In Jasper’s day, the area on the first floor of the castle now occupied by offices was said to be reserved for gentleman only. Its best known ghost is said to be that of Jasper Tudor. Jasper, on the other hand, was an experienced soldier, having been at the first Battle of St Albans and having led the army at Mortimer’s Cross.” (212) Likewise, the author is prone to making long quotes of his sources about Jasper Tudor, even including sources about supposed ghost sightings: “The couple also spent time at Thornbury Castle. The young man had never really experienced battle, except at Edgcote when he was not yet thirteen. In pointing out the importance of Jasper Tudor to the success of the cause of his nephew, the author writes in this manner: “Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, must have trained Henry for Battle while they were in Brittany. All of these titles must be kept in mind by the reader, and while this is an immensely rewarding task in understanding the complexity of identity for the early Tudors and their contemporaries, it places a lot of demands on the concentration and memory of readers. For example, Jasper Tudor spent most of his life as the Earl of Pembroke, but during the Yorkist period, when he was attained as a traitor, someone else was also named Earl of Pembroke, while at the beginning of his life, Jasper was known by a variety of names such as Jasper ap Meredith ap Tydier, and at the end of his life, after the success of his nephew at the Battle of Bosworth, he was known as the Duke of Bedford, as well as the nominal Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. ![]() Although the book is a straightforward biography in the sense that it follows a chronological order, the author spends far more time than most demonstrating the sources that he uses to come to his conclusions and interpretations.įor many readers, this book has a demanding prose style that requires the ability to recognize people by a variety of names, as well as the complicated family and marriage relationships between the high nobility of England, names that vary whether they are written in English or in Welsh, or in Norman French, for people that are known by a variety of titles at different times in the history. The author, in writing this biography, draws heavily from a variety of sources that do not often receive a great deal of attention, from the songs of Welsh bards seeking a removal of their second-hand status to various Parliamentary and royal documents that demonstrate patronage as well as responsibilities, and the complicated diplomatic dispatches between England, Burgundy, France, and Brittany during the period where Jasper and Henry VII were hostages of the Bretons while the Yorkists ruled over England. ![]() Given the widespread interest in the Tudor dynasty of England and its important figures, it is striking that no one had yet written a book on Jasper Tudor, the paternal uncle of Henry VII, and a man of immense importance in serving as a father figure to the future king, besides an able counselor and a skilled general. Terry Breverton Jasper Tudor: Dynasty Maker (Amberly Publishing, 2014) 423pp.
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