Talk:Owen Tudor

Name
There is no such thing as "Owen Tudor"! His name was Owen ap Tudor, ie Owen son of Tudor. The Wealsh didn't adopt last names until Henry VIII forced them to. DelftUser 14:29, 2005 July 14 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should change it then? Do you have a citation, I wouldn't want to change it if it was wrong, though I do agree with you. Souldn't it be Owain ap Tudor.

I did look into it further and found that he was known as Owen Tudor from 1500 onward, thus I think it should stay with a paragraph explaining that this name is historical and not actual. --DelftUser 14:17, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

So a little checking and we are both wrong!!! According to my copy of Owain Glyn Dŵr & the War of Independence in the Welsh Borders (Geoffery Hodges, Logaston Press 1995: ISBN 1873827245), Owen was the son of Maredudd ap Tudur of Anglesey. His mother is given as either the sister or cousin of Elen, Owain Glyn Dŵr's mother; I don't know how his mother's ancestry here squares with the book. It seems to me to be unlikely that the sister of Owain Glyn Dŵr's mother could have been of child bearing age in 1400, Owain Glyn Dŵr was born between 1356 and 1359. It may be that the author of the book is wrong because Owen's father, Maredudd, is also given as Owain Glyn Dŵr's maternal cousin. Be that as it may, Owen's father seems to be Maredudd. So he would be Owen ap Maredudd, not Owen ap Tudur. At best he would be Owen ap Maredudd ap Tudur (google gives quite a few hits for him using this name). It also says in the book that it was Owen who changed the spelling to Tudor from Tudur. So maybe he took his grandfather’s given name as a family name? Did you find out what he is called before 1500? He was probably Owain ap Meredudd ap Tudur in Wales. The question really is did he take it as a surname when he changed Tudur to Tudor? I can't find any information about the name Owen Tudor only being used after 1500, do you remember your source? Wikipedia policy is sketchy on this sort of point. Probably it would be best to use the name for which he is best know, and mention his Welsh name in the article. My guess is that it was Owen who started to use Tudor as a family name rather than a given name, maybe he anglicised Owain to Owen at the same time?Alun 16:59, 22 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The book: The Wars of the Roses: And the Lives of Five Men and Women in the Fifteenth Century by Desmond Seward lists him, in the family trees, as: Owen ap Maredudd ap Tudur (Owen Tudor). I now that the Welsh had to use family names in the reign of Henry VIII (they were forced!), maybe from that time he became known as Owen Tudor, but I don't really know. You seem to know much more than me on this subject, but my opinion is to keep the page name as it is. --DelftUser 20:20, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I think understand what you are saying, but I am wondering if a Welsh nobleman who was married to/living with the Dowager Queen, and who had dynastic aspirations in the English court, might have found it to his advantage to anglicise his name by both changing the spelling (and probably pronunciation) and giving himself an English style surname. No coersion would be necessary for someone in Owain/Owen's position. The different names for him in your source might just be due to the differences between Welsh and English sources. I have no evidence for this, but it could explain why he might have been happy to change his name.Alun 08:06, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't know how reliable this source is, but at least it's a citation!!

One more thing; our Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur decided to adopt an English style surname. The obvious choice would have been for him to have anglicised his patronymic and become 'Owain Maredudd' or 'Meredith', as indeed did many subsequent 'ap Maredudds'. But for reasons only known to himself, Owain rejected this option and selected his grandfather's name 'Tudur' and therefore became 'Owen Tudor'.

Alun 09:56, 24 September 2005 (UTC)


 * The convention for names is here Naming conventions. It sais this: Convention: Use the most common name of a person or thing that does not conflict with the names of other people or things. So Owen Tudor is correct for the title.Alun 15:45, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Etymology
The structure of the names at the time was 'given-name' son of 'father's name'. The given name was given with a purpose, it wasn't just a bunch of sounds. In other words, it had a meaning. Does any Welsh speaking person know what Tudur means? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.102.250.181 (talk) 03:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

No citations or Bibliography
This article has no citations or bibliography. Can we have some please?Alun 15:45, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Standard Welsh spelling please
Another thing, what's with the verch stuff? My Welsh may be rusty as it's 20 years since I left school (Ysgol Gyfun Llanhari, Morgannwg Ganol), but it is surely ferch. Actually merch mutated to ferch. If you are going to start using non-standard Welsh spellings then surely Ednyfed Fychan should become Ednyved Vychan, which just looks silly (as does verch to a Welsh speaker).Alun 06:00, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I think it was standard at the time maybe? 128.232.244.209 (talk) 11:15, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes verch often written as vz would have been the contemporary spelling

Marriage
While no documentation of Owen and Catherine's marriage survives, nobody at the time, even people hostile to them, disputed that they were married. Surely we can thus take it as read that they were? Jess Cully 14:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I must respectfully disagree. At least one historian, Thomas B. Costain in his work The Last Plantagenets notes that our view of this period is shaped heavily by Tudor era historians bent on legitimizing the Tudor dynasty, and that the marriage of Owen and Catherine is a crucial link in the argument for legitimization. Costain suggests that the two simply "lived in sin," and as the relationship kept Catherine out of the spotlight, the powers that be turned a blind eye. Further, Costain argues the Act of 1427 regararding the remarriage of dowager queens was enacted specifically to prevent Catherine from marrying Owen. Therefore, while I do not argue that Owen and Catherine were definitely not married, I believe the question is an open one, absent contemporary evidence otherwise. (Remember, too, that advocates of the "not married" position have the difficult task of attempting to prove a negative.) Jim Simmons (talk) 14:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually,the 1427 act prohibits anyone from marrying the Dowager Queen without the express permission of the regents. There is a subtle difference there. Could either King, Parliament, the King in Parliament, the Regents or any other temporal power in 1427 prohibit a priest from officiating at a sacrament when otherwise valid under Canon Law? Perhaps a better way to phrase the question would be, "Could any temporal authority in England in 1427 invalidate a sacrament properly performed by a duly ordained priest?" I think the answer is that while King or Parliament could make the act, or participation in the act, illegal, they couldn't invalidate the rite itself. Well, upon Catherine's death, Tudor was, through the regent Humphrey of Glouchester, summoned to appear before Henry VI for "laying with the late Queen Dowager." Tudor, accompanied by his chaplain, took refuge in Westminster Abbey until certain guarantees could be given him. I very much doubt that he would have been so received if he hadn't been a communicant. That, I think, is prima facie evidence that the couple underwent some form of Roman rite. Still, there is no record of it. Given that such a marriage was prohibited by Act of Parliament, recording it might be regarded as misprison of treason. Now, whether the marriage was valid under English law, given the Act of Parliament, is entirely another matter. Still, was it voidable or nulio ab initio? Of course, the marriage itself might have been adjudicated vailid while Owen Tudor was a felon for having entered into it. Then, in due course, Henry VI went on record stating that there was no reason to legitimize his Tudor half-siblings. This would seem to estop any future claim that they weren't legitimate.If the King can legitimize, as Richard II did the Beauforts (Henry VII's maternal family), then would not a proclamation by the King that no legitimization is necessary de facto remove all question? (i.e., " I would, but for the fact that they are legitimate, legitimize them."). Then, since Edmund and Jasper, upon their creation as earls, ranked above Marquesses and below non-royal dukes they appear to have been an odd class of quasi-royal earls.Then, when Henry VI married Edmund to his kinswoman from a legitimized line of Lancasterian Plantagenets, he appears to have underlined his legitimacy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.173.26.64 (talk) 18:11, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Year of birth
The article states he was born around 1385, yet he is in the 1400 births category. Does anyone know his actual year of birth?
 * The above is undated. As of 1/19/19, the first line of the article states 1400 and the infobox says 1392. Let's at least get consistency WITHIN the article.Toyokuni3 (talk) 21:34, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * , thanks for bringing this up. Not having time for real research, I did some poking around Google Scholar and Books and came up with nothing other than circa 1400 for his birth, so I nixed the unreferenced 1392 for now. Eric talk 03:21, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I am certainly no medievalist, and couldn't in all honesty tell you what brought me to this page. It just bothers me to see things like this that give ammunition to Wikipedia's critics.

I do, however, have one book on my shelf on British history, Norman Davies' (good Welsh name, that) 1999 work, 'The Isles'. It also gives only ca. 1400.Toyokuni3 (talk) 19:15, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Offspring
According to "The Tudors: History of a Dynasty" by David Loades, Edmund was Owain's eldest son followed by Jasper and a third son, David who became a monk. This disputes the number stated in this articles. I tried to look up the source for this information but could not access it. I presume that a respected author such as David Loades, a renowned specialist on the Tudors would be a more reliable source on this subject.

Descendants
It is mentioned that Queen Elizabeth II is a descendant of Owen Tudor. I thought the house of Tudor ended with Queen Elizabeth I? And the current Queen is of the House of Windsor, previously the house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha - a German house. Can anyone enlighten me on this issue?218.103.142.53 (talk) 20:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

My only authority is Churchill, "History of the English Speaking People, V. II," who states that both Owen and Catherine de Valois were born in 1400. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.173.26.64 (talk) 02:17, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Margaret Tudor, a daughter of Henry VII, and thus a great-granddaughter of Owen Tudor and Margaret de Valois, married King James V of Scotland. Their only issue was Mary Queen of Scots. When the Tudor line became extinct on Elizabeth's death, Mary's son, King James VI of Scotland, became King James I of England.The Stuarts became extinct with Queen Anne. George I, previously Duke of Hanover, Anne's second cousin once removed and a great-great-grandson of James I, succeeded her. The last monarch of the Hanover line was Victoria. She married Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. During WWI, George V, for political reasons, changed his name to "Windsor." (Another "German gentleman," his first cousin, the First Sea Lord, Prince Louis of Battenburg, changed his name to Louis Mountbatten, Marquess of Milford Haven).

Those given to sarcasm, and playing devil's advocate, might claim three lines of borderline legitimacy for Elizabeth II: Tudor; Beaufort; and Woodville. Certainly, there are more since William I (the Conqueror) was unquestionably not legitimate.

On the Owen Tudor page it mentions John Beaufort as the man Catherine was planning to marry:

"Queen Catherine, upon being denied permission by her son's regents to wed John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, allegedly said upon leaving court, "I shall marry a man so basely, yet gently born, that my lord regents may not object.""

On the Catherine of Valois page it says it was Edmund Beaufort:

"Catherine was still young and might wish to remarry which concerned the Protector, the king's uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Rumours abounded that Catherine planned to marry Edmund Beaufort, Count of Mortain, her late husband's cousin."

Did she intend to marry both of them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.105.23 (talk) 21:39, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Inconsistent with the Catherine of Valois page
On the Owen Tudor page it mentions John Beaufort as the man Catherine was planning to marry:

"Queen Catherine, upon being denied permission by her son's regents to wed John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, allegedly said upon leaving court, "I shall marry a man so basely, yet gently born, that my lord regents may not object.""

On the Catherine of Valois page it says it was Edmund Beaufort:

"Catherine was still young and might wish to remarry which concerned the Protector, the king's uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Rumours abounded that Catherine planned to marry Edmund Beaufort, Count of Mortain, her late husband's cousin."

Did she intend to marry both of them? That seems unlikely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.149.105.23 (talk) 21:41, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The reference to John Beaufort should be changed: it was Edmund Beaufort that Catherine allegedly wished to marry (and sources should be provided for this and all the other information in this article). John Beaufort was a prisoner in France between 1421 and 1438 so it is very unlikely that Catherine would have had any prospect of marrying him.

Also what is the source for Owen Tudor being a page at Henry IV's court? This is not a suggestion I have seen before and really needs to be backed up by reference to a reliable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Welys (talk • contribs) 13:24, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Why jailed?
'Within six months of Queen Catherine's death in January 1437, Owen Tudor was imprisoned at Newgate Prison, but he managed to escape.'
 * Doesn't say anything about reasons for imprisonment. Valetude (talk) 16:20, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Explanation of Tewdwr / Tudur
I think, the meaning of Welsh "Tewdwr / Tudur" should be explained in this article. It should also be explained why the spelling in Welsh changes between "Tewdwr" and "Tudur", given the two variants are pronounced quite differently.

Wiktionary (Tudor) explains the name as a Welsh form of the given name "Theodore", whereas the article Tudor dynasty states that "Tewdur or Tudor is derived from the words tud "territory" and rhi "king".

Which explanation is the correct one?

I personally favour the explanation provided by Wiktionary, since the patronymic name "ap Tudur" i.e. "son of Theodore" implies that Tudur is a given name.--Td222 (talk) 19:57, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Improvements
I have done some updating to address the lack of citations - will refer to Biography project for reevaluation. Norfolkbigfish (talk) 14:20, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Could the quotations in the death section be either paraphrased or repeated in standard English? Some dyslexic or non-native readers might find the early modern(?) English difficult to understand. Dangerscott (talk) 18:03, 25 September 2022 (UTC)