We ate outside in the soft evening light, eleven of us around the long board used for harvest feasting. Even Bethan managed to clamber down the stair and sit with us, smiling happily and saying little but looking bonny in her best blue gown, laced at its loosest. My youngest brother Evan, a cheeky dark imp of eight, had been sent to the neighbouring farm across the valley to bring Bethan’s parents, Emrys and Gwyladus, to meet the three Tudors and we all squeezed onto benches and stools, with the big wooden armchair brought down from the hall and packed with cushions for Bethan. Beyond the farmyard wall the ground sloped towards the west, giving us a fine view over the vast sweep of Tremadog Bay and, in the far distance, the dark humps of the Lleyn Peninsula, Gwynedd’s westernmost arm. As the sun dipped below the hills the sky turned from pink to ochre, gold and red, reflecting off the sea and turning the bay to a fiery crucible. Such long, stunning sunsets were infrequent here and we made the most of it, the men draining a cask of father’s treasured malmsey and talking on well after the last of the pottage had been scraped from the cauldron and the bones of the hares tossed to the dogs.

‘It is a pity that Gwyneth is no longer here with us,’ Hywel said to Owen as I brought baskets of dried fruit and bowls of cream to dip it in – a rare treat, because most of our cream was made into cheese for winter. ‘Perhaps you remember her as an infant, Owen? She was our firstborn and lived with us at Hadham when Queen Catherine was still alive. She married two years ago to a man from Ynys Môn – or do you call it Anglesey now that you are an English gentleman?’

Owen smiled, his teeth showing impressively few gaps. ‘It depends who I am with, Hywel. Did she marry a relative, another descendant of the great Ednyfed Fychan, Steward to the Prince of all Wales?’

My father’s teeth did not make such a fair showing. ‘It would be hard not to in that part of Wales, would it not? She is living in the Tudur family heartland now, taking us back where we would be still, had our fathers not supported Glyn Dŵr.’

‘Oh you are not going to start telling tales about the good old days before the great rebellion are you, my father?’ cried Maredudd, well lubricated by the wine. We were all speaking English, although some were more fluent than others in the language of our conquerors. ‘And give our guests a chance to crow about the Lancastrian victory at Shrewsbury!’