The Treacherous ‘King of Carew’

 

Recently I went on a little jaunt to visit some fine Welsh Castles. One of those happened to be Carew in Pembrokshire, an impressive limestone fortress overlong Carew inlet, which is part of the Milford Haven Waterway.

Built by the Norman Gerald of Windsor, the site stands on the lands of his wife, the Welsh princess, Nest.  Long before the castle was raised, an Iron Age, earthen-walled fort stood on the limestone bluff, guarding the waters of the inlet. It was Nest and Gerald’s children who were known as the ‘de Carews’ and they held the castle for several centuries until financial misfortune befell them—and in the fifteenth century the castle was mortgaged to a certain ‘man on the make’, the infamous Rhys Ap Thomas.

Rhys Ap Thomas is of course the treacherous fellow who swore loyalty to King Richard III, despite being appointed lieutenant of south west Wales following Buckingham’s rebellion, and then promptly turned his coat and supported the cause of Henry Tudor. The oath he gave to Richard was as follows: Whoever ill-affected to the state, shall dare to land in those parts of Wales where I have any employment under your majesty, must resolve with himself to make his entrance and irruption over my belly.

Richard must have had some doubts about Rhys’s loyalty, as he asked him to send his son to Nottingham as a hostage (this was not an uncommon or unusually cruel thing for kings to ask, incidentally.) However, Rhys begged him to take account of the child’s young age and Richard did not insist upon the boy going to Nottingham.

In less than a year, Rhys was happily welcoming Henry Tudor back to Wales, after corresponding with him for some time via Dr Caerleon, Margaret Beaufort’s own physician. He got out of his oath to Richard by lying on his back under a bridge and letting Henry cross over the top of him, thus making ‘his entrance and iruption over my belly.’ And of course, Rhys went on to fight with Tudor’s forces at Bosworth, claiming that he was the one who struck the fatal blow that killed Richard. Whether this was braggadocio or not, we are unlikely to ever know, since he was not the only one to make the claim. However, Henry certainly started giving him many rich rewards, which suggests he was particularly grateful to Rhys. In fact, he rewarded him with so many lands and honours throughout Wales, Rhys was considered almost as a petty king himself.

Rhys also helped Henry Tudor deal with the Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warwick uprisings, and he captured Lord Audley during the Cornish rebellion. For this and other services, Henry decided to make him a Knight of the Garter, and Rhys celebrated the occasion by holding a massive Joust at Carew Castle, attended by over 600 nobles.

The Tudor influence can be seen clearly on the inner part of Carew—three large stone shields, still in excellent condition, showing Henry Tudor’s coat of arms in the centre, with the arms of Henry’s son Arthur on one side and Katherine of Aragon’s arms on the other. In excavations, parts of a dragon statue bearing the feathers of the Prince of Wales was also found.

Rhys’s good fortune eventually began to fade, however. His sole legitimate son, Gruffydd, died, and Rhys himself followed him to the grave just a few years later. His namesake heir, his grandson Rhys, ended up being denied his inheritance by Henry VIII, who granted it for life to Lord Ferrers instead. Young Rhys was not taking this lying down and stirred discontent in Carmarthen against Ferrers—for which he was charged with treason and executed.

It is interesting to note that Richard chose Rhys as lieutenant of Wales because he had not joined Buckingham’s Rebellion in 1483. However, there is one old manuscript on Rhys’s life, written by his great great grandson, Henry Rice,  in the 1620’s, which tantalisingly mentions that Rhys had, alone, gone to meet with Buckingham at Brecon. No more details were given, but it is tempting to think that Rhys may have, unbeknownst to Richard, already been leaning towards treachery, perhaps ready to throw in his lot with Buckingham if his initial move across the Severn had been successful.

~ The castle is well worth a visit, with many well-preserved chambers including a chapel and later Elizabethan rooms, and if you are of that persuasion, you can even buy a HENRY VII Cider in the cafe! (I am sure it is indeed dry.)