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From: John Carmi Parsons <>
Subject: Re: Catherine of Valois' second marriage?
Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 07:20:55 -0500 (EST)


Because Catherine's relationship with Owen (for the moment, I'll use that
neutral term for it, & will later explain why I think "marriage" is the
correct one) was kept secret, it's true that we have no documentation for
it until the end of Catherine's life and will almost certainly never know
exactly when they might have exchanged vows, or under what circumstances.
There are, however, excellent reasons to explain the degree of secrecy the
couple observed.

First and foremost was probably Owen's inferior rank. In one sense this
was a protective, for it meant that he would never command the wealth or
personal power to assert any degree of control over the young Henry VI. This
was always a danger in medieval England if a queen-mother took a second
husband while her son was a minor. As I've discussed in *Eleanor of Castile*
and elsewhere, apprehensions for the possible political consequences meant
that no queen-mother was ever accepted as an official regent in England in
the Middle Ages (to this day, in fact, no queen-mother has ever served as
regent, and it was not until the accession of George VI in 1936 that any
constitutional provision existed for this to happen--an Act of Parliament in
1937 empowered the present Queen Mother to act as Regent had George VI died
before his daughter Elizabeth came of age). A man as obscure and relatively
poor as Owen Tudor could never have posed any serious threat to the political
stability of the realm.

Owen's rank most probably also would have been something of an embarrassment
to the young king (in his official manifestation anyway); no matter how we
cut it, it was a *mesalliance* similar to that Joan of Acre entered into in
1297 when she secretly married Ralph de Monthermer. Earlier widowed queens of
England had remarried notably Adelicia of Louvain and Isabella of Angouleme,
but Adelicia's husband had been of baronial rank even before they married (and
became an earl afterward), and Isabella's had been count of la Marche. Like
Ralph de Monthermer, however, Owen Tudor was a nobody--after Catherine's
death his possessions were sequestered and valued at no more than #137.

We might also consider the possibility that Catherine wanted to keep marriage
to a man of Owen's rank secret from her own family in France.

Secrecy was very probably also imposed by the much-discussed "lost" statute of
the realm which expressly forbade a queen-dowager from marrying without the
Sovereign's permission. This statute appears to have been enacted during a
parliament that met at Gloucester between Oct. 1427 and Mar. 1428. It would
seem, in Ralph Griffith's estimation, to have been aimed at the possibility
that the widowed Catherine de Valois was about to marry Edmund Beaufort, a
marriage favored by Edmund's uncle Bishop Henry Beaufort of Winchester, who
hoped thereby to strengthen his hand against his other nephew and bitter
political rival Duke Humphrey of Gloucester. (This point does not, BTW,
contradict what I said above about not recognizing a widowed queen as a
regent; it merely goes along with the potentially very strong influence a
child-king's mother might have over him and over political events.) A
statute providing stiff legal penalties for anybody who married a widowed
queen without the Sovereign's permission would, clearly, have given both
Catherine and Owen pause. NB: parliament could never abrogate a couple's
capacity to marry, as that was a spiritual matter beyond the legal ken of
any earthly assembly--cf. Magna Carta's provision that the widows of tenants-
in-chief of the Crown could not marry w/o the sovereign's permission, vs. the
number of such widowed whom we know did contract such marriages, but also had
to face the penalties after the fact. In other words, there was no way to
prevent such a marriage, even though the act of doing so could be construed as
unlawful. The Statute decreed as penalty the loss of goods at the king's
pleasure, which as noted above was exactly what Owen incurred, but Henry VI
soon restored Owen's paltry property and always treated him well thereafter,
if not extravagantly.

On the above statute & its background see Ralph Griffiths, "Queen Katherine
of Valois and a Missing Statute of the Realm," *Law Quarterly Review, 93
(1977), 248-58.

Finally, though this is somewhat inferential, Richard Rouse's *Bosworth
Field and the Wars of the Roses* points out that Henry VI was widely known
to be very strict on matters of sexual morality; yet as noted he treated
Owen Tudor in friendly manner and clearly held his half-brothers in some
esteem. Rouse, I think very reasonably, feels that had there been any
doubt about the canonical status of Catherine's relationship with Owen,
Henry would not have been so well-disposed toward his shadowy second
family.

In sum I have no difficulty in concurring with Griffith's estimation that
Catherine and Owen married secretly sometime in 1428. (Griffiths notes,
however, that Catherine's testament indicates she had been seriously ill for a
long time before she died; to allow time for the four children she is known to
have borne Owen, and perhaps others that did not survive infancy, we might
safely entertain a slightly earlier date.) Canon law allowed for what were
known as clandestine marriages, which required only an exchange of vows before
credible witnesses--the presence of a priest was not an absolute necessity nor
was the celebration of mass after the exchange, as was common in more public
weddings. Such a marriage could take place anytime, anywhere, and would have
been none the less valid. We may suppose that an inquiry of some sort was
undertaken at some point to establish the facts to the satisfaction of Henry
VI or his council, but it is not altogether surprising that we have no record
of it.

On Mon, 1 Mar 1999 Michelle.Murphy%
wrote:

>Alison Weir as of 1996 wasn't sure a marriage took place between Owen
>Tudor & Katherine de Valois! <G>
>See page 148 in her book, Britain's Royal Families. By the way, what
>evidence do we have that they did marry? Just curious.

Weir is helpful in many respects, but do bear in mind that her book rests on
no extensive original research (if any); she has merely compiled material from
other secondary works, and there are any number of erroneous statements
throughout it.

> I do wonder, though, why Owen was so brusquely imprisoned in 1436, his children
> sent to Barking Abbey, and Catherine to Bermondsey Abbey, if he had committed no
> crime. I suppose living in sin with the King's mother might merit such
> treatment, but there's also the possibility that such action was taken because
> he had committed an _actual_ crime as opposed to a moral one i.e. that he had
> contravened the law of the King by attempting to take the Queen Dowager to wife.
> That would, in the eyes of the law, justify his imprisonment. Unlike Roger
> Mortimer, Isabella of France's paramour, Owen had never attempted to influence
> the government in any way, so the reasons for arresting and executing Roger
> Mortimer were quite different.

Exactly--as above.

> As far as I am aware, no attempt was ever made by Henry VI to legitimise his
> half-brothers, Edmund and Jasper, upon whom he did bestow honours in the
> 1450s.

Because he didn't need to do so. They already were legitimate.

> The Dukedom of Somerset did not pass to [Jasper], however, but to Margaret's
> uncle Edmund. (Does anyone know why Margaret did not inherit the Dukedom,
> and also why her wardship was not passed to her uncle, but rather to someone
> who was no relation whatsoever?)

It has been a very rare thing in England that dukedoms have ever been created
in such way as to descend to women. They are usually created in tail male--i.e.
only inherited through and by males. Similarly, most titles in England can
only be inherited by descendants of the original grantee (there have been a
few exceptions in very special cases, e.g., the present viscount Nelson, who
descends from the son of Admiral Nelson's brother, since Nelson himself had no
legitimate children). As Jasper was Edmund's brother not his son, he had no
claim to Edmund's earldom, still less to the dukedom of Somerset, which was of
course vested in the Beauforts not the Tudors.

As to Margaret's wardship, the traffic in wardships and marriages was entirely
in the king's control, and we have to engage in some analysis of Henry VI's
motives or the ambitions of those around him. Assigning young Margaret's ward
to her uncle, who would have profited immensely from her early death, was
perhaps unwise. And we know that the first person to whom her wardship was
given, the duke of Suffolk, was afterwards charged with treason for, among
other offenses, wanting to marry her to his own son, "pretending her to be the
next heir to the throne of this realm." It's by no means impossible that
Henry VI was simply providing his half-brother with a suitable inheritance
and income; until he married Margaret Beaufort, Edmund Tudor was otherwise
pretty much dependent on Henry himself for his substance, and Henry VI rarely
had all that much sterling to pass around.

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