[00:00:22] Speaker A: The Tudor History and Travel show is a podcast that brings Tudor history to life by by exploring Tudor places and
[00:00:29] Speaker B: artefacts in the flesh, you will be
[00:00:32] Speaker A: travelling through time with Sarah Morris, the
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Tudor Travel Guide, uncovering the stories behind
[00:00:37] Speaker A: some of the most amazing Tudor locations and objects in the uk.
Because when you visit a Tudor building, it is only time and not space
[00:00:47] Speaker B: which separates you from the past.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: And now, over to your host, Sarah Morris.
[00:00:54] Speaker C: Hello, my time travelling friends. It's Sarah the Tudor Travel Guide here. And wherever you're tuning in from on Planet Earth, you're most welcome.
So today we are starting a two part adventure.
We are following in the footsteps of Henry Tudor, founder of the Tudor dynasty during his early years in southwest Wales.
Now, if you've been following the Tudor Travel Guide over the last couple of years, you know about my growing love affair with Henry VII.
It really started when I wrote about Henry VII's 1486 progress to York to assert his new royal authority in the north following the Battle of Bosworth Field.
Then I went on and charted the progress of, or part of the progress of 1502.
And this is where Henry travelled through the Cotswolds with Elizabeth of York at his side, on a very personal journey back to Raglan Castle from the starting point at the palace of Woodstock in Oxfordshire. Raglan, of course, was a place where Henry spent a number of years as a boy as the ward of a powerful Yorkist magnate, Sir William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.
But on this occasion, I'm moving over to the very tip of South West Wales, to Pembrokeshire, to talk about and follow in the footsteps of Henry VII's very earliest years and also his return to the, I suppose, British Isles, although of course they were not called, we were not called Britain at the time.
Indeed, Henry landed back in the country of his birth, Wales, at Millbay in Pembrokeshire, before making that long trek to Bosworth, where he would meet with his fate, for better or for worse, after years in exile at Brittany. Well, we all know how that story unfolded, but I want to go in the footsteps of the young Henry. And so that is what we're going to be doing over the next couple of episodes.
In this episode, after a wonderful introduction by author and historian Nathan Amen, who
[00:03:16] Speaker D: of course knows everything there is to
[00:03:19] Speaker C: know about Henry and is probably the world's expert on Henry's Welsh ancestry, we will then explore Lamphy palace, which is one of the two locations thought potentially to be where Henry was conceived. And we're going to be standing possibly in the very room where that happened. That was quite thrilling, I can tell you.
Before moving on to Pembroke Castle, where Henry was later born on 28 January 1457 to a very young Margaret Tudor and under the care of his uncle and who would be his staunch ally and friend throughout his life, Jasper. Jasper Tudor.
We'll be hearing all about Henry's Welsh ancestry, about his birth, about Pembroke Castle before we close out this episode to return next month when we will pick up his story. Because it is from from Pembroke Castle that Henry and Jasper are said to have fled. Hotly pursued by supporters of the House of York, they fled to Tenby, which at the time was a Tudor town with strong connections to Henry's uncle Jasper.
And it was from the little port of Tenby, aided and abetted by one of Jasper's long term friends and merchant and general bigwig of the town of Tenby, Thomas White, that they stowed away on one of Thomas's galleons heading for Britain, along with materials to be exported to the continent. It was a daring escape.
And finally, to conclude our two part series, I'll be making the pilgrimage to Mill Bay.
This is a small cove where Henry's fleet landed back on Welsh soil ahead of his push on to meet with Richard III on the battlefield. It's always a very emotional place to visit.
So much changed in that moment.
But standing there on the shore, you can feel the weight of expectation, nervousness, maybe excitement even, at what lay ahead for both Henry and his companions. While my journey to Millbay is made alone, I will be joined along the way by by guest experts at each of our other locations and they will be introducing themselves as we go.
But do remember, my friends, if you
[00:05:53] Speaker D: are falling in love with Henry VII
[00:05:55] Speaker C: as much as me, or at least as intrigued by him, there is one spot available on our forthcoming July tour, 1502, the year that Shook the Tudor Throne. This was fully booked, but unfortunately somebody had to cancel at last minute and so we do have one space available.
So if you're at a loose end, you're thinking, what amazing adventure could I have over the summer? Then why not come and join us? You'll find all the details of the places we'll be visiting along the way and the people we'll be meeting along the way and the stories that we'll be exploring on our tour page. And a link to that is included in the description associated with this podcast.
[00:06:39] Speaker D: And speaking of associated pages, of course, as ever we have a show notes page.
[00:06:44] Speaker C: There will be some narrative around with this adventure. There'll be some images for you to explore the places that we are talking about.
And also on the same page, I have linked that to our Pembrokeshire tour. So if you want a personal itinerary of Pembrokeshire, you're visiting the area for yourself, then this will be an invaluable resource for you to think about some of the best Tudor places that you can visit.
So now it is time to go
[00:07:15] Speaker D: time travelling, my friends. So as ever, buckle up because we're
[00:07:20] Speaker C: going to hurtle back in time and go in the footsteps of the early years of Henry vii as we set out on the long road to Bosworth.
[00:07:32] Speaker D: Welcome, my friends, to this first of two episodes in which I hope to tell the story of Henry VII on Long Road to Bosworth. In episode one, I'll be starting at Lamphey palace, which some people allegedly cite as the place of Henry VII's conception, before moving to Pembroke Castle. Of course, Pembroke Castle being the place of his birth and early boyhood.
In episode two, I'll be making a pilgrimage to Tenby and I'll be exploring Tudor 10B with our on site X expert guide. And of course talking about the dramatic events which surrounded Henry's flight to Brittany before finally coming back to Pembroke and taking my own pilgrimage to Mill Bay, the place, of course, in which Henry VII came back, landed on shore, the place of his birth, the county of his birth, before he started that long march to Bosworth to seize the crown from Richard iii. So that's what you can expect over the next couple of episodes. But I'm absolutely delighted to say that joining me for the introduction to that odyssey through time is Nathan. Amen. Yay. Welcome, Nathan.
[00:08:50] Speaker E: Hello, Chryso e Penfro. Welcome to Pembroke, the birthplace of the Tudor dynasty.
[00:08:55] Speaker D: Fantastic. I can't. I'm so. I'm genuinely so excited that this has been able to happen because you've been giving a talk this morning, haven't you, in Pembroke and I'm found out you were here and please come and talk to us and do the intro because in my mind, I think in many people's minds now you are Mr. Henry VII.
[00:09:13] Speaker E: Well, I try and preach the early Tudor gospel as best as I can. I think everyone's had enough of the Plantagenet and Henry VIII When Henry VII's life, it contains all the drama, intrigue, plots, conspiracy, love, grief, everything you possibly could want from any story is there in Henry VII's story. So thank you for welcoming me on to continue to preach my sermon, spread that story.
[00:09:42] Speaker D: Well, I can't think of no better person, to be honest. I'd love to have you come with me through the whole journey, but you've got another life to lead outside of my podcast, so I'm gonna have to let you get back to London after this. But it's really great to have you here because you have written now a few books that focus on. Well, there's a lovely little book on Tudor Wales, which points you to some fantastic places associated with the Tudors. But looking more at the biographical side of things, can you just remind people of the books that you've written about Henry and the Tudors?
[00:10:17] Speaker E: Yes. So my first book was 2014, which you've kindly just mentioned. Tudor Wales, My Baby.
Essentially, it was a blog about people visiting the many places within Wales that are connected to the Tudors, either the dynasty or the period.
Because, you know, England does get a lot of the. A lot of the shine. And it's important to try and bring people across the border to understand what we have here in Wales, which is a wealth of history, particularly connected to the Tudors.
I followed that up in 2016 with the House of Beaufort, which tells the story of Henry VII's maternal lineage, his ancestry, the Beaufort family, of course, the most famous member being his mother, Margaret Beaufort.
I followed that up with the 2021 book Henry VII and the Tudor Pretenders, which tells the struggles Henry had once he became king.
He would have liked everyone to have appreciated or acknowledged that peace and prosperity had returned to England once he becomes king. That really wasn't the case, and that book looks at those plots to bring him down. And most recently, it has been Son of Prophecy, the Rise of Henry Tudor, which shifts the focus back to his paternal lineage, the Tudor family of Wales, and I guess brings me full circle, really back to where I began, which is telling the story of the Welsh Tudors.
[00:11:49] Speaker D: Yeah. Does it feel complete to you now, then, that you've done that?
[00:11:53] Speaker E: Well, put it this way, people often ask me, what am I writing at the moment? And the truth is, I'm not. I haven't written anything for two years when it comes to books, because I've said what I've needed to say. You know, I've. I've completed a trilogy in many ways, of Henry VII's life. People ask me, will I write a book about Henry vii? And I question why. I don't have the need to. If you read my three books together, it covers both sides of his family tree and his reign to death. So, yes, I do view my.
My work at the moment, complete. But you know what they say about writers.
[00:12:31] Speaker D: I know something, something will emerge at some point, but it's. You've got to let it emerge. You can't force it. But it does feel like it's a. A lovely completion and a very comprehensive history and what I'd love to draw out of you today, because, as you know, I'm going on a little quest over the next few weeks. I'm going to be visiting a number of really important, important places here in Pembrokeshire that's associated with Henry's early life and his return from Brittany. But what I'm not going to be able to cover and what you'd be perfect to help me with, is to try, because it's a big topic. I know, but to summarize, who was Henry Tudor, particularly in relation to his ancestry and his Welsh ancestry as well.
[00:13:16] Speaker E: Well, yeah, okay. So Henry Tudor was born year at Pembroke of 28 January, 1457.
For any people, anyone who has visited Pembroke, you are greeted with a very large grass courtyard. And recent research has suggested that Henry was probably born somewhere on that grass verge that's out in front of us. He was of Welsh, English, French and even Bavarian royal descent. But of course, in the 15th century, that's not really that impressive. Everybody who's anybody's descended from Edward III, for example, at the point that Henry's born in 1457, that's why we have this little conflict called the wars of the Roses. So Henry is born far from the seat of power, figuratively and literally. I mean, Pembroke is still a long way away from London, even in an age of motorways back then, it's the end of the world in many ways.
And his mother is Margaret Beaufort. Now, Margaret Beaufort is a great, great granddaughter of Edward III through the Bulford line, and this gives her a slim claim to the English throne. But again, there are many people alive during this period with claims to the throne. But Margaret does have one.
His father was Edmund Tudor. Now, Edmund Tudor had actually died already at the time of Henry's birth.
Tradition suggests that was from the plague. I believe he was possibly murdered.
[00:14:51] Speaker D: Oh, you're on that side, are you?
[00:14:53] Speaker E: I believe that there is a lot of doubt surrounding Edmund Tudor's demise.
I'm happy to go into it if you want.
[00:15:03] Speaker D: Yes, I'd love to. I mean, it may be a subject that we touch on a little bit when we talk to Gareth, who's going to be our next expert when we come to Pembroke Castle. But I'd love to hear your thoughts about actually what you think happened to Edmund.
[00:15:16] Speaker E: So. So Ed Tudor and his brother Jasper Tudor, they are the half brothers of King Henry vi and I'll explain a little bit about that lineage in a while. But as the half brothers of King Henry vi, they are a core part of the House of Lancaster.
Now, during the 1450s, the House of Lancaster is beginning its conflict with the House of York.
And the Crown need to secure the provinces for themselves, you know, security, stability. So Edmund Tudor is sent into West Wales to hold the area for the House of Lancaster, but that brings him into direct conflict with local Yorkist leaders.
And one of those families is the Herbert family of Raglan Castle.
Now, Edmund Tudor goes to war with them in Carmarthen and he's captured and he's placed into Carmarthen Castle dungeon.
A couple of months later he dies again. History suggests that is the plague, but we've got to remember this is 1456, the previous year. The House of York have begun the War to the Roses with the House of Lancaster at the Ball of St Albans and they've succeeded in killing some of the main Lancastrian leaderships. So you have a precedent that the Yorkists are rubbing out their enemies. They're like a mafia, they're doing these assassination hits on their main opponents. And Edmund Tudor is now a Welshman of significant Welsh lineage. He's the half brother to the Lancasterian King. He's already impregnated the 12 year old Margaret Beaufort and any child they have would have a claim to the English throne.
This puts him very much on the radar for the Yorkists.
I do not buy that he simply was left to die of the plague. We have no known records of a plague outbreak in Carmarvon.
[00:17:09] Speaker D: Right.
[00:17:09] Speaker E: And what's more, William Herbert was actually, was actually prosecuted for being involved in Edmont Tudor's death. Across the following year, he got away with it, but he was imprisoned himself in the Tower of London by the Lancastrians. Jasper Tudor and William Herbert were infamous enemies. Thereafter, all of the context of this period strongly suggests that Edmund Tudor was quietly bumped off. He was a threat to the Yorkists in Wales. So that's where I come down on it. Plague seems a very nice tick of the box that happened after the fact to try and cover up some of the crimes, I guess we can say, of the early wars of the Roses period.
[00:17:52] Speaker D: That sounds a really, I mean, a really compelling argument from a number of different perspectives. So you've solved it.
[00:17:59] Speaker E: So I guess, I mean, just returning to Our main narrative. So what we have is you have Edmund Tudor, this half Welsh, half French noble, who's the half brother of the King of England, being sent into West Wales and he dies, as I mentioned. And what that means is the child he has with Margaret Beaufort is born three months later and from birth is actually the Earl of Richmond, which is what Edmund Tudor's title was. So Henry Tudor by, you know, by the, the standard and the styling of the day was actually not Henry Tudor at birth, but Henry of Richmond. That's how he would have been viewed. In the same way we have Richard of York, we would have had Henry of Richmond from birth. He is the Earl of Richmond. His mother is just 12, 13 years old in fact, at the time of his birth.
And that's a very, very difficult episode for mother and son that takes place right here where we're standing.
[00:19:00] Speaker D: Yeah, really close.
[00:19:01] Speaker E: I mean, the life of both mother and child were despaired of because again, she was a child herself. Now, Edmund Tudor would have been 26 years old and I view it as an act of great cruelty and greed, in fact, that he did proceed with impregnating this young heiress that was essentially given to him by his half brother.
It's a scandal in many ways and
[00:19:28] Speaker D: it was viewed as quite inappropriate at the time, not just now.
[00:19:32] Speaker C: Right?
[00:19:32] Speaker E: Absolutely. 12 years old was not by any means, mark normal for the period.
You know, biology hasn't changed that much. 12 year old girls then are 12 year old girls today.
Sure, noble marriages took place when noble girls were children, but the idea is that those marriages are not, you know, they're not act of consummation until Those girls are 16, 17, even into their 20s in many cases.
I think what happens with Margaret and Edmund is when Edmund is given Margaret Beaufort as his wife in 1453, 1454, there is no heir to the Lancastrian throne at that point. And I think Henry VI is trying to work something out. What does he do if he doesn't have a son? Because the vultures are circling. Richard, Duke of York, has a claim to the throne, so does Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset. And those two men hate each other. And in fact, their personal food is what begins the wars of the Roses. I think Henry VI is looking to his cousin Margaret Beaufort, he's looking to his half brother, Edmund Tudor, and he's wondering if he can merge these two lines and create some sort of quasi Lancastrian Beaufort Tudor lineage. Now, of course, that would never have really have worked back in 1455. There wouldn't have been a political support for such an idea. And Henry VI does eventually have his own son to be his heir. So this can is very much kicked down the road and I think everyone forgets about it.
[00:21:06] Speaker D: I see.
[00:21:07] Speaker E: Until we get to 30 years later and suddenly this boy with this very concocted lineage is pushed back to the fore.
[00:21:18] Speaker D: Can I ask you, can we, can we go back in time? Because I have just heard you speak about kind of the early Tudors and I'd love to just be able to capture some of the essence of that paternal line.
Who, who were the Tudors going back in time and why did they become so significant for Wales?
[00:21:41] Speaker E: So when Henry VII becomes king, one of the first things he looks to do is he orders a commission to go into Wales to explore his paternal lineage. And the reason for this is in the run up to Bosworth, there's been a lot of propaganda leveled against the lowliness of his Welsh ancestry, mainly by Richard iii. Richard III makes a big thing about Henry's Welshness, how it's low, how he's descended from nothing. And Henry wants to put this right.
Thankfully, because of his commission, we know his lineage, we know the results of this research and his lineage, I guess it begins in earnest in the year 1170 with the birth of somebody called Ednafed Vakhan.
Now, this Ednafed was what we would call their prime minister. He was the prime minister of the kingdom of Gwynedd in North Wales, a powerful and influential diplomat, a very good soldier who actually earned himself the nickname the Terror of England, because during one episode he invaded England to Chester during the reign of King John and he came back with three English heads. So he was quite a fearsome person, but he was himself a civil servant. But because of his qualities, when it came time for him to marry, he was actually able to marry a princess of South Wales called Gwendlian.
So Ednafyd Vaghan of North Wales, Marie Gwentian of South Wales, she is a princess. She's descended from some of the greatest Welsh ancient kings there has been, going back to the seventh, eighth, ninth centuries. Howell, Varr, Rodri Mar. She is a princess, a Welsh princess. So this means that Ed Nufford's children have Welsh royal blood in their veins and he establishes this powerful dynasty in North Wales.
Now, Wales is eventually conquered by the English Crown in 1282 and the Welsh royal family are wiped out. But Ed Nufford's descendants, they retain their position as the most influential force in North Wales. They don't have any official power because Power is denied to the Welsh during this period, but the other Welshmen look to them as their natural community leaders.
I'm thinking of men like Gronwy ap Tidyr, which means Garonwy the son of Tydr, Tydyr ap Gronwy, Tydr the son of Goronwy.
Until we get to the point of 1400 when there are five brothers living on Anglesey. And these five brothers are called Ednafydd ap Tidyr, Garonwy ap Tedir, Gwilym Apter, Rhys ap Tidr and Meredith ap Tidyr. Now that name ap Tidyr means son of Tudor.
So these are five brothers who are the sons of Tudor.
[00:24:36] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:24:37] Speaker E: And when Wales begins their revolt in the year 1400 against English rule under the leadership of Owain Glyndur, who claims he's the Prince of Wales, these sons of Tudor are his first cousins. So they are at the forefront of this Welsh rebellion, ironically against the Lancastrian kings of England.
And this is 80 years before a Tudor would himself become a Lancastrian king. It's a remarkable story of this Welsh family persevering against what I will openly call English oppression in Wales for more than 100 years in that post conquest era. And his family hold on. They maintain their roots in North Wales, their influence amongst their fellow Welshmen and they are fully recognized for this.
Now, with the Revolt Failing in 1410, the Tudor family in Wales are wiped out. They've lost, they gambled and they lost. And this means that for a teenage boy who's left behind, he's got nothing to keep him at home.
So he becomes what we would call an economic migrant. He leaves his war torn homeland in North Wales and he goes to seek his prosperity elsewhere. And many Welsh men during this period, they actually go to France to fight for England in Henry V's wars. I think this young Welshman was too young because he only make it to England and his name is Owain ap Meredith ap Tidy. Owen, the son of Meredith, the son of Tudor, and he surfaces in England. Now, I would speculate that his name causes much confusion amongst the English clerks.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:20] Speaker E: Because very soon they begin to Anglicise it.
We have in the records his name being portrayed as Owain ap Meredith or Owain Fitz Meredith. And that's correct. Owen, the son of Meredith, whether that's in Welsh or in Norman.
But eventually his name becomes Owain Tidyr and then Owen Tudor, they get rid of the Meredith, his father's name in the middle, and they contract everything down. So Owain Meredith Ab Tidr becomes Owen Tudor, if they'd done their job correctly, these Welsh, these English clerks, they should have given him his father's name as his surname. He should have been Owen Meredith and we should have the House of Meredith, but nobody is changing that right now.
[00:27:08] Speaker D: That is such a good story. Thank you for that, that's brilliant.
[00:27:11] Speaker E: But I guess the point we have there really is that Owen Tudor is now a young Welshman who's moved to England to make his lot in life. And we know that he finds his way into the household of an English baron, Walter Hungerford. And Walter Hungerford is very close to the widowed Queen of England at this time, which is Catherine of Valois, a proud French princess, a daughter and sister to French kings, the widow of Henry V and at this point in time, during the 1420s, the mother of the boy king of England, Henry VI.
We don't know how, we don't know when, but Owen and Catherine enter a relationship.
There are many theories about this. One, that Catherine one day saw him swimming in a lake and took a fancy to him.
Another, that he got drunk during a dance, being Welsh and all, that he tripped and landed in her lap and she took a fancy twin.
The truth is, we don't know, but she took a fancy trim. He had Welsh charm. Somehow this son, grandson, nephew of Welsh rebels has met and fallen in love with a widowed queen. And she's reciprocated because she had to reciprocate. She is the.
You know, her social rank is so high above a mere servant.
But they certainly do meet.
They engage in a private relationship and they marry. And in private, they have at least four children together. So let's just pause, then think about that. Owen Tudor, descended from rebels, moved to England and marries the French widowed Queen of England. That's absurd. If that was on tv, we would not believe that.
If a fiction writer wrote that. No, I'm sorry, that. That's not a believable story, but that is precisely what happens. It's remarkable and it completely transforms the Tudors from a Welsh dynasty into a Lancastrian one. Because what happens is that Catherine dies in 1437. Owen Tudor is arrested and thrown in prison because he's broken the law. He's married a Queen of England. How dare he do that from the King's council.
And he's thrown in jail, where he may have quietly met his end, but his stepson is a teenage boy who happens to be one of the few kind kings of England there ever has been in Henry Virginia.
It's a flaw that would eventually see him, of course, lose his crown and he has his stepfather pardoned against all of his council's advice. I know when Tudor's brought out of prison and he's given him, you know, a minor job in the royal household, but what's more important is that he's got two sons, Edmund Tudor and Jasper Tudor and Henry. Village now takes his two young half brothers into his control. He gives them a royal upbringing, he gives them a noble education, and when they're 21 years old, they're called up to court to serve the King. So The Tudors within 50 years go from fighting the Lancastrians to quite literally being the Lancastrians.
[00:30:25] Speaker D: What a fantastic story. Thank you so much. Some real great nuances there that I hadn't read. Really appreciated, particularly the improbability of Owen Tudor becoming so connected with royalty. So, yeah, it's really interesting and I
[00:30:46] Speaker E: think for our story, because the Tudors have nothing. Henry VI needs to grant them things, need to grant them estates, lordships, power, really. And he gives Edmund Tudor the Earldom of Richmond.
He grants him a vast estate that stretches from Cumbria down to Norfolk. Jasper Tudor is given the Earldom of Pembroke, which, again, is where we are. And he's given this huge swath of land that essentially covers the entire of West Wales.
When the war breaks out, it is Edmund Tudor, first of all, who is sent into Wales. When Edmund Tudor dies, he's replaced by Jasper Tudor. And the reason for. For this is that every single Welshman living during that period knows of the Tudor lineage. They respect them, they're community leaders. Yes, of course, they may have now crossed over into England, but that Tudor lineage goes all the way back.
And of course, I'm sure, as you will touch on later in your. Your own quest to follow Henry Tudor's march, he is able to play on that ancestry later on to draw out the Welsh support because he is a son of Wales.
[00:31:54] Speaker D: So I think this is a great time just to think about the journey that I'm about to go on and take our dear listeners with us. And we're going to be going to Lamphy.
We are recording this in Pembroke, but we're going to be back to talk to Gareth, who's going to talk specifically about the castle here and Henry's birth, and then over to Tenby and then to Mill Bay. So, having said that, I'm sure you've been to all of those places. I know you have because you've written about them.
Anything that you would particularly prompt us to look out for or to consider when we're in some of those various places.
[00:32:35] Speaker E: Absolutely. I think what's important when you get to Mill Bay is just to consider the seismic mortal that is taking place.
Now, Mill Bay was first speculated as the landing site. I think in the 1800s. There was some very good research done that suggest this is the place Henry landed and begun to, you know, empty his ships with the weapons, the horses, the men.
Now, Mill Bay, we know by the Elizabethan period was home to, well, a mill that was on top of the mountain looking down across the the water. There's no evidence that that mill existed 200 years earlier or 100 years earlier. But just think about if there was a family in that mill looking down on August 7, 1485 at the ships that were beginning to dock up. They are viewing one of the last invasions of this country. They're viewing the moment the Tudors have arrived. I think it's always very important just to take a moment, moment just to breathe our in what a major moment this would have been. And I think this is not really something you can, you can experience by foot, unless you are the kind of person who wants to go on a 200 mile march by foot. But the journey Henry takes up through Wales is across some of the most unhospitable terrain we have in this country. You know, he goes across the Priscilla Mountains, he edges along Snowdonia all by foot towards what?
Probable death.
It's a remarkable journey, full of anxiety, fear.
There will be some hope, of course, but there has to be the realization that they are on the way to a losing effort. Because how can these, how can these invaders, mainly French, picking up Welshman along the way, how can they take down the powerful King of England?
I think it's very important just to consider that as you go along your journey, thankfully in a car, looking out of the window at the inhospitable terrain
[00:34:44] Speaker D: in a considerably more comfortable environment.
Absolutely. Well, I have to say I got shivers down my spine when you were talking about all the ships around arriving at Mill Bay. Because what a sight that must have been for anybody who was witnessing it. It must have been, what on earth is going on? I mean, be quite scary, wouldn't it?
[00:35:03] Speaker E: Yeah, absolutely. I'll give you another insight if you do visit Cardigan. Henry Tudor, you know, the army reaches Cardigan and local tradition says he stayed in the Three Mariners Inn, which is a pub that was in Cardigan, I think up until the 1980s. Henry Tudor is not staying in a pub. He would have stayed in the recently renovated castle. But I think this is a remarkable moment because this castle once belonged to one of his Welsh royal ancestors called Rhys ap Griffith, who was known as the Lord Rees.
And the Lord Rees was the most powerful south Welsh king that ever has been. He was known as the Prince of Wales. He was known as the propriety Prince of South Wales. He earned recognition from English kings and his tomb is in St. David's Cathedral, right next to Edmund Tudor's.
He was a glorious figure in Welsh history and he was Henry Tudor's ancestor. Now in Cardigan, the Lord Reese held the first ever eisteddwod, which is a celebration of Welsh culture that is around today. It's an annual festival of Welsh art, Welsh culture, Welsh language. The Lord Rees was the man who innovated that Henry Tudor, 3, 400 years later, is sat in that castle. I wonder all the bards now coming to him, championing him, telling him, you are the descendant of the Lord Rees, you are the descendant of King Arthur Cadwallader, you are the son of prophecy. And is Henry taking this moment to take it all in and start to believe?
Because it's easy to say that Henry Tudor exploited his Welshness, exploited the idea that he was the son of prophecy, you know, a messianic figure who's foretold in the Welsh language, who would come back one day to save the people.
It's cynical of us today to believe he exploited that back then. I think it gave him hope, I think it gave him the drive to push on. Try, as I say, is a campaign that surely is going to end in disaster. What makes him and his men dust themselves off and keep on marching. And I think the weight of Welsh history is very much there.
[00:37:18] Speaker D: Well, I think that's just a wonderful place to leave it. And I'm going to take those thoughts with me as I head off on part one of this journey. I do hope actually just to say, to follow, because, as you know, Nathan moved to Wales, near Cardigan, actually, just in the last few months. So I'm now in prime position to do a part two later on, hopefully in the year, where I do actually go on the road to Bosworth. That's definitely something that's on the cards for me. But we're going to do part one, which is the early years, I suppose, and his arrival back in Wales, and I'm going to take all those thoughts and reflections with me.
I feel quite emotional and ready to tackle the journey. So thank you so much for sharing all that with us. No Problems.
[00:38:02] Speaker E: Bob Luck. Good luck.
[00:39:17] Speaker D: If you've ever found yourself wondering what really happened behind the closed doors of the Tudor court, then I know exactly the right place for you to get your history fix. Tudorhistory.podbean.com I'm Claire Ridgway, historian, author and lifelong Tudor enthusiast. And on my history podcast, I take you beyond the myths and into the real stories of Tudor England. From Anne Boleyn's dramatic rise and fall to Henry viii, complicated marriages and Elizabeth I's extraordinary reign. I explored the ambition, scandal and survival that shaped this remarkable dynasty. And I don't just repeat the well known stories. I go back to the sources, to the letters, official records and contemporary accounts to separate myth from evidence. So if you enjoy thoughtful Tudor storytelling, let's keep Tudor history alive together. You'll find all the Tudor history that you
[email protected] so welcome dear listeners, back to our second location in the footsteps of Henry VII here in Pembrokeshire, his early years.
Now, having met with Nathan, who did a wonderful introduction to our story, I've come to the first location on our trail and that is Lamphy palace, which is a couple of miles to the east of Pembroke where we started our journey with Nathan.
I find this place a really romantic place. Today we just have ruins left of what was once a glorious bishop's palace. But we're going to hear all about that and why I've come here from our guest expert today who's joining me on location, location, Terry. John. Hello, Terry.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: Hello, how are you?
[00:41:09] Speaker D: I'm very well, thank you very much. It's lovely to be on this odyssey through time and to come back here for the second time here with somebody who knows all about the palace because I understand you were a guide here.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: I worked here for about 10 years. Yep. And became fascinated by their history and did as much research as I could.
[00:41:29] Speaker D: Oh, brilliant. Excellent. Well, I'm really looking forward to, to hearing all the details. I love the details as do our, our listeners.
So I've come here, let's get to, to the sort of cut to the chase. I've come here because there is a legend or there is a line of thought that potentially Henry was conceived here at Lamphy Palace. So I want to talk about that today.
Why, how come?
But I think it's always good to have a bit of context. So maybe you could tell us why this building came about here. I guess it was once very isolated. I mean, today it's very isolated and peaceful.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: Yes.
Lamphy, the manor of Lamphy has been owned by the bishopric of St David's for over a thousand years.
We know there was a bishop's house here quite definitely in 1096.
What sort of structure that was, we don't know. The, the oldest remaining part of the palace now goes back to the 1200s. And this was a favorite seat of a number of the bishops.
They would come here to relax. When business got too strenuous in St David's they would come here and put their feet up.
And it was quite a luxurious building. Building, because we do have some details over the centuries of what was here.
And for instance, Bishop rawlins In about 1536, there was a survey done at that time.
And we know that his apartments were furnished with furniture and goods worth £157, which was a huge amount then.
And we know that there were ancillary buildings outside the present confines of the palace. There were brew houses, there were bake houses, there was a very large medieval building up where the hotel now is, the Lamphrey Court Hotel.
So it was very well appointed and they could live here quite well.
[00:43:35] Speaker D: I just actually wondered. You talked about St. David's and maybe some people tuning in don't know the geography of this area. So perhaps you could just say, you know, what was, what was important about St. David's how far away are we from there and why?
[00:43:48] Speaker A: This spot, St. Davis, is about 30 miles away. And that was the center of the bishopric. That's where the cathedral was and the bishop's palace. But they had a number of properties scattered not just in Pembrokeshire, but also across South Wales.
Sometimes just farms or castles, but also a number of palaces.
So they would process around them all, you know, go from place to place and stay.
And it was big enough then for them to have visitors to stay, which they often did.
[00:44:21] Speaker D: Yeah, Because I mean, it is worth saying and reinforcing for maybe those people who might be quite new to medieval or Tudor history, that bishops and archbishops were on equivalent to nobility, Tudor nobility. And they were expected to keep houses that were consummate with their status.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: Yes, your status was reflected in the possessions you had, the clothing you wore, and they were the princes of the church.
[00:44:48] Speaker D: Yeah, indeed. Yeah. It's a lovely way of putting it. Yeah, absolutely. So Lampy was established, you say, wait, thousand years ago, but the main buildings that we see around us, the ruins we see today, were built when and by whom?
[00:45:02] Speaker A: Well, it was successive bishops. And for instance, the, the western hall, which is this one directly in front of us, that goes up in the 1200s.
And then de Gowers hall is built by Bishop Henry de Gower. That. That's the one with the chimney you can see sticking up. That's built by Bishop Henry de Gower in the early 1300s. So it's a continuous expansion of the palace.
There was also Bishop Vaughan who built.
That is not a perimeter wall.
[00:45:33] Speaker D: So we're looking at. Just for those people, because obviously folks are listening here. We're just looking at a. We're standing in the middle of a very large open space, which is walled almost on all sides and. But with a concentration of buildings that would have been the main part of the palace on the south. So you're pointing to a wall over to the north there.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: That's the northern side. Yeah, that's all that's left of the great barn, which was built by Bishop Vaughan possibly in the early 1500s. So that's where all the produce that was produced on the manor of Lamphy was stored.
Because the manner of Lampy extends right down to the coast about two or three miles away. So it's a big, big block of productive land.
[00:46:19] Speaker D: Yeah. And manors, of course, were used to be farmed, they were tenanted out, they were a source of revenue. So you collected these revenues off your various manors and that's how you had your wealth. Right.
[00:46:30] Speaker A: And the bishop had quite a number of tenants who rented land from him and in return provided service services for the bishop. And luckily, in 1326, there was a huge survey done. We know the names of all the tenants and how much land they rented.
[00:46:48] Speaker D: That's fantastic, isn't it? It's wonderful. So can you tell us what was here in heyday? If we'd have been standing here, you know, back in sort of the 1400s, when we're talking about the time period that we're talking about, what would have been. We have seen around us.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: Well, we're actually in the outer courtyard.
So that's the northern limits, the. Where the barn was that we've just talked about.
[00:47:14] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: But the wall which is now on the western side is a Victorian construction. And originally the outer courtyard where we're standing stretched right across the road where we've parked our cars.
[00:47:26] Speaker D: Right, yes.
[00:47:26] Speaker A: And beyond that.
[00:47:27] Speaker D: And can we give a sense of size, scale of this courtyard, just for those people who are listening?
[00:47:34] Speaker A: Well, it's a good football pitch or more, I would say.
[00:47:37] Speaker D: Yeah, it is, isn't it, really? Yeah, absolutely. And so right next to us is this sort of tower. It's standing Alone, it's fairly complete. Is that an inner gateway?
[00:47:49] Speaker A: Yes, because you can just see some stone work there.
[00:47:53] Speaker D: Yes, you can. By projecting off the edge of the wall.
[00:47:55] Speaker A: Off the edge of the wall. So from there another wall ran up towards us.
[00:48:01] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:48:01] Speaker A: Then turned at right angles across there.
[00:48:04] Speaker D: Across.
[00:48:05] Speaker A: And you can see where it joined that building which is called the red chamber.
So this is the entrance. This tower that you've just mentioned is the entrance to the inner court.
[00:48:16] Speaker D: So we've got the large outer courtyard with the service buildings, as we would expect. And then you've got this inner gateway leading into where all the main privy lodgings. That's right, yeah.
[00:48:28] Speaker C: And.
[00:48:28] Speaker D: And of course I should just say, dear listeners, as ever, if I haven't already, that there is a show notes page associated with this podcast. So there will be pictures that we will be putting in there. So if you want to tune into that, we'll put a link in the description as we always do. So you can see the beauty of Lamphy Palace.
So what else would you like to tell us about this building and the gateway?
[00:48:55] Speaker A: Should we go around this side?
[00:48:57] Speaker D: Yeah, it handily has gatehouse on the side, just in case.
[00:49:03] Speaker A: It was very thoughtful.
[00:49:04] Speaker D: Yeah, indeed. Yeah.
So we're in the outer courtyard now.
[00:49:08] Speaker A: But we are in the outer courtyard. There was another range of buildings just here. Here.
[00:49:12] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:49:13] Speaker A: And where that iron railing is, there's a set of steps because there's a cellar beneath that.
[00:49:18] Speaker D: Right, okay.
[00:49:18] Speaker A: And if you look at this wall to the south of us, which is the. The boundary wall to the outer courtyard, you can see big square holes set into the wall. Those are puttlog holes. And that will tell you that there was probably a two story building here.
[00:49:34] Speaker D: Yeah. Potlog. I didn't know that's what they were called, Potlog. So what, what we're saying is the ground has actually been risen quite substantially here and it looks like those holes are quite close to the. Not too far above the ground. But of course it would have been a lot higher. So a ceiling insert or floor inserted in there.
No idea what this is. I mean, I guess just service buildings
[00:49:55] Speaker A: for the probably service buildings. And you can probably say that there may have been wooden service buildings scattered about that we have no trace of nowadays. But this is the gatehouse.
[00:50:07] Speaker D: Right.
[00:50:08] Speaker A: So we're going to be in a courtyard.
[00:50:09] Speaker D: You'll probably hear a change of the acoustics, ladies and gentlemen, as we just pass underneath the archway inside the gatehouse.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: This is probably the original floor.
[00:50:18] Speaker D: Is it really? How wonderful cobble it's not really cobbled, is it? It's just sort of.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: Yeah. It's stonework, isn't it?
[00:50:26] Speaker D: Stoned? Yeah.
[00:50:27] Speaker A: So we think, although we don't know know that there was an outer gate and an inner gate up here.
[00:50:35] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: Because there's a room up here is where possibly the gatekeeper lived.
[00:50:39] Speaker D: Yeah. The porter, like the porter's lodge basically.
[00:50:42] Speaker A: So the very important people who come to stay. Yeah. Come through this way.
[00:50:47] Speaker D: What's this for? Do we know what this one, what I'm pointing to, it looks like it should be a fireplace but it's far too shallow though. And why would you. Because we're. It's got. Oh, there's one opposing on the other side as well. Do we know what that was for?
[00:51:01] Speaker A: No, it's the short answer.
Not sure at all.
[00:51:05] Speaker D: There's a place to sit and wait if you were waiting for the porter to come. I don't know how interesting.
[00:51:11] Speaker A: I was going to say that we've got these steps now which lead up to the upper room. That can also be a mounting block.
[00:51:18] Speaker D: Yes. Yeah.
[00:51:19] Speaker A: So you get off your horse. Horse there and come down or get back on it.
[00:51:23] Speaker D: Yes. Okay, so we're. Now we're outside, we've come into the inner courtyard and we've got the most obvious huge square block building over to my right and that's the Great Hall.
[00:51:38] Speaker A: Did you say that's the Western Hall? Yeah.
[00:51:41] Speaker D: You had two halls?
[00:51:43] Speaker A: Three.
[00:51:43] Speaker D: Three halls.
[00:51:45] Speaker A: I'll show you.
It's all again about status and prestige.
So you know, you expand the building and I think it's fashion as well. When this is put up in the 1200s, the Western hall, by the 1300s it may be a little bit old fashioned and a new bishop comes in and wants something maybe a bit more luxurious.
So they built on.
[00:52:12] Speaker D: Yeah. And sometimes did they have a series of halls somewhere more private than others. So you might have more. The big public ceremony in a larger outer hall and. Yeah, maybe more private ceremonial stuff in the smaller halls.
[00:52:27] Speaker A: Maybe. Well, if we go into the Western Hall.
[00:52:30] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:52:30] Speaker A: You can see exactly how that takes place.
[00:52:33] Speaker D: Okay, let's do that.
So as we come in here, perhaps you could tell us about what's going on in the mid-1400s and the connection with Henry's father, Edmund.
[00:52:45] Speaker A: Well, he comes down into South Wales in about 1455, 56 at the bidding of his brother Henry VI and brings Margaret, his. His newly married wife with him. And I think they come here because this is a fairly quiet spot. I mean this is when the wars of the Roses are taking place. So I think he brings her here because it's a quiet place and it's also the Bishop's palace.
Less likely to be attacked.
[00:53:15] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:53:16] Speaker A: Because it belongs to the Bishop.
[00:53:18] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: So he brings her here. What we don't know is exactly when they arrive and when Margaret leaves. We're not sure how long she's here, but Henry Edmund does leave her here and goes off to Carmarthen where he's captured and imprisoned and dies of the plague.
[00:53:36] Speaker D: Yes. Not long after.
[00:53:37] Speaker A: Not long after. And she's still expecting the baby then. He hasn't. The baby hasn't been born.
[00:53:43] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: And that's, I think, why she's then shifted into Pembroke Castle.
[00:53:47] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:53:47] Speaker D: So, I mean, this is why there is this association. I mentioned it at the top of our recording that they were here shortly after they were married. I've heard it. It's said that this is almost like a honeymoon.
We think she may well have got pregnant here and hence Henry was conceived here. And in fact, part of that castle, part of the palace survives. Right. Where the most privy chambers would be. And we can go there in a moment and have a look at that. But we're standing in the western hall and you said that this part of the castle demonstrates how the different sort of ceremonial aspects of the. The palace.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: This is the undercroft.
[00:54:26] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:54:27] Speaker A: So servants sleep here, goods are stored here and so forth. The main chamber is this enormous room that runs the full length of the hall on the first floor. Yes. And we've got a small bed chamber off here.
[00:54:42] Speaker D: All right.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: Which might well be the bishop's chamber with a private toilet.
[00:54:46] Speaker C: Very good.
[00:54:46] Speaker A: Yes, yeah. And if you look up into the arch, you can see some of the original.
Yeah. The decoration.
[00:54:57] Speaker D: The decoration from the archer and the carved stonework. Yeah, yeah.
[00:55:01] Speaker A: And the. It's very wet and faded now, but there is a flower pattern up there as well.
[00:55:07] Speaker D: Oh, yes, I see. And you can see on the other one is easier to see better there. Yes. So that's some of the original. Original sort of plaster work and medieval painting that still survives that probably dates
[00:55:17] Speaker A: back to the time it was built.
[00:55:19] Speaker D: Oh, my goodness me. That's incredible, isn't it? That's wonderful.
Very good.
[00:55:24] Speaker A: So it would have been. That would have been quite luxuriously decorated. And you get an idea that from what's left in that window arch, the whole wall would have been covered in a sort of cream paint.
[00:55:37] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:55:37] Speaker A: Painted on. On to a very finely plastered wall. It wouldn't have been as Bare as this.
[00:55:44] Speaker D: And. And then decorated and painted and hung with tapestries.
[00:55:48] Speaker C: Etc.
[00:55:49] Speaker D: What are these? What do they. Do you know what they are.
[00:55:52] Speaker A: Yes, they probably are.
[00:55:53] Speaker D: Sorry, I should say yes. When I say what are they? I need to remember my poor listeners who are listening. There are two alcoves into the wall and I don't think I've seen any like that. But you're about to see. Tell me they are.
[00:56:08] Speaker A: We think they were cupboards, so they would have had doors on the outer surface.
Valuable vases or wine coolers or something like that would have been kept in there.
[00:56:20] Speaker D: I see, that makes a lot of sense.
[00:56:23] Speaker A: And this is the main door in.
So.
[00:56:27] Speaker D: So is this the low end of the hall that we're standing in at the moment or. Or is that the low end of the hall, I. E. Where would the Lord and lady.
[00:56:36] Speaker A: Oh, they're up here.
[00:56:37] Speaker D: They're up here. So this is the high end and that's the low end of the hall.
[00:56:41] Speaker A: So again, you've got potlog holes.
[00:56:42] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:56:43] Speaker A: Which tell you there's a floor.
[00:56:44] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:56:45] Speaker A: So there's a.
We. If we'd looked up from where we are now, we would have just seen the ceiling.
Above that then is the main hall.
[00:56:54] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:56:54] Speaker A: So when the bishop is entertaining guests, they come in through that first floor doorway.
[00:57:01] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:57:01] Speaker A: And you can see on the outside where the staircase was that led up to it.
And the likelihood is that here would have been a wooden street screen stretching across.
[00:57:15] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:57:15] Speaker A: That side.
[00:57:16] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:57:16] Speaker D: So you've got your screen. Screen and your screen passage leading into the main hall. Yeah, yeah, lovely.
[00:57:22] Speaker A: So. So guests can be entertained here, feasts can take place and so on.
And if you want a private meeting, that hall above us is called a camera.
So if you want a private meeting to discuss important secret business, clear everybody out and your meeting is then held in camera.
[00:57:43] Speaker D: Right, okay. Wonderful. Great stuff. We love it. So where do we need to go? Can we head off in this direction? So if we leave the hall now.
[00:57:55] Speaker A: So we're going to go up to the old hall.
And this is it.
[00:59:28] Speaker D: This, this. So was this indoor at some point? I see.
[00:59:32] Speaker A: This is another hall.
[00:59:33] Speaker D: So we're still standing. We're standing outside. It looks like you're outside, but actually it was once all covered. Right, I see.
[00:59:39] Speaker A: And this. This is the oldest part of the building and again it's on two stories. So we're in the ground floor and you can see where the upper floor.
[00:59:48] Speaker D: Yes. Would have. Yeah, the ceiling would have rested against the stonework.
[00:59:53] Speaker A: But then at Some point they build a western hall on, at the end of it.
And that would have been accessed through from the western hall.
[01:00:01] Speaker D: Yeah. So we've got a door, we've got a doorway at sort of first level flight that's all been blocked up by.
I love being able to read castles. I think it's fascinating.
[01:00:11] Speaker A: There were also then chambers up here and you can see at least two other floors at that particular point.
[01:00:20] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. And this is, this is a particular space. I'm pointing now again, we're walking towards the south east. This is the southeast, the southeast corner where it had the most private chambers.
[01:00:32] Speaker A: Probably. Yes, probably.
[01:00:34] Speaker D: And you've got this spectacular. I mean, it's very unusual. You see this at the bishop's palace at St David's don't you? You've got this huge, well, hall, I imagine, beyond there. And then. Can you describe the upper level and what we're seeing?
[01:00:47] Speaker A: Well, in an arcade of 12, 15 arches, you would have seen through that, the roof.
So what that does then is carry the rainwater off the roof.
[01:01:05] Speaker D: I see.
[01:01:06] Speaker A: And it allows the rainwater to run out through the arches.
But it's built by the same man who, who builds the bishop's palace at St David's with the same feature of an arcade.
[01:01:19] Speaker D: Very unusual, isn't it?
[01:01:21] Speaker A: It's. It's quite spectacular.
[01:01:23] Speaker D: Yeah.
So we don't know how Edmund, how long Edmund and Margaret were in residence here?
[01:01:30] Speaker A: No, she. She appears to be here on her own at some point. When he goes up to Carmarthen, why
[01:01:36] Speaker D: does he go up there? What's going on?
[01:01:38] Speaker A: Again, it's all part of the, the wars of the Roses. And he is captured up there and imprisoned in Carmarthen Castle.
[01:01:45] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:01:45] Speaker A: And then he is released, but very quickly dies of plague.
[01:01:50] Speaker D: Because I've heard, also, I've heard two kind of lines of story about his death, that he was actually murdered while in Kamarland Castle, but it was passed off that he'd died of the plague. But you think it was natural causes from the play?
[01:02:04] Speaker A: Well, who knows, to be honest?
You know, he's a rival, he's a problem.
Why not get rid of him? But we don't know for sure.
[01:02:13] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:02:14] Speaker A: And it's never been publicly stated that it might be murder. It's always down to plague. Right.
[01:02:20] Speaker D: Okay.
[01:02:21] Speaker C: Okay.
[01:02:22] Speaker D: So the bed chamber, where they may have been, is this up in here?
[01:02:26] Speaker A: It is up in there.
[01:02:27] Speaker D: Let's, let's go and just see that space.
So, Margaret, remind us, Margaret was how old when she was brought Here she's only about 13. Yeah.
So young.
[01:02:42] Speaker A: Normally, when there was a marriage involving very young people like Margaret, she's only 12 or 13 when she marries, the usual thing was to wait three or four years before the marriage is consummate. Consummated.
But if she had died after the marriage, but before consummation, Edmund Tudor would have got nothing.
All her possessions would have been reclaimed by her family.
But once the marriage is consummated, he can claim everything.
[01:03:14] Speaker D: So that's why you think he moved so swiftly.
Well, in the end, it was kind of lucky because he wouldn't have had her. Any son and heir would, as difficult and horrendous as that was for Margaret,
[01:03:28] Speaker A: and she did adore her son.
[01:03:30] Speaker D: She did.
[01:03:31] Speaker A: So, yeah, I suppose you can say, yes, there was a good ending to it.
[01:03:37] Speaker D: So we're climbing up a flight of stone stairs to get to. Was this. That. I take it this was the main entrance to this hallway of this exterior external flight of stairs, which is not uncommon.
And into a. So now we are at sort of first four level into another hall.
Smaller proportions, a little bit more intimate, this hall.
[01:04:02] Speaker A: It's narrower and it's not as long.
[01:04:04] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:04:05] Speaker A: And it has two fireplaces and another bed chamber off here.
[01:04:13] Speaker D: So if you had to put money on it, where do you think that Margaret and Edmund would have been lodged while here?
[01:04:22] Speaker A: I think here.
[01:04:23] Speaker D: Do you think this could be the bed chamber?
[01:04:25] Speaker A: Because the other one that we looked at in the Western hall, that's the bishop's territory, if you like. I think he would have reserved that for himself.
[01:04:33] Speaker D: So this is more your high status guest lodgings.
And so is this. This. And I'm asking this rhetorically, is this the room?
[01:04:44] Speaker A: This is.
[01:04:45] Speaker D: This is one of the bed chambers.
[01:04:46] Speaker A: This is one of the best.
[01:04:47] Speaker D: This is the privy bed chamber.
[01:04:49] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:04:49] Speaker D: Was Henry VII conceived in this very space?
That's pretty awesome.
That's pretty awesome to think about, isn't it?
Chris is smiling.
[01:05:04] Speaker A: Another theory that, yes, she. He was actually conceived at Caldecott Castle.
[01:05:09] Speaker D: On the way down, I did hear another theory. Yes. So where is Caldecott?
[01:05:14] Speaker A: It's in Glamorgan. It's not that far from Cardiff.
[01:05:17] Speaker D: I see.
[01:05:18] Speaker A: So it's on the route that would have led them here.
[01:05:20] Speaker D: So we have two competitors for the. For the. For the claim.
[01:05:25] Speaker A: But let's go for Lamp.
[01:05:26] Speaker D: I think we should go for Lampy. Since we're here.
Oh, well, I mean, I.
It's a really. It's quite a small room actually, isn't it?
[01:05:36] Speaker A: It is yeah, I'm. You get the bed in and that's about it.
[01:05:39] Speaker E: Yeah.
[01:05:39] Speaker D: Not much else. I mean, with the roof and you've got your private gardero. So you do have your private indoor suite.
It would be very cozy in here. I can't see place for fireplace, though.
I don't think there is, is there?
[01:05:52] Speaker A: No.
[01:05:53] Speaker D: So it must have been quite chilly in here.
But yeah, it's not a very. In a way, this room isn't a very auspicious space for such.
For the. For the dynasty that was. Was conceived on this spot.
[01:06:08] Speaker A: You can't imagine it as being that comfortable.
[01:06:11] Speaker D: No.
Well, it's great to be here, though, I have to say. And you know, we're going to be stopping at some really important places along the way. This particular. Potentially where he was conceived. We're going to stand next to the exit from the tunnels in Tenby where he passed through that door and fled. And we're going to be standing on the beach where he came back.
So we're actually going to be touching on some really significant places, associated home, which gives me a few goosebumps. So anyway, this is wonderful. Please lead the way.
[01:06:45] Speaker A: One other thing is nothing to do with Henry Tudor, but you might like to know it, please.
Queen Elizabeth's favorite in her old age, Robert Devereaux, 2nd Earl of Essex. He lived here, did he? Yeah.
[01:06:56] Speaker D: Oh, I didn't know that. Okay.
[01:06:58] Speaker A: But by 1546, this is owned by the Devereaux family.
[01:07:05] Speaker D: Right.
[01:07:05] Speaker A: It's taken by Henry vii.
[01:07:08] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:07:08] Speaker A: And he, by some dubious means, it then finds falls.
[01:07:13] Speaker D: Henry vii. Dubious.
No. So.
[01:07:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:07:19] Speaker D: So when did they take. They take possession? During the reign of Henry VII.
[01:07:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
And there are. They are here then, for two or three generations. And when Robert Devereaux, the second Earl of Essex finishes education at Cambridge in about 1581, he comes here and he's here for three or four years. Well, 50, 1984, he goes up to court and that's when his story really takes off.
[01:07:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:07:45] Speaker D: It doesn't end well for him, does it?
[01:07:47] Speaker A: It doesn't end well. He's executed in the Tower of London.
[01:07:50] Speaker D: Yes, I thought so.
[01:07:51] Speaker A: But it's rather sad because at some point, I think after his rebellion fails, he writes that he had. He wished he had bent his mind to a retired course.
So I think he loved Lampy.
[01:08:06] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:08:07] Speaker A: And he does haunted.
[01:08:08] Speaker D: Does he?
[01:08:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:08:10] Speaker D: Tell me. I love a ghost story.
[01:08:12] Speaker A: How do we know he's been seen?
One of the things that we did when I worked here was ghost tours in the Evenings?
[01:08:20] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:08:21] Speaker A: And we had a very large group one evening, and we were standing by the inner gatehouse, and I was holding forth.
And I always did the ghost tours with a colleague called Mary, Mary Goodman. And she would wait in the visitor center just in case there were any latecomers. And then when she saw me at the inner gate, how she'd come down and join us.
And I noticed this woman in the group suddenly look a bit startled, and she hurried up to Mary, and there was this conversation that went on. And then they came back, and I thought, don't know what that's all about.
But she was on edge for the whole tour.
And her husband said to her, you're not taking this, aren't you? What's the matter with you?
And at the end, when we got back to the inner gatehouse, I was telling him about Robert Devereux, and I held a picture up and said, that's him. And she was right in front of me, and the colour drained from her face.
And she said to me, afterwards, I saw him. That's why I hurried away from the group in the first place.
He walked up through the outer court, and I saw him.
[01:09:34] Speaker D: Oh, my goodness. That is fantastic, isn't it? I love that.
So he's still here? He came back to the place that he loved?
[01:09:41] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:09:43] Speaker D: I wonder if he had his head with him. That's the question. Well, clearly, because she saw who it was.
[01:09:49] Speaker A: She didn't say he was carrying it, but his father also haunts it.
[01:09:55] Speaker D: Okay, Walter, and how do you know this?
[01:10:00] Speaker A: I'll. I'll take you to where he haunts.
[01:10:02] Speaker D: Okay. Yes, let's go.
[01:10:04] Speaker A: Yes, because we used to collect ghost stories, and it's completely off the subject now. I'm sorry.
[01:10:10] Speaker D: I know people love ghost stories.
[01:10:13] Speaker A: We used to collect stories, Mary and I, because we would never say to a visitor to the palace, watch out for the ghost. You just didn't. But it was amazing, the number of people that would come back and say, I've just seen something odd. So we started collecting them and writing them down, and we reckon There are 16 different types of haunting.
[01:10:35] Speaker D: Got to be careful, don't you, down these stairs?
[01:10:38] Speaker A: Well, you do wonder about the number of people that took a tumble down here.
[01:10:41] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely.
Right. So where do we need to go to find this haunted space?
Have you seen the ghosts?
[01:10:52] Speaker A: No, I. I've not.
So this is where.
[01:10:58] Speaker D: This is where Walter haunts?
[01:10:59] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:11:00] Speaker D: So tell us about Walter.
[01:11:02] Speaker A: Yeah, this is the under.
And the story is that he was.
His wife, Lady Essex, was A bit of a madam.
And he went off to Ireland. He was sent to Ireland by Elizabeth I to govern Ireland. And while he was away he heard that Lady Essex was up to no good with various gentlemen.
So he came back and went up to London and presumably sorted out the problem and then came back through Lamphey on the way to Ireland and this is where they would make the cheeses.
And he took according to the legend some cheeses made here back to Ireland with him and then suddenly died.
And the imputation was that it was poison and that Lady Essex had poisoned the cheeses.
So ever since then he appears in
[01:12:07] Speaker D: that corner to see. Yeah, let's go down that corner.
[01:12:15] Speaker A: I have been here very late at
[01:12:17] Speaker D: night that must be.
[01:12:18] Speaker A: And it's very spooky.
[01:12:19] Speaker D: I going to say that must be terrifying.
I'm getting shivers but I'm not sure cuz it's a ghost.
It's a shame you've never seen them yourself.
[01:12:33] Speaker A: No, I never have.
[01:12:34] Speaker D: Well no I've never have. I haven't either.
[01:12:36] Speaker A: I, I'll tell you the nearest I ever came to it if, if you want.
[01:12:40] Speaker D: Yes, go on.
[01:12:46] Speaker A: We always candle at the palace when we did the ghost tours in the pot log holes we were candles and it was my job then to come and put them all out at the end of the day in the dark and this was the one place that I would come in and I would never look to left or right get the candles and.
And the other ghost that haunts the palace is the Black Monk and we know who he is and we know why. Right? He haunts the palace.
[01:13:17] Speaker D: Tell us, tell us.
[01:13:19] Speaker A: He was accused of heresy and would have been burned at the stake and he was, he was actually tried for heresy here in the past and that
[01:13:30] Speaker D: did happen, didn't it?
[01:13:31] Speaker A: That was, yes, but he recanted. Okay, so he wasn't executed suited but he apparently haunts the palace and I always used to mention this.
And we were standing outside the Western hall again with a big group of people and I told them about the Black Monk.
And the next day a friend of mine came back because she'd been on the tour with her son in law and she said I've come back to tell you that when we were driving away I said to my son, my son in law, did you enjoy that? And he said yeah, it was really good. He said, but I couldn't work out how they got the Black Monk to appear and disappear.
And she said well it wasn't a black monk. And he said yeah, there was I couldn't understand where he came from, so I kept an eye on him and he kept appearing and disappearing, but I could never see how they managed that.
And she said, well, they don't have people pretending to be Black Monks.
Oh yeah, they do. Yeah, I saw him.
So she said, well, where did you see him? And he said, well, when we were outside the Western hall, the Black Monk was standing right behind Terry.
[01:14:51] Speaker D: Excellent.
I love, love it.
[01:14:55] Speaker A: So after that, any subsequent tour that we did here, we stopped very briefly.
[01:15:01] Speaker D: At this point you probably had shivers running down your spine.
[01:15:05] Speaker A: But her son in law was not the type to believe in ghosts.
[01:15:09] Speaker D: Right, okay, so I think we're coming to the end of our exploration of Lampy. I'm going to ask you in a minute just to tell us some practical things about how people visit. But we have Edmund dying in Carmarthen, possibly of the plague or potentially suspicious circumstances, but officially of the plague.
So Margaret's suddenly a widow and she's still, what, 13 years old. She's pregnant, she's vulnerable because as you mentioned before, the wars of the Roses are, it's raging.
The Yorkists have the upper hand and are still hunting out Lancastrians.
Her unborn child is going to be a very important Lancastrian in terms of being in line for succession. So what happens to Margaret next?
[01:16:01] Speaker A: Well, according to legend, and I think it's borne out by fact, Jasper Tudor realizes, Edmund's brother, that she is very vulnerable and he decides to take her into Pembroke Castle.
So at some point, and we don't know the exact date again, she is brought from Lamphey palace into Pembroke Castle. And there is a legend that in the 1400s you could actually come from Pembroke to Lamphey by boat.
The river was wide and deep enough for a small draft boat to get up to Lamphy. So I wonder whether that's the way they took her.
[01:16:38] Speaker D: Yeah, we don't know for sure, no. Interesting though.
So it seems to me that that is the next place that we, dear listeners, need to go on our journey in the footsteps of Henry vii. And in fact, that is where we will go. We'll go back to Pembroke Castle because we'll be meeting with our on site expert, Gareth Mills, who's an old friend of the show. He's going to be talking to us about, about what happened at Pembroke with Henry's birth and his younger years before his flight to Brittany.
So with that I just want to thank you, Terry, for being our guide today.
[01:17:15] Speaker A: Thank you, I've enjoyed it.
[01:17:17] Speaker D: Perhaps you could Just let people know how they come and enjoy this for themselves. Is it open all year round?
[01:17:23] Speaker A: It's open all the year round.
There's no charge. You come, come up the lane at the side and in through the side gate.
[01:17:29] Speaker D: Yes. So there's a decent amount of parking right on site.
In fact, there's a lovely hotel just over there. You were saying that's where there was once a medieval manor house.
[01:17:39] Speaker A: Yes. And I think they do cream teas there.
[01:17:42] Speaker D: So you can stay there, enjoy your cream tea there, wander down. And I think I've been here on two very different weather days. One, a beautiful blue sky, sunny day.
It was gorgeous.
Today is a little bit more elemental, shall we say.
Shall we say. But it's a lovely place just to come and wander around and soak up the atmosphere and. And I challenge you, ladies and gentlemen, to come and perhaps find for yourself that bed chamber that we were in there where Henry was possibly conceived. Stand there for yourself and just soak up the atmosphere. So anyway, once again, thank you, Terry and dear listeners, let's go to our next location.
[01:18:44] Speaker A: Sa.
Sam.
Sa.
[01:20:06] Speaker D: Well, dear listeners, we've come about two miles to the west of Lamphey. We've traveled back to Pembroke Castle because having traced the story of the legend of the conception of Henry VII at Lamphey, or the future Henry vii, we of course have to come back to Pembroke and the mighty Pembroke Castle, the place of Henry's birth. And joining me as our guest expert is an old friend of the show. Hello, Gareth.
[01:20:35] Speaker B: Nice to see you.
[01:20:36] Speaker D: Nice to see you. So Gareth is with me and if you have been a long time follower of the Tudor History and Travel show, you know that previously Gareth and I met to do a dedicated podcast on most of the history of Pembroke Castle, although we of course focused on the Tudor bit. And here we are again. So you're most welcome. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today.
[01:20:57] Speaker B: It's a pleasure.
Thank you ever so much for inviting me back and it's always a pleasure to come and work with you, Sarah. And we've come to Pembroke Castle, where I've been a tour guide for the last 10 years. I'm a retired history teacher, but also a historian. I've written a couple of books and do quite a lot of talking about 2D history around local history clubs and societies as well.
[01:21:18] Speaker D: I know you're the perfect person to be with us today.
And thank you so much for inviting the sunshine out. Although it is the middle of January, we've got a Beautiful blue sky, it's quite mild, no wind. It's amazing.
[01:21:31] Speaker B: It's not always like this, I can assure you where we are stood now on a rainy windy day, it's very difficult to stand up such as the exposed place that this is on.
[01:21:42] Speaker D: Okay, so I think we should start, we are going to focus as I mentioned on the birth of Henry VII here and then a little bit about his boyhood.
And also we'll end by talking about the dramatic events surrounding the exile of the young Henry Tudor as he fled from Tenby to Brittany and want he fled from here. So we'll, we'll finish our chat then. I know you've got some, perhaps some interesting updates for us today which I haven't even heard of yet, dear listeners. So I'm really excited about the place, the actual place, the room, the space in which it is said that Henry was that right?
[01:22:24] Speaker B: Henry was absolutely right. And the. The update is still waiting its final conclusion as I'll tell you a little later on with the story.
[01:22:32] Speaker D: Okay, okay. All right now I think it would be lovely as ever with going to have a show notes page and they're going to be images, dear listeners. If you want to have a look at Pembroke Castle, it's a vast expanse here. Can you just give us a little bit of geography? Where is it situated in the town and what are we seeing around us as we talk?
[01:22:52] Speaker B: Well, Pembroke Castle was built in 1093, 1094 by Roger de Montgomery, who was one of William the Conqueror's most trusted knights. And the invasion of Wales didn't take place after 1066. It didn't start until 1090s. And Pembroke Castle was the first castle built in West Wales to conquer the Welsh. And that castle becomes very, very significant.
Roger de Montgomery's plan was to create a hub in west Wales which when it would be strong enough, the Normans might be able to conquer the Welsh princes from both England in the east and west Wales. Consequently, he sets out in 1093 to build a welcome wonderful but simple Norman castle. And you choose as a site of Pembroke.
[01:23:33] Speaker E: Why?
[01:23:34] Speaker B: Pembroke is quite unique for its natural defenses. We are now stood Sarah, on the edge of a cliff where on three sides we have a hundred foot sheer cliff face drop on which the castle is built.
When the Normans found the site with tidal water on all three sides.
It is at the base of of the Milford Haven estuary which flows into the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. We have the second highest tidal reach in the world around this coast. So when the Normans found this cliff with a hundred foot cliff on three sides in a peninsula. At high tide, the tide was 15 to 20 foot deep up all three sides. So in terms of natural defenses, this is one of the best naturally defended castles in Great Britain.
[01:24:16] Speaker A: Wow.
[01:24:17] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:24:17] Speaker B: So this is an incredible park, part of the story of Pembroke. And of course Pembroke town grows along the peninsula after the castle and later they add the town walls. So with the town walls and the castle. Pembroke Castle is one of the largest castles certainly in Wales, if not in Great Britain. And it is quite a unique place in terms of a medieval town which is still visitable today.
[01:24:42] Speaker D: Yeah, lovely.
[01:24:42] Speaker C: Fantastic.
[01:24:43] Speaker D: And there are, I mean there are, it's a ruined castle, but there are this, you know, there's sizable amounts of the castle left here. We're standing in what the would be the, the sort of the main bailey.
Yeah. And we're standing actually in front of a tower which is called the Henry VII tower. And there's a very valiant sort of cardboard of Jasper. So let's fast forward, as I said before, we've done a whole podcast on the history of. So if people want to hear more about maybe some of the medieval history of Pembroke, we'll put a link in the description so that, dear listeners, you can hop on over to listen to that if you wish, but we're going to fast forward to the back end of the 15th century.
So tell us about the ownership of the castle at the time. We're talking wars of the road now, aren't we?
[01:25:37] Speaker B: Well, the Earl of Pembroke at the time was Jasper Tudor and he was a half brother of King Henry vi, the Lancastrian king. And he had an older brother who was Edmund Tudor. Jasper and Edmund had grown up in the palace in London with their big brother, Henry vi, but they were half brothers because Henry VI mother, Catherine de Valois, had remarried a Welshman called Owen Tudor and they had two sons, Edmund and Jasper. And of course, Edmund is the one who takes, at the age of 20, the 12 year old Margaret Beaufort as his bride.
The reason is that in the troubled times of the wars of the Roses, if you were related to a monarch, you had aspirations as a family that one day your family might have a king or a queen. And the Tudors were no exceptions. They were half brothers of King Henry vi.
However, their actual claim was very, very weak because the most important criteria for judging who becomes a king of England is English royal blood. And of course, Edmund and Jasper Tudor, their parents were a common Welshman from Bomaris in North Wales and a French princess. So they had no English blood in their veins. And the story goes that Edmund knew that they were brought up with the idea that in their generation they would never have the right to be kings because their claim was weak. So Edmund, planning ahead, decided to marry Margaret Beaufort because she was related to Edward III's son, John of Gaunt.
Her great grandmother, Catherine Swynford, had had an affair with John and Gaunt and produced a son.
The son was illegitimate, but it was legitimized by Edward iii, so that was her grandfather. So she had English royal blood in her veins. But the interesting thing is, why did he choose her?
Margaret Beaufort was from a very rich family.
Her mother was incapable of remarrying when she was just three years old and her father died. And in circumstances like that, rich families had to appoint a ward. The King would appoint a ward to look after the estates and the people.
When she was nine, her initial ward died.
The King was Henry vi and he gave the wardship of Margaret Beaufort to his half brother, Edmund Tudor. So Edmund and Tudor, by the time, by the time Margaret was nine, was already.
He was her keeper. He was living off the Beaufort money.
She was related to the monarch. And the plan, quite simply, was, why not marry her, have lots of children by her and in the next generation, every child born through that marriage would have the Tudor name and the English royal blood through Margaret Beaufort. They married it. They married when she was 12, and it's not surprising that she was pregnant at 13. And the story goes, they reckon by legend, that she became pregnant when Edmund was in Wales at Caldecott Castle.
And that's really where the story starts to go wrong.
She's pregnant at 13.
She was quite a frail girl.
Everybody thought that perhaps the birth would be somewhat difficult, but for the first six months of her pregnancy, everything went swimmingly. Well, she was fine. After six months, however, disaster struck the family. And it's not Margaret, it's Edmund. Her husband. Edmund is fighting the wars of the Roses on behalf of his brother, Henry VI, at Carmarthen, 30 miles down the road here, he's captured by the Herbert family, who were Yorkists.
They were the premier Yorkist combatants in South Wales. They capture Edmund Tudor and they throw him in the dungeon of Carmarthen Castle, where he dies of the plague. So they say.
[01:29:45] Speaker D: There's some controversy, isn't there?
[01:29:47] Speaker B: Some controversy as to whether or not they murdered him, bumped him off.
The two stories will never find the truth. And of course, he was buried in the church in Carmarthen.
Thus leaving his wife, poor old Margaret, not yet 14 years of age, six months pregnant and now destitute.
As a woman, she had no rights over her husband's estates, lands or whatever, so technically she was destitute unless somebody took her in.
Fortunately for Margaret, Edmund had a younger brother, Jasper Tudor, who was the Earl of Pembroke. And Jasper knew how important that birth was, not just for Margaret, but for the Tudor family. The first child, they didn't know if it was a boy or a girl, then born with English royal blood, carrying the Tudor name. So it's her brother in law, Jasper Tudor, who invites her to come to Pembroke Castle, stating that we will look after you, we will allow you to have the birth in safety.
[01:30:49] Speaker D: Can I just ask. So I just want to pause there because I'd love you to try and recreate for us the castle that Margaret would have seen when she came through that gatehouse, which just likes a mighty gatehouse lying just over to my right hand side, really formidable.
Just give us a flavour of what castle life would have been like here.
[01:31:08] Speaker B: Well, where you would stood in the outer bailey would have been where the, the knights and squires would have lived. Who looked after the Earl Jasper at that time? He would have had his own private army. In fact, this outer bailey was built by none other than William Marshall in the 13th century for that purpose. And if we were to go back in a time machine, shall we say, to 1456, we would be stood now in the middle of a town where there would be all sorts of wooden buildings as well as the stone buildings which house granaries, blacksmith shops, stables and dormitories for knights to live. Their families would be here. Children would be running around playing, their mothers would be running around looking after them. The squires would probably be doing most of the hard work and the knights would be doing less than hard work. Male chauvinism was rife at this time.
[01:32:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:32:03] Speaker B: And this was a fantastic place.
But behind us would have been the original castle, again, the stone castle, which was built by William Marshal in the 13th century.
[01:32:15] Speaker D: And you have this wonderful round tower, don't you? Was that the main.
[01:32:18] Speaker B: What we're looking at in front of us is the main keep built by William Marshall, which is quite an incredible size because he was such an important person. He built what you could describe as a king's keep. But the living quarters in the medieval times would have been in the two halls right on the far side of the castle, the original one built by William Marshal and then a second one built 30 years after his death.
Now this is one of the interesting things because by the time the Jasper Tudor was the Earl of Pembroke, we now think it's unlikely that he would have lived in a cold, drafty hall.
[01:32:56] Speaker D: Right.
[01:32:57] Speaker B: And one of the interesting things is in 2019 we actually had an archaeological dig this side of the Henry VII tower.
[01:33:08] Speaker D: So I might just say just for, just because obviously folk who are listening into this, we're kind of standing towards one side of the castle walls, close to the Henry the seventh tower, which looks outside on the road below by the town. We've just been talking about the inner bailey, which is right across the other side.
[01:33:27] Speaker B: Edge of the cliff.
[01:33:28] Speaker D: On the edge of the cliff. So as you were talking, I was thinking, okay, so that's the private lodgings. Why on earth do we think that she's born in a tower that's built into the wall of the castle? That immediately, to me who've been through many, many Tudor houses and palaces, doesn't make sense. So you're about to tell us something, right?
[01:33:51] Speaker B: Well, Oliver Cromwell ruined this castle in 1648 and he destroyed the wonderful gatehouse you mentioned and in fact the Henry VII tower. So they were rebel when the castle was was bought by a private landowner, survivor Phillips, at the start of the 20th century. And he was mad on, on the Tudor experience. And he bought the castle specifically to rebuild the birthplace of the Tudor dynasty.
[01:34:17] Speaker D: Right.
[01:34:18] Speaker B: Now, the original record of the birth of Henry Tudor says that he was born in a tower in Pembroke Castle, immediately above the west gate to Pembroke Town.
In this castle, the Tudor tower that we now call walls, the Henry VII Tower is the only tower above the west gate.
So Sir Iva Phillips, when he was setting this up, took the actual word and declared that the tower. But as you say, over the last 50, 60 years, many people like yourself have challenged that because the main living quarters of Pembroke Castle is the opposite
[01:35:00] Speaker D: end the side of the castle, this side of the bailey.
[01:35:03] Speaker B: So in 2019, we actually had an archaeological dig here on the inside of the castle adjacent to the Henry VII Tower.
And that archaeological dig unearthed a massive stone foundation of a rectangular building of which the outside wall under Henry VII Tower would have been the outer wall. But then the inner walls we now think might well have been a Tudor style mansion that Jasper built of wood, timber, plaster, wattle, daub and a wooden roof. And that tower would have been a first floor bedroom of that. Yeah, because by the 15th century, many Tudor people started to build different houses or different living places from Tudor cold stone, drafty Halls. The sadness was they didn't quite finish the archaeological dig in 2019 and do I need to say they were supposed to come back in 2020.
Another consequence of COVID unfortunately. And it's the David Archaeological Society and eventually they will come back and finish the dig, but they're so busy that they're booked up year on year on year. So eventually we will have them back and hopefully we'll have a computer aided design of this wonderful building that we now think Jasper Tudor would have lived in. And that explains, we hope, why it was the Tower.
[01:36:28] Speaker D: Thank you. That makes much more sense. I'm feeling much happier now, but for the time being if you come and visit, you will be taken into the Round Tower with a small round chamber with some recreations of the, that is, you know, with Margaret Tudor and her newborn baby and a couple of ladies in waiting. But tell us then, Henry was born here on what day and when?
[01:36:53] Speaker B: Right. He was born on 28 January 1457.
And the story goes that obviously Jasper invited Margaret to come. She came here in October 1456 and spent three months here before she gave birth in the Tower.
It was a very difficult birth.
Record says that she nearly bled to death. And of course, because it was a difficult birth, we're not, you know, Henry had a very difficult birth himself. Of course, his father was already dead, so he never ever saw his father, which is one of the saddest things.
And of course Margaret, having given birth, was now a widow and widows with from quite wealthy families needed to remarry. And it's not surprising that she actually, with Jasper, arranges another wedding, another husband for her and they actually get married in 1458, a year after Henry Tudor is born in this castle. And Henry VI awards the wardship of Henry Tudor to Jasper on that wedding. In 1458 she marries Henry Stafford and moves away and goes to live in the southeast of England.
So from the age of one, Margaret had very little interaction with her son.
Jasper becomes his father basically, and it's Jasper is the one that stays with him throughout his life, even until he wins the Battle of Bosworth and becomes king.
[01:38:21] Speaker D: So since Jasper was such an important person in, in Henry Tudor's life, what do we know about him as a character?
[01:38:29] Speaker B: Well, he was very loyal and faithful to his brother Henry VI and was the main protagonist on behalf of Henry VI in West Wales. And this is one of the interesting things because Henry would have almost certainly in the first four years of his life, had very little contact even with Jasper. Because this was a very troubled time of the war, wars of the Roses. And Jasper, having lost his brother Edmund, who was also in Wales, trying to fight the wars of the Roses on behalf of their big brother, Jasper had to take up the mantle of being away from Pembroke Castle on many, many occasions, trying to keep the Henry VI Tudor, sorry, the Henry VI Lancastrian king, on the throne of England. He was a great warrior, there's little doubt of that. But he also was a very, A very, very clever man.
I mean, there is a story that after Margaret gave birth and she was now a widow, Jasper wasn't married. Would Jasper and her marry? But it looks like he looked at that and he thought that that might cause an awful lot of problem of him marrying, marrying his widowed sister.
So. So, yeah, he, he is the one that brokers the marriage with the Stafford family. And Margaret moves on and sees very little of her son in those years.
[01:39:53] Speaker D: Do we have any record of how Margaret felt about that? Or was she a typical pragmatic.
[01:39:59] Speaker B: Well, we know a lot more about Margaret Beaufort now. And one of the things that many, many historians say is, was she was quite a ruthless person, but she was totally and utterly dedicated to Henry Tudor and ensuring that if the time was right, he would have his rightful place on the throne of England. And she devoted the rest of her life from 1458 to ensure that. And of course, in 1485, she manages to do it against all the odds for a woman in Tudor times.
[01:40:29] Speaker D: I mean, we, you know, Henry had two different people utterly devoted to his welfare, absolutely success. Margaret and Jasper really forget to see them that often.
[01:40:37] Speaker B: And the nurse maids brought him up for his first five years.
[01:40:40] Speaker D: Yeah, indeed. So Henry, actually, as many people will probably know, didn't spend all of his childhood here at Pembroke. It wasn't all a bed of roses. And speaking of roses, you know, we were talking about the wars of the race. Don't you see how I did that, ladies and gentlemen?
You know, perhaps you could just. Wouldn't.
[01:40:57] Speaker B: Wouldn't.
[01:40:58] Speaker D: We're not at Raglan, obviously, which is where he spent some of his time, but maybe you can tell us what happened and why he. How long did he spend here before he.
[01:41:07] Speaker B: Well, in 1461, the wars of the Roses erupted big time and Henry VI was deposed.
That obviously put Henry Tudor under threat and it put Jasper under threat.
And the Herbert family were given the rights of the Earldom of Pembroke Castle in 1461 and they also got the wardship of Henry Tudor. Now, the Herbert's home was Raglan Castle and they move him to Raglan Castle where he spends the next seven to eight years of his life. Jasper during that time flees in exile to Scotland and he is out of the picture from 1461 right the way through to 1470 when of course we have the second huge blow up of the wars of the Roses and Henry takes back the throne for a few months but then loses the throne again. When he takes back the throne. Jasper is now given the wardship back of Henry and he collects him from Raglan and takes him to court.
But this only lasts a few months before Edward reclaims the throne and then Jasper has to take Henry out of the country and it's to Pembrokeshire that he comes.
The town of Temby was loyal to Jasper Tudor it was a walled town, it was one of the most important ports in Wales at that time.
And of course Jasper had a lot of friends and connections there. And the story goes that it's the mayor of Tenby at the time who hides Prince Henry and Jasper in the the cellars and many of the sellers had tunnels that went straight to the docks and it's in one of those docks apparently Henry and Jasper escape.
[01:42:56] Speaker D: Well, we're going to be going there on our journey and we're going to be, dear listeners, we're going to be diving into Tudor Tenby and going to see some of the locations you've been talking about and some of the important people who helped Henry get to away. But for now perhaps we could go to the cave where it is said that they made their daring escape to Tenby.
[01:43:18] Speaker B: Fine.
[01:43:19] Speaker D: So what I think we should do is take a little stroll and go and explore the cave because it's really fantastic feature, isn't it? And quite unexpected I think when you come to Pembroke Castle for the first time, if you're not aware of it,
[01:43:32] Speaker B: oh, it's an absolute, absolutely incredible piece of the defense of Pembroke Castle. In fact I'm pretty certain it is the only castle in Great Britain where you can actually get food in on a tidal water when you're under siege.
And it's one of the reasons that Cromwell in 1648 actually didn't take this castle for over eight weeks because he couldn't starve it out.
[01:43:57] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah.
Beautiful.
What a beautiful day we've got today, haven't we?
[01:44:04] Speaker A: We're so lucky. Sam.
Sa.
[01:45:28] Speaker D: So here we are, we're in this. Which room are we in now? We must be in the.
[01:45:32] Speaker B: This is, this is the northern hall. This is the last hall to be built and finished the stone castle of Pembroke. It was built around 1239 and was an extension on the original hall which was built by William Marshall.
And what is important about that is that the cave and the entrance to the cave that we now outside was actually built by William Marshall.
And the cave entrance was incorporated into the new hall 30 years after Marshall had it built.
And the whole purpose of accessing the cave was to be able to get food in in a stone castle if it was under siege.
So the original access to the cave would have looked nothing like this.
[01:46:17] Speaker D: Right. Okay.
[01:46:19] Speaker B: They built off the tower that was built up the side of the cliff to create the staircase to the cave.
And this was why the hall is now bigger than it should have been, because they literally built off the side of this and extended the castle by about 2 to 3 meters to put the hall in.
[01:46:40] Speaker C: I say.
[01:46:40] Speaker D: I see. And just to put it in context, this. This hall you're talking about was. When we were talking earlier about the privy apartments, this is where the lord would have lived originally. And we were hypothesizing, actually that it had kind of probably been largely abandoned because it was out of date and out of fashion by the time of the.
[01:46:58] Speaker B: I mean, that's. I mean, this. This dates from around 1238, 1239. Well, you know, the Tudors are another 200 years on from that.
[01:47:07] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:47:08] Speaker B: And if you imagine, buildings which are 200 years old will wear and tear.
And this building, we now think, obviously may have been a place where they entertain, but they certainly wouldn't have lived here.
[01:47:21] Speaker D: So with that, we're going to go down. We've got this, we've got a flight,
[01:47:27] Speaker B: and my knees are knackered.
I got to take my time on these days.
[01:47:32] Speaker D: That's Gareth telling us his knees.
We're on a spiral staircase here, and we're going down. The walls are covered in green mold. It's quite damp in here, isn't it? Obviously, as you would expect, heading down into a. Cause it does go on quite a way, doesn't it?
Every turn you think you're going to be the last turn, and there's still more to come.
Now here we are. We're just emerging.
I haven't found any treasure. Oh, dear.
No, not today.
Oh, it's lovely in echo, isn't it?
[01:48:16] Speaker C: It's great.
[01:48:18] Speaker D: Right, okay. So you'll be able to hear listeners. The acoustic is different. We are standing in the middle of Wogan's cave, and this is where it is said. Will you tell the story in relevance to Henry?
[01:48:34] Speaker B: Well, I mean, there is the legend that when Jasper and Henry escaped, that they could well have escaped via this cave, because this cave leads onto the estuary that leads out of the Milford Haven estuary into the Atlantic Ocean. So it's plausible that they could have come from here. But the counter argument is that he went from Tenby. But this is still a magnificent part of Pembroke Castle. And I'm sure in days gone by when Henry was younger, he would have played in this cave. It would have been one of his most memorable experiences as a young boy, perhaps four years of age, with his nursemaids down in the cave, looking at the wonderful, wonderful place that it is.
[01:49:22] Speaker D: Yeah. So we're looking out now. You'll hear the acoustics changed again, because I'm facing out onto the.
What would have been the tidal estuary back in the day.
[01:49:33] Speaker B: Well, you'll see today that the river is very low.
[01:49:35] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:49:35] Speaker B: And that is because we now have a tidal weir at the far end, which limits the amount of water allowed in. But of course, before that, the. The river level here would have almost been up to the path that we're looking at just outside here at high tide.
[01:49:51] Speaker D: So much higher, several meters higher.
[01:49:53] Speaker B: If the tidal barrage wasn't there, those houses would all be underwater.
[01:49:58] Speaker D: Opposite the houses, there's a rower of houses opposite. Obviously would not have been there in the day, but. Yes.
[01:50:03] Speaker B: And the river would have been in those days, probably another 30 to 40 meters wider than it is now because, of course, the tides are so strong.
[01:50:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:50:12] Speaker B: And the water around the three sides of the castle and the town was an incredibly important defensive barrier.
[01:50:20] Speaker D: So remind me of the date or date the year, year that Henry fled over to Brittany.
[01:50:26] Speaker B: It was 1471.
And what had happened was that Henry became king again, Edward was. Was out in exile and Jasper went and got Henry from Raglan, took him to court to be with Henry, but that only lasted a few months. And Edward, Ivan, recouped his troops and retook the throne. And that meant that Jasper and Henry were now in grave danger. So they came from court and they came to Pembrokeshire because Pembrokeshire was loyal to the Tudors and Jasper Tudor in particular.
[01:51:07] Speaker D: How close did the Herberts get to taking Pembroke? I mean, you know, did they escape just by the sky, the skin of their teeth, or did they come here? Do we know that?
[01:51:18] Speaker B: Well, what we do know is that at the time of the escape, both Pembroke and Tenby were under occupation by the Herbert family. So if they escaped from here, or if they escaped from Tenby, the Herbert family were imminent in taking those places. They were in the area.
[01:51:38] Speaker D: So it was pretty much by the skin of, of their teeth.
[01:51:41] Speaker B: It would have been of their teeth. Probably. We, we don't know exactly the time scales, but yeah, I would imagine so because the Herberts would know that Jasper and Henry would flee to Pembrokeshire. This was the heart of the Tudor strength in Wales.
So they would have followed them straight down. And it may have been hours, it may have been days, we're not sure, but it would have been close.
[01:52:04] Speaker D: It would have been close, the attention.
So when this is all happening, how old is Henry?
[01:52:10] Speaker B: Yeah, well, in 1471 he was 14 years of age. And of course it's his Uncle Jasper that manages to get him to escape with him. And of course originally they're supposed to sail over to France, but they actually get shipwrecked in Brittany and then they spend. They languish for the next 14 to 15 years, years and in various chateau in Brittany under almost house arrest by the Dukes of Brittany. So they were out of the wars of the Roses, out of kingship, out of parliament and everything for that period of time. So in his formative years, Henry Tudor was brought up in France, which makes 1485 and the subsequent fact that he becomes a successful monarch even more incredible.
But as we know, that's down to his mother as much as him.
[01:53:07] Speaker D: So he leaves really this area, the land of his birth at 14, he's a young man.
Jasper is still by his side. And I think what we need to do now, what I need to do now, and dear listeners, please do come with me, is to head on over to Tenby because Tudor Tenby has a very interesting story and there's some places that we can go and see that are very much associated with Jasper Tudor and Henry in Tenby. And we have another expert guide who's going to be joining us there. But you are going to have to wait to the second episode to hear that, so stay tuned. And we will be back with part, Part two of the Long Road to Bosworth.
[01:53:53] Speaker C: Okay, well, that's it for today's episode, but of course we are going to be back next month with part deux, when I'll be traveling to Temby, the Tudor town of Temby, as I mentioned before, with strong connections to Henry's uncle, Jasper Tudor, and the place that the pair fled into exile in a daring escape from Yorkist forces.
And I'll be going to Millbay to conclude our story. The place where Henry landed back on Welsh soil.
So it's a massive thank you as ever from me to our guest experts who joined us along the way on this journey. And of course, I will be back next month with the concluding episode. But until then, my friends, have a wonderful month and I will see you on the Tudor Road again soon.
Thank you for tuning in to today's episode of the Tudor History and Travel Show.
If you've loved the show, please take
[01:55:09] Speaker D: a moment to subscribe like and rate
[01:55:11] Speaker C: this podcast so that we can spread the Tudor love.
[01:55:15] Speaker D: Until next time, my friends. All that remains for me to say is happy time traveling.
[01:55:32] Speaker A: Sam.
