How Henry VII used his Welsh ancestry to secure the English Crown

The hunt for legitimacy

Henry’s response was perhaps as unexpected as his victory. To re-present himself as a candidate worthy to be called king, he embarked on a programme of dynastic propaganda to raise his standing and to furnish his kingship with some desperately needed legitimacy. For this, he looked to his Welsh, rather than English, background.

Shortly after becoming King, Henry commissioned a group of learned churchmen to head into Wales to produce a genealogical roll. The resulting document showed that he was, as was commonly known, the son of Edmund Tudor, who had died in Carmarthen before his birth, and the grandson of Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur (Owen the son of Meredith the son of Tudor, later anglicised somewhat haphazardly to Owen Tudor). 

The roll traced his pedigree back through several more generations of North Welsh gentry until it reached Gwenllian, a 12th-century princess of South Wales. Through Gwenllian, Henry’s lineage grew in prominence, connecting him with ancient Welsh kings like Hywel Dda, Rhodri Mawr and Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon who held sway over a series of petty kingdoms that had risen in post-Roman Britain.

Beyond that, the roll became more fanciful, claiming connections to legendary figures like Arthur and Brutus of Troy, the mythological founder of Britain. But Henry had what he was after – evidence of what he had long been told, robust royal ancestry in the all-important male-line.

'The hope of our race'

Henry Tudor recruits an army and creates the Tudor brand

By combining the Red Dragon with the Tudor colours, Henry was asserting his position as the successor to not just Cadwaladr but the ancient Britons who once occupied the island. It was a compelling message intended to ‘sell’ the Tudor brand as more prestigious than the Plantagenets and which predated the Normans.

Henry had help in his quest to spread such tales. The Welsh bards, the protectors and purveyors of Welsh history, culture and folklore, had long respected the Tudors’ deep roots in Wales. Once Henry began to campaign for the English throne, these ‘social influencers’ of their day started to fervently promote him as the foretold messiah whose rise had been long prophesised to rescue the Welsh from foreign subjugation.

When Henry set sail from France in the summer of 1485, his numbers were inadequate for his ambitions. He only had around 2,000 to 3,000 French mercenaries and 500 English rebels. 

But buoyed by the bards’ potent political propaganda and hoping to exploit familial connections, Henry headed first for his native Pembrokeshire, choosing a circuitous and taxing route through Wales before heading eastwards to England. It proved a wise choice; thousands of Welshmen turned out for the man one bard had called ‘the hope of our race’.

A second Arthurian age?

Perhaps Henry’s most bold quarrying of his background was the name he settled on for his heir. Unlike previous kings of England, who typically favoured Edward, Henry or Richard, the first Tudor king instead opted for a name embedded in Welsh mythology, one he would have encountered relentlessly during his childhood – Arthur.

Henry’s seizure of the throne in 1485 had been predicated upon the promise he would end civil war and return peace to England. By naming his son Arthur, Henry was doubling down on exploiting his Welsh identity to envelop the Tudors in ancestral, political and mythological hype. By dangling the hope of a second Arthurian golden age in front of his subjects, it was hoped the threat of insurrection would wane from the minds of any troubled subjects. 

Alas, there would never be a King Arthur II, for the Tudor prince died in 1502 aged just 15. The younger brother who replaced him as England’s heir would later become Henry VIII; in turn, the younger Henry would revert to type and name his heir Edward (later Edward VI).

Cementing the Tudor’s history

Towards the end of Henry VII’s reign, thoughts turned to how he could control the Tudor narrative after he was gone, to cement his dynasty’s story in the annals. He hired French poet Bernard André to write his biography, and from the very first sentence, André prioritised Henry’s Welsh ancestry. 

André was mindful to write, almost certainly at Henry’s insistence, how the King’s descent from Cadwaladr meant he had ‘legitimately succeeded’ to the throne. Another of Henry’s chosen biographers, the Italian humanist Polydore Vergil, also noted that the prophecy that one day Cadwaladr’s heir would rise to become king had ‘came true in Henry’.

As for Henry himself? There are good grounds to believe his Welshness was not just to be exploited for political gain. As king he encouraged the Welshmen in his service, offering them opportunity in England long denied them on account of their nationality. He kept his surviving Welsh family close and made sure to commemorate those who had passed on. Henry was particularly devoted to a Welsh-Breton saint named Armel, dedicating two carvings to him in his grand Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey. 

Talking of saints, Henry was also the first King of England to regularly fund St David’s Day celebrations for his household staff, and often ordered Welsh mead and cheese to be brought to him in London. He even summoned his old Welsh nurse, Joan of Pembroke, to the English capital so she could be rewarded for her service to him as a child.

A forgotten story?

Henry VII’s Welsh identity mattered to him. There was clearly a determined effort to project, glorify even, this Welshness through the adoption and reinvention of Welsh heraldry, mythology and symbolism. There was no attempt to disown or disavow this aspect of his background despite the suspicion, even outright disdain, many of his English subjects held towards the Welsh.

Contemporary English commentators and later historians have proven lax in exploring the Welsh aspects of Henry’s reign and character. It seems to merit little attention, despite the fact he spent the first 14 years of his life in Wales before another 14 years were spent in exile across the English Channel. 

'The most wise and fortunate Henry VII is a Welshman'

At the moment Henry became King of England aged 28, he did not know England and the English did not know him.

This may be why in 1497, during the heart of his reign, the Venetian ambassador Andrea Trevisano visited the Tudor court and reported home how ‘the most wise and fortunate Henry VII is a Welshman'. Which, it need not be stressed, would probably have received an approving nod from the Welsh born-and-bred founder of England’s most famous dynasty.

Nathen Amin
Historian and author of Son of Prophecy: The Rise of Henry Tudor