Edmund Tudor is a good example of how no matter one's circumstances of birth, a great many good things may happen.

Edmund was the oldest son of Owen Tudor and Catherine of Valois. Catherine was the young widow of the great hero king Henry V, and mother of Henry VI, who came to the throne when he was but an infant. Owen was a man of noble Welsh birth, but largely unknown in England. He was hired by Katherine and came to live at court. The two began a relationship which probably did not result in marriage. However, they lived as husband and wife and had children together, including Edmund.

Illegitimate birth was quite problematic during the fifteenth century, particularly in the upper social and political circles. However, Catherine raised her royal son, Henry VI, with the Tudor children and he looked upon them as his full brothers and sisters. Certainly they were all loyal to one another. When Henry reached the age of majority, he legitimized his half-siblings and created them as nobility. Edmund was knighted, and then created the First Earl of Richmond.

These acts helped to set Edmund and his brother Jasper, onto the road of personal success, and they both remained true and loyal to their half-brother, the king. A final aspect of achieving full respectability and honor involved the making of a good marriage. Some noble families, aware of the only officially removed stigma of illegitimacy, refused Edmund a marriage with their daughters. However, King Henry summoned the Duke of Somerset to the court. He was second cousin to the king and perhaps owed him a favor.

Henry requested that the duke bring along his nine year old daughter, Margaret Beaufort. Three years later, still only twelve years old, Lady Margaret and Edmund Tudor were wed. Edmund was twenty-seven at the time. By the next year she was pregnant. By this time the War of the Roses had begun, and Edmund loyally went to fight for the House of Lancaster. He was captured by Yorkists and imprisoned in Carmarthen Castle in South Wales, the homeland of his father, Owen.

While imprisoned, Edmund contracted the plague and died. Three months later, his only child was born. Margaret gave birth to a son, Henry, who would become Henry VII, the founding monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Years later, when Edmund's grandson, Henry VIII, dissolved the monasteries, Edmund's remains were removed from the Grey Friars chapel at Carmarthen Castle, and moved to the choir of St. David's Cathedral.