Sandoval, Page 1 The Son of Prophecy: Henry VII and the Imaginary Triumph of the Welsh Sandoval, Page 2 When Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth on August 22, 1485,1 the bards set their poems cavorting about the country with the news that all strife was over, and a new golden summertime of peace had begun for Britain.2 Modern students of British history might not be surprised at such rejoicings, for they are familiar with the victory as the end of the Wars of the Roses and the effective starting date of a new era of relative civil peace and stable government. Yet if we consider the situation from a contemporary viewpoint, we might wonder that the poets should have been so optimistic. After all, for the past twenty-five years, Britain had seen royal power ricochet back and forth constantly between the rival houses of Lancaster and York.3 Every few years, one side’s claimant would seize the throne from the other.4 Why should this Henry Tudor, yet another Lancastrian, be any different from his predecessors? Every king before him had thought to hold the throne for himself and his children, and had failed. Yet Henry did seem somehow distinct, less like another link in a chain of short- lived kings and more like the inevitable dawn after night. How, we must ask, did Henry manage to set himself apart in the minds of his people? The answer lies in his ingenious and largely unstated propaganda campaign to “brand” himself not as a successor to the king of the Wars of the Roses, but to British heroes of old. Henry Tudor purposefully engineered an artificial association between himself and the legendary kings Arthur and Cadwaladr for the purpose of winning the loyalty of both his Welsh and English subjects, and distinguishing his reign as one of stability after a period of dynastic war. In this essay, we will explore how he accomplished this 1 Griffiths, R. A. “Henry Tudor: The Training of a King.” Huntington Library Quarterly 49, no. 3 (Summer, 1986): pp. 197-218 [journal online]. Available from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3817121, internet, accessed October 28, 2014. 2 Philip Schwyzer, Literature, Nationalism, and Memory in Early Modern England and Wales (Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 15-17. 3 Robert Fabyan, The Concordaunce of Hystoryes, 1st ed. Of 1542, Transcribed by John Stahle, University of Wisconsin-Madison Library Collection. http://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/123/PF008.htm, accessed October 30, 2014. 4 Charles Ross, Richard III (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1981), 4. Sandoval, Page 3 result by exaggerating his Welsh ancestral connections to these kings beyond warrant, and playing implicitly upon the cultural imagination of his people, both before and after his invasion. In order to understand the reason for Henry’ emphasis on his Welsh roots, and why it so affected people’s perception of him, it is necessary to be familiar with that nation’s legendary tradition regarding its own history. The Welsh were acknowledged as descendants of the original Britons who had peopled the isle long before the advent of the Anglo-Saxon conquerors. It was this ancient people who had produced that most beloved and ideal of all monarchs real or imagined, King Arthur.5 In his day, they believed, Britain had been united in harmony and justice was to be had by all.6 Arthur passed on his kingship through an unbroken line to his descendant, Cadwaladr, last of the great Ancient British Kings. Deeply rooted in the hearts of the Welsh was the Prophecy to Cadwaladr, a legendary message delivered by an angel to Cadwaladr’s very ears.7 Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the King’s Britain recounted the legend of the message: “God did not wish the Britons [Welsh] to rule in Britain anymore, until the moment should come which Merlin had prophesied to Arthur…. As a reward for its faithfulness, the British people would occupy the island again at some time in the future, once the appointed moment should some.”8 Geoffrey went on to explain the Anglo-Saxon invasion as the direct result of this divine command. Power was given over, and Cadwaladr’s kingly line fell into obscurity, awaiting the day when a Welshman would fulfill Merlin’s prophecy, and take the throne.9 Although Geoffrey’s history was criticized for historical inaccuracy and pure fantasy 5 Anthony D. Carr, Medieval Wales (Basingstoke, Hampshire: St. Martin’s Press Scholarly and Reference, 1995), 4. 6 Patricia Clare Ingham, Sovereign Fantasies: Arthurian Romance and the Making of Britain (Philadelphia, PN: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). 7 Bernard Andre, The Life of Henry VII, trans, ed. Daniel Hobbins (New York, NY: Italica Press, 2011), Kindle Edition, available at https://read.amazon.ca/?asin=B005WZ0QQG, accessed November 2, 2014. 8 Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain, trans. Lewis Thorpe (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books Ltd, 1982), 282-283. 9 Geoffrey, 285. Sandoval, Page 4 even in his own lifetime,10 even more historians of his day lent the work credence. Passages such as this one reflect a popular Welsh hope for a return to dominance over their Anglo-Saxon conquerors.11 The History, known in Welsh as Brut y Brenhinedd, became the foundation of Wales’ cultural identity—a people of Arthur’s golden age, divinely ordered to rule, only humbled temporarily for God’s own hidden purposes.12 The mysterious future leader who would reclaim the throne was known as the mab darogan (the Son of Prophecy.)13 The mab darogan concept had risen to new prominence in the early fifteenth century with Owain Glyn Dŵr’s revolt, which revived Wales in its sense of distinct nationality from England.14 Although Glyn Dŵr never claimed to be the mab darogan, he was almost universally hailed as such by the Welsh wherever he went, showing that the concept was still very much alive in the minds of the people not long before Henry Tudor’s own era.15 It was within this hopeful tradition that Henry sought to place himself as he prepared to overthrow Richard III’s regime. He was not, however, so thoroughly Welsh as one would have expected Cadwaladr’s heir to be. Henry was in fact only a quarter Welsh, on the side of his paternal grandfather, Owen Tudor.16 The remainder of his heritage was a mix of (more than half) English, French, and Bavarian.17 While he was indeed raised in a Welsh castle until the age of fourteen in 1471, his uncle Jasper Tudor was forced to raise him in isolation from his countrymen, for the two lived in the constant fear that Edward IV might seize the lad, jealous of his own sons’ kingly prospects.18 Henry and Jasper fled to France, where they lived as exiles 10 Carr, 6. 11 Hobbins, “Introduction,” in The Life of Henry VII 12 Carr, 5. 13 Ingham, 5, 72. 14 Carr, 110. 15 Carr, 124. 16 Stanley Bertram Chrimes, Henry VII (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1972), 3. 17 Griffiths, 199. 18 18Thomas Penn, Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, Sandoval, Page 5 until Henry’s invasion.19 Hence he would have had little chance to be formed by Welsh culture. The historical record indicates that while he became fluent in French during his years abroad,20 he likely never learned the Cymric language.21 In short, he was neither primarily Welsh by blood, nor was his personality nurtured in a particularly Welsh atmosphere. Yet as Henry gazed over the Channel, planning the course of action that would win him the throne, he was well aware of the advantages to be gained by painting himself the heir of Arthur and Cadwaladr. There was more than one advantage to capturing the British imagination as mab darogan. On a very practical level, Henry needed a safe English port at which to land his ships, and from which he could march to a suitably defensive position to meet with the king’ troops without having to worry about being attacked before becoming organized. Docking along the southern coast was impossible—the area lay in the hands of Richard’s Yorkist supporters. England’s bastions of dependable Lancastrian supporters lay in the North Country, too far away for Henry’s purposes.22 The coast of Wales proved an attractive alternative, particularly if he could count upon the Welsh to join him in his march once he landed.23 Courting the Welsh’s good graces, then, became militarily expedient. A fine line had to be walked, however. If Henry associated himself too closely with Welsh nationalism, he risked alienating his English supporters, and possibly undermining his chances of obtaining the English throne. It was not enough to appeal solely to the Welsh—what was required was a rallying symbol that would resonate with his followers in both nations. The beauty of emphasizing an Arthurian connection was that it produced a happy double effect. The 2012). 19 Penn, 4. 20 Penn, 7. 21 Chrimes, 3. 22 Ross, 208. 23 Glanmor Williams, Renewal and Reformation: Wales c. 1415-1642 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1987), 219. Sandoval, Page 6 legend of King Arthur had a place in the hearts of both nations.24 By stressing his Welsh roots, Henry secured the love of his Welsh citizens, and their needed support at the time of invasion. Yet the myth of King Arthur also had meaning for the English, for they held him up as the symbol of a united Britain, and longed themselves for a golden age like that for which Arthur stood.25 As a result, Henry could safely make his conquest of the national imagination without fearing to lose supporters on either side.