Sir Rhys ap Thomas (1449–1525) was a Welsh soldier and landholder who rose to prominence during the Wars of the Roses, and was instrumental in the victory of Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth. He remained a faithful supporter of Henry and was rewarded with lands and offices in South Wales. Some sources claim that he personally delivered the death blow to King Richard III at Bosworth with his poleaxe.
Early life
Rhys was the youngest legitimate son of Thomas ap Gruffydd ap Nicolas of Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire, and Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Gruffydd of Abermarlais, also in Carmarthenshire.
In 1460, after decades of increasing unrest among the nobility and armed clashes, the supporters of Richard, Duke of York, challenged the right of King Henry VI of the House of Lancaster to rule England. Most Welsh landholders claimed their titles through grants made by Henry's father and grandfather for loyalty to the English crown during the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr. They therefore generally supported Henry, rather than the rival Yorkist claimants to the throne.
In 1461, when Rhys ap Thomas was twelve or thirteen, a Lancastrian army raised in Wales under Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Pembroke, moved into England but was defeated at the Battle of Mortimer's Cross by Edward, Earl of March (the eldest son of Richard of York who had been killed a few weeks before). Rhys's grandfather Gruffydd ap Nicholas was killed in the battle. Within a few weeks, Edward had been proclaimed King Edward IV, and the main Lancastrian armies were crushed at the Battle of Towton in Yorkshire.
Some Lancastrians, including Rhys's father Thomas, continued to resist in Wales. Thomas and his brother Owain defended Carreg Cennen Castle near Llandeilo. They were forced to surrender in 1462 after a siege. The victorious Yorkists slighted the castle to prevent it being used as a Lancastrian stronghold again. The lands of the defeated Lancastrians were confiscated, and Thomas, with the young Rhys, went into exile at the court of Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy.
Thomas and Rhys returned to Wales in 1467, and reacquired at least some of their former lands. This was during a period which included the Readeption of Henry VI, when many former Lancastrians regained their lands, and contrived to keep them even after the subsequent victory of Edward IV in 1471.
Thomas died in 1474. Rhys's two elder brothers had already died, and Rhys inherited his father's estates.
Reign of Richard III
In 1483, Edward IV died. His son, Edward V was still a minor. Edward's surviving brother Richard of Gloucester and the Duke of Buckingham moved to prevent the unpopular relatives of Elizabeth Woodville, Edward's Queen, from sharing in power or even dominating the government during the young King's minority. However, Richard went further, declaring Edward's children illegitimate and seizing the throne himself. The young Edward V and his younger brother (the Princes in the Tower) disappeared and were probably murdered. Buckingham turned against Richard and led a revolt aimed at restoring the House of Lancaster, in the person of the exiled Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, to the throne. The revolt failed. Buckingham himself had raised a force at Brecon in mid-Wales, but storms and floods prevented him crossing the River Severn to join other rebels in England, and his starving soldiers deserted. He was soon betrayed and executed. The same storms prevented Henry from landing in the West Country.
Rhys had declined to support Buckingham's uprising. In the aftermath, when Richard appointed officers to replace those who had joined the revolt, he made Rhys ap Thomas his principal lieutenant in south west Wales and granted him an annuity for life of 40 marks. Rhys was required to send his son Gruffydd ap Rhys ap Thomas to the King's court at Nottingham as a hostage, but he excused himself from this obligation by claiming that nothing could bind him to his duty more strongly than his conscience. He is supposed to have taken an oath that
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.
Nevertheless, he is presumed to have carried on some correspondence with Henry Tudor, who was preparing another attempt in France to overthrow Richard. The intermediary was Dr. Lewis Caerleon, who was personal physician to Lady Margaret Beaufort, Henry Tudor's mother.