(no subject)

[naath]

Died on this day in 1461 aged 61 Owen Tudor(my toy,wikipedia). Owen Tudor married Catherine of Valois, the widow of Henry V (and mother of Henry VI); Owen was the "keeper of the Queen's wardrobe", which was presumably how he met Catherine. He was descended from very important Welsh people I haven't researched yet... but very important Welsh people were not well looked upon at the English court, especially after the uprising Owen's father was involved in. Owen's father was Mareddud ap Tudur, meaning Mareddud son-of Tudur but he changed Owen's name from Owen ap Mareddud to Owen Tudor to be more in line with English style names, and incidentally naming the Tudor dynasty. Owen and Catherine's son Edmund married Margaret Beaufort and was the father of Henry VII. The naming of the Heir Apparent to the English as "Prince of Wales" pre-dates this, and has nothing to do with the personal union of Henry's claims to English and Welsh titles (the English not being interested in Princes of bits of Wales being A Thing) there is some history of that here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Wales I include this random fact because I was somehow under the delusion that it *was* and have de-deluded myself I felt the need to pass it on (maybe I am uniquely stupid/ill-informed)

Born on this day in 1378 to King Charles V of France and Joanna of Bourbon, Catherine of Valois(my toy,wikipedia). But not *that* Catherine of Valois, a different one. This one died tragically young and didn't do very much; but got picked out because of having the same name as the other as yet another illustration of lots of names being very common. I have got 5 Catherines of Valois all daughters or grand-daughters of Kings of France born in the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~naath/searchname.py?name=Catherine+of+Valois).

Comments

[pavanne.livejournal.com]

Ooh him! This is why Catherine married him, according to Dan Jones' The Hollow Crown. There was a law passed in Parliament when Henry VI was still a kid (8 iirc) that she could not marry an Englishman until an adult king gave her permission. The aim of this was to prevent her husband being a potential usurper. However Catherine was still quite young and possibly didn't fancy being a dowager queen for the next ten years, so she married a Welshman. Possibly claiming that being French she didn't know that the Welsh were a despised minority at the time, and so had no idea how far beneath her in birth he was. (Dan Jones implies he thinks she was perfectly aware of this).

[naath.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't know that, that's interesting.