The 1502 Progress: Raglan Castle, Monmouthshire
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The 1502 Progress: Raglan Castle, Monmouthshire

Raglan Castle: Arrival and Family Ties

When Elizabeth and Henry left Troy after five days of hospitality, they had only a short seven-mile journey in a south-westerley direction to reach their next destination, Raglan Castle (or ‘Ragland’ as it was known until at least the early nineteenth century). 

An 1801 account of the road from Monmouth to Raglan describes the scenery the royal couple would have encountered as they began their journey, ‘On leaving Monmouth the road leads for near two miles thro’ a pleasant enclosed valley, skirted by gentle swellings, clothed or cultivated to their summits but gaining the higher ground at Wonastow. The view unfolds itself in a beautiful and extensive manner, over a rich and fertile country…’

The royal party arrived at Raglan Castle on or around 19 August. Their stay there was the apex and, in many ways, the centrepiece of the visit with its incumbent lord, the King’s loyal and erstwhile brother-in-arms, Sir Walter Herbert, playing host…

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The 1502 Progress: Troy House, Monmouth, Monmouthshire
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The 1502 Progress: Troy House, Monmouth, Monmouthshire

Having stayed at Flaxley Abbey overnight, the following day, on the 14 August, the royal cavalcade was on the move again. Troy House was around 15 miles southwest of Flaxley, just a few miles over the Welsh border. The medieval manor house belonged to the powerful Herbert family. It sat in a wide, shallow valley, close to the small village of Mitchel Troy and overlooking the town of Monmouth, which lay just one mile to the north. Here, a twelfth-century castle, in which Henry V had been born in 1386, dominated a strategically important convergence of two rivers: the River Monnow and the River Wye…