The recruiting expedition on which Edward had gone, accompanied by a gallant squire, named William Hastings, said to derive his descent, through knights and nobles, from one of the famous sea kings, was, at first, much less successful than anticipated. The Marchmen seemed disinclined to stir in a dynastic quarrel which they did not quite understand. But a report that York had fallen in battle, and that Rutland had been murdered in cold blood, produced a sudden change. Men who before appeared careless about taking up arms rushed to the Yorkist standard; and the retainers of the house of Mortimer, on hearing that their valiant lord was slain, appeared, with sad hearts and stern brows, demanding to be led against the murderers. Edward was already, in imagination, a conqueror. After visiting Shrewsbury, and other towns on the Severn, he found himself at the head of twenty-three thousand men, ready to avenge his father's fall, and vindicate his own rights. At the head of this force he took his way toward London, trusting to unite with Warwick, and, at one blow, crush the power of the fierce Anjouite ere she reached the capital. An unexpected circumstance prevented Edward's hope from being so speedily realized. Among the Welsh soldiers who fought at Agincourt, and assisted in repelling the furious charge of the Duke of Alençon, was Owen Tudor, the son of a brewer at Beaumaris. In recognition of his courage, Owen was named a squire of the body to the hero of that day, and, a few years later, became clerk of the wardrobe to the hero's widow. It happened that Owen, who was a handsome man, pleased the eye of Katherine de Valois; and one day, when he stumbled over her dress, while dancing for the diversion of the court, she excused the awkwardness with a readiness which first gave her ladies a suspicion that she was not altogether insensible to his manly beauty. As time passed on, Katherine united her fate with his; and, in secret, she became the mother of several children. When the sacrifice which the widowed queen had made became known, shame and grief carried her to the grave; and Humphrey of Gloucester, then Protector, sent Owen to the Tower. He afterward regained his liberty, but without being acknowledged by the young king as a father-in-law. Indeed, of a marriage between the Welsh soldier and the daughter of a Valois and widow of a Plantagenet no evidence exists; but when Edmund and Jasper, the sons of Katherine, grew up, Henry gave to one the Earldom of Richmond, and to the other that of Pembroke. Richmond died about the time when the wars of the Roses commenced. Pembroke lived to enact a conspicuous part in the long and sanguinary struggle.