Tudors of Penmynydd

He claimed descent from Marchudd ap Cynan, Lord of Rhos and 'protector' of Rhodri the Great, king of Gwynedd, a founder of one of the so-called Fifteen Tribes of Wales.

One of his sons, Tudur Hen (died 1311) would eventually submit to Edward I of England, and founded a Carmelite House of the White Friars in Bangor.

[4] However, following that king's overthrow, Rhys, Gwilym and another brother, Maredudd ap Tudur, gave their allegiance to the rebel Owain Glyndŵr, a nephew of one of their father's wives and descendant of the earlier native Welsh princes.

Edmund and Margaret had a sole son, Henry Tudor, born 28 January 1457 at Pembroke Castle in Wales.

Henry VII and Elizabeth also had daughters, Margaret, queen consort of Scotland, and Mary, wife of Louis XII of France.

Henry VIII eventually married his brother Arthur's widow Catherine of Aragon; they had only one surviving child, the future Mary I.

A granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary, she had recently wed the son of Edward's chief minister, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.

Elizabeth would be succeeded by her cousin, James VI of Scotland, who was doubly great-grandson of the excluded sister of Henry VIII, Margaret.

Following Glyndŵr's rebellion, the family's few remaining Penmynydd lands continued to be held by a line descended from the senior brother, Goronwy ap Tudur, who died 23 March 1382 leaving a minor son, Tudur, and a daughter Morfydd, wife of Gwilym ap Griffith of Penrhyn.

[6] After Morfydd's death, Gwilym had remarried to an English wife and would adjust the inheritance to pass most of his family properties to her sons.

However, he also had a son by Morfydd, Tudur ap Gwilym, whose descendants would hold Penmynydd and retain a special status as recognized kin of the Tudor monarchs.

This last Richard's immediate heiress was his sister Margaret Owen Theodor, wife of Coningsby Williams of Glan-y-gor, and after her childless death Penmynydd passed through her aunt, Mary Owen Theodor, wife of Rowland Bulkeley of Porthamel, to their son Francis, whose dissolute ways forced him to sell the inheritance to a Bulkeley cousin.