Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Tudor, Edmund
TUDOR, EDMUND, Earl of Richmond, known as Edmund of Hadham (1430?–1456), father of Henry VII, eldest son of Owen Tudor [q. v.] by Henry V's widow, Catherine of Valois [q. v.] was born about 1430 at Hadham, Hertfordshire. Doubt attaches to the marriage of his parents. Jasper Tudor [q. v.] was a younger brother. When his mother retired to the abbey of Bermondsey in 1436, Edmund and his brothers were given into the charge of Catherine de la Pole, abbess of Barking. There they remained till 1440, when the abbess brought them to Henry VI's notice, and he gave them in charge of certain priests to be educated. When Edmund grew up Henry kept him at his court. He was knighted by Henry on 15 Dec. 1449, summoned to parliament as Earl of Richmond on 30 Jan. 1452–1453, and created Earl of Richmond and premier earl on 6 March 1452–3 (Doyle; Ramsay, Lanc. and York, ii. 152). In the parliament of 1453 he was formally declared legitimate. Henry made him large grants, particularly in 1454, and his name occurs as being exempt from the operation of acts of resumption. On 30 March 1453 he was appointed great forester of Braydon forest; he was also a member of the privy council. In 1454 his retinue at court consisted of a chaplain, two esquires, two yeomen, and two chamberlains.
In 1455, by the king's agency, he was married to the Lady Margaret Beaufort [q. v.] daughter of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset. She had been after Somerset's fall the ward of himself and his brother Jasper conjointly. Edmund died, on 3 Nov. 1456, at Carmarthen, and was buried in the Grey Friars there. His elegy was written by Lewis Glyn Cothi [see Lewis]. His remains were, at the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536, removed to the choir of St. David's Cathedral. By Margaret, his wife, he had one son Henry, afterwards Henry VII of England, born posthumously on 28 Jan. 1456–7.
[Williams's ‘Penmynnedd and the Tudors’ in Arch. Cambrensis, 3rd ser. xv. 394 &c.; Doyle's Official Baronage, iii. 118; Rot. Parl. v. 237 &c., vi. 228, 272; Letters of Margaret of Anjou (Camd. Soc.), xiii. 103; Ramsay's Lancaster and York, i. 320, ii. 152 &c.; Strickland's Queens of England, Katherine of Valois; Cooper's Lady Margaret, ed. Mayor, pp. 4 &c.; Lords' Rep. on the Dignity of a Peer, iii. 213, iv. 493; G. E. C[okayne]'s Peerage, art. ‘Richmond;’ Gwaith Lewis Glyn Cothi, p. 492; Ordinances of the Privy Council, ed. Nicolas, vol. vi.]