112 



experience; and, perhaps, we may search the pages of history, in 

 fruitless endeavours to discover an instance of any nobleman, who 

 experienced such abrupt and extraordinary vicissitudes, and such sudden 

 and astonishing transitions, on several occasions, from power and 

 wealth to exile and poverty, and from the miseries of a poor outlaw 

 and fugitive to rank, possessions, and honours, as fell to the lot of 

 Jasper, Earl of Pembroke. 



It matters now little to us, whether, in the wars of York and Lan- 

 caster, and the violence and exasperation of the contending factions, 

 the one party or the other was in the right, but under every possible 

 circumstance, whether the cause which he espoused was successful or 

 unfortunate, he uniformly supported the Lancastrian interest ; and 

 when we consider how many personages of high rank fought, during 

 those lamentable conflicts, sometimes on one side and sometimes on 

 the other, and joined the winning party as seemed best to suit their 

 own interests, we must at least give him credit for consistency, and 

 perhaps for sincerity. One reason of some moment may however be 

 found for his strenuous and consistent support of the Lancastrian 

 party. He was half-brother of King Heniy VI., being the son of Sir 

 Owen Tudor,* who was descended frorti persons of the first considera- 

 tion, and of a family of great antiquity in Wales, by his wife. Queen 

 Katherine, daughter of Charles VI. King of France, and widow of 

 Henry V. King of England, and he had by Queen Katherine two sons, 

 the oldest of whom was Edmund, Earl of Richmond, usually deno- 

 minated Edmund of Hadham, who married Margaret, daughter of 

 John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, the son of John, Earl of Somerset, 

 a son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, fourth son of Edward III., 

 by whom he had a son, Henry, Earl of Richmond, who was afterwards 

 King Heniy VII.; and the second son of Sir Owen Tudor was Jasper 

 Tudor, who was, in consequence of his father's maixiage with Queen 

 Katherine, uncle of King Heniy VII. He was also, through his 

 mother, immediately descended from the kings of France, she being 

 the daughter of King Charles VI. [See Pedigree.] 



King Henry VI. created Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, and, in conse- 

 quence of his recovering the Castle of Denbigh and other strongholds 

 in Wales out of the hands of the adversaries of Henry, he obtained a 

 grant of 1000 marks, payable out of the lordships of Denbigh and 

 Radnor. 



The Earl of Pembroke appeared in 14G0-1 in arras, with James 



• He is called Sir Owen Tudor by Hall, Holinshed, Speed, Grafton, and Sandford, (and 

 the latter does not always call liim so); but only Owen Tudor by Baker, and by Leland in 

 his Collectanea and Itinerary. 



