Jasper has been occupying my thoughts – and often my dreams – ever since I wrote his birth in The Tudor Bride back in January 2013, so I’m delighted to be bringing him to prominence at last, believing as I do that he has been sadly neglected as a principal founder of the Tudor dynasty. The name Jasper was given to him by his parents but history does not reveal the reason why it was chosen. It was not a name generally in use in England during the fifteenth century but when I discovered that medieval midwives believed the gemstone jasper could relieve the pain of labour and bring about a safe delivery it seemed a perfect choice for Queen Catherine to make. Her second son by Owen Tudor is on record as having been a redhead and the gem called ‘bloodstone’, which was popular at the time, is a form of jasper. The fact that I myself was born with bright red hair may also have something to do with my warm affection for my new hero! A minor brush with genetics at university told me that a child with red hair was often the result of a fair-haired mother and a dark-haired father

However, much though I like it, his name and hair-colour were far from being the primary reasons for choosing to write Jasper’s story. Sketchy references made to him by historians as Henry VII’s uncle and guardian were enough to whet my appetite but extensive further research revealed a hero of the old school, a man who emerged from the shadows of obscurity to become a character honed by adversity, courage, determination and a strong sense of loyalty.

I think of him as the lead in a twentieth century Hollywood blockbuster, to be played by Errol Flynn, Cary Grant or Harrison Ford – so unlike the all-swearing, computer-graphicked anti-heroes of today! Of course in order to give his story authenticity it needed romantic interest but unfortunately in his first forty years history does not give Jasper any kind of female co-star so I have had to extrapolate from a single mention of a name, just as I did in creating Queen Catherine’s lifelong companion, Mette, in the Bride books. That he had two illegitimate daughters is documented but their mother is unknown. However, when Henry Tudor’s second son Henry (later King Henry VIII) was born, Margaret Beaufort brought in a woman called Jane Hywel to be the governess of his nursery. I thought it unlikely that the redoubtable Lady Margaret would have introduced a stranger for such a job and concluded that she must have been very familiar with this woman’s skill with children. The rest of Jane Hywel’s life, as related in First of the Tudors, is entirely fictional, although a Hywel Fychan was one of the relatives brought to England from Wales by Owen Tudor during his marriage to Queen Catherine and appears as a minor character in The Tudor Bride.