Owen

by Tony Riches Book 1 in the The Tudor Trilogy series.

First published 2015

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4.2(5,879)

Owen Tudor enters the household of Catherine of Valois after the death of her husband Henry V, when her infant son Henry VI has inherited the crowns claimed by England in both England and France. Owen is a Welshman of modest political standing beside a dowager queen, yet proximity turns into intimacy and a relationship that must remain hidden because Catherine’s remarriage is a matter of dynastic concern. Their union creates a family whose significance neither of them can fully foresee.

The novel is set in Lancastrian England during the long minority and troubled reign of Henry VI. Owen Tudor and Catherine of Valois stand at the beginning of a chain that leads through their sons Edmund and Jasper to Henry Tudor, later Henry VII. Riches uses the secrecy surrounding their marriage and the insecurity of Owen’s position to show how a private relationship inside the royal household could acquire enormous political consequences, eventually supplying the bloodline from which the Tudor dynasty would claim the throne.