Catrin o Berain/ Kathryn of Berain

Katherine Tudor 1545-1591 Catherine Tudor was daughter and heiress of Tudor ap Vychan of Berain. She was beautiful, rich, and of a royal race; the ward, companion, friend and relative of Queen Elizabeth. “Catherine Tudor, being great-grand-daughter of Henry VII, in female descent; and also descended from Sir Owen Tudor on her father's side.”

“Katherine of Argon, Mother of Wales.” Historian Katherine Lynn Emerson writes:

"Katherine of Bertain was the daughter of Tudor ap Robert Fychan of Berain, Denbighshire and Jane Velville. Her grandfather, Sir Rowland Velville (1474-1535), claimed to be the illegitimate son of Henry VII by a Breton lady, born while Henry Tudor was in exile in Brittany. Katherine married four times, first c.1556 to Sir John Salisbury, Salusbury, or Salesbury of Llewenny, Denbighshire (d.1566), by whom she had two sons, Thomas (c.1564-x.September 20,1586) and Sir John (c.1566-1612). Katherine was courted by Sir Richard Clough (d.1570), a merchant, during his brief visit to Wales in April 1567. She married him and returned with him to the Low Countries, via London, in May. They had two daughters, Anne (b.1568) and Mary (b.1569). During this period they were in Antwerp and in Spain and made several visits to Wales. In January 1569 they were in Flanders when they heard that English merchants in Antwerp were being arrested. They fled but were captured in Dieppe and held there until Sir William Cecil negotiated their release. Clough died in Hamburg the next year and was buried there, all but his heart, which his wife brought back to Wales with her and buried at Whitechurch, his parish church in Denbigh. Her third husband was a widower, Maurice Wynn of Cwydyr (d.August 10,1580), by whom she had Edward and Jane. In The Expansion of Elizabethan England, A. L. Rowse gives an account of her arrangements for her children's marriages and her stormy relationship with her stepson, Sir John Wynn. In 1584, Katherine married Edward Thelwell of Plas y Ward. She was buried on September 1, 1591 at Llanefydd. Portrait: c.1568 by Adriaen van Cronenburgh."

Katheryn of Berain was the daughter of Tudur ap Robert Vychan of Berain in Denbighshire and the granddaughter of an illegitimate son of Henry VII. She married four times and had six children. Because she had so many children and step-children she became known as 'The Mother of Wales' and many families in north Wales could claim ancestry to her.

The Friesian artist van Cronenburgh probably painted this portrait while Katheryn was in the Netherlands. The skull, a common device in portraiture of the period, is symbolic of mortality.

Catherine of Berain

"There was also a fine portrait, by Lucas de Heere, of “Catherine of Berain: in the costume of the time of Queen Elizabeth, date 1568. She wrote a locket (said to contain the hair of her second and favourite husband, Sir Richard Clough) suspended to her neck by a gold chain. She had four husbands: John Salusbury of Lleweni, Sir Richard Clough of Denbigh, Morris Wynne of Gwvdir, and Edward Thellwall of Plas y Ward. She died 27 August 1591, and was buried at Llanefydd on the first of September. No monument perpetuates her memory, but her portrait is preserved at Garthewin. Tradition, which is always extravagant, and has a special delight in the marvellous, has given this lady no less than seven husbands. It is said that when performing her last duty at the tomb of her first husband, she was escorted to church by Sir Richard Clough, and home by Morris Wynned of Geydir, who expressed a wish to be her second spouse, and received the civil reply, that his offer came too late, for she had already promised her hand to Sir Richard in going to church; but that is she should be call to perform the same melancholy ceremony over that gallant knight, he might rest assured that he should be her third benedict; a promise which she afterwards honorably performed.”

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http://earlsalisbury.com/family/family%207.html

• Katherine of Berain (1534-1591) was the daughter of Tudor ap Robert Fychan of Berain (a descendant, in direct male line, of Marchweithian, Lord of Isaled, the 11th royal tribe of Wales), who married Jane Velville (b. 1510). ('Robert Vychan ap Tydr ap Ievan ap Tydr ap Griffith Lloyd ap Heilin Vrych ap Kynfrig ap Kynfrig ap Llowarch ap Heilin ap Tyfyd ap Tangno ap Ystrwth ap March Wystl ap Marchweithian, Lord of Isaled, 11th Tribe of Wales')

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notes

Not be confused with Ursula Stanley, daughter of Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby & Jane Halsall of Knowsley.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Stanley,_4th_Earl_of_Derby

"Ursula married John Salusbury (d. 1613); the son of Sir John Salusbury and Katheryn of Berain. Ursula and John had four sons and three daughters.[5] Ursula and her husband may be the ideal couple celebrated in Shakespeare's poem The Phoenix and the Turtle.[6]"

This is a "different" line of Salisbury's.

• http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=wfrounds&...