Roland de Velville

Sir Roland de Velville (1471/4 - 25 June 1535) was a Breton-born English soldier and government official who is theorised as the illegitimate son of King Henry VII of England by "a Breton lady whose name is not known", or as a favoured member of the court of Henry VII and later recipient of beneficences, brought home to England with 28-year-old Henry after his exile in Brittany, an adolescent "of unknown parentage", and so a possible or likely illegitimate son, with formal historical opinion undecided. Birth and origins It appears that Velville is a French translation of the Breton name, Cosquer (sa maison appellée en langue bretonne du Cosquer, ou de la Vieuxville en langue françoise, Archives Départementales des Côtes d'Armor - 2 E 422 Famille Lanloup, Kerbouric (de), p. 2). The Breton for 'old' ('vieille' or 'vieux' in French) is 'cos' or 'coz' and the Breton for 'village manor' or 'village' ('ville' in French) is 'ker' - sometimes spelled 'quer' or 'kaer' historically. The Cosquer (also sometimes Coasker or variants of) family lived at the Château de Rosanbo, near Lanvellec, Brittany, and their descendants in the female line, the Marquises of Rosanbo, still live there today. The coat of arms of this family is D'or au sanglier passant de sable (Or [gold], a boar passant sable [black]), which were contemporaneously attributed to Roland de Velville. A Roland de Cosquer was recorded in Caouënnec-Lanvézéac in 1426. This says that in 1476 the manor of Cosquer was held by Yvon de Quélen, who was probably the daughter of Typhaine de Quélenec, daughter of the viscount of Fou en Rosnoën. In his 'Henry VII: The Maligned Tudor King' (Amberley Publishing, 2016), Tony Breverton notes that Henry Tudor, when he first arrived in Brittany, was in the care of Jean de Quélenec, Viscount of Faou. This points to a possible derivation of the name Velville; namely, that Roland de Velville's mother was a relation of the Jean de Quélenec, Viscount of Faou, and took his name from their manor of Cosquer.