The New Murrey and Blue blog

This morning the following link dropped into my inbox: https://tinyurl.com/3uwbet79. It seems there was a talk at the “….Pembroke and Monkton Local History Society….first meeting of 2025 on Saturday morning, January 11 in Pembroke Town Hall.…”

Why have I picked up on this? Well, perhaps because of the subject of the talk “….will focus on Carew Castle, once the home of a very important character in our Tudor history. This was Sir Rhys ap Thomas, who is famously credited with [blamed for infamously] killing King Richard III in the Battle of Bosworth when the victorious Henry Tudor was crowned King Henry VII. Rhys was knighted for his services and was appointed Governor of South Wales….Rhys remained a close ally and trusted friend to Henry and, in recognition for his loyalty, he was made a Knight of the Garter in 1505. To celebrate this honour Sir Rhys held a great tournament at Carew Castle in April 1507, the last tournament to be held in this country and on a scale never before seen in Wales….”

Rhys ap Thomas (who had vowed support and loyalty to Richard III) is “famously credited with” killing Richard at Bosworth? As you can see from my tampering above, I much prefer to substitute “blamed for infamously”, but I suppose that for Tudorites, he’s some sort of Welsh hero. I can gnash my teeth about Rhys because I was born and brought up in Wales of a Welsh mother and English father. I therefore feel I have every right to disapprove of this particular Welsh hero. He was a despicable turncoat. See https://www.historyhit.com/bosworths-forgotten-hero-the-man-who-killed-richard-iii/.  

As far as I’m concerned if Rhys did indeed kill Richard, then he was one of those mainly responsible for inflicting the rotten House of Tudor upon us all, Wales and England! Along with Margaret Beaufort, Morton, the Stanleys et al. Well thank you very much, you wretched Judases.😠

I’m very surprised that a man of as deeply suspicious a nature as Henry Tudor apparently put complete trust in Rhys forever after. Didn’t Henry ever wonder, even for a teensy moment, if the proven-to-be-treacherous Welshman might nip back over to the other side again? I know I would!

Anyway, to the matter of the tournament, which I imagine to have been much larger than (A) below, but not on the scale of the immense Field of Cloth of Gold (see https://www.royalmint.com/stories/commemorate/the-field-of-cloth-of-gold/) in 1520, shown in (B) below

Anyway, to the matter of the great tournament at Carew Castle. It was interesting to discover that this wondrous five-day celebration of Rhys ap Thomas’s induction to the Order of the Garter was the “last” (see below) and most lavish ever held in Wales. And if it was held at Carew Castle—so striking by its inlet—it must have been a quite spectacular event to behold. Apparently it was attended by 600 nobles! And as shown in the photograph below, it’s clear the surrounding land was ideal for a tournament.

What an example of Tudor showing-off the occasion must have been. By the way, it says “last” [tournament] above, but according to Fenton (see the lengthy description of events at https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/A_Historical_Tour_Through_Pembrokeshire/UYVRAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1, starting at page 253) it was the first such wingding. There must have been a mass dropping of jaws throughout Wales. So it was either the first or the last, but definitely the most lavish. Of course, it could have been all three. Was it really the only such tournament ever held in Wales?

So what was Carew Castle like in April 1507? Well, it seems that “….Eventually, in 1480, Edmund Carew sold back the stronghold to Rhys ap Thomas, one of the leading followers of the Tudor dynasty and king Henry VII. The new owner undertook the rebuilding, transforming the medieval castle into a more comfortable late-Gothic residence….” See https://medievalheritage.eu/en/main-page/heritage/wales/carew-castle/. Therefore, by 1507 the castle must have been like (or very close to being like) the beautiful building we see today, albeit now in ruins. Read more at http://www.castlewales.com/carew.html, https://www.gatehouse-gazetteer.info/Welshsites/719.html and https://www.pembrokeshirecoast.wales/carew-castle/carew-castle-history/sir-rhys-ap-thomas/.  For an audio tour of Carew Castle as it is today, go to https://www.pembrokeshirecoast.wales/carew-castle/carew-castle-history/carew-castle-audio-tour/.

Rhys and Carew have been written about before on this blog (see the excellent https://murreyandblue.org/2023/03/01/the-treacherous-king-of-carew/) but not the 1507 tournament. And for a very silly tale about Rhys and the days before Bosworth, try this https://somehistoryrewritten.wordpress.com/2014/08/13/trip-trap-trip-trap/. But be warned, it’s very silly! 🙄