Q THE Tudors were a family who dominated the throne for many years and were Welsh. What exactly was their origin and how did they come to take the English throne. - Bill Hutchinson, Chester-le-Street

A THE founder of the Tudor dynasty is usually said to be a certain Welshman by the name of Owen Tudor, who was born around 1400 at Plas Penmyndd on the island of Anglesey in Wales. His full name was Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudor.

Owen's father was called Maredudd ap Tudur and the family were of great antiquity within Wales. The family was of reasonably high influence in North Wales but, although they seem to have been close supporters of Richard II and Edward the Black Prince in the 1300s, they held no special influence in English royal circles.

The real beginnings of the influence of the Tudor dynasty in England can be traced to 1432, when Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudor married a very influential lady by the name of Katherine of Valois. Katherine was the daughter of King Charles VI of France and the widow of Henry V, King of England.

How the marriage of Katherine of Valois to Owain Tudor in 1432 came about is not certain, although it seems that Owain had held some position in the Queen's household at the time of the marriage. Together Owain and Katherine had four children, including a son called Edmund. Katherine died in 1437 and Owain, her husband became a victim of court jealousy eventually finding himself imprisoned at Windsor Castle.

In 1455 Edmund, with the encouragement of the king, married Margaret Beaufort, a descendant of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster who had been a powerful member of the Plantagenet dynasty. Edmund and Margaret had a son called Henry Tudor. Henry had a stronger claim to throne than his Tudor ancestors and would support the Lancastrian cause in the Wars of the Roses. He would eventually defeat the Yorkist King Richard III at Bosworth Field in 1485 and became King Henry VII, the first of a new ruling dynasty called the Tudors.