Dragon of Wales.

(01:02):
This week, I spoke with Nathan Amen about Henry Tudor
and his Welsh roots. Nathan is the media's go to
guy on the life of Henry the Seventh, appearing on
History hit, BBC four and a whole lot of podcasts.
He's also the author of several books on Henry, including
The House of Beaufort, The Bastard Line that Captured the
Crown and Henry the Seventh and the Tutor pretenders Simnel,

(01:25):
Warbick and Warwick. His new book is Son of Prophecy,
The Rise of Henry Tudor. Our conversation on why it's
important to understand Henry's Welsh ancestry, how generations of royals
and rebels shaped him, and how he managed to claim
the English throne despite desperately long odds is coming up

(01:45):
right after this. Well, welcome Nathan to talk about Henry Tudor.
It is so nice to meet you. We have known
of each other for the longest time and now we
are finally meeting. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yes, thank you so much for inviting me. Whenever somebody
invites me to discuss all things Henry Tudor, I'm always
happy to engage, and I'm particularly happy to engage with
you on this podcast because, as you say, we've known
of each other for quite a while. I've followed your podcast,
I followed your work.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
So hello, hello, hello, Okay, so we are going to
be talking about your latest work, Son of Prophecy, and
this is all about Henry Tudor's roots in Wales. But
first I need to ask you, as I asked David Carpenter,
who also liked to Henry, that doesn't get a lot
of love. Why Henry tudor why does he speak to you?

Speaker 2 (02:38):
I guess we need to go back to my personal
journey in a little way, in that I am born
and bred in West Wales, and I've always had an
interest in history, but I didn't study history to any
significant educational level in school. Unfortunately, at fifteen years old,
I was supposed to choose between history and geography, and
my school made me take geography, which has been a

(03:01):
born of contention ever since. But I got my history
go reawakened in me when I was in my twenties,
and I was very interested in Welsh history because where
I am from in West Wales, we are surrounded by
all types of history. You can't leave your front door
without getting bombarded with all matters of Welsh history and

(03:23):
Welsh folklore and Welsh mythology. But I'm also quite a
hyperactive person and I do have many eclectic interests, some
of which have included the American mafia, civil rights movements,
and briefly, Henry the Eighth. So I've readed some Henry
the Eighth Books in my mid twenties and around two
thousand and nine, and I very quickly got quite bored

(03:47):
of the whole Six Wives drama. Sorry to any fans
of ane Bulan listening out there, but it bored me
quite quick. I do joke, I am toxic masculinity in
human form, you know. I love I love Rugby, I
love all those kind of you know, crashing hit kind
of escapades. So briefly, at the start of every one

(04:09):
of the Henry the Eighth Books was a very minor
mention of some Welsh chap from where I am from,
in West Wales, who won his crown in battle. And
this fascinated me. Who was this guy, Henry Tudor born
in my backyard who rose up to become a King
of England? And I started to try and do a

(04:31):
bit more reading and research around him. Now two thousand
and nine, the most recent book that had been written
was nineteen ninety seven, an academic thesis by Sean Cunningham Legend,
and before that a very dry, ber detailed exploration of
Henry the Seventh written in nineteen seventy two by a

(04:53):
guy called S. B. Crimes. There was nothing out there
for the mass market. There was nothing out there for
a beginner to get into Hendry the seventh. So I
started to do my own research and gradually, as a
journalism graduate, I started to put together a blog and
it just snowballed from there. You know, Henry the seventh.

(05:16):
I think the twenty first century a certainly since twenty
ten has been the decade of Henry the seventh where
we talk of the Tudor monarchs. He's really written to
the four. Part of that coincides, of course, with a
discovery of a certain king under a car park who
we won't mention, or maybe we'll mention.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Later we'll mention.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
And you know, I was able to be at the forefront,
not myself, but part of it trying to discover Henry
the seventh. So it's a security's route. But the bottom
line is if you ask me quickly in one sentence
why he's simply a very interest in Welshman from where
I am back home and that is enough, you know,

(06:01):
that is the single opening door to kick it down
and learn more.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Well, I mean you always have to start somewhere, and
I've said again and again on this podcast, it starts
with interest and What I love about the research that's
happening right now is so many historians are like, here's
where it started for me, was my interest, and nobody
is quite as embarrassed about it like they used to
be back in the day. So I love it. You're
picking someone who speaks to you, who resonates with you.

(06:29):
So why do you think Henry hasn't had much love
to this point the Victorians?

Speaker 2 (06:37):
I think we historians like to blame the Victorians for
a lot of things. But with Hendry the Sambuls first
and foremost, he comes across historically, it's historiography comes across,
and he's a dour accountant king, a boring miser who
is nothing more than the dull bridge between the exciting

(06:57):
Plantagenets that came before and the Renaissance that flowered under
Henry the eighth. That's at least a perception that has
come down to us, and it has been furthered by
Victorian studies. Now, Henry the seventh seems to have been
quite a popular king with the Whig historians, to whom

(07:18):
we owe a debt of gratitude in many ways for
their industrious research. But they have left us with a
lingering legacy that modern historians are now trying to unpick.
And I think for them, Henry the seventh was very
popular because they really respected his administrative prowess, They respected

(07:39):
his constitutional progressions, they respected his financial policies, basically all
the boring things, you know. They really admired the political
tenure of his reign, so first and foremost, that is
what they examined, and that's what they highlighted. They completely
pushed to the side the personal aspects of his life

(08:02):
and his reign, which is good because that's the kind
of thing I'm now making my name on bringing to
the four And secondly, this also comes down to his
kind of unique Anglo Welsh background, which again is something
that I now study. The Victorians are writing during an
age of empire and particularly English exceptionalism. So this king

(08:25):
that they deeply admired, it didn't do well for them
that he was Welsh, and I would argue had a
very Welsh bearing and a very Welsh upbringing. The evidence
is there of people bore the to look of Henry
the Seventh Welshness and they've removed that. So that's been
removed in this reinterpretation that they've passed down of Henry

(08:48):
the Seventh that has then influenced the consequential generation of historians.
So his greatest biographer, at least until now, i'd like
to say, is Crimes, who wrote in nineteen seventy two
a book one hundred and seventh, and he is a
student of that Victorian school, so he himself is further

(09:10):
in those ideas, and his book still remains to this
day almost the gold standard of study. Thomas Penn in
twenty twelve wrote The Winter King and again chose to
focus on quite a negative interpretation of Henry seventh. So
you know, he's fallen between the cracks a little bit,

(09:30):
and I think he has been quite misunderstood. I wouldn't
say he's been maligned like a rich the Third perhaps has,
but he definitely has been misinterpreted and only a small
sliver of his story has been told, and I think
that's quite a shame. Now, just to finish the point quickly,

(09:52):
if in England his Welshness has been removed. In Wales,
it's quite an interesting the Nama taking place that in
Wales we have essentially two schools. We have English speaking
Wales and we have Welsh speaking Whales. In English speaking Wales,
a lot of the ills that have befallen Wales over

(10:14):
the last couple of centuries blamed for that is often
incorrectly placed at the feet of the Tudors. So there
are many people within Wales who, if they are even
aware of their history, they do not like the Tudors.
They view them as traitors to Wales, and they have
a very incorrect reading of their past, which is not

(10:37):
unique to Wales. England America does say Canada. Probably people
misread their history, don't they for their own modern political ideologies.
In Welsh speaking Wales, these historians have always known the
deep legacy and connection the Tudor family had with their country,

(10:58):
with the land of their fathers. But of course you
need to be speaking Welsh to be exposed to access
to their history. So I think he's a king who
falls between the cracks, you know. He suffers ultimately, he
suffers from being the king who comes in between the
true greatest and infamous villains of English history, you know,

(11:22):
and I use villains there as in the popular imagination,
not necessarily myself. But he falls in between rich the
third and Henry the eighth, and that's a struggle to
get any sunlight as well, just all of these things
that unfortunately he has suffered. But again, well it's worked
well for me.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
And that's fair enough. That's fair enough. Well, I mean,
he hasn't got a lot of love. So it's time.
It's time for you to come forward and start talking
about Henry Tutor, which is why I'm grateful to have
you on the podcast. Okay, So Henry Tudor doesn't come
to the English throne because of his well Welsh blood.
He comes to it because of his Lancastrian blood, which

(12:04):
maybe we can get to in a minute. But I
think this is something easy for people to find, but
it's not easy to find his Welsh history until you
read your book. So tell us a little bit about
that Welsh history that backs up Henry. It gives him,
I think, a lot of confidence, despite the fact that
it is a little bit spicy at times. Tell us

(12:24):
why you went all the way back to the time
of King John when you're starting to talk about Henry
Tudor's Welsh background.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah, I mean, when Henry Tudor becomes King Henry the
seventh of England, one of the first things he does
he launches an investigation to explore his Welsh background, and
he does this because he wants to, in his words,
counter slandrous assertions that have been made about the quality
of his background. And these slaandrous assertions, I mean they

(12:56):
come from the mind and the pen of Richard the
Third because in the propaganda war before they meet to Bosworth,
rich the third is really doing a number on Henry's
Welsh background. Now, Henry wants to explore this, and I'm
glad he did because the investigation that he commissioned gave
me a lot of the bones for my own work

(13:19):
over the last ten years. And the investigation reveals that
Henry was descended from some of the most ancient and
revered kings of Wales there have been. We can go
back to the seventh and eighth century. I'm thinking of
men like Rodri Ramau, Rodri the Good, sorry, Rodri the
Great and how well there, how well the good. You know,

(13:42):
these are revered ancient Welsh kings. Also descended from King Cadwalader,
who was regarded as the last King of the Britons.
And ultimately this is a bit more fanciful, but it
claims that Henry was descended from King Arthur and all
the way back to Brutus, who is the mythological founder

(14:04):
of Britain. The point is Henry has this deep and
abiding connection with ancient Welsh royalty. In more recent generations,
it is clear he's descended from a long line of
Welsh rebels, Welshmen who have proven a thorn in the
side of English kings. And I begin my story ultimately

(14:26):
with a guy called Ednefred Vachan who lived during the
late twelfth century. And he is someone who we can
understand it today's parlance to be something of a prime
minister to the last independent kingdom, Welsh kingdom that was
still standing on his two feet, and that is Gwynez

(14:50):
in the north and west of rick now Wales. I
always say the English and England fell to the Normans
in a matter of weeks after conquest in ten sixty six.
The Welsh held out for nearly three hundred years, so
come on the Welsh. But in twelve eighty two, finally
gwynev does fall. Now but nothing. He's a fascinating character

(15:15):
because he is very skilled in military warfare. He earns
the nickname the Terror of England when he goes across
to Chester and he comes back with three English heads,
and for that he earns the nickname the Terror of England.
She's obviously a capable military man, but he's also skilled

(15:37):
in diplomacy. You know. He is one of the men
who is constantly meeting with people like King John to
put forward the case for Wales and nothing. Vachan was
involved in the ceiling of Magna Carta, you know, he
was there representing the Welsh interests. And this is the
guy who what we would call later the Tudors, is

(16:02):
descended from and each one of his descendants who go
on to live in Wales under English conquest and the
English rule. They do their best to try and get
on under English rule. But times are very hard for
the Welsh in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. And these men,

(16:24):
these again, for lack of a better term, will call
them the Tudors, the Welsh Tutors. They are at times
raising their head above the parapet and proving troublesome for
English kings because they are a family with great influence
and power among their people. They may not have any

(16:45):
offices of note or any tangible power, because that is
deprived from the Welsh during this period, but they definitely
have influence amongst their people. People look to them as
almost tribal leaders of the Welsh, and this is the
inheritance that gradually comes down through the ages. To Henry Tudor,

(17:08):
the Welsh knew exactly his lineage. It was very famously
said by Gerald of Wales that I don't know what
we would call him. A Welsh Norman cleric who lived
in the twelfth century. He made it known that the
Welsh valued their pedigree more than anything. The Welsh didn't

(17:31):
value land titles, money, They valued their pedigree. And every
Welshman could apparently recite their family tree going back at
least eight generations. And this was helped, of course, because
the Welsh used patronymics, so you know, whereas the English
gradually assumed surnames, the Welsh were known as you know,

(17:54):
let's take Owen Tudor as an example. O Went Tudor
is an English name that's been ascribed to him, but
his true name would have been O wine app app
means son of O wine app Meredith app Tider app
garonwy ap tid de ap garonw ap Tider app naphed

(18:18):
ap kinwid. So the Welsh had all of these type
of names, the son of, the son of, the son of,
and again that's what they respected. So by the time
you get Henry Tudor born as you say, half English
in Pembroke through birth, half English, a quarter Welsh and
a quarter French, that Welsh aspect to him is deeply

(18:40):
known by the people around him and by the people
of Wales. They know his lineage, nothing else martyrs when
it comes to evaluating Henry Tudor, and as he grew up,
he himself would have become aware of that. And history
has told us that Henry was able to exploit this
Welsh now, and that's a term of quite negative, exploits

(19:03):
this for his own ends. I think you've touched on
something interesting there in that. Who is to say that
Henry didn't buy into this aspect of his welsh Ness
and was able to use it to galvanize support around him,
but also something that gave him confidence to press ahead

(19:23):
with the mission ahead of him. Maybe he truly believed
some of the virtues that were being extalled to him
about his welsh Ness. Maybe he believed some of the
folklow that is now being ascribed to him as a
descendant of all of these ancient kids. Because the one
thing of at Henry Tudor we can say is when

(19:44):
he becomes King of England, he does not drop the
Welsh act. He keeps it going throughout his reign.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Well, I think that this is something that he would
not be able to help, but be aware of the
place where he grew up. It's going to be all
around him. And then I think that maybe when we
get when we're starting to get into Henry's life, that
we can actually fit it into one podcast. Maybe we
should start with Owen Tudor, because this is somebody who
not only is very important to Henry's background, but also

(20:14):
somebody who was kind of penalized that seems to me
for being Welsh at the time when when he was
maybe overstepping what people thought even an Englishman should do.
So let's start with Owen Tunor. Give us the broad
strokes about what this guy was all about.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
I mean, Owen Tudor is a remarkable figure and I
think we could probably do an entire podcast series about
him alone. And he is the figure who really shifts
the family story out of Wales and into England in
the first place. You see in fourteen hundred the well
should finally had enough of being treated like second class

(20:52):
citizens in their own country. Our first cousinent of the Tudors,
named Owain Glindur, raises the on a revolt and goes
to war with the House of Lancaster to try and
free Wales from what he viewed was the shackles of
English subjugation. Now that rebellion collapsed after a decade, they

(21:15):
really put the fright on the English crown. But gradually
English might prove too much for the Welsh and the
revolt collapses. But the aftermath was terrible for the Welsh populace.
They were punished collectively, whether they were involved in the
revolt or not. You know that means judicially, militarily, economically.

(21:38):
So many young Welshmen had to leave Wales to look
for pastors new to make their fortune, and many of
these Welshmen ended up in the French armies of Henry
the Fifth for young or when Tudor, he did leave
Wales behind, but he didn't make it as far as France,

(22:00):
I would suggest, possibly because he was too young, and
he made it as far as England. We would call
him today an economic migrant. He is looking for work
outside his homeland. Now we don't know when and we
don't know how, but at some point in England he
finds himself a woman, and she just so happens to

(22:21):
be the widowed Queen of England, Catherine of Valois.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
When Tudor married her in secret. He has multiple children
with her, and they do seem to enjoy a life
living clandestinely on the fringes of London. The problem for
Owen Tudor is that Catherine dies It's just thirty five,
and their marriage is exposed to the King's Council. Oh

(22:49):
when has broken a law. He's broken a parliamentary law
by marrying a widowed Queen of England, and he is
summoned to the King's Council to answer for his crime,
and he's placed into prison. Now Owen Tudor is a son,
a grandson, and a nephew of Welsh rebels. It doesn't

(23:11):
look good for him, but fortunately for him, his stepson
happened to be a teenage King of England, Henry the sixth,
and possibly one of the few Kings of England who
has a streak of mercy and kindness running through his veins,
and Henry the sixth goes against his counsel's orders to

(23:34):
pardon Owen Tudor and embrace him into his royal household.
He goes against his counsel's orders, and from then on
Owen Tudor and his sons Edmund and Jasper Tudor, they
prove unflinchingly loyal to the cause of Henry the sixth.

(23:54):
What it's really interesting is to point out that Henry
the sixth is, of course the House of Lancaster. It
was Owen's father and his uncles who were at war
with the House of Lancaster in fourteen hundred. By the
fourteen forties and fourteen fifties, those tutors are now well,

(24:17):
they're part of the House of Lancaster. It's a remarkable turnaround,
something quite unlike anything I think in English or Welsh history.
This Welsh rebel rising out of Wales and finding himself
a queen, I mean, that's some Welsh charm.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Absolutely, I think. So if you are a French queen
and you just come across this Hens and welshman, mean,
who's going to resist that? But then this is the
moment where the Tudors get even more in messed with
the Lancastrians, because this is the moment where Margaret Beaufort
enters right. Enter Margaret tell us what happens and how
this begins to really be the bloodline that rings Henry

(25:00):
to the throne.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yes, so Henry the sixth wants to look after his
half brothers, and he in fact inducts them into the
English peerage. They become the first Welsh blooded people brought
into the English peerage when they're given the earldoms of
Richmond and Pembroke. In Edmund's case, he is given, as
you say, a bride of English royal descent in Margaret Beaufort.

(25:26):
Margaret Beauford is the wealthiest English heiress of her day. Now,
Edmund Tudor very quickly impregnates Margaret, and we can see
the motivations why for doing so. It's because if he
has a child with Margaret Beauford, for the rest of
his life, he would have personal interest and control over

(25:48):
her fortune, over her lands, over her inheritance. Edmund Tudor
was twenty six years old at this point, Margaret was
just twelve. It is very distasteful, and it's certainly was
of normal for the fourteen fifties, any more than that
would be normal today. It's a cruel act performed by

(26:12):
Edmund Tudor, and in pregnancy, in labor, Margaret's life is
despared of because in truth she was still just a
child when she was given birth. But she does survive.
Her son survives, and he is given the name Henry,
after his half uncle, the lancast and King Henry the sixth.

(26:35):
I think we just need to reflect upon why as well,
Margaret was given to Edmund Tudor. I think there's something
to be said about what Henry the sixth was planning,
because in fourteen fifty two, after several years of marriage,
Henry the sixth still doesn't have an air. He has

(26:57):
no son with Margaret anju There are two senior nobles
who are coming to clashes at this time, and that
is Richard, the Duke of York, and that is Edmund Beauford,
the Duke of Somerset, both of whom have claims to
the English throne. They enter a blood food, and it's
often overlooked whether part of their food in was because

(27:22):
they knew each man could potentially be next in line
for the English crown. What Henry the sixth looks to do,
I believe is to create an alternative line of succession
by merging his half brother's bloodline, the Tudor bloodline, with
the Beauford bloodline. Because Margaret Beauford is the senior claimant

(27:46):
to the House of Beauford, she has that claim to
the throne vested in her veins. And I would suggest
Henry sixth is trying to merge two of his family's
bloodlines into one. But we don't get anymore about it
because it's almost as soon if this marriage comes to
fruition very quickly. Henry the sixth does have a son

(28:10):
with Margaret Vontu, so this Tudor Beauford merging is put
on the sidelines and it's kind of forgotten about for
the next thirty years.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
And it's kind of good for Henry that it's forgotten
about for a while, because there are so many people
who want this throwne at this moment. It's probably best
that he's forgotten about for a while. But I think
that you're probably right because with that combination of bloodlines,
you have the Welsh Royalty going very far back. Plus
you have the value of blood, Plus you have the
beauf blood like, who could ask for anything more?

Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, And I think we have to be careful to
suggest as well, there's no suggestion that this would have
come to fruition all that the Parliament and the Colemans
and the people of England would have supported this aspect.
I think if Henry the sixth dies without the sun,
it would have been Richard, the Duke of York rising

(29:03):
to the foe. Had don't think England would have accepted
the Beauffords at this moment, you know, they wouldn't necessarily
a popular family. I think that the House of York
as did come to fruition during what became known as
the Wars of the Rogers, they would have pressed militarily
their right. But it is an interesting dynamic taking place

(29:25):
in the fourteen fifties. All of this uncertainty, all of
this food in weak kinship for a time being no
clear heir to the thrown it all of course erupts
into civil war and Henry Tudor is in a very
precarious position as a child because he is closely related

(29:45):
to the House of Lancaster. On both sides of his
family tree. No one's looking at him and saying, oh,
this boy is one day going to be the king
of England. I mean, that whole concept is absurd until
rich the third becomes king. In fact, you know, we
need once and for all to get rid of this
pervasive idea that Margaret Beauford had a lifelong dream for

(30:07):
Henry Tudor's son to become king. That is nothing more
than the invention of one fiction writer. In the last
twenty years. Nobody was looking at Henry Tudor during the
early phases of the Wars the Roses as a prospective
claimant to Hinglish throne, because they quite simply were so
many of them around who had the military barking to

(30:30):
press their claims. But nonetheless it was there in the background,
unfortunately for Henry. Remarkably for Henry. In fact, over the
next thirty years, everybody else falls by the wayside until
he is in effect the last man standing to be
given support against Richard Third. But that's all later down

(30:52):
the line anyway.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yes, in the meantime, his father dies really really early.
Henry doesn't ever really get to know him, because he's
not in the picture So how is Henry raised as
a child.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, so I mean Edmund Tudor dies before Henry the seventh,
Henry Tudor is even born. So Henry Tudor is in
fact the Earl of Richmond from birth. Many people all
through history of simply ascribed Edmond Tudor's death to be plague.
I think there's a very good case that he was murdered.

(31:28):
I believe he was bumped off by the House of York.
To learn more, please read my book right lay out
the case. But Henry Tudor is this little Lancasteran boy
being brought up initially in Pembroke under the guardianship of
his uncle Jaspertuda. But when he's four years old, the
Lancastans are booted off the English throne and replaced by

(31:50):
the House of York. His father, Edmund Tudor is already dead,
his grandfather Owen Tudor is executed aged sixty, and Jasper Tudor,
his uncle, is forced to flee abroad. So Henry is
left isolated and his wardship is sought by the New
Yorkist King and of the fourth to one of his

(32:12):
closest supporters, somebody named William Herbert of Ragland. Now, if
during the fifteenth century we've got all of these blood
foods taking place in England between the York and Lancaster,
the Yorks and the Beauffords, the Yorks and everybody. In Wales,
we have a blood food that's between the Herbert family

(32:33):
and the Tudor family. They are the two main families
vying for supremacy in Wales. At this time, the Herberts
have risen, the Tudors have fallen, and Henry Tudor is
soot to the Herberts. Now, he would claim the next
ten years of his life when he's being brought up
by the Herberts at Ragland Castle, he lived a life

(32:58):
akin to that of a prison. He was a fugitive.
But the truth is this is the only stable period
in Henry Kuda's childhood. He has a good upbringing. He
is taught mathematics, algebra, he's taught how to learn, how
to read and write, he's taught the basics of warfare.
And he's also for the first time exposed to his

(33:22):
Welsh ancestry because Raglan is the greatest Welsh cultural hub
there is during this period, So it is that Raglan,
that he becomes aware of the Welsh language, Welsh mythology,
Welsh folklore, and his lineage is always being extolled by
the poets. They're telling him, you are descended from Cadwalader,

(33:45):
you are descended from King Arthur. We know that Henry
is listening because he is arguably one of the cleverest
kings of England that ever was a very shrewd and
intelligent and wise adult. Of course he must have been
quite a precocious young man and boy as well. He

(34:06):
takes all of this in because this is information that
he is going to use later on down the line.
He has a very Welsh upbringing at Raglen, and again
in fact there until he's fourteen years old. So this
claim that Henry Coodor did not know Wales does not
stand up to any scrutiny. He was born and bred

(34:27):
in Wales, around Welsh man, around Welsh bards, around the
Welsh culture until he was fourteen years.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
Old, right, And this is something that you can see,
as you've chased in your book comes back up in
later life. He really enjoys all of the things that
he grew up with the music and the poems and
all of those things come back around. So when he's fourteen,
things change for him again. The wheel of fortune is
always turning Henry. What happens around that moment.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
You know, very briefly, we know that the Lanca Austrians. Well,
first of all, I should say William Herbert, he's executed
in fourteen sixty nine trying to fend off the rebellion
of Warwick the Kingmaker and George, Duke of Clarence. So
Herber he executed in fourteen sixty nine. In fourteen seventeen,

(35:17):
the Lancastrians come back to the English throne and Henry
is reunited with his uncle Jasper. And then just eight
months later, in the spring of fourteen seventy one, the
Yorkists sweep conclusively back to power by winning the battles
of Barnett and Tewkesbury. You know, it's the wars of
the Rosiers the Crown. He's being passed back back and forth,

(35:41):
like past the parcel. But in fourteen seventy one, in May,
the Yorkists have won. And what Edward looks to do
is he looks to prevent these dynastic wars from restarting
by cutting the head off the Lancastrian Snake. By the
end of May fourteen seventy one, Henry the sixth is dead,

(36:02):
His son Prince Edward is dead and possibly the next
two in line for the throne on that side of
the family tree. The Beauford brothers John and Edmund are
also killed. These are all close relations to young Henry Tudor.
Now Henry Tudor does not make it to the back

(36:22):
of Tewkesbury because he and his uncle Jasper are held
up for reasons when not sure about twenty or thirty
miles away, and this arguably saved their life. But whils
they're waiting at Chepstow trying to work out what to do,
a Yorkish soldier comes out of nowhere and tries to
capture them and kill them, probably sent by Edward the

(36:45):
Fourth to tie up any loose hands. Jasper Tudor is
able to kill this would be assassin, and he grabs
his young nephew and they ride hard through South Wales
until they reach Tenby. Now can Be's a small but
gorgeous town on the Welsh coast in his Jasper's town,

(37:06):
and the Tudors use some underground tunnels to get to
a boat that's waiting for them in the harbor. Together,
the Tudors sail out into the sea and they begin
Henry Tudor's fourteen years in exile, away from everything that
he knew. If they do not get on that small boat,

(37:27):
they would have been killed by the Yorkists, because Jasper
Tudor is a very ardent and well known Lancastrian leader.
But Henry Tudor, through his mother, has got that Beaufort
blood in his veins. Again, there are many people with

(37:47):
stronger claims to the throne than Henry Tudor, but that
is a complication that ed of the Fourth does not
want to have. But fortunately Henry Tudor is able to
get out of England and ways and he heads on
over across the Channel, where he spent the next fourteen
years loitering, really kept a prisoner of primarily the Duke

(38:11):
of Brittany and then later on the Crown of France.
But he is in effect loitering for fourteen years, essentially
waiting for the moment that the Bretons will finally make
that deal with the English and turn him over. He's
stuck in limbo. His life is dangling in the balance

(38:31):
with every negotiation that Edward the Fourth has with the
Duke of Brittany. But in fourteen eighty three, something remarkable happens.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
You're just gonna leave it, leave it right there. Well,
I was going to say, surprising things are happening in
the background because his mother, who he's barely talked to,
is still working, working, working, in the background, and she
is just about to get her son back over the
channel when everything falls apart. So tell us what happens.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yes, So Margaret Beauford is reconciled to the Yorkist regime
throughout the fourteen seventies, because in truth, the wars of
the Roses are over. Fourteen seventy one, the Wars of
the Roses have come to an end. The White Rose
has won, the Yorkists are successful. The Lancastrians are gone.

(39:29):
They've been wiped out. So Margaret Beauford, like most other
former Lancastrians during this period, they just get on with
their daily lives and they try to make the best
of it. And she does grow close to the Yorkist regime,
and she is pressing ed of the Fourth constantly to
let her son come home because he is her sole heir.

(39:52):
You know, Henry Tudor is the Earl of Richmond through
his father, but through his mother he stands to inherit
incredible wealth from those Beauford Land and estates. Margaret Beauford
wants your only boy back, for him to tick over,
you know, the family business. But out of the Fourth
he's having none of it. For throughout the fourteen seventies

(40:13):
he's having none of it. He does try to get
his hands on Henry Tyden multiple times, but that's to
almost certainly have him executed until we reach fourteen eighty two,
when Ed of the Fourth has grown well. He's grown
copulent with success, as of me, and he is comfortable
on the throne. He has defeated all of his rivals.

(40:36):
He has the air and the spare. I mean, for
people who watched Game of Thrones, he's Robert Brathian. He
is just enjoying his success and he realized, I have
nothing to fear anymore. The dinnerstt shakuwa for generations to come.
So okay, Margaret Beauford, I will allow you sanch COmON

(40:57):
and together they draft a pardon. And if pardon is
written on the back of the very patent that created
Edmund Tudor, the Earl of Richmond in the first place,
and it's a draft pardon saying Henry Tudor can come home.
He can inherit he boford Lands as long as he
bends the knee and accepts I am his king. Editor

(41:19):
the fourth is his king, and who knows he may
even be granted one of the York daughters as his bride.
So things are looking up for Margaret Beauford at this period.
She's just about to get confirmation that is san cab
and Edward Fourth does something really stupid and he goes
and dies, aged just forty, and suddenly all of Margaret

(41:41):
Beufford's plans are thrown up in air. Now, of course
I'm perhaps I'm going to try and duel on this too, match,
But Edward Fourth is left behind a twelve year old
son and a nine year old spare Edward the Fifth
and Richard of Shrewsbury. Seventy eight days after their father's death.

(42:03):
Neither of those Boers are crowned King of England. The
person who is crowned the next King of England is
their uncle, Richard the Third. Now, the day before his coronation,
Margaret Beauford has a private meeting with Richard the Third. Officially,
this meeting is about a Beauford family debt that she

(42:26):
is owed from one of the French dukes, from the
Duke of Oleon, and she is asking Richard the Third,
as her king, will he help intercede on behalf of
this family debt. You know, Richard has to be a
good lord, that's his job, but nobody can convince me that.

(42:47):
During that meeting, Margaret Beaufford has put it to Richard,
what about my son? Your brother Edward the fourth had
this pardon ready to go, allowing my son, who is
now twenty six years old to finally come home and
become Earl of Richmond. And I would suggest Richard said no,

(43:08):
do not be stupid. Margaret is much in a fair
answer from his point of view, whether you believe you
shaped the throne or whether you believe he was given
it rightfully. Richard is in a weak position at this
moment and he can't have any complications coming home or
any Lancastrians coming home to cause issues. So I believe

(43:30):
he said no, because very shortly thereafter, Margaret Bothord go
straight to work conniving and conspiring to bring Richard down.
And I think that is the moment. I think it's
Richard saying Henry Tudor cannot come home that pushes Margaret
into open rebellion.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yes, well, as you say, there's no one looking at
Henry Tutor to be the king until Richard the Third
takes the throne, and then all of a sudden, everyone's
eyes start looking across the channel. But even then they're
not sure that Henry is going to be the best option.
But together Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville, the Queen, they're

(44:11):
working behind the scenes, and it seems to be that
I think that you're gesturing towards in your book that
turns the tide, right.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah, I mean the Tudors later wrote history, how they
did allow the story to be told, obviously, and the
story that's been told is that you know, at this moment,
Henry Tudor is proposed to be the next king of
England and he comes back to rescue England from tyranny.
But I would suggest in fourteen eighty three, first and

(44:40):
foremost all of the people who will looking to rebel
against rich the Third, and there's a sizeable amount of
them because not everyone agreed with what he did. You know,
he had alienated half of the Yorkish support and caused
half of that Yorkish support to look for conspiracies to

(45:01):
bring him down. Half of that support. They now look
for another leader, and I would suggest, and contemporary records
suggest that is the Duke of Buckingham. Now we don't
know why the Duke of Buckingham rebelled from Richard the
third Side ambition is likely to be the key scenario
because he is Richard the Third's key alle and he

(45:23):
has given incredible power and influence. Under Richard's reign, he
has effectively made the number two in the kingdom. Why
would you rebel from a position of number two unless
it is to be number one. You certainly are not
rebelling to put a junior cousin. You don't know. In

(45:46):
Henry Tudor on the English throne, the Duke of Buckleham
had a very strong claim to the throne. He was
descended three times over from Ede of the Third, and
in fact his Beaufort claim to the throne, because he
was descended from the Beaufords, was stronger than Henry Tudor's
there is very good reason why when Buckenham's rebellion collapses

(46:09):
in fourteen eighty three, Rich iid officially calls it Buckenham's
conspiracy fourteen eighty three. All of the conspiracies are about
putting Buckenham on the English throne, and Henry Tudor is
of course a very important part of that, in that
he's also going to invade at the same time for

(46:30):
this almost this pincer movement on Rich third. But Buckanham's idiot,
he messarees it all up and he gets his head
chopped off. And the truth is, the earliest that I've
been able to find any reference whatsoever to Henry Tudor
being a King of England is the third of November
fourteen eighty three, and by this point the princes in

(46:54):
the tower are presumed by many people to have been killed,
so they are out of the way, and Buckingham has
been executed. Buckingham was executed on the second of November
fourteen eighty three in Salisbury. The very next day, a
group of rebels for the first time mentioned they are

(47:15):
going abroad to raise an alternative king, and these rebels
end up at the court of Henry Tudor in Brittany.
We come to Christmas Day fourteen eighty three, where Henry
Tudor pledges before these English rebels that he will marry
Elizabeth of York. So I will say the earliest Henry

(47:36):
Tooder is put forward as the king of England is
after Richard the third has become king, and I would
in fact place it not until November fourteen eighty three,
not earlier in the summer, as the Tudors would later write,
because they're not obviously going to go back later on
and say, well, no, there was the Duke of Buckingham first,

(47:57):
because guess what, he has a son living at the
Court of seventh and had with the eighth, and he
famously later gets his head cut off by Henry's eight
as well. So I think history was written a little
bit there.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
I mean with the Tutors, everything is rewritten a little bit,
either for them or against them. There's all sorts of
stuff that's being thrown around, and you really do have
to do some detective work, okay. So Henry does not
make it across the New Year's Day that's following this announcement.
It takes him a while, but he gathers support and
he comes back and he meets Richard the Third on

(48:37):
the battlefield at Bosworth. What do you think Henry is
thinking at this moment? Do you think that he believes
that this is going to work? I mean the later
writers are like, yeah, he was all in. What do
you think Henry's thinking as he's lacing up for Bosworth?

Speaker 2 (48:51):
I think the Olds are so stacked against him. There's
no way that this invasion campaign should be successful. His
army is we It is primarily French mercenaries. It is
around four to five hundred English rebels and a handful
of Scots who've come along for a fight. He lands
in Wales to boost his numbers and he does get

(49:13):
around two to three thousand more men, but it's a
weak army that is going up against rich Thid. Now. Famously,
the Stanleys are a third army at Bosworth, and they
do ultimately intercede on Henry's side. I would suggest that
deal was always known. I think the Stanleys were always

(49:36):
going to come in on Henry's side. They just couldn't
make them move earlier. But nonetheless, you're going up against
the King of England with all of the might and
the numbers and the location that he has. Henry at best,
as we say in boxing, he had a punisher's chance.
He's got a slight chance, but he shouldn't have won

(49:59):
that day. If I was to put myself into his
frame of mind, I would believe he had nothing going
for himself. Abroad. He was twenty eight years old. On
at least a few occasions he was faced with being
arrested and turned over to the English for execution. It
was just a matter of time before diplomacy worked against

(50:22):
him and he was going to be killed. I think
this is his one and only throw the dice, and
I think he goes for it. I would love to
know whether he is able to exploit and use all
of this pumping out of Welsh political propaganda in poetry
that says that he is the son of Prophecy, that
says that he is the chosen Messiah. I wonder if

(50:45):
he uses this to give himself some motivation. I mean,
you know, I would listen to the Rocky soundtrack today
to build myself up before a big event. I wonder
if Henry hughes in a lot of this to not
only galvanize himself as well to galvanize the support around him.
Of course, the majority of that support is Welshman who

(51:07):
I believe are really buying into this concept of him
being the Messiah, and Frenchmen who are there for the coin.
Things will look good for Henry, you know, at kickoff
at Bosworth Bartlefield. It's a remarkable scenario of anything, and
it's a remarkable outcome that he does become King of England.
It's a remarkable story.

Speaker 1 (51:28):
Yes, I mean absolutely, and I think that you're right.
It probably does not hurt that he lands in Wales
and that he has people in his ear being like
you can do this, you got this, you got this.
As he's going there because he is up against a
formidable opponent. And this is the moment in your book
where you are your kindest to Richard the Third. I
think people unfairly say that you hate Richard. You don't

(51:49):
hate Richard, and this is where you say very nice
things about how courageous Richard the Third was in this battle. So, okay,
I will give you a moment here tell us what
you think about Richard the Third.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Thank you so much for pointing that out. I think
I do get a lot of grief and a lot
of misunderstanding where I stand on Richard. The truth is
I am ambivalent about rich the third as a person
as a king, which is a lot better, a lot
more positive than people who believe that I have some
weird hatred or brudge against him. I mean, this is

(52:21):
a guy who lived five hundred years ago. I find
Hendry the seventh very interesting. But these are people who
which not overly fall into the traps of fandom about.
You know, we are trying to assess these people's characters.
And of course every historian has a certain bias towards
the subject that they do study, because we're human beings.

(52:44):
You know, we're not going to be studying people are
periods that don't interest us for one way or the other.
But rich of the third, I mean I view him
as wasted potential. I would say I think Ricardians really
over egg the pudding when it comes to Richard third
in claiming that he was a good king and a

(53:05):
remarkable king. He reigned for just two years and he
did just one parliament. Now, this one parliament did have
some very good laws, but he's not producing these laws
or seeing them through out of sheer selfless behavior. There
can be some earnest concepts of a care for justice

(53:26):
for the people, but he's just taken the throne in
a very controversial way, and he needs to be seen
to be given the people what they want to keep
them on site. Henry Tudor would do the same thing.
In fact, Richard then dies. We don't know what king
he would have been long term. If we look at
any popular king throughout English history, they all to keep

(53:51):
on the sport of metaphoge. They all lose the dress
room eventually. Ahead of the Third, an incredible fifty year reign.
There was deep and high been asked towards the end
of his reign, with circumstances occurring around his court, the
debts incurred for the war. You'll probably know far more
about that than I will. Henry the Fifth, We know

(54:13):
that Adam of Usk was bemoaning the tact that burden
towards the end of his lifetime. Henry the Eighth, an
astonishedly popular king at the outset who grew unpopular. And
Henry Tudor Henry the seventh, a twenty four year reign
that declined into avarice and financial greed, financial tyranny, and

(54:40):
popularity towards the end. We can't say that rich the
third would have bucked the trend and reigned for thirty
years and have brought peace and prosperity to England forever more.
Rich And the third had great potential as a King
of England. He arguably would have been a good King
of England. And I think in many ways he was
the right choice to be King of England in fourteen

(55:02):
eighty three when we aren't in the wider contact of
increasing factional discord, the threat of one hundred years war
loomen and restart in. You know, Richard was a far
better king than having a child king. But you know,
unfortunately the way that he went about doing it upset

(55:24):
enough people to open the door that somebody with a
very good story could come in. And I do I
do think that Henry carried a lot of people possibly
thought they were going to get a puppet king, but
the one that he proved was he was no puppet.
So Richard Third waste the potential could have been a
good king. I don't think he's a monster in any way,

(55:45):
shape or form. I'm been fucked on Racord to say,
and rather bizarrely that I do think he murdered the
princes of a tower because it is the logical thing
to do in fourteen eighty three, and quite frankly, it
was the right decisions to which always gets me quite
a few weird looks when I say that our talks.
But you know, this is the medieval period. This is

(56:07):
a time of ruthless actions taken in the interests of
what we would now understand to be national security. It's unpalatable,
but I mean, this is the period that we study
that we love to look into. I don't like Richard
the Third is a character, but I don't hate him either,

(56:29):
fairly ambivalogy. Of course, I can't study my period without
assessing what comes before you. It's unwarranted to respect that.
I should only begin my studies and my interest on
the evening of the twenty second of August fourteen eighty five.

Speaker 1 (56:46):
Well, and somebody always has to be on the tutor
side when they bring up the princes in the Tower,
and it's you. It's always all right. So we've been
talking about this for you know, longer than I usually do,
because this is so interesting, but we probably should wrap
it up so you actually conclude your book at this moment,
at the coronation of Henry Tudor, He's marrying Elizabeth of

(57:08):
Yorki's uniting the two houses. Why do you end your
book this book here.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
Because I told the rest of the story in a
previous book. But I mean, I joke, but that kind
of is the truth in many ways. I wrote Andre
the Seventh and The Tudor Pretenders, which came out in
twenty twenty, and that obviously it touches on briefly Henry's
route to Bosworth, but then it's the story of his reign.

(57:36):
This particular book, The Son of Prophecy. Obviously, I've run
out of space to continue it, and fortunately we as authors,
we do have tight word limits. But I've covered the
story as it is. This is the story of the Tudors,
but before they become the Tudors. Everything that follows afterwards

(57:58):
is well trodden ground. Everybody knows the story that comes later,
the Six Wives, the Spanish Amada, the Favorite Rebellions, the
Virgin Queen. I'm trying to give people an insight into
where this dynasty came from. In the first place. You
can't look at the House of Tudor without studying the foundations,

(58:20):
and this needs the foundations, and Bosworth is the end
of that family cycle on the start of a new one.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Well, I think that this is a wonderful look at
not only the Tudor dynasty and its foundations, but also
all of that forgot in Welsh history. We're always hearing
that there's a rebellion here and there and everywhere, and
you're actually explaining to us how these rebellions come up.
And I think it's something that is so important, and
especially in popular history, we don't often see a lot

(58:49):
of the Welsh side when it's so important to this
entire period. So I loved your book. Thank you for
writing it, and thank you for being on the podcast
to talk about it.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Thank you for giving me another opportunity to extol the
virtues of what I call the Welsh tutors.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
To find out more about Nathan's work, you can visit
his substack at Nathanimine dot substack dot com. That's Nathan
with an E. His new book is Son of Prophecy,
The Rise of Henry Tudor. Before we go, here's Peter
from Medievalist dot Net to tell us what's on the website.
What's up Peter.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Hey, hey, so we decided to take a look at
tariffs in the Middle Ages very timely. Well for no
particular reason. Hey, why not, right, And so you know,
it really was a major source of revenue back in
medieval times for medieval rulers. It was one of the
ways they earned money. But it really didn't have many

(59:48):
other economic reasons for it. Slightly, but usually it was
just just way to clice merchants.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Not to put too fine a point on it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
Yeah, they could be tariffs on imports, exports, just passing through.
It was all very interesting. It was a huge system
of any kind of ruler trying to put on tariffs
and tolls. I read this one particularly funny part where
if you were going down the Rhine River in twelve
fifty with your goods, if you went from Mainz to Cologne,

(01:00:20):
which is like one hundred and eighty kilometers along the river,
you'd have to go through twelve different tolls.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
So it is not surprising that there was actual wars
fought to get rid of bad tolls.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
Yes, I mean it's something that is not new to
world economy.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
So take a look at that piece. It was a
lot of fun. It makes me feel a little better
about today. So we have that. Plus we have other
pieces of Laura's Chevalier has a great piece on why
the Inquisition did not persecute werewolves okay. Yeah, and also
Richard Abels takes a look at the Council of Whitby

(01:00:58):
and the politics of early modern England. So all's fun there, nice.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
A nice wide range of things as usual.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Yeah. Also we have a low piece on the Council
of Nicia. It's at seventeen hundredth anniversary, so people are
talking about it again.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
Everything old is new again right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
Indeed indeed, so we have all that and much much
more on the site.

Speaker 1 (01:01:22):
Well, thank you Peter for stopping by and telling us
all about it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:25):
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
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(01:01:50):
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(01:02:10):
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(01:02:31):
have yourself an awesome day