..

PAGE

66. Ieuan Gwynedd (Evan Jones, 1820-52) .... . 115

67. Ieuan Gwyllt (John Roberts, 1822-77) .... .
116
@ Michael .D. Jones (1822-99). ..... ... . .
118
69. Islwyn (William Thomas, 1832-78) 121
70. Ceiriog (John Ceiriog Hughes, 1833-87) 122
baniel Owen (1836-95) 124
72. Sir John Rhys (1840-1915) 126
73. Sir John Williams (1840-1926) 127
74. Dr. Joseph Parry (1841-1903) 128
75. Emrys ab Iwan (R.
Ambrose Jones, 1851-1906) 129
� Sir Owen M. Edwards (1858-1920) .... .... 131

77. Sir Robert Jones (1858-1933) ..... 134

� .Thomas Edward Ellis (1859-99) 135
l

79. Sir John Morris-Jones (1864-1929) 137 .

80. David Vaµghan Thomas (1873-1934) 138

I
 PREFACE

Once again the Welsh Department of the Board of

Education; in co-operation with the Press Board of the
University of Wales, has prepared a book to �ark
St. David's Day. The aim of this publication 1s to
give in brief compass to the senior pupils in the schools,
and, it is hoped also, to a good number who are older
than they are, including members of the Forces at home
and abroad, some account of the more notable figures in
our national history.
We have had, in the past, books containing biographies
of Welsh men and women of eminence, but at the best,
these books are incomplete, somewhat haphazard in
selection, and, in any case, not accessible to the many.
1rus is the first attempt to give a picture of our note­
worthy men and women in a brief, handy manner.
The selection of names is open to comment, but the
book aims at including, within its severely curtailed
limits, names which are already, or ought to be, familiar
to every well-informed Welshman. It does not attempt
anything which may be regarded as a critical apprecia­
tion of the personalities included. All this, and a good
deal more, must wait until our long-discussed Dictionary
of National Biography sees the light.
Care has been taken to check the facts, and to achieve
accuracy as far as this has been possible. Enforced
brevity, however, has not precluded an attempt at
perspective, and teachers and others who will use this
book will, it is hoped, find evidence of the growth and
development of Welsh life and literature. Links which
bind things long past to the present life of Wales are
here discernible to the intelligent reader.
To-day, emphasis upon our heritage in language must
be buttressed by an effort to provide for our people
(and particularly those to whom our language has become
stran�e) a knowledge of our own past in place and time,
.

and 1t 1s hoped that this book \\'ill contribute in its

own way to this end,
WYNN P. WHELDON
St. David's Day, 1944.

6
1. ST. DAVID
(520?-588?).
VER� little is definitely known about the life of St.
David, the Patron Saint of Wales.
The " History " of his life was written by Rhigyfarch
(son of Sulien, Bishop of St. Davids) towards the end
of the eleventh century. In Rhigyfarch's time, the
�ormans were overrunning South Wales, and it was
hkely that St. Davids would have to continue .in sub­
mission to the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Not unnaturally therefore, the " History " of St. David
contai ns many stories which tended to emphasise the
greatness of David and the independence of the Church
in Wales.
It is said that David -was born about the year 520, and
that he was the son of Sanctus (a king of Ceredigion),
and Nonn. He was educated at Henfynyw, in Cardigan­
shire. He is said to have founded a monastic community
in Glyn Rhosin, where the Cathedral of St. Davids now
stands.
David spent the remainder of his life as the head of the
monastery at St. Davids, and in visiting the various
religious settlements in Dyfed which were associated
with it. Possibly he also visited Brittany and Cornwall.
He was well-known for his practice of self-denial and
his strict discipline.
He was not an Archbishop ; he was a bishop, but
without a diocese in the modern sense of the term.
His biographer, however, resolutely exalted David,
and tells how he visited Jerusalem and was consecrated
there by the Patriarch. He refers also to two synods
at Llanddewi Brefi ; when David was called upon to
speak, the ground rose under his feet, whereby he
became audible to all, and he was there recognised as
the leader of the Church of Wales. He is said to have
died on the first day of March, 588.
Gerald the Welshman championed the indepen­
dence of St. Davids against Canterbury at the end of the
7
12th century, and for that purpose used the "facts "
given in the "History" of St. David. " In this. way,
the Bishopric of St. Davids became, as it were, a symbol
of the independence of Wales . . . . and that is why
David himself was exalted into a Patron Saint of Wales."
David's shrine in St. Davids Cathedral became famous as
a place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages, and two visits
to St. Davids were held to be of the same merit as one to
Rome. Over fifty churches in South Wales were named
after him. The National Festival of Wales is celebrated
on the first day of March, the traditional day of St.
David's death.

2. RHODRI MAWR
(Reigned 844-878).
RHODRI MAwR succeeded his father as ruler of Gwynedd
in 844. Later in his reign he acquired the kingdoms of
Powys and Seisyllwg ( Ceredigion and Ystrad Tywi),
thus becoming the ruler of the whole of North Wales,
together \vith a substantial portion of South Wales.
His reign was in the period which saw the beginnings
of the fierce and devastating raids of the Vikings upon
Western Europe. These raiders are described in Brut y
Tywysogion as "the pagans" or "the black tribes."
Wales, in common with other nations, suffered cruelly
from these terrible foes who wrought great destruction
throughout the land, more especialfy upon the monastic
communities, many of which had been established
·

within easy reach of the sea.

But just as king Alfred of Wessex (87 1-899) was
destined to become the protector and deliverer of his
people in face of the same enemy, so Rhodri, who
reigned earlier, became the strong shield of Wales.
The first Viking �aid upo� Wales occurred probably
.1n 850, and from time to time throughout his reign
Rhodri had to meet the attacks of the invaders. I�
853-54 Mon was ravaged by the Vikings. The following
year, during another incursion, Rhodri defeated them
8
 and slew their chieftain Horm. In 876 after a battle
;
fought in Mon on a Sunday, the invader forced Rhodri
to seek refuge i� I�eland for a time. Jn the following
year he was shun 1n battle, probably by the English.

According to Welsh custom' Rhodri's territories

were divided amongst his six sons . One of these,
A:narawd,
. �
king o Gwynedd, paid the �rst ceremonial
v1s1t of a Welsh king to an English court. He journeyed
. .
to pay his allegiance to king Alfred, who, by this time,
w�s regarded as �he supreme protector of the Christian
pnnces of the island against the heathen invaders.
This visit led to the formal demands of homage made
by the English crown from all Welsh rulers in later
periods.

Rhodri is known as " Mawr " (the Great) because he

united much of Wales under his sway, thus giving later
princes an ideal of unity ; also because he was energetic
and powerful enough to prevent the Viking raiders from
making any permanent conquests or settlements in
Welsh territory. Moreover, the dynasty which he
founded became the ruling family in both North and
South Wales. Later princes of Gwynedd and Deheu-
...
barth proudly acclaimed their descent from Rhodri, and
were often dependent upon this claim for their succession.
The dynasty which sprang from Rhodri persisted until
the final days of native rule in Wales

3. HYWEL DDA
(Reigned 910-950).
HYWEL DDA was a son of Cadell, ,one of Rhodri Mawr's
six sons. With a younger brother, Clydog, he succeeded
to his father's share of Rhodri's dominions, Seisyllwg
(Ceredigion and Ystrad Tywi). Through marriage he
inherited Dyfed, thus uniting all Deheubarth. Late
in his reign he took possession of Gwynedd, and pro­
bably Powys as well, and so ruled all Wales, excepting
Morgannwg and Gwent.
9
 HY:Wel gre�tly admired the achievements and per­
sonality of king Alfred of Wessex, who died in 899,
and regarded him as one who had been an exemplar
ai:ion&st monarc�s. As a result, Hywel, throughout
_
hi � reign, mamtained a close and friendly relationship
with Alfred's successors, Edward the Elder (901-924)
and Athelstan (924-940), to whose claim to the over­
lordship ?f Wales he secured the loyal allegiance of his
fellow-princes. The fact that he gave one of his sons
an English name, Edwin, is perhaps indicative of his
regard for the civilisation of his neighbours over the
border.
During his period, Hywel's name appears first among
the signatures of Welsh princes who attested English
land Charters. This indicates that the Welsh king,
together with other native rulers, attended occasional
meetings of the English " Witan."
An interesting feature of his reign was the minting
at Chester, of silver pennies inscribed "Howael Rex"
(King Howel). This is the first instance in Welsh
history of a prince providing his own coinage.
Following the example of Alfred, Hywel made a
pilgrimage to Rome in 928. Like Alfred also, he was a
legislator. Tradition attributes to him the great achieve­
ment of reducing the many varying royal and tribal
customs of Wales to a uniform system of law. Whatever
may have been Hywel's contribution to this great work,
it is certain that his codification of Welsh medieval
laws can be considered to be " amongst the finest
achievements of the Welsh nation in all its history, and
of �ny nation in the Middle Ages." This body of law,
binding upon all throughout the land, became the
authority t�-which Welsh lawyers appealed for many
centuries and is one of the most valuable sources of
early W �lsh social history whic� we possess. The
.
pref aces to the various versions of t�e code sta�e that
Hywel's representative assembly wh1c�, a�cord1ng to
tradition carried out the work of cod1ficatton, met at
y Ty Gwyn ar Daf (Whitland, Carmarthensh e),
ir
the king's hunting-lodge.
10
 T h_ough Hywel is the only king in Welsh history
desc�ibed by the title of " Good," we know practically
.
nothing of his personal characteristics. But he must
have be�n a �ery �rise, capable, and diplomatic monarch,
f?r during his reign Wales enjoyed a period of excep­
tional pea�e ; and the close understanding which he
ha� established between the Welsh princes and the
r�ling dynasty and court of Wessex continued for some
tune after his death.

4· GRUFFYDD AP LLYWELYN
(Reigned 1039-1063).
G�UFFYDD AP LLYWELYN was the son of Llywelyn ap
Se1�yll, who seized the throne of Gwynedd in 1018,
ruling with distinction until 1023. Gruffydd did not
succeed his father directly, but followed Jago ap Idwal
F oel of the older line as ruler of Gwynedd in I 039. He
also became King of Powys about the same time. In
1055, he secured Deheubarth, and later in his reign
annexed Morgannwg and Gwent. Thus during his
reign he became paramount lord of Wales.
From the writings of Walter Map we learn that
Gruffydd, as a young man, was indolent and unadven­
turous. But when he became king he quickly displayed
remarkable courage, energy and vision. In addition to
his policy of extending his dominion over the whole of
Wales, he pursued vigorous offensive warfare against
the English who had secured footholds in Wales and the
border, driving them out of their settlements around
Holywell, Mold, Wrexham, Oswestry, Radnor, and also
in South Hereford. He won notable victories in these
campaigns, at Rhyd-y-groes near Welshpool in 1039,
outside Leominster in 1052, and at Hereford in 1056.
Gruffydd's power was ultimately broken by Earl Harold
of Wessex after two invasions of North Wales in 1062
and 1061. In the latter year he became a hunted
fugitive and was betrayed and slain by some of his
followers. His head, after the barbarous custom of the
times, was sent to Harold as a token of peace.
11
 Brut Y Tywysogion, chronicling his melancholy death,
says :-" Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, the head and shield
and defender of the Britons, perished through the
treachery of his own men. He who had hitherto been
unconquerable was now abandoned in desolate glens,
after great forays, victories without number, and count­
less treasures of gold, silver and gems and purple
raiment."
Gruffydd's reign coincides broadly with that of Edward
the Confessor in England (1042-1066). His vigorous,
daring and brilliant leadership stands out in marked
contrast to the feeble, vacillating rule of his English
contemporary during the critical period preceding the
Norman Conquest.
Gruffydd was one of the ablest of the early Welsh
princes. During his reign he united Wales and extended
its boundaries beyond Offa's Dyke. His achievements
revived the patriotic spirit, and gave renewed confidence
to his people. It is not too much to suggest that the
long and strenuous resistance of Wales to the Norman
invaders owed much to the courage and confidence
inspired by the example of his powerful personality.

5. OWAIN GWYNEDD
(Reigned ·1137-1170).
OwAIN GWYNEDD was the eldest son of Gruffydd ap
Cynan, and succeeded to the major portion of Gwynedd
in 1137. Under his father's rule, Gwynedd had become
the predominant power in Wales, and Owain's ambition
was to strengthen and extend this supremacy through
resistance to the encroachments of the marcher lords
and the English kings, as well as through an alliance
with the southern Welsh dynasty of Deheubarth.
His period saw a great revival of the spirit of inde­
pendence. He came to power in the reign of the weak
King Stephen (1135-1154), who had succeeded the
energetic Henry I (1100-1135) during whose period most
of the Welsh princes had ruled as his vassals. , .

12
 Civil war and divided rule in England gave Owain and
.
his fellow-princes the opportunity which they nee ed �
for the �evi val of Welsh ascendanc y . By 1152, O wat!l , s
predonunance had been established and extensiv e ·

d
territories under Norman control ha been won back
by the Princes of Gwynedd, Deheubarth and Powys .
But the powerful, imperious Henry II (1154-1189)
succeeded Stephen, and in 1157 he invaded North Wales
and compelled Owain to pay homage to him .In 1163,
he led another expedition against the southern princ. e,
Rhys ap Gruffydd (later known as the Lord Rhys) who
also submitted to him .

In the same year, Owain and Rhys, together with

several of their chieftains, attended the Council of
Woodstock to renew their homage. During the next
fifteen months the antagonism between Henry II and
Becket, which began at Woodstock, developed into a
formidable quarrel which encouraged Owain and Rhys
to embark upon an offensive policy against their oppo­
nents. The St. David's chronicle states that at this time
" all the Welsh of Gwynedd, Deheubarth and Powys
with one accord threw off the Norman yoke."
Henry determined to crush the revolt and in 1165
he.mustered a great army, based upon Shrewsbury and
Oswestry. The united hosts of the Welsh princes,
drawn from Gwynedd, Deheubarth and Powys, assem­
bled at Corwen to engage him . The king's, troops,
marching through the heavily-wooded valley of the
Ceiriog, suffered severely at the hands of the Welsh
guerillas. Ascending the barren slopes of the Berwyn
range by the road still known as " Ffordd y Saeson "
(th e road of the English), Henry's army was terribly
buffeted by torrential rain and tempest, and sorely
h ampered by the harassing tactics of the Welsh moun­
taineers. Pr�visions ran short, without hope of re­
plenishment 1n these desolate u plands. Soon it was
.impossible �o proceed further, and the baffled king
. .
withdrew without fighting a maJor engagement.
This disastrous expedition was the last attempt' for
a considerable peri od, to subj ugate Wales. For the
13
 re?1ainder of Owain's life, Henry was too fully occupied
\v1th affairs in England, Ireland and the Continent, to­
e mbark upon another invasion. After Owain's death,
the English monarch very wisely came to amicable
understandings with Rhys ap Gruffydd in 1171 and
1172. This left Rhys in a commaniling position in
Wales, and he thus succeeded Owain as the protagonist
of Welsh independence.
The struggle against the Norman invaders reached
its full vigour in the 12th century under the rule of Owain
Gwynedd, Owain Cyfeiliog and the Lord Rhys, and
was carried over into the 13th century by Llywelyn ab
Iorwerth.
As is common in periods of great patriotic movements,
this resurgence of the spirit of independence found
expression also in a literary revival of exceptional vitality
and richness. Amongst the Welsh poets of the period
\Vere men of action like Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd and
Owain Cyfeiliog of Powys ; and the social standing of ·

the bards was never higher than it was in the l 2th

century. Each prince had his pencerdd (chief house­
hold bard) whose rights and privileges were clearly
defined in law. In addition to writing poetry, the bards
copied historical manuscripts, and preserved the genea­
logies and documents of the families to which they were·
attached.
Music was also a prominent feature in all Welsh
festivals and household feasts, where they sang in parts,
and played upon the harp, crwth and pipe.
This period also saw much activity in the compilation
of chronicles and histories. It was the time of Geoffrey
of Monmouth and Giraldus Cambrensis ; and it was
in this century that the old prose legends and romances
of Wales began to penetrate into Europe, to exercise
such a profound influence upon its literary movements.
The age of Owain Gwynedd also saw the rapid spread
of the monastic orders into Wales, with the princes as
their benefactors ; and no people in Christendom gave·
a higher devotion and regard to the sanctities of the
Church within their borders than did the Welsh people.
14
 Giraldus Carnbrensis in his "Itinerary through
Wales " describes Owain as " a man of distinguished
wisdom an d moderation." Poets sang his praises ;
Gwalchmai commemorated his victories ; Cynddelw
lauded his generosity and lamented his geath.
�wain's career places him in the ranks of th� great
princes of Wales. He showed that it was possible to
�aint�n a strong independent state against Norman
mcurs1ons; and it was under him that ''the Welsh
nation attained the full measure of national conscious­
ness which enabled it for a century and a half to resist
absorption in the English realm." His work was con­
tinued by Rhys ap Gruffydd, Llywelyn ab Iorwerth
and Llywelyn ap Gruffydd.

6. RHYS AP GRUFFYDD (THE LORD RHYs)

(c. 1132-1197).
ON the death of Owain Gwynedd, paramount power
among the Welsh princes passed from Snowdonia to
the valleys of the Towy and Teifi .. Here Rhys ap
Gruffydd, who had for many years shown himself a
serious rival to Owain's supremacy, became the un­
doubted leader of Welsh resistance for the next quarter
of a century.
Rhys was the grandson of Rhys ap Tewdwr, the last
completely independent ruler of South Wales ; he was
also a kinsman of Giraldus Cambrensis.
There were special circumstances .at this time which>
together, contributed very substantially to the rapid
extension of Rhys's power. The first was Henry II's
disastrous Welsh campaign of 1165; the second was
the king's equally disastrous quarrel with Archbishop
Tho mas Becket ; the third was the Norman invasion
of Ireland in 1169 under Richard de Clare (. S trongbow),
Earl of Pembroke ; the fourth was �he death of Owain
Gwynedd.
Dermot, king of Leinster, had been driven from his
throne, and he appealed to king Henry for assistance
15
to recover his kingdom. Henry refused, but
gave ���
o.
nu·ssion to the Norman lords of Dyfed to do s
sions a t-
·

prospect of new adventures and new posses

barons
tracted many of the Norman and Norman-Welsh
there­
of West Wales to this expedition, and Rhys was
fore rid of some of his most dangerous opponents·
e
But their success was so marked that Henry becam
alarmed at the prospect of a powerful rival kingdom
ver
being established in Ireland, and decided to cr?ss o
,
himself. On his way there with a great army in 1171
to
he met Rhys on the South Wales bor�er and cam�
terms of friendship with him. T�e king then pat . a �
state visit to the shrine of St. David, and, after the v1s1t,
recognised Rhys officially as the ruler of ·D eheubarth,
with additional territories which the prince had wrested
from his Norman rivals. On his return from Ireland,
in 1172, the king met Rhys again �t Laughame and
made a further agreement with him.

This led shortly afterwards to the appointment of the

Welsh prince to. the rank of JustiGiar of South Wales ;
and Rhys ap Gruffydd is referred to by the chroniclers
and poets of the period as "Yr Arglwydd Rhys."
Henry had found in Rhys a leader �Nho was sufficiently
powerful and reliable to. provide hiin with a valuable:· .
counterpoise to the growing strength of his own barons
in Wales. His confidence was justified, for during the
dangerous rebellion of Henry's sons in 1173-74, aided
by the I?n gs of France and Scotl�nd and many feudal
barons in England and the continent, Rhys loyallv
supported the �ng, �nd sent his son Hywel to Normand y
.
t? serve in his retinue. Later he despatched a 9on­
s1derable body of Welsh troops across the channel
to
fight for Henry.
From this time on, Rhys and his vassal
chieftains
appeared regularly at the royal assemQlies
in England
[
and or the �e�ai�der of his life he-"'retaine
d the pre �
donunant pos1uon 11_1 South Wales, and had
the complete
confidence of the king.

Rhys made Cardigan his place of res

idence, erecting
16
 a strong castle there. At Christmastide, 1176, the fi rst
eisteddfod of which there is any authentic record was
held in this stronghold. As is the present custom,
the eisteddfod was proclaimed a year in advance, and
competitors were invited from all over the British Isles.
There �ere two main contests, one in poetry and the
.
other In Instrumental music (harps, pipes and crowders);
and the prize for each was a chair. The poetry com­
petition was won by contestants from Gwynedd, and
the music prize by one of Rhys's own men.
In 1187, Jerusalem was recaptured by the Saracens,
and this led to the revival of the crusading spirit through­
out Western Europe. In 1188, Archbishop Bald�in
made his famous pilgrimage through Wales, accompamed
by Giraldus Cambrensis, to secure recruits. They were
entertained at Cardigan by Rhys who had serious
intentions of taking the cross, but was finally dissuaded
by his wife.
The death of Henry II in 1189, and the succession
of Richard-Lion-Heart (1189-99) gave Rhys further
opportunities for extending his territories at the expense
of the Norman lords of the south, for Richard was too
occupied with the Third Crusade, and afterwards on
�·:the continent, to pay serious attention to Wales.
Rhys's last years were marred by_ conflicts between
his sons, two of whom defeated their father in battle,
and imprisoned him for a while. Two other sons· were
later iinprisoned by Rhys because of their conspiracy
against him. The two final years of his rule, however,
saw the old warrior rise again in skill and vigour, to
secure victories over the marcher lords, notably Roger
Mortimer of Wigmore and William de Braose of
Brecknock.
The Lord Rhys· was the greatest of the princes of
Deheubarth, and one of the outstanding leaders of
Welsh independence. He was a warm and generous
patron of the Cistercians (the White Monks), and the
broad lands of the monasteries of Whitland and Strata
Florida were extended by his gifts ; the Cisterci ans
were his ardent supporters throu ghout his period of rul .
e
B 17
 �
Strata Florida became the chief abbey of the or er in
Wales and achieved a status which was almost national .

A number of Wel sh abbots were appointed to be the

heads of monasteries in Wales during this period.
Rhys was buried in St. Davids Cathedral.

7. GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS
(c. 1147-1223).
GIRALDUS was born at Manorbier Castle in Pembroke­
shire about the year 1147. His father, William de Barri,
was a Norman noble; his mother, Angharad, was a
daughter of Gerald de Windsor, the Norman castellan
of Pembroke, and of the famous "Helen of Wales,"
Nest, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, the last independent
prince of Deheubarth.
"I am sprung," wrote Giraldus, "from the princes
of Wales and the barons of the Marches " ; and, though
he was considerably more Norman than Welsh by blood,
he described himself as a Welshman. But he could
often behave as arrogantly as any Norman.
His cousins were the Fitz-Geralds, the Fitz-Stephens
and the Fitz-Henries (all descendants of Nest), who
conquered Ireland. His uncle, David Fitz-Gerald, was
Bishop of St. Davids. The Lord Rhys and other Welsh
princes were his kinsmen. Thus, from childhood, he
moved in aristocratic and cultured circles, in an atmos­
phere of great traditions and high adventure.
Early in life he chose the Church as his ·career. He
studied at the greatest of medieval universities Paris
d
where he distinguished himself as a scholar, an after �
wards lectured on church law and theology.
On returning, he rapidly secured preferment be­
coming � rchdeacon of Brec?n in 117 5. In I l S4he
� as app ointed a o al chaplain to King Henry II, and
� �
Ill 1185 Was co
n:un1ss1oned by that monarch to accompany
the young Pnnce John to Ireland. Here Giraldus
amassed the material for his first two boo
ks Topographia
18
 Hibernica (Local history of Ireland) and Expugnatjo
Hibernica (Conquest of Ireland), which are the main
sources of Irish history in the Middle Ages.
In 1188 he accompanied Archbishop Baldwin on I;U s
.
tour through Wales, a tour which was made pnmanly
for the purpose of preaching the Third Crusade, but was
also adroitly used to emphasise the authority of Canter­
bury over the four Welsh dioceses. The Journey gave
Giraldus the material for his famous Itinerarium
Kambriae (Itinerary through Wales) and Descrip.tio
Kambn·ae (Description of Wales). From the standpomt
of Welsh history, these are certainly the most valuable
of his works, for they provide us with an incompa:able
picture of the social life and conditions of his penod.
His greatest ambition was to become Bishop of St.
Davids and to secure the independence of the Welsh
Church from Canterbury, with himself as Archbishop.
He made no secret of his admiration for the martyred
Archbishop Thomas Becket, the bitter antagonist of
Henry II's ecclesiastical policy; and he would have liked
to have become the Becket of Wales. Between 1198
and 1203 he strove ardently to realise his dreams, but
royal might and the power of Canterbury were too
great. Three times Giraldus made the difficult and
perilous journey to Rome to plead his cause with Pope
. Innocent III, but it was in vain.
Both King Richard and King John offered him
promotion, but he declined Bangor and Llandaff, and
several Irish bishoprics. He had set his aspirations
'
upon St. Davids.
Giraldus was certainly one of the most remarkable
and versatile of the great personalities of the Middle
Ages. Though he was credulous, garrulous and egotis­
tical, he was a profound scholar, a keen and witty
.
observer, a ttreless worker, and a man of immense
knowledge and originality. During his long life he had
travelled widely, and had met most of the great figures
of his age: Henry II, Innocent III, Richard Lion­
Heart, St. Hugh of Lincoln, Stephen Langton, and
many others.
19
 From 1203 to the time of his death he lived in retire­
ment, devoting himself to literary work. He was buried
in St. Davids Cathedral.
Gwenwynwyn,·prince of Powys, wrote of him, ''Many
and great �rars have we. Welshmen waged with Engla�d,
but none so g.reat and fierce as his wlio fought the king
and the archbishop, and withstood the might of the
whole clergy and people of England for the honour of
Wales."
His advice to the people of Wales in the last chapter
of the Descript£on is as valid to-day as when he wrote
it over seven centuries ago : " If therefore they would
be inseparable, they would become insuperable."

8. LLYWELYN AB IORWERTH
(l 173�1240).
LLYWELYN AB lORWERTH was born in Nant Conwy in
1173. He first became prominent about 1194 when he
won a victory over his uncle David near Aberconwy and
gained possession of part of Gwynedd. Before long he
regained for Gwynedd the supremacy which it had lost
since the time of Owain Gwynedd.
After the death of the Lord Rhys, in 1197; Gwen­
wynwyn of Powys and Llywelyn ab Iorwerth were the
two most powerful rulers in Wales, and great rivalry
existed between them. The- English king, John (11 �
1216), took advantage of this, for it was his policy·}' 0 :
weaken Wales by encouraging internal dissensions. :
John was not entirely successful, for Llywelyn also vety ·

shrewdly took advantage of every difficulty that befelf

the king.
As ruler of Gwynedd, Llywelyn swore allegiance to.
'
John, whose daughter Joan he married. When Gwen.;·
wynwyn was attacked by John, Llywelyn took advanta e g
of this to attack Powys and seized parts of it and of So\.\th
Wales. � e did not long remain friendly with the king.
Gwynedd in turn was attacked by John, with the help of
Gwenwynwyn and other Welsh princes, and in 121.l
Llywelyn had to yield to him.
20
 Because of the dispute between the king of England
and Pope Innocent III Britain was placed under an
inter� ct. The Pope to�k the opportuni�y of .further
opposing John by freeing Wales from th� intercJ! ct, and
.
by releasing the Welsh princes from their allegiance to
the �g of England. Llywelyn now supl?orted the
barorual movement in England against the king. As. a
result, special privileges were secur ed for Wales m
Magna Carta, land and rights that had been lost by
Welshmen were restored' and so was the use of Welsh
law in Wales.

Llywelyn was now at the height of his power. In

1216, he assembled the princes of Wales at Aberdovey
to discuss various matters. When Gwenwynwyn rose
against him that year, Llywelyn easily defeated him.
Gwenwynwyn and John died in 1216, but Llywelyn
maintained his interest in the political affairs of England
during the reign of Henry III. ·

Although Llywelyn did not call himself "Prince of

Wales," such was his influence in Wales that he became
known as "Llywelyn the Great." He strove to ensure
co-operation between the various princes, but failed to
establish any permanent political unity in Wales. King­
doms like Powys and Deheubarth were too independent
to permit of any permanent political unity, and there
were, in addition, districts such as Glamorgan, which
were partly under marcher rule. The boundaries and
customs of the various ancient local divisions, known as
caJttrefs and commotes, continued without much change.
S}iortly before his death Llywelyn succeeded in assemb­
ling the rulers of Wales at Strata Florida Abbey to declare
�heir allegiance to his son and successor, David.
Llywelyn realised the significance of the struggle of
·Gerald the Welshman for the independence of the
bishopric of St. Davids against the claims of Canter­
bµty, and in 1214 he ensured that Welshmen were
chOsen as bishops of St. Davids and Bangor. He
supported the Cistercians, a monastic order which had
founded abbeys in many parts of Wales. Several of
these abbeys, such as Strata Florida, Aberconwy and
21
Cymer, were ze alou � in the "national" cause during
this period. It was in Aberconway that Llywelyn was
buried after becoming a monk there. He also estab­
lished a p rio r y for the F ran�isca�s (Grey Friars) at
Llanfaes, Anglesey, where his wife Joan had been
buried. Llywelyn was a patron of the b ar ds, and his
period is an important one in the history of Welsh
literature. Cynddelw sang of Llywelyn's early struggles,
and Dafydd Benfras and others sang his praises in
their elegies. Although it is not certain when the
Mabinogion were written, the oldest known manuscript
of those romances belongs to the time of Llywelyn.

9. LLYWELYN AP GRUFFYDD
(died 1282).
·

AFTER the death of Llywelyn the Great in 1240, Wales

was without a strong leader until about 1255 when his
grandson, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, became prominent
as the leader of Gwynedd. Before long, the influence
of Llyw·elyn ap Gruffydd was felt in Central and South
Wales as well, and Henry III's attack against him in
1257 was unsuccessful. Llywelyn was henceforth
regarded by most of the contemporary ·Welsh rulers
as the "Prince of Wales." Just as his grandfather,
Llywelyn the Great, had assisted the barons against
king John, so Llywelyn ap Gruffydd supported the.
ill-fated cause of Simon de Montfort against Henry III.
Peace was made in 1267 between Llywelyn and Henry '•

III by the Treaty of Montgomery, and Llywelyn was

recognised as "Prince of Wales" on condition that
he paid homage to the king.
A new phase in the life of Llywelyn began when
Henry III was succeeded by his son Edward I. He was
a far more able and energetic king than his father, and,
as a lord marcher, he had gained much experience of
Wales. Llywelyn refused to attend the new king's
coronation ceremony and persisted in refusing t o pay
homage. lie complained that certain parts of the
Treaty of Montgomery had
been ignored, and that
22
 Edward was sheltering some of his enemies, including
his brother David, and Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn of
Powys. Furthermore he had considerable doubt about
'
visting England, and with some cause, for he remem­
bered the fate of his father there. When Edward heard
of Llywelyn's intention to marry Eleanor, the daughter
.
of his former enemy Simon de Montfort, he was very
angry. By ill-luck, Eleanor fell into Edward's h ands
when she was sailing from France to Wales, and h e
refused to release her except on very harsh terms. In
1 276, war broke out between Llywelyn and Edward I.
Llywely� had to fight without much help from his
fello�-i:ilers. Powys, as might be expected, was not
on his side, and very little help came from South Wales
as Edward had come to an agreement with Rhys ap
Maredudd. Very many soldiers from Wales and the
Marches, Le., from the areas ruled by the king and the
barons, were in Edward's army. Llywelyn's brother,
David, was also in the English forces. Further, Llywelyn
lacked the support of the Church, for he had been
excommunicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Edward's preparations for attack were carefully made,
and his three armies converged on Llywelyn from
Chester, Montgomery and Carmarthen. Anglesey,
Llywelyn's granary, was attacked by Edward's fleet,
and the crops there were destroyed. Llywelyn was forced
L .

to su}?mit, and by the Treaty of Conway (1 277), he was

deprived of all his lands, except Gwynedd. He had to
pay �omage to the King in London but he was permitted
to marry Eleanor in 1 278.
Peace between Llywelyn and the king did not last
long. War broke out again in 1 282 and Llywelyn was
slain in a chance encounter near Builth. His head was
taken in mo�kery to London, but his body was probably
burie� at Cwmhir Abbey.
The death of Llywelyn, the last of the Welsh princes,
marked the completion of the final stage in the conquest
of Wales, for it meant the reduction of Gwynedd, the
great traditional bastion of Welsh independence,
whose dynasty had �11 but succeeded in becoming
_
national. To mamtain hold of the newly acquired
23
 territory Edward raised powerful fortresses of the new
concentric type at Caernarvon, Conway, Harlech,
Criccieth and Beaumaris. Around these castles
grew English military towns where special privileges
were given to traders and merchants. Two years
after the death of LlY"reJyn, Edward, by the Statute
of Wales (Statute of Rhuddlan) made certain changes
in the administration of North and West Wales so as
to ensure that there \Vould be no further independent
rule in the Principality. �

Llywelyn gave powerful support to the monastic

orders. He gave homes to the new religious order, the
Black Friars, at Bangor and Rhuddlan. His chief courts
were at Criccieth, Caernarvon and Dolwyddelan. His
death was a grievous blow to Wales. The elegies of the
bards reflect the nation's grief at his passing, in particular
the famous elegy of Gruffydd ab yr Ynad Coch. For
him the end of all things has come. Great torrents of
wind and rain shake the whole land, the oak tr ees
crash tog eth er in a wild fur y, the sun is dark in the sky,
and the stars have fallen from their courses.

10. DAFYDD AP GWILYM

(Floruit 1340-80).
WE know little about the life of Dafydd ap Gwilym.
One tradition says that he was born in Bro Ginin, Llan­
badarn, near Aberystwyth, and that he is buried in the
Abbey of Talley ; a more reliable tradition says that �e
is buried at Strata Florida. We cannQt .be certain,
either, about his dates, but Professor lfor Williams giyes
1340-80 as the period in which he wrote most of his
work. He received most of his education from his uncle,
LJywelyn ap Gwilym, who was sub-constable of New­
castle Emlyn in 1343. Llywelyn ap Gwilym was himself
a man of culture, and there can be no doubt that Dafydd
learnt from him the craft of traditional Welsh poetry
and some of the new modes which were reaching
England and Wales in this period.
24
 f the
Dafydd could write in the traditional manner o
We
older poets, the Gogynfeirdd, as the y were c alled:
find their work difficult to read to-day ; even 1n.
t�e
time of Dafydd ap Gwilym it was difficult, both
in
form and theme. But Dafydd wrote most o_f 1?-is wo
rk
in the new manner, which was simpler in diction, and
different in its choice of theme from the work of the
poets of the older tradition.

This "new poetry" had been developed first in t e �

'\\rork of the troubadours, the poets of Provence in
France. Their chief subjects were love and nature,
and they aimed at a simplicity of form and treatment.
The new poetry soon spread beyond the confines of
Provence, first to other countries in Europe, then to
.

England and Wales. In that period bands of young

men travelled about Europe, ostensibly to study at the
Universities. They formed themselves· into a kind of
"order" with some relation between them and the
church. They called themselves clerici or cleri; in Welsh
they were called Y Gier. As they wandered from
country to country they sang their songs and told of t�e
new poetry, and it is quite possible that Dafydd may
have heard it first from them. Indeed it is possible
that he himself was one of the fraternity. It is almost
certain that he knew French and English, and possibly
Latin as well ; it would have been difficult for him to
have spent some of his youthful years in Newcastle
Emlyn, where his uncle was deputy to Earl Talbot, with­
out meeting many people who spoke French and English.
There were many castles in Wales at this time, and in
their vicinity there would be ample opportunity for
·

Welshmen, Englishmen and Frenchmen to meet.

In this way the new poetry came to Wales, and it is
easy to u�de:stand how intereste� Dafydd ap Gwilym
would be In Its themes and techmque. But his poetry
is no mere copy of the work of others ; he gave the
new poetry a Welsh dress, and it is coloured throughout
with his own vivid personality.
His chief themes, like those of the troubadour s are
nature and love. The troubadours sang ·to the reat g
25
ladies of the court, the wives of their p�tro�s; and the
descriptions of the beauty of thes� ladies is a charac­
teristic of their poetry. Dafydd in turn sang to the
objects of his affection, and their names are known
even to n1any who have never read his poetry. They
are Morfudd and Dyddgu, Morfudd of the golden
hair, and raven-haired Dyddgu. It must not be thought
that these names stand for two particular ladies : there
was more than one Morfudd, and more than one
Dyddgu, and Dafydd saqg to them all in his own
inimitable fashion.

But his love poetry, beautiful th�ugh it is, is excelled

by his nature poetry. The Gogynfeirdd sang to nature,
but their descriptions are general and traditional; the
cler£ gave nature a more prominent place but in their
work again nature is not treated in her own right.
In the work of Dafydd ap Gwilym, however, almost
for the first time in European literature, we .find nature
poetry which is the result of direct observation and of
personal experience· and meditation. In. his nature
poetry Dafydd makes use of a technique which is
characteristic of one type of the older traditional poetry,
namely dyfalu. Dyfalu is a technical term ; : in general
it means to describe, but the "description�'· is carried
out in many forms, by direct "word-painting," by
comparison, by contrast, and in a host of other ways.
Dafydd's poetry shows him to be a master of this
t�chnique; his vari�tion� on a single piece of descrip­
tion are almost bewildering, and throughout it all runs
a vein of healthy, happy laughter. ..

Dafydd made innovations not only in the subject­

matter of poetry, but in the form as well. The metre
he used m?st frequently is that known as the Cywydd
Deuai. r Hiri.on, which consists of seven-syllabl
. ed
rhyming couplets, one an accented, and the
other an
u�accented, rhyme. Dafydd was not
the first to use
this fo�m, but the shaping and perfecti
ng of the cywydd
metre is undoubtedly his work. It
should be remembered
also that D fydd sang his com
� positions to the harp .and
composed airs for that pu ·;,
rpose. �

26
 Lastl y the langu age of his poetry should be no�e . �
In sharp con?"ast to th e work of the Gogynfeirdd 1t ts
simple and direct , more fitted to its s ub j ect, and near er
to th e colloquial speech of his day.

This, then, is Dafydd ap Gwilym's contribution to

Welsh poetry : he b roadened its theme and gave nature
poetry its proper place ; he perfected a new metrical
form, the Cywydd ; lastly, he simplified the language
of poetry.

A.

1 1. 0''1/AIN GLYN DWR

( 1 359?-141 6?).
0\\1AIN GLYN D wR came of princely ancestry. On his
father's side he was descended from the princes of
northern Powys ; his mother's family were of the line
of the rulers of Deheubarth, Rhys ap Tewdwr and the
Lord Rhys ; he also had connections with the house of
Llywelyn, and thus represented the three ruling
·

dynasties of mediaeval . Wales . From his father he

inherited the two estates of Glyn Dyfrdwy and Cynllaith
Owain which lie on opposite sides of the Berwyn range,
and from his mother, lands in Cardigan and Pembroke.

As befitted his social rank, Owain received the

·education common to young men of gentle birth in his .
time. There is evidence that he studied law at West­
minster before taking up the profession of arms .
According to contemporary records, he served with
distinction as a s qui re either to Henry of L ancaster
before he became king, or, as is more likely, to the
Earl of Arundel, Lord of Oswestry and Chirk. He
fought in the army o f Richard II ( 13 77- 1399) at t he
battle of Berwick in 1 385. The bar ds, Iolo Goch and
Gruffyd d Llwyd, vividly d escribe their young com­
patriot's prowess and courage in this b attle . I ol o 's
poem tells how Owain went into the onset wearing the
scarlet feather of a flamingo in his helmet, overthrew
27
 on :Vith a broken lance,.
his knightly opponent, fought .
him hke goats . Gruffyd d
and drove the Scots before
to Wales through the
tells how renown and glory came
valour of the knight of Glyn Dyfrdwy.
Though Owain took his name from his estate on t�e
Dee, his ancestral home was at Sycharth on his Cynllaith
Owain domain . Here, after his youthful apprenticeship
to arms, until the year 1 400, he followed the peacea�le
pursuits of a wealthy, cultured, Welsh country gentle­
man. He was happily married to a gracious wife, Ma�- . .
garet, daughter of Sir David Hanmer, of Flintsl:rire,
and had several children.
Iolo describes with affectionate zest the lavish
hospitality of this Welsh home at Sycharth, and tells
of its great hall with wardrobes full of rich raiment,.
the guest-house, the gate-house, the dove-cot, the
fishpond, the warren, the heronry, the mill and the park�
And Shakespeare, with characteristic insight, portray�
the Owain of Sycharth for us :-

"In faith he is a worthy gentleman,

Exceedingly well read, and profited
In strange concealment ; valiant as a lion,
And wondrous affable, and as bountiful
As mines of India."

The revolt which began in 1 400 was primarily due to

a quarrel between Owain and his neighbour, Reginald
Grey Lord of Dyffryn c1wy4, a typical marcher lord,
� .
�
gras�m and overbearmg, who hated the ' 'Welch
do�g1s . � ut the real caus es of the national upheaval
which �ap1dly followed lay in the long .and
deep
antagorusm o_f W lshmen to their Norman
� and English
?verlords, alien 1n custom , sympathy and
. � language ;
m t�e opp ess1on
! � of unJust law s, administered by
n�lish officials, which deprived
men of their rights in
etr own land ; and in wide
spread economic and s ocial
discontent.
On September l 6th
' 1 400 ' 0warn
. s friends and
'
relati ves ass embled
.

at Glyn Dyfrdwy and pro claime d

him Prm · ce of W ale s. '

28
 The revolt spread like fire in a dry season . The bards
revived the echoes of ancient prophecies t hroughou t
the land . Welsh students from Oxford and Cambri dge,
and Welsh labourers from the borders, flocked home to
muster under the dragon banner . The Grey Fria rs
(Frai:iciscans) sided with the new champion, while
Owain de�lared that the hour of destiny had stru ck, an d
that he himself was the deliverer appointed by God
to liberate the Welsh people from the bondage of their
enenues .
.

Thus the outbreak developed into a national movement

which had as its aim nothing less than the complete
independence of Wales .

During the next few years Owain displayed out­

standing skill as a daring and resourceful military leader,
and reached the zenith of his success after his capture
of the key castles of Aberys·twyth and Harlech in 1404 .
For a while he became the virtual ruler of Wales, and
showed himself to be a statesman of vision. As "Owain
by the grace of God Prince of Wales," he had his own
Great Seal, Privy Seal, courts of law and chancery ;
he nominated bishops, summoned parliaments to
Harlech, Machynlleth, Dolgelley, and Penna!, and sent
envoys to foreign courts . He entered into an agreement
with the powerful faction of English rebels represented
by Sir Edmund Mortimer and the Earl of Northumber­
land_ A document drawn up at Bangor between them,
known as the Tripartite Indenture, provided for the
future division of Henry IV's kingdom into three
separate principalities, with Owain as the ruler of
Wales, to which were to be added considerable new
territories over the border. He also entered into a
formal alliance with Charles IV of France, who sent
him substantial military support, and he negotiated with
Benedict XIII, the Pope of Avignon . This was the
period when there were two rival Popes in Europe,
Boniface IX of Rome, acknowledged by England and
Wales, and Benedict XIII, residing at Avignon, who
was recognised by France, Spain and Scotland .

29
 Owain, after taking the advice of his nobles and
clerics, decided to transfer the allegiance of Wales to
Benedict, but only on definite conditions. The Welsh
Church was to be independent of Canterbury, with an
Archbishop of St. Davids ; and th� Welsh metro­
politan area was to include the Bishoprics of Exeter, Bath,
Hereford, Worcester and Lichfield. Only clerics who.
could speak Welsh were to be appointed to Welsh sees
and livings, and revenues from Welsh church lands
were not to be sent into England. Further, in order to
provide for the adequate education of the Welsh clergy,
two Universities were to be founded, one in North
Wales and the other in South Wales.

But the ambitions of Owain and his fellow-country­

men for the future of Wales were not destined to­
succeed. French aid proved a broken reed. The power
of the new royal house of Lancaster grew more formid­
able, and the pressure of superior forces compelled.
substantial areas of Wales to abandon Owain's cause.
The young Prince Henry of Monmouth, himself a. .

rival Prince of Wales, took Aberystwyth in 1 408, and

Harlech in 1409, capturing Owain's wife and daughters
there. One son alone was left with Owain, the others.
had died in the conflict or were the king's prisoners.

The loss of Aberystwyth and Harlech, which were

the political and strategic centres of Owain's authority
as ruler of Wales, was the final crushing blow. Though
he fought indomitably to the end, his cause was now
irretrievably lost. He was no longer a ruling prince·
but a fugitive and an outlaw. About the ye�r 1 4 1 2 he
disappeared, and there is no further record of him.

Henry of Monmouth, who became King Henry V in

1 4 1 3, thought it expedient to adopt a policy of clemency
towards those who had participated in the struggle, and
he made it known that he was ready to grant Owain a par­
don. But no word of acceptance came from the broken,
unconquered hero . When and where he died is u n­
certain. But, like Arthur, Owain became a figure of
might and mystery in the national story, a leader who

30
would surely come again in the hour of his co�ntry's
need. . Though his great uprising brought �n an�
desolatto� to Wales in years of disastrous conflict, his
name wtll always be enshrined in the hearts of the·
Welsh people as the first Welsh leader acknowledged
throughout the whole of Wales, and as "the symbol for
the vigo rous resistance of the Welsh spirit to tyranny
and alien rule, and the assertion of a national character
which finds its fitting expression in the Welsh language."

12. DAFYDD NANMOR

(c . 1420-1485) .
DAFYDn NANMOR was one of the finest bards in a period
which is notable in the history of Welsh literature for
its gr�t poetry. He was probably born at Nanmor, in
the parish of Beddgelert, but most of his poetry is
connected with Dyfed (the three counties, Pembroke,
Carmarthen and Cardigan) . He associated himself
mainly with the family of Rhys o 'r Tywyn, Cardigan­
shire. Ten of his poems are addressed to members of
this family, to Rhys himself, his son and his grandson,
and a distinct unity runs through these cywyddau and
awdlau. He also addressed poems to Jasper and
Edmund, sons of Owain Tudur, and to Edm'11ld 's son
Henry, afterwards Henry VII .

His songs to the Welsh nobility are the most character­

istic works of Dafydd Nanmor. Unlike his predecessor,
Dafydd ap Gwilym, who sang of life in the open air,
he chose to praise the beautiful homes of noble families,
the hospitality which they so lavishly dispensed, and
the interesting gatherings round their hearths. In one
cywydd, he revels in describing a notable feast given
by Rhys o 'r Tywyn .

"Rhys within his bounteous halls,

Could feed the hosts of Asia."

31
Such homes were centres of Welsh cultural l i fe ; their
owners were generous partons of poetry and song.
These are the people described by Dafydd N anmor
in his poems.
In his love songs, and they are many, he ex eels in
. .
the traditional art of weaving beautiful descnpttons of
fair women, as in his famous cywydd to Llio Rhydderch .

"Llio of the fair hair, with its silvery gleam

sparkling like fine snowdrift."

Love elegies became a convention in Weis po�try�

during this period. In such poems the bard 1mag1n�s
that the woman he ·loves lies in her grave and he is
left mourning her l oss. Dafydd Nanmor's love elegies
show artistic restraint and a direct simplicity of thought.

"Dear God, now she is laid to rest, .

,.· Would that I were her winding sheet. "

"If she lies dead in Conway Vale,

May's buds need not unfold again."

The cywydd, in his hands, runs sip.oothly, with few

interpolations, and with very little of the clever in­
tricacie5 of versification which became so marked a
feature of the cywydd after his time. He also
perfected the awdl · as a poetic form and made of it an
artistic, well-linked whole.

13. DAFYDD AB EDMWND

(c. 1425-1 500).
DAFYDD _ AB EDMWN� was � nati�e of Pwll Gwepra, in
the parish of Hanmer, in Flintshire. He was of
noble birth, living on his own estate and owning much
land elsewhere.
His bardic teacher was Maredudd ap Rhys and he
himself attained in due col)rse the rank of 'Pencerdd
32
 Among
(Chief Bard), and became a teacher of bards. l 1 .
the poets of his own day and those of t�e f<? 0';� �
in c
generation he was regarded as the authority
dafod (poetic art). His most notable pupils �ere G
u :?
eph '
Owain and Tudur Aled. The latter was his n
to the
and in his elegy to D afydd ab Edmwnd, he refers
relationship between them-

"He was my uncle by blood, and my teacher· "

�
Dafydd achieved fame in the Carmarthen Eisted od � f
s
1 45 1 . Records relate how he went there with �
pupil, Gutun Owain, and won a . silver chai� for � s
arrangement of the 24 strict metres, and for his bardic
performance in all these metres.. The Carmarthen
Eisteddfod is· most important in the history of Welsh
bardism ; and Dafydd ab Edmwnd holds a ,significant
position in the development of poetic art, and of the
education given in the bardic schools.

He sang many awdlau and cywyddau, and these reveal

him as a fine craftsman who could weave a great variety
of beautiful new patterns out of well-worn material.
Some of his most · intricate experiments in versification
must be read aloud before they can be truly appreciated
for they are designed to draw all the melody possible
out of ' infinitely varied arrangements of words and
sounds, to reproduce as nearly as possible in words the
· music of the harp.
·

!fis most famous c;:wydd is_ the elegy to a harpist,

. .
S1on Eos, a poem which shows how Welshmen of the
period disliked the English law imposed on them and
which also reveals the author's great love of the W
elsh
art of harp-pl aying. Neither �ngel nor man, says
� �
�fydd ab dmwnd, could refrain from weeping when
S1on Eps played on the harp.
�e sang poems in praise of the Welsh nobleman of the
penod, and . he has �y love poems in the
_ traditional
m� er, with dY_faliad (poettc description) as their
main theme. _
This device prQduced fine effects .
c
33
 Many bards mourned hi s deat h i n elegies which hailed
h im as the master of song . His pupil and nephew,
Tudur Aled, d ecl ares that i n the art of poetry Dafydd
ab Edmu nd was second to none, except Dafydd ap
Gwilym .

14. SIR RHYS AP THOMAS

( 1 449- 1 525).
RHYs AP THOMAS was born in 1449. As the head of the
Dynevor family, he became an important figure in
South Wales. In 1485 Henry Tudor landed at Milford
Haven to make his bid for the crown of England. He
was wa1mly welcomed in Wales, for he was of the Tudor
family of Penmynydd, Anglesey. The · Welsh bards in
their rhyming prophecies had long foretold delivenµ1ce
for Wales from the English yoke, and Henry Tudor
was hailed by them as the promised champion. On
his march towards Shrewsbury he.. was joined by Rhys
ap Thomas with a formidable army from South Wales.
The issue was decided at B�sworth, and tradition says
that Rhys ap Thomas himself slew Richard III, and
that he was knighted on the battlefield.
The Red Dragon banner of Wales floated over
Bosworth field. Not unnaturally, therefore, Welshmen
regarded the battle of Bosworth as a victory over the
English. �

Henry did not forget the help given him by Rhys ap

Thomas.. He was appointed Chamberlain of Cardigan
and Carmarthen, and Constable of the Lordship of
Brecknock. In due course several other important posts
were given to him, including that of Justiciar of South
Wales . He took a prominent part in battles in England
and France during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry
VIII .
He died in 1 525, �d was buried in the Church of the
Grey Friars at Carmarthen . His grave may be seen
to-day in St. Peter's Church in that town.
34
 Although the power o f the barons in Englan was �
severely curtail ed by Henry VI I , there was no . 1nt�r­
ference with the authority of Rhys in his own dis trict,
even by the Court of the Council in the Marc hes at
Ludlow. Rhy s had several mansi ons, s uch as Ab er­
marlais (Llan sadwrn), Derwy dd (L landybi e) , Carew and
Newcastle Emlyn .
He was a pa tron of the bar ds. Lewis Glyn Cothi
and Tudur Aled sang his praises, and Lewis Morgannwg
says, mourning him :

"There is no wine, there are no gifts, now that

Sir Rhys, prince of this isle, has left us ."

15. TUDUR · ALED

(c. 1470-1526).
TunuR ALED is one of the many notable men who were
born at Llansannan in Denbighshire. He came of
noble family and, as befitted a cultured gentleman of
the period in Wales, he received bardic training at
the hands of his uncle, Dafydd ab Edmwnd (q.v.).
In due time, he himself passed through the various
grades of the bardic course and reached the rank of
Pencerdd (Chief Bard). . Such a course took nine years
and demanded a mastery of all the "mysteries" of
cerdd dafod (poetic art) and cerdd dant (the art of song) ;
it also included a knowledge of Welsh history and the
genealogical descent of the Welsh nobility. Only a
Pencerdd was allowed to take bardic pupils.
In his younger days, Tudur Aled spent most of his
time in the district which lies within the confines of
the V�le of Conwy, Edeirnion, I al, Ystrad Alun , the
Tanat Valley and the Vale of Clwyd . He add r es s e d
many poems to persons and families in Deheubarth and it
is probable that he became bardd teulu (household bard)
to Sir Rhys ap Thomas .
He w as one of the foremost men in the first Caerwys
Eisteddfod in 1 523, and, until lately, he was reg
arde d
35
 as havi ng fi nally settled the rules of "cynghanedd " at
that Eisteddfod . More recent knowledge, however
has shown that these rules, as well as thos e of th�
strict metres, were settled and confirmed at th e fa mous
Carmarthen Eisteddfo d in 145 1 .
Tudur Aled died at Carmarthen in 1 526, and was
buried there in the Friars' Court.
His poetry marks the perfection of · an ol d craft
He sang awdlau and cywyddau, which reveal �
amazing n1astery of the poetic art. His work in clu des
poems in praise of the Welsh nobility ; cy'W)'ddau gofyn .
( " bidding" poems) ; elegies, and love songs. In his
nibutes to the noble families whose h�spitality he
knew so well, he describes houses, furniture, and material
things, with the delight and accuracy of a fine craftsman.
These beautiful old Welsh mansions were centres of .
hospitality and of vigorous social life ; their owners
were men of culture, patrons of poetry and music ..
In the "bidding" p�ms,' we find that the main thenie .
is dyfaliad (a minute description ·of the thing asked
for, by means of fanciful similes). An excellent example
of this bardic device is found in Tudur Aled's Cywydd
Dyfalu March (Asking for a Steed). ·
e.g., "Two bright pear-shaped eyes, rolling in his
head ; two slender restless ears set above his fore­
head, like sage leaves. "
I

The bards by this time- were µsing such excessi�

hyperbolical similes in their love-poems that Tudur
Aled, in his own cywyddau on the same thenie, �me­
times deliberately parodies this excess in a delightf\tl
·

fashion.
e.g. , "Two rivers flowed from my side for her ;
I wept two gallons yesterday. "
Tudur Aled excels in the art of framing ter��� epi-.
grammatic lines and couplets, and one of his "englynion"
has become proverbial-
"Just as a twig, as it grows, tells clearly the kind
of tree which it comes, also does a man reveal
what stock he springs from.'�
36
16. WILL IAM S ALE S BURY
(? 1 520-? 1 599)
WE know very little about William Salesbury, apart
from his work. According to his own testimony he
was born in Llansannan. He was of aristocratic Norman
blood and was the son of Ffowc Salesbury, Y Plas Isa,
Llanrwst, Denbighshire. It is probable that he received
his early education at Maenan Abbey, near Ll�st,
and he then proceeded to Oxford. After graduatmg
there he went to live for some time in London ; he
afterwards returned to Wales, and it was in Wales that
he lived for the rest of his life.
It was in Oxford, probably, that Salesbury began to
think about a Welsh Bible for Wales. He tried to con­
vince the Welsh peopl e of their need, and advocated
asking the king's pennission to have the Bible trans­
lated into WeL Ffe also appealed to the bishops to
teach the Welsh p eople in their own language. In 1 5 5 1
h e published his translation o f the lessons which were
read in the church, under the title Kynniver llith a ban.
D uring the reign of Mary he had to keep silent, but
in 156 1 it was ordained that the lessons should b e
read in Welsh, after they had been read in English.
In 1 563 a law was passed, commanding that the Bible
and the Prayer Book should be translated into Welsh,
and setting a period of three years during which the
work must be completed. It was not completed in
three years ; in 1 567 a translation of the New Testament
and ,the Prayer Book was published, the greater part
of the former by William Salesbury and the latter by
Dr. Richard Davies, Bishop of St. David's. Salesbwy
was assisted in the work of translating the Ne w Testa­
ment by Dr. Richard Davies and Thomas Huet'
Precentor of St. David's.
Salesbury was a man of strong opinions. He was a
great scholar, and in translating the New Testament
his scholarship, on occasion, got the better of hi �
common se�se. In his pr nted version he ignored the
�
nasal mutation ; he used d1fferent type to indicate that
37
part of a literary word which differed from the colloquial
form and he changed the spelling of some words so
·

�
as to ake them resemble more closely the Latin words
from which they had sprung. These are but some of
the characteristics of his translation, and the consequence
was that the work did not prove to be generally accept­
able. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that
Salesbury's intention was to produce a book that would
be understood by everybody.

It is said that Salesbury and Dr. Richard Davies ,

began the work of translating the Old Testament; but
that they disagreed on the meaning of some word, and
so proceeded no further. However that may be, Wales
had to wait for another twenty years before it was
given a Welsh version of the whole Bible by Dr. William
Morgan (q.v. ).
·

In addition to his translations 9f the Lessons and the

New Testament, Salesbury published an edition of
Gruffydd Hiraethog's Welsh proverbs, an English­
Welsh dictionary, and a number of minor works .

His chief work, of course, is his translation of the

New Testament, and it is possible that the mutilations
to which he subjected the language have caused him
to receive less praise than he deservfs for this important
work. When all criticism is done, two things should
be remembered of him ; in the first place, he l�d the
movement for translating the Bible into Welsh, ahtl he
was its first modem translator ; in the second lace, p
although he was so opinionated, he had a real feeling
for Welsh style and idiom, and in his translation of the
New Testament he "laid a sound foundation for · the
translations of the next two centuries, and for modem
Welsh, which is able to deal in its own idiom with the
most complicated subjects.

38
17. GRUF FYDD ROBERT

(c. 1 522-?).
GRUFFYDJ? ROBERT is one of the greates t Welshmen of
the Re�aissance. The time �d place of his birth are
�ncert�, but he evidently came from a locality where
literary life flourished . At an early age he had mastered
the rules of poetic art and of song, and delighted in
early Welsh literature.
Little is known of his education and of his early
years . He was appointed Archdeacon of Anglesey in
1 5 58, when his friend Morys Clynnog was serving at
the court of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Within a
month of his appointment Queen Mary died and, when
Elizabeth succeeded her, Protestantism became the
official religion, and Gruffydd Robert, together with
many others of the Catholic faith, was eventually forced
to leave this country and flee to the Continent. Early in
1 5 6 4, he was chaplain at the English hospital in Rome.
Soon afterwards, he was given office in the household of
one of the most outstanding figures of the period, Card­
inal Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, in whose
service he remained for twenty years . Here he met
some of the most illustrious scholars of the day, and came
mto the full stream of European scholarship and learning.
He was appointed one of Borromeo's confessors, and
qecan;ie Divine Canon in Milan Cathedral. He retired
froni : -Office in 1 584, and died in Milan.
One of his literary works, Y Drych Cn.stianogawl
(The Christian Mirror), was sent home to Wales in
manuscript, and according to a Welsh song of the
period, it was printed secretly in a cave near Penrhyn
Creuddyn in Caernarvonshire. But Gruffydd Robert's
great wprk is hi� Gramadeg Cy'!'ra:g (W.elsh Gr�ar)
which , he was nnpelled to wnte In exile by a desire
to initiate his fellow countrymen into the mysteries of
poetic art . . Th7 fir�t part, called Dost:arth Byrr was
published In Milan In 1 567. The dedi�atory letter to
William Herb ert, Earl of Pembroke, Is a classic of

39
 grammar, writ ten i n �he for m of
Welsh prose, and the .
rsation betw een the aut hor and his fnend Morys
a conve
.
_ 1 . rature.
Clynnog, is its elf a pie ce of 1te
The second part deals with the parts of speec h,
cynghanedd and metrical form s . Among other exam� les,
to illustrate his work, Gruffy ��
Rob ert quotes l �nes
and verses of his own compos1t1on. These quotations
show that he was skilled in free and strict versification..
The free metres are dealt with here for the first time,
and are given equal importance with the strict form s of
the bardic masters.
In one of the two appendices to the Grammar, we
find a collection of poems, the only collectiori of Welsh
poetry hitherto published, with the possible ex cep tion
of a work by William Midleton.
The Welsh Grammar by Gruffydd Robert is a typical
Renaissance work, characterised by love of country and
native tongue. He wished to make the Welsh anguage, l
like other living languages, a suitable medium to express
the glory of the classics and all knowledge. Gruffydd
Robert can be placed side by side with Dr. John Davies
and Sir John Morris-Jones as one of the chief gramm­
arians of Wales.

18. WILLIAM MID LET ON (GwilYm. .

Canoldref, born about the middle of

the 1 6th cent.). ,, _ .

the W�lsh
WILLIAM MIDLETON (or Miltwn, according to
ets
pa ), was born about the middle of the
l 6th ce�tury;
Archwedlog,
. . ·

m Llansannan, Denbighshir e. Until

latel y he was assumed to be the son
of Richard Mi dleton
g?vernor of De�bigh castle, and
brother, therefore t �
Sir Hu�h and Sir Thomas Mi
concl usively proved that his
l
d eton, but it ha s now · eenb
father was Ffowc A1i dlet on .
a brother to Ri_ chard Mid '
l eton .
The Midletons were an old
aristocratic fami l y who
gave generous welcom '
e to ba rd s and minstrels an
. . )
d
40
 Wi ll iam M idl eton n1 u st h ave seen in his ear l y d a ys
at hon1e many of the famous bards and scho l ar s of

the Va le of Chvyd . It was from one of these that he

received t � e educ� tion befitting a cultured Welshman
of the penod . William Salcsbury, the translator o_f �he
Ne\v Testament into Welsh' another of the d1sun­
..

guished sons of Llansannan, became his great friend

and mentor.
Little is kno"rn of his life until 1 575, when we find
him in the service of the Earl of Pembroke, one of the
Herbert family, who was a generous · patron of Welsh
scholars and poets . The Earl 's second wife was a si s ter
to Sir Philip Sidney, and Midleton probably met the
famous English poet on his visits to his sister's home.
A branch of the Herbert family .lived at Cardiff, and it
was there that Midleton met Sion Dafydd Rhys, who
published a Welsh Grammar in 1 592. Rhys acknow­
ledges that Midleton taught him much concerning poetic
art. In 1 593 Midleton published a book on poetry,
"Bardhoniaeth neu brydydhiaeth," in which the material
that he gave to Sion Dafydd Rhys was collected . His
aim in publishing this work was to teach his fello\v­
countrymen the elements of poetic art, knowledge of
which had hitherto been closely confined to the circle
of the professional bards . Midleton, like Gruffydd
Robert before him, wanted this knowledge put into
print, so that it might be within reach of all.
Midleton fought again st the Spaniards in the Nether­
lands and also went on a military expedition to Portugal.
A life of adventure on the high seas appealed to him>
as it did to many ambitious young men of his day, and

- he became a captain in the Navy. As there were at least

four Captain Mi ddletons living at that time, the tales of
their adventures have no doubt become somewhat
mixed. We know that William Midleton completed
his Welsh metrical version of the Psalms when he was
on board ship in the West Indies in 1 596, and that he
had died before the, work was published in 1 603, for
an elegy to him is included in t}\at volume. He trans­
lated the Psaln1s into the strict }-metres, but as these a r e

41
 unsuitable for congregational singing, Midleton's ver­
sions never achieved popularity, whereas Edmund Prys's
free metre versions published later have been widely
accepted.
A part of Midleton's work was published prior to
1 603, together with some of his poems in the cywydd
metre . Professor G. J. Williams suggests that he w�s
the first to publish a collection of verse in Welsh. This
was a notable event in a period when the pr<?fession� l
bards would sanction no method of preservmg their
compositions but that of copying them in manuscript or
singing them in the homes of the nobility.

19. EDMWND PRYS

(? 1 541-1623).
EDMWND PRYS was descended from a noble family of
Ardudwy, Merionethshire. We cannot be certain about
either the date or the place of his birth, and we do not
know where he received his early education. He
graduated at Cambridge University in 1 567, and took
his M.A., in 1 57 1 . He was ordained priest in 1 56 7,
held livings in Maentwrog and Ffestiniog, became
Archdeacon of Merioneth in 1 576, and a canon of
St. Asaph in 1 6 1 2. He lived at Maentwrog for the
greater part of his life, and died there in 1 623 .
Edinwnd Prys was an accomplished scholar ; in one
of his disputations in verse with William Cynw�!, he
says that he is master of eight languages. He was also
a poet of considerable merit and was master of the
craft of writing in the "strict" metres . He is said to
have assisted Bishop Morgan in his work of transl�ting
the Bible ; he translated part of the Old Testament, but
we are not certain about his exact share in the work.
He wrote much poetry in the "strict" metres, as
well as in the "free" metres. In the former his best
known works are the poems in which he disputes with
William Cynwal. It should be remembered that

42
di s p u t a ti o ns in verse wer e part of the Welsh poetic
tradi tio n, a nd gave poets excellent opportu nity to make
nents . But this "dispute" between
p oi nted s tate1
E dinwnd Prys and William Cynwal is more than an
exercis e in a traditional mode . They represented two
tra ditions, and in the "dispute" we may see where
th ese clashed . William Cynwal represented the older
Welsh tradition ; he held that Edmwnd Prys was no
poet, since he had not received the traditional education
of a poet, had not been the disciple of a Pencerdd, and
had not mastered either the metres or the traditions of
poetry. In short, William Cynwal held that Edmwnd
Prys, for all his learning, was not a man of culture.
Edmwnd Prys, on the other hand, held that culture
was impossible outside the University ; he loved the
Welsh language and Welsh literature, but this in his
opinion \Vas not sufficient foundation for culture.
Each had grasped some part of the truth.

Important though this part of Edmwnd Prys 's work

is, he is best remembered to-day for his Salmau Can
(Metrical Psalms) which he published in 1 62 1 . Examples
of these may be found in the hymn books of every
denomination in Wales_, though the text has been con­
siderably altered. Here again we may see Edmwnd
·pry� trying to adapt his ideas about literature and
cul¥e ; he is attempting to adapt the Welsh language
and Welsh poetry to a new purpose, to extend their
function and thereby to give them new purpose.
Considered as experiments the Metrical Psalrns are not
succ�ssful . Dr. T. Gwynn Jones praises the mastery
of the · Welsh language shown by Edmwnd Prys, but
"as a test of mastery over accented verse they are a
sorry failure." But though some of the lines are halting
the Metrical Psalms wil� be sung and remembered b
. ;
genet�tlon afte� generation of Welsh people, and will
always find a nghtful place in the hymn books of the
nation .

43
20. DR. \VllJLIAM MORGAN
( 1 545-1 604).
n
\'XTILLIAM MORGAN was born in T y Mawr, Wybrna �,.
his
Nant Conwy . It is not certain where h � rec� 1ved
early education, but he went to Cambndge .1!1 1 565,
about the same time as Edmwnd Prys . He received the
living of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mo chnant in 1 572, after
having been in Llanbadarn Fawr and Welshp�ol �
He had an unhappy time at Llanrhaeadr, owmg :
chiefly to the enmity of one of the rich_ famili�s of t�e
district. But, in spite of his trouble s, it was 1n Llart-·
rhaeadr, in 1 587, that he completed the great work of
his life, the translation of the Bible into Welsh. The
translation was published in. 1 588. Dr. Morgan was
consecrated Bishop of Llandaff in 1 595, and Bishop of St.
Asaph in 1 60 1 . He died at St. Asaph in 1 604. ..
It is not known how long William Morgan was ·

occupied with the translation of the Bible, or how much

help he received. It is certain that, while he was at
Llanrhaeadr, he was encouraged by Archbishop Whitgift ,
to proceed with the · work, and it is said that Edmwnd .
Prys was among those who assisted him. But the bulk .'
of the work of translating the Old Testament and re­
vising Salesbury's translation of the New Testament,
fell on Morgan's shoulders .
The Bible of 1 588 is probably the most important
book in the history of the language and literature of
Wales. It is not too much to say that it saved the
l �nguage itself. . The period in which .William Morgan
hved was a penod of alanrun .
g decay 1n the history of
the language . He would have found neither inspiration
nor model in the contemporary language, and he had
to go back, far back, to the Mabinogion and t
he
Romances, and some of the translations like the Eluc£­
darium . There was abundant material, too, in the work
of t�e poets of the fifteenth century. Out of all this
.
W11�1� Morgan fashi oned a language fit for his purpose,
avo1d1ng the pedantry of Salesbury on the one hand
and the corrupt forms of contemporary speech on the
other . ·

44
 P roo� of Wil� iam Morgan's ama zing su ccess is to be
found 1 n t h e infl uence whi ch t he Bible of 1 588 ha s
exerted on th e language, literature and religious life of
Wsl � . It ga y e the language a new leas e of life and
provided writ ers with a pattern . As the peopl e
learned to read the Bible through the s chool s of Griffi th
J on�s ( q . v . ) , and others , the l an gua ge of the Bible be gan
to influence spoken Welsh, and th e pulpit s erved to
strengthen this influence . One might naturally ex pect
�o !lote this influence on the "speech of the chapel," but
1t is only necess ary to read some of our Welsh plays to
realise how the influence of the Bible of 1 5 88 has per­
meated from the chapel into the home, the shop, and the
street. By today, it is woven into the pattern of the
language, and it is not too much to say that every Wels h­
man who speaks Welsh is under a deep obligation to
William Morgan.
·

21. SIR JOHN WYNN OF GWYDIR

(1553-1626).
SIR JoHN WYNN was born in 1 553, at the mansion of
Gwydir, in the vale of Conway, Caernarvonshire.
He was the eldest son of Morris Wynn, anci came of
ancient lineage, being thirteenth in direct descent from
Owain Gwynedd. · He succeeded to the Gwydir estate
in 1 580, after studying law at the Inner Temple. There­
after, he devoted the remainder of his life with con­
siderable energy, but completely without scruple, to
enhancing his own prosperity and · that of his large
family. In this he achieved such success that the Wynns
of Gwydir became the most powerful and influential
family in North Wales. In 1 588 and 1 603, he was Sheriff
of Caernarvonshire, and in 1 589 and 1 60 1 , Sheriff
of Merioneth, and M.P. for Caemarvonshire, 1 586-87 .
In 1 608 he was knighted, became a member of the
Court of the Council in the Marches in the same year,
and w as ma de one of the newly-created order of baronets
in 1 6 1 1 .
He was a competent scholar, and possessed the
45
Renaissance love of the fine arts, more especially of
architecture . He made his mansion of Gwydir a place
of singular beauty. He was also a liberal patron of
learning, and the literary work of his kinsman, Tomos
Wiliems ( 1 550- 1 620) compiler of the Welsh-Latin
dictionary, owed much to his encouragement. Th e
manuscript of this dictionary was entrusted by Sir John
to Dr. John Davies, of Mallwyd, who revised and added
to it. Subsequently, it was published at the expense of
Sir Richard Wynn, the second baronet. .
. .,·:

In 1 594, Sir John, together with several of the gentry ·

of North Wales, petitioned for a royal commission to
hold an eisteddfod similar to the one held at Caerwy�
in 1 568.
He is now remembered, however, for his History · of ;
·

the Gwydir Family which he wrote primarily for the

purpose of establishing his ancient lineage and of
glorifying his family. But it is the only extant wprk
which gives an approximately contemporary account of
the state of society in North Wales in the l Sth and.
early l 6th centuries, and is, therefore, a most valuable·
contribution to the social history of Wales.
His graphic and lively narrative vividly portrays the
family feuds, the lawlessness and the banditry which
prevailed in North Wales (as in other ·areas of England
and Wales) in th� period following the close of the
Wars of the Roses . In his own words, "in those d�yes
and in that wilde worlde everye man stood upon his
guarde, and went not abroade but in sorte and . soe
armed as yf he went to the field to encounter \vith his
enimies.''
Yet, despite the armed rivalry of the landed gentry
who strove with bloodshed and chicanery to extend
their estates at . the expense of their neighbours and 1

their kinsmen, these same people dispensed lavish

h ospitality, often lived in cultured ease, and were
generous patrons of learning and of the fine arts.
S ir John died at Gwydir in 1 6 26 , and was buried at
Llanrwst, where he had founded a school and a hos pital .

46
 B y to day the
- magnificenc e of Gwydir has been
\Vholl y destroyed by time and fire, but Plas Mawr, the
great hou � e erected in the town of Conway by the
W�s , sull stands in good condition, and is carefully
.
maintained as a link between us, the Wynn family
and the age of Queen Elizabeth .

22. JOHN PENRY

(1563- 1 593).
JOHN PENRY was born near Llangamarch, Breconshire,
probably at Cefn Brith. He was educated by a cleric
and, according to some sources, at Christ's College,
Brecon . He went to Peterhouse, Cambridge, in
1 580, graduated there in 1 584, and took his M.A. at
� xford in 1 587. At this time University life was much
influenced by Puritanism, and Penry was in contact
with Presbyterian thinkers at both places.
He was deeply moved by the ignorance and the low
spiritual life of his fe11ow countrymen. He appealed
to Queen Elizabeth and Parliament in die first printed
appeal for the evangelisation of Wales, the Aequity
of an Humble Supplication. He referred to the im­
morality and superstition of the people, attacked the
iniquities of the clergy, and pleaded for the preaching
of the Gospel and for giving the Scriptures to the
people in thei_r own tongue. He says-
"and shall we be in ignorance until we all learne
English ? . . . . Raise up preaching even in
Welsh . . . . But why can we not have preaching
.

1n our owne tong.

''

His appeal was not accepted by Parliament, and

Archbishop Whitgift and his friends opposed it out­
right. Penry was al?p�ehended? . brought before the
Court of High Comnu ss1on and Jailed for a month, and
this for bringing the impoverished spiritual state of
.
Wales to the notice of the authorities
On his release, he continued his work, and in his
Exhortation he protested again against inadequate
47
I
church services and unsuitable clergy. The bishops
were attacked as "soul murderers," and he recom­
me ?ded his fellow-countrymen to employ ministe rs of
their own. The pamphlet was signed by P enry as-
"Y our poore countryman, who in all dutifull
good\vill, hath wholly dedicated himselfe to doe
you good in the Lorde."
By this time the Archbishop's men \vere hunting
for the press and the printers responsible for pamphlets
attacking the government, and known as the Martin
Marprelate Tracts. Penry was suspected of having
had a share in their preparation. He appealed for pro­
tection to Parliament, but he found it better to flee to
Scotland where the Presbyterians gave him sanctua ry
from 1 589 to 1 592. .
·
'1

When he returned to London, he took a promirient

part in the meetings of Independents, and was arrested
for the second time. During his imprisonment, · he
wrote tender letters to his young family and a Declara ­

tion of Faith and Allegiance in which he said that- · ,: .

''Imprisonments, indictments, arraignments,

yea, death itself, are no weapons to convince the
conscience grounded upon the Word of the Lord,
and accompanied With so many testimonies of
His famous servants and churches ." ·
· ·

He was brought to trial and, despite his learning and

skill in disputation, he was condemned to death. He
was executed on the 9th of May, 1 593.
·

His life was brief, but his intellectual . courage, his

struggle for freedom of conscience, and his patriotic
zeal, place him among the foremost Welshmen . of his
age.
. .

TOMAS PRYS, PLAS IOLYN

(1564?-1 634).
TOMAS PRYS was born early in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth ( 1 558- 1 603) at Plas Jolyn, Y.sbyty Ifan, Den­
bighshire. His great-grandfather, Rhys ap Maredudd,
48
 had fought at Bos,vorth in the anny of Henry VII, and
had borne the king 's banner when the official standard­
bearer was slain in the battle. His grandfather, Robert
ap R: hys, had officiate d
as a royal chaplain under
Cardin al Wol sey ; and his father, Doctor Elis Prys,
was one of th e most influential
men of his period in
W�les, though he was
hard, grasping and tyrannical.
Ehs Prys, known as "The Red Doctor," took a
prominent part in the dissolution of the monasteries
in 'W7ales , thereby acquiring for himself many broa d
acres.
About Tomas Prys we know very little, beyond his
own references to himself in his cywyddau. Like
the sons of other Welsh squires of the period, he went
to �ondon, where he spent much of his time in pleasure­
m aking, after the manner of the reckless and spirited
youth of the Elizabethan age.
But more typical of this stirring period, Tomas Prys
was a daring adventurer, and an able poet and satirist.
Two of his poems give a lively picture of his life in
London. After he had lost most of his money through
prodigality and the deceit of lawyers and money-lenders,
he b ought a ship, and sought to win another fortune
on the high seas by waging war upon the treasure-ships
of Spain.
In spirited verses written in "a quaint hodge­
podge of good Welsh and bad English," he describes
his adventures on one of his voyages. Here are some
extracts :-
"Be Miri ! I see a sayl !
Gif sias, er a gefais i !
Owt topsail, yw lowt tipsi.
Gif way, er y gaeafwynt !
Cynnill ac ynnill y gwynt.
Shwt agayn, broad seid, gunner !
We'll be braf if we haf her.
Ffeight for stor and lef sorrow !
Ffear not ! Shwt the wildffeier now.
Lay her· abwrd, er dwrdiaw
Now enter drwy fenter draw.

D 49
 Gif back lest all be taken !
Os modd to save some men
Wee took unffortunate day ;
Wee find wee mind this Monday !
Crio iawnlef, cur anlwc,
O Lord ! This is too hard lwcc. "

On one expedition in company with a fellow-b ard

and sea-rover he assisted in the taking of a Spanish
ship off the Canaries . Th� ship carried !obacco among
its cargo and Prys and his friends clarmed that they
were th; first to smoke publicly in the streets of
London.
He was also a soldier of fortune, and, if we can accept
the accounts which he gives in his own poems, . he
campaigned in the Low Countries, in France, Germany,
Ireland and Scotland. It is at least certain, how�ver,
that he was in the great muster of troops assellJrbled
at Tilbury to repel the invading Spanish arn1y under
the Duke of Parma.
Before he finally retired to Plas Iolyn, which he had
inherited on the death of his father, he went to live
on Bardsey for a while. He found this lonely island
more congenial, after his seafaring life, than the hills
and valleys of Denbighshire . But later he settled down
on bis estate to the life of a country squire, enjoying
music, writing poetry and rejoicing in the company
of his old friends at Llanrwst, and in the country
mansions around .
Tomas Prys is the most vivid and interesting of all
the Welsh adventurers of the period ; and his poetry
the Welsh p oets of �s
e�hoes almo�t uniquely among
time something of the vast
. , heroic, adventurous sp1nt
of his age. It also reveals him as a lover of nature and
0� the 9uiet b.eauty of the countryside, a man content
with his native sur
roundings, his fields and pools
and cattle , after
a life of singu lar turb\llenc e and
adventure . :.
'

50
24. DR. JOHN DAVIE S
(c. 1 570-- 1 644).
in D e�bigh
DR. JoHN DAVIES was a native of Ll anferres
d
an
shire . He received his early education at Ruthin
1ate d
also studied under Dr. William Morgan, who trans
the Bible into Welsh. .
ng
At this time the Vale of Clwyd and the surroundi
cultural
districts were the centre of very remarkabl e
activity . Here dwelt a number of scholarly men, who� e
mafu interest lay in the copying of manuscript.s and in
collecting the works of the poets . John Davie s c�e
into contact with some of them at an early age, and his
interest was thus aroused in Welsh scholarship .
In 1 589, he proceeded to Jesus College, Oxfor�,
.

graduated in 1 594, and received his doctorate �

1 61 �- He was appointed to the living_ of Mall wyd in
· .

1 604. and the rest of his life was mostly spent there.
His wife was a sister to Dr. Richard Parry, Bishop of
St Asaph, to whom Davies became chaplain in 1 605 .
The revised edition of the 1 588 Bible, which was
published in 1 620 under Dr. Parry's name, is mainly
the work of Dr. John Davies .
He returned to Oxford, to Lincoln College, in 1 608,
and remained there until 1 6 1 2, when he was made Canon ·
of St. Asaph. Amongst the many other livings that he
held were Llanymawddwy, Llanfor (Bala), and Llan­
nefydd (Denbigh). He died in 1 644, and was buried
in the church of Mallwyd.
Dr. John Davies's chief contribution to Welsh
scholarship is his Grammar and his Dictionary.
The former was published in 1 621, and is a scholarly
work wtjtten in Latin, dedicated to Bishop Parry and
wit!i a length¥ introduction addresse� to .Edmund Prys .
This masterpiece follows upon the hngu1stic studies of
William Salesbury, Gruffydd Robert and Sion D afy
dd
Rhy�, who reflect the interest in the art of the
old
bardic. �asters roused by the Renaissance in
Wal.e s .
As this art depended on a thorough knowle
dge of
"grammar," the output of linguis tic works
at this

51
 period was only natural, and of these studies, the
gramma r written by Dr. John Davies is the most
remarkable achievement. This has provided the basis
for all subsequent grammatical study in Wales .
The Dictionary was published in 1 632 in two parts,
Welsh-Latin and Latin-Welsh . A collection of Welsh
proverbs is contained at the end and these are preceded
by a letter in Latin and Welsh addressed to the Welsh
reader. A valuable list of the bards and their periods
is also included.
In addition to these works, Dr. John Davies published
in 1 632 a translated work under the title Llyfr y Resolu­
sion. The original was a version adapted for Protestants
of the Christian D£rectory (Robert Parsons).

25. VICAR PRICHARD

(1 579-c. 1 644).
RHvs PRICHARD was born in Llandovery, Carmarthen­
shire, in 1 5 79. He ent ered J esu College Oxford where
he graduated in 1 602 . In the ame year be was ordained
as priest for Witham (E sex), and wa appointed Vicar
of Llandingad and Llanfai r-ar-y- Bryn (L landovery) .
He also became Rector of Llanedi in 1 6 1 3 , a Canon of
Brecon in the following year, and Chancellor of St.
David's in 1 626. He died about 1 644 , and was buried
in Llandingad .
The name of the "Old Vicar" is associated mainly
with the book Cannwyll y Cymry (The Welshmen's
Candle) which was published after his death by Stephen
Hughes and others . This is a collection of homely
poems by the Vicar. It includes helpful maxims, para­
phrases of scripture, and vivid references to the moral
and social conditions of the period.
It was for unlearned folk that The Welshmen 's Caru:lle
was intended. Here are some verses translated :.
For as I saw famed Sal'sb 'ry's labou red style
Neglected by the unlearned of our isle ; .·

I, therefore took a metre short and plai n,

Easy to read and easy to retain .

52
 And this my book, The Welshmen's G_andle, na me d
Because ther ein I've most since rely ai m , d
Each ignor ant and d arkling mind to light?
And taught him how to serve his God a nght .

The moral condition of his district appear ed to the

Vicar to be very low :-
Ah me ! Llandovery, thou art wanting found,
For God thy sins has in the balance weigh'd ;
In dross and dregs alone dost thou abound :
Of thy Creator henceforth be afraid.
He regretted the ignorance of Welshmen :­

Women and men of low degree,

The very abj ects of the land,
You always may in England see,
Each with his Bible in his hand.
With us ('mongst those, who most abound,
And sumptuously their tables spread)
Scarce can a prayer-book be found,
Or one, who can his Bible read.

He was very delighted when the "Little Bible"

of 1 630 was published :-
The Bible, in thy native tongue
May now e'en for a crown be got.
He emphasised the worth of Holy Scripture :­

Sell all thy goods, sell all thy land,

Sell e'en the shirt upon thy back,
Sell all thou hast at thy command,
Rather than thou God' s Word shouldst lack .
. There was hardly an� clas � of society or aspect of
.
hfe for which the old Vicar did not have some suitable
advice, and that in a form ·which could easily be learnt,
such as :- .

God long will aim before the blow,

His wrath is deadly-sure, tho' slow.
I give this wisdom unto you
Take good advice before you ru e.
In vain one to a doctor flies
For him who on his bier lies .
53
 'Tis foll y on the sand .to sleep
W�ere the ? des are wont to creep ;
Sttll worse 1n dull and wretched sloth to lie
Close on the brink of vast eternity.

As a prophet of God, the Vicar did not hesitate to

thunder against the evils of his age in Church and State ;
but at the same time he thought highly of the function
of the church and especially of the work of preaching :-
Some use one for a broken pot may find,
But naught can with an idle priest be done.
Ne'er in a clime, where there's no day,
Nor in a land where there's no rain,
Nor ship without a compass) stay,
Ne'er, where there is no priest, remain .

When the Civil War broke out (1 642), the Vicar was
a zealous royalist.
In his prefatory verses to "Cannwyll y Cymry,"
Stephen Hughes hoped that the book would succeed
in its obiect of enlightening Wal es . The frequent
reprints made of the book show how deep and abiding
was its influence on Welsh people. It is not surprising
that one of the characters in the novel, "Rhys Lewis,"
quoted a stanza from the work of the Old Vicar of
Llandovery as if it were a familiar verse from the Bible.

26. ARCHBISHOP JOHN WILLIAMS

(1582-1 650).
]oHN WILLIAMS, Dean of Salisbury, Dean of West­
minster, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Bishop of
Lincoln and Archbishop of York, was born in Conway
in 1 582. He was a scion of two prominen� North Wales
country families, the Williams of Cochwillan and the
Griffiths of Penrhyn : and a, kinsman of the Wynns of
Gwydir. Sir John -Wtynn was also his godfather.
After receiving his early education at Ruthin Grammar
School (founded about 1 574 by Gabriel Goodman,

54
D ean of Westminster, in his native town), John Williams
entered St. John' s College, Camb ridge, in his l 6th
ye�r One of his biographers, John Hackett, says t at �
�
·
.

Wtl 1ams came to Cambridge "better stock'd with

Lann and Greek than with good English," and that
�
e wa� teased at first by his fellow-undergradu ates,
for his Welsh ton e." His industry and schol arshi. p
were remarkable, and he became a Fellow of St. John's
and a Proctor of the University.

�hile he was still at Cambridge his personality and

ab1hty attracted the interest of Lord Chancellor Elles­
mere, who made him his domestic chaplain and gave
him lucrative church appointments . It was under
Ellesmere that he obtained his first real training in
l egal affairs and in statesmanship. After Ellesmere's
death, he won the favour of king James I ( 1603-1 625),
and in 1 6 1 9 was appointed Dean of Salisbury. Through
the influ�nce of the royal favourite, the Duke of
Buckingham, he became Dean of Westminster in 1 620 ;
and in 162 1 , when Francis Bacon, who had succeeded
Ellesmere as Lord Chancellor, fell from power, John
Willi�s was made Lord Keeper and virtual Lord
Chancellor. In the same year he was consecrated
Bishop of Lincoln.

King · . James was now embroiled in disputes with

Parliament, and Williams was a strong supporter of the .
king's th�ory of the royal prerogative, "The Divine Right
. of Kings�' ; though. . at the �ame time, he counselled
James to moderation in the matter of parliamentary
priv�eges . . Soon, however, he incurred the fierce
hostility of Buckingham ; and later, the bitter enmity
of Laud whom he had recommended for the Bishopric
of St. David's.

The new king, Charles I (1625- 1649), was even more

under the influence of Buckingham than his father
had been ; and Williams opposed the lack of moderation
and the intolerance shown by them. As a result he was
dismissed from his office of Lord Keeper in the first

55
year of the king's reign. The historian Gardiner wrote
"if Williams had been trusted by Charles instead of
Laud, there would have been no Civil War, and no
dethronement. "

In 1 625, ·Williams withdrew to his see of Lincoln,

and lived for the next twelve years in his magnificent
palace of Buckden, entertaining on a lavish scale and
edu cating many of the sons of the nobility at his home.
In 1 628, he supported the Petition of Right, and
counselled the king to conciliate the Puritan party in
parliament. But his advice was not heeded and Charles
entered upon his fatal eleven years of arbitrary r ule .
The ecclesiastical policy of Laud, appointed Arch­
bishop of Canterbury in 1 633, was soon to drive the
nation into revolt. He intrigued diligently against John
Williams, and in 1 63 7 the latter was arraigned on
various charges before the Star Chamber, fined £ 1 0,000 ,
sus pended from his Bishopric of Lincoln and his
Deanery of Westminster, and imprisoned in the Tower
of London.

But in 1 640, the Long Parliament released W illiam s

and arrested Laud . As a concession to his less violent
opponents Charles appointed Williams Archbishop of
York, and the latter thus be ame the virtual head of the
English Church, for Laud remained a prisoner until
his execution in 1 645 .
But Charl es was too late . Public opinion was
t horoughly hostile towards the king and the bishops .
A London mob surg.ed around Westminster Abbey
shouting "No Bishops ! No Popish Lords !" · and
Williams narrowly escaped serious injury. Later, at
the head of the body of bishops, Williams issu�d ''The
Bishops' Remonstrance," and as a result he · and nine
other bishops were tried and committe� to prison for
1 8 weeks . On their release, they were· excluded from
Parliament.
Civil war broke out in 1 642, and Williams soon fled
to North Wales which was strongly royalist. The re he
·

fortified and garrisoned Conway for Charles . But

56
Si� John Owen of Clenennau, under the commi ss i on of
Pnn�e Ru p ert, demanded the handing over of Conway
to himself. The Archbi sho p stoutly refused, an d Sir
John stormed Conw ay like an enemy. Though king
Charles condoned Owen's conduct Williams remaine d
loyal to his monarch for some ti�e. But when the
royal cause became hopeless, he negotiated with the
Parliament leader, Colonel Mytton, and assisted him
in the capture of Conway. He also approached Crom­
well, -offering his services in the pacification of North
Wales, and urging him to moderation in his treatment
of the royalists.
He · ·was at Gwydir when the news of the execution
of Charles (1 649) reached him, and was profoundly
affected, In 1 650, he died on his 68th birthday at
Gloddaeth, ..the home of his royalist kinswoman Lady
MostYn, and was buried at Llandegai.
John W�iams was one of the greatest o f the Welsh­
men who �o loyally and ably served the English crown.
Had his- counsels of moderation, compromise and
·

expediency been listened to by his royal masters, the

history of Britain might have run a very different
1·

cours� }:Ie had few. spiritual gifts, and was essentially

• ..· · ·

an opp�ttµ:nist. 1But he was a man of singular brilliance

whose $�teoric career is full of drama, ending on the
note of tragedy.
·

· . . ·

Like Sir John Wynn, he was a typical Renaissance

.

personalicy, a great patron of learning at both Univer­

sities, and, a lover of the fine arts, especially music and
architecture.

27. MORGAN LLWYD

(1619�1659).
LITTLE is ·known of Morgan Llwyd's early years.
It may be. assumed that he was born at Cynfal, near
Ffestiniog, and that he was a grandson of Hugh Llwyd,
one of the famous noblemen of Ardudwy.

57
 but it is
It is not known where he was educated,
where he
likely that he went to school in Wrexham,
Cradoc.
may have come under the influence of Walter
flee
In 1 635, Cradoc was persecuted and forced to _
e,
to Sir Robert Harley's home at St. Mary Waterdin
Shropshire. He was followed there by Morgan Llwyd,
and again, in turn, to Llanfaches in 1 64 1 . For some years
from 1 642 onwards, Morgan Llwyd wandered hither
and thither with the Army and Navy of the Parlia­
mentarians ; references to the towns he visited are
to· be found in his poem, Hanes Rhyw Gymro. Between
1 645 and 1 647 he spent a considerable time in London,
and came into touch with some of the religious and
political leaders of the Civil War period. He came under
the influence of the Quakers, the Fifth Monarchy
Men, and the mysticism of Jacob Boehme. It is likely
that it \Vas during this period that he fonned his ideas
about freedom of conscience and the relationship of
Church and State. He returned to Wrexham in 1 647,
and devoted himself to preaching and to writing.
Wherever he found people willing to listen to him,
he preached, whether in houses, in barns, in highways
and byways, or in the streets. Exceptional . oppor­
tunities for spreading his opinions concerning �eligion
and education came his way when he was appointed
Approver under the Act for the Propagatio n of the
Gospel for Wales. Amongs t his chief works, publishe d
fr<.'m 1 653 onward, are =-:-Llythyr i'r Cymry Cariadus ;
.
Llyfr y Tn Aderyn (a discourse between three birds­
�
the Eagle, the D ve, �d the Raven) ; Gwaedd yng ..
.
Nghymru ; Gai r o r Gai r. He also wrote a num ber of
poems both in Welsh and in English, but it is in his pros
_ e
works �at we see �':1den ce of the greatness and dignity
�
o the literary �adinon of Ardudwy. Ro bert Jon
es of
Rhosl � states m Drych yr Amseroedd t
hat Morgan
1: !
1wyd ,was a man o strong faculties,
noted for his
p�ety, very profo�d m thought, mysti
. cal in many of
his expressions, his letters and his books
' an d difficult
for many to comprehend. "
After the dissolution of the
. Barebones Parliilmen
Morgan Llwyd turned again t,
st Cromwell, an d h
e and
58
Va�asor Powell attacked him violently. This led to a
split among the leaders of the Puritan movement in
W al �s, but Morgan Llwyd clung tenaciously to his
.
convtetlons .
In his later years he saw his hopes vanishing. He
died, in 1 659, at the age of forty.

28. HUW MORUS

( 1 622-1 709).
Huw MoRus was born in the farmhouse of Pont-y­
Meibion, in the Ceiriog Valley. He lived there through­
out his life, and was buried near the wall of Llanisilin
church . The greater part of his work was collected by
Gwallter Mechain, and was published by him under the
title of Bos Ceiriog in 1 823 .
Huw Morus's work belongs to the period when the
old bardic tradition , had almost died out, and poetry in
the "free" metres was winning its place. In the work
of Edrilwnd Prys (q.v.) may be seen both kinds of
poetry, · and at the . end of his life we see Ed.mwnd Prys
turning · ·definitely towards composition in the "free"
metres, · but. yet · preserving some echo of the older
poetry in the "strict" metres. Ed.mwnd Prys died in
1 623, .. and ' in the work of Huw Morus we see poetry in
the "free" metres developing in three directions . · The
number of the measures increases, and the pattern
·

becomes · more complicated ; the influences of the older

tradition are less· marked ; the poem is usually linked
to singing, and at the head of many of the poems is
given the air to which they were intended to be sung.
Huw Morus composed a great deal and on many
themes, political poems, both satirical and laudatory,
love poems, poems describing contemporary life,
epitaphs and carols . The greater part of his poetry is
composed in the "free" metres, but he could compose
effectively in the "strict" metres and he could write
a good englyn. He was a stout churchman and was on
the king's side in the Civil War, as may be seen
59
 a e n <:>t
in his political verse . Thes e poem s, h owev er, �
. =.

m his.
a s well known as his love poems . Here, as
.

carols and some of his epitaphs, Hu\� oru s is . .seen

�
� e
at his best . They were compos ed for s1ng1n� ; they �
� the� r
full of enjoyment and vigour, they move qu1c ly,
pattern is complicated, the words bubb le ?ver ! s
· .
�
is, perhaps, the source of the most obv1�us .°.f
1s · �
weaknesses, a lack of that economy whi ch is �? .
characteristic of the work of the cywydd poets.
. 'A

The work of Huw Mor.us is important theref�r�, not

only for its own sake, but because it set e wr1�g of
�
poetry in the "free" metres securely o� its fe�t. : ·1'�
.
died in 1 709 ; seven years afterwards Wilham Williams,_
Pantycelyn (q.v.) was born .

..

29. EDWARD MOR US

(?-1 689).
WE know little about Edward Morris . He· .Jived near
Cerrig-y-Drudion, Denbighshire. He was '.a. dr'dver by
profession, buying cattle in North Wales:; and. driving .
them across England to London. Huw M.,9ros� . in his
·

elegy, says that Edward Moros died iri Essex 'in 1 689.
Edward Moros and Hu\v Morus bel�rtg ·�to the same
period, and they wrote very much . the . same kind of
poetry, both in theme and in treatm·ent . . · But; though
we find similarities in their poetry .there aie notable
differences. The patterns of Edward Morus's verses
are not as numerous or as complicated as those of Huw
Morus ; though Edward Moru s's · poems are full of \vit
and humour, he is gentler on the whole, ·and less inclined
to moralise than Huw Mor us. Both used the "stri ct"
metres as well as the "free" metr es, but . Edw ard Mor us
is a greater master of the former.
·

His best known poems are his carols, especially

his
" Carol to Su� er" and his "'Carol to Win
. ter. " He
was espec1a ll Y gifted at this kind of composition ;
. the
touches are ligh t but firm , the descriptions and the lov
e

60
poetry move together easily, and t h e measure is s1!1 ooth
and �asy. He had a particular gift for describing arumals,
_
as one m ight expect since he was a drover. His close and
accurate descri ptions of birds and animals have become
well known ; the best probably are those of the Bul l
and the Peacock.

3'<>- EDWARD LHUYD (LLWYD)

( 1 660-1 709).
E,nwARn LHUYD was the chief figure in the "Anti­
quarian" movement in Wales towards the end of the
seventeenth and the beginning _of the eighteenth
century .
He �as born in the parish of Lappiton, Oswestry, and
received . his early · education at Oswestry Grammar
School, where he probably taught for a short period
pefore proceeding to Jesus College, Oxford, in 1 682.
He was appointed Assistant Keeper of the Ashmolean
Museum at . Qxford, and later became its Keeper. I�huyd
travelled widely tp collect specimens in natural history
for the· inuse1im, and he laboured hard to arrange and
classify ·its �ontents . His first published work was a
well-arr.angeq catalogue of the fossils in the Museum,
and this �stabij.shed his repute as the best naturalist in
·

Europe.' tj •

Aided by . subscriptions, Lhuyd spent the next five

years on an extended scientific and antiquarian tour
of all the Celtic countries . He laboured ceaselessly to
colleGt fpssils a11:d curios ; he studied the Celtic
langriages ;. he ·copied and collected manuscripts ; he
enlighte�ed the ignonnu and prejudiced on the civilisa­
tion . of the Highlat?-ders and the Irish people, at a time
when they were regarded almost as barbarians ; and he
extolled the Celtic countries for preserving their
customs and traditions .
As a result of this tour, Lhuyd published, in 1 707, his
great work Archaeolog ia Britannica, a storehouse of
int eresting and valuable information relating to the
Celtic languages. He was the first to deal with the
61
 wor� marks the·
origin of the se langu ages, and h �
i
ve philology . .
beginning of the study of comparati .
a Fe ll ow of th e Ro ya l �o c1ety
In 1 708, he was made
on him the
His university had previousl y conferred
honorary degree of M.A. . . .
he die d in
After a life of tremendou s industry,
poverty in 1 709' and was burie d in
St. Michael's
ich was the·
Church, Oxford, in the "Welsh Aisle, " wh
burial place of Welshmen fr?m J es�s College.
.
1n many
Lhuyd was a great and industrious scholar
fields of knowledge, botany, geology, various bran�hes
of archaeology, and the Celtic l a�gua�es . He repre­
sented the learning of his age at 1ts �g�est . and b � st,.
an age of delving into anti quities and rich in discoveries..
Learned men of his period, in Britain and on the Con­
tinent, held him in very high esteem.

31. ELLIS WYNNE

(1671-1734).
ELLIS WYNNE was born at Y Las Ynys, a farmhouse near
Harlech in Merioneth. Little is kriown of his early
education, but it is presumed th�t .)le entered , Jesus
College, Oxford, about 1 69 1 . It ·· is _said that l)e was · at
first a lawyer, and that it was at�· the exhortation of .·

Dr. Humphreys, Bishop of Bangor, · that he took Holy

Orders. He was given the living of �landanwg in 1 705,.
and moved to Llanfair-cum-Harlech in 1 7 1 1 . He died
in 1 734, and was buried in Llanfair Church.
Rheol Buchedd Sanctaidd, his translation· of Bishop ·
Jeremy �aylor' s The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living,.
was published . 1 ?O 1 . In 1 703, his Gweledi aethau y
�? g
.
Bar�d Cwsc ( :V1s1o ns of the Sleeping · Barq") was
published, and in 1 7 1 0 there was issued an edition of
th� . Bo�k .of Common Prayer amended b y him. This
ediuon is m use to-day. .4

His most famous work is Gweledi aeth

Cwsc, a work which gives him high plac
g au y Iiardd
e among the
masters of Welsh prose. The book contains three
62
 visions, T?� Visi on of the World, the Vision of Death ..
and th� V1 s 1011 of Hell
. Though E llis Wynne borrowed
ext ens i �ely from an
English translation of the work of
a Sp�ard named
Que vedo, his work is nevertheles s
essentially We lsh, and
faithfully portrays the life of
� ales at the clos e of the
seventeenth century. The work
IS marked by
vivid imagination, rich language and a
terse, strong ·style.
In his iIJ.tro duction to an edition of Y Bardd Cwsc,
publ ished in Bangor in 1898 Sir John
Morris Jones
�
states , "Ellis Wynne 's style i distinguished not only
for ters e Welsh constructions and wealth of vocabulary.
He is more than the mere craftsman who can use tools
correctly, he is the genius who can handle them superbly. "

32. GRIFFITH JONES

(1 683-1761).
LITTLE is known of the early Jears of Griffith Jones .
He was born at Pant-yr-efel, in the parish of Penboyr,
. Carmarthenshire, and probably went to the Grammar
School at Carmarthen, where he prepared himself for
Holy Orders . He was ordained in 1 708, held a curacy
at Laugharne, aQd _ received the living of Llandeilo
Abercywyn in 1 71 L Sir John Philipps, Picton Castle,
..

( 1662- 1 73 7), a weahhy man prominent in religious and

reform movements of the beginning of the century,
bestowed upon him� 'in 1716, the living of Llanddowror,
where he remained ·until his death forty-five years later.
In 1 720 he married Sir John's sister.
Although Griffith Jones influenced several of his
famous contemporaries by his preaching, he is remem­
bered mainly for his work for education in Wales. He
realised the difficulty of preparing illiterate people to
receive the sacraments, and began to teach people of
all ages to read the Bible and the Catechism. His
method was to open a school for three months in a neigh­
bourhood, and to use the village church for that purpose,
when the incumb ent approved ; for those \\1ho could
not attend in the day-time, classes were arranged in the
63
 evenings. Books were obtained fr om the Soci ety for
the Promotion of Christian Knowledge by Griffith
Jones, and he trained teachers himself at Llan ddowror ;
he insisted on · their membership of the Church of
England and their loyalty to the Crown.
To cover expenses he collected subscriptions, from
Englan d in the main, and \\Tote for the subscribers an
�nual report called Welch Piety. In these reports,
1n addition to giving statistics, he indicated some of
the consequences of teaching people to read. .
Griffith Jones died in 1 76 1 , but the work was earn ed
on by his friend Madam Bridget Bevan, a cultured lad y
of 1neans and leisure who died in 1 777.
In the actual year of Griffith Jones ' death, 8,023
pupils had attended th e 2 1 0 schools then in existence,
and it was claimed that over 1 50,000 persons between
six and 70 years of age had learnt to read their Welsh
Bibles in the circulating schools in the twenty-four
years of their existence. The school helped th
Methodist Revival in Wales, and almost all the early
leaders of the movement came into close contact wi th
Griffith Jones ; this made some clerg.yrnen oppo e the
schools and scorn their founder and organizer. Despite •

this, the Circulating Schools were the means of creating

an army of readers conversant with the standard language
of the Welsh Bible, and thus made possible the awaken-
ing of interest in education among Welsh people in the
following century.
. .,

33· THEOPHIL US EVANS • tit I

(1 693-1 767).
THEOPHILUS E VAN S was born at Penywennallt, a farm­
house near Newcastle Emlyn, C ardiganshire. His family
was wealthy and ardently royalist ; his grandfather had
fought for the king in the Civil War.
At an early age he developed an interest in literature.
This was doubtless stimulated by the strong literary
tradition prevailing in the district where he lived. I t
i� highly probable that he attended the Queen Elizabeth
64
 have
Gr a mn1ar Schoo l at Carm a rthe n, whe re he wou ld
received a sound classical edu catio n.
In 1 7 1 7 he was ordained and beca me curate of
'
Defynnog, B reconsh ire, where Moses Will ia!11 s ( 1 686-
1 742) \Vas the Vicar . Through him Theophilus Evans
came und er the influe nce of Humphr ey Llwy d , author
of Historie of Can1bria ( 1 584). This became ? ne of the
.
chief sources of Drych y Prif Oesoedd, Evans s greatest
work.
From 1 722-25, he was Vicar of Llandyfr!og, near hi s
home, and afterwards held several livings in Brecon ­
s hire, includi ng Llanynys and Tir yr Abad, L}an- ·

gamarch, and Llanfaes, near Brecon. William

Williams, Pantycelyn, the famous hymn -writer, served
as h is curate at Llanwrtyd in 1 740, but was obliged
to leave because of his strong Methodist. sympathies .
Theophilus Evans greatly disliked th'e- Methodists and
all "enthusiasts" who tended to break away from the ·
·

Established Church .
He died in 1 767 and was buried in Llangamarch
Church.
He published several works, both original and in
translation, but his most outstanding achievement is
Drych y Prif Oesoedd. This work places him in the
front rank of Welsh prose writers .
·

Drych y Prif Oesoedd is a product of the Antiquarian

Movement, and of the interest, dating back to the time
of the Renaissance, in the early history of the nation.
I t s main sources are ( 1 ) The History of the Kings of
Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth-a historical ro­
mance of the l 2th century, glorifying the Britions and
modelled on Virgil's Aeneid. (2) Historie . of Cambn'a ,
by Humphrey Llwyd ; (3) a work by the Breton abbot,
Pezron, and ( 4) the writings of Edward Lhuyd.
Like Geoffrey of Monmouth, Theophilus Evans
aimed at glorifying the Welsh nation . Drych y Pnf
Oesoedd, therefore, is n ?t so mu� h a h�story as a prose
.
�pie. Once the auth?r s obJect 1s realised, the strange
.
theories about the ong1n of the Welsh people and the
Welsh l anguage, and the use of fantastic tales from quite

E 65
"
contradictory sources, all take their place as part of .
the writer's plan and purpose . Drych y Przf Oesoedd is
the work of a great literary artist ; it is a historical
i;-omance, a storehouse of splendid tales, and a classic
of Welsh prose.
Theophilus Evans can tell a story vividly ; he has the
gift of the old Welsh cyfarwydd (the professional story­
teller) . He can write eloquent descriptive passages,
and he can weave in old Welsh proverbs and Biblical
quotations to clinch his argument neatly. His vocabulary­
is rich and his constructions vigorous . One of the most
notable characteristics of his style is the us e he makes
of extended similes, as for example, in his description
of the tottering Roman Empire.

34· LEWI S MORRI S

(1 700?-1 765).
LEWIS MORRIS was born at the foot of Bodafon mountain
in the parish of Llanfihangel-tre'r- beirdd, Anglesey.
His father, Morris Prichard, was a carpenter and cooper,
and was a descendant of the old arisrocratic family of
Bulkeley. He learnt his father's craft, but when he was
very young he began to take an interest in Welsh
literature and in old manuscripts . From 1 729 till 1 743
he held the office of surveyor of taxes in Beaumaris and
Holyhead. During these years �e had learnt the work
of a land surveyor, and the Admiralty entrusted him
with the duty of making a map of the Welsh coast. In
1 746., he was appointed sub-steward of the Crown lands
in Cardiganshire and went to live in Penbryn, the home
of his second wife . From this time to the end of his
li.fe Lewis Morris was beset with trouple and anxiety.
He fell into controversy with some of the mino r
•\

Cardiganshire squires, in connecti.ov.: ; ·With the lead-

mining rights . in the land over which he had supervis ion .
He was bitterly persecuted by his �nemi.es, and onc e
they even succeeded in getting him. thrown into prison.
·H e died in 1 765 and was buried in Llailbadarn Fawr .
66
 Lewis Morris is famous for many reasons. In the
first place he was himself a poet and a man of letters ;
he wrote in the "free" metres and in the "strict"
metres, and he had a talent for writing humorous verse .
I n the second place he was throughout his life a patron of
.
literature and of men of letters ; among others Goronwy
Owen received many a kindness from him and his
brothers . In the third place he was an antiquarian and a
lover of scholarship ; he did his best to collect ancient
Welsh poetry, and to call attention to the tr�asures which
l �y hidden in old manuscripts . He copied some of them
himself, and in 1 735 he set up a printing press in Holy­
head, to publish Welsh books . The ,�enture was not a
success ; two numbers only were published of a journal
which bore the title of Tlysau yr Hen Oesoedd (Treasures
of Ancient Times) .
We may get a good idea of the interests of Lewis
Morris from the letters which he and his brothers,
William and Richard, wrote to one another. These
letters were collected and published in two large volumes
by the late Principal J. H. Davies . In general the
brothers shared the same interests, and their letters not
only give us a picture of themselves, but of life in
Wales in that period as well.
Lewis Morris represents two of the great movements
of eighteenth-century Wales, the "popular" move­
ment and the classical movement. He could understand
and assist the former, and he could also realise the aims
and ambitions of Goronwy Owen, the · chief poet of the
latter. The antiquarian movement was an aspect of
the classical movement, and Lewis Morris toiled hard
to further the aims of that too. Of the three brothers,
Professor Gruffydd · says : "Had these three not
thought their thoughts, had they not done their work
and lived as they did, it is quite certain that the
nineteenth century would have been very different
from what it was, and that Welsh literature to-day would
have been much the poorer. "

67
 35. HYWEL HARRI S
( 1 7 1 4- 1 773).
HYWEL HARRIS was one of the chief leaders of the
Methodist Revival in the eighteenth century, one of the
most important movements in the whole of �elsh
history. The Revival began within the Established
Church, but in 1 8 1 1 the Methodists separated to b : c?�e
another Nonconformist denomination, the Calv1rusttc
Methodists. At first, the Revival was not a matter of
creed or doctrine, but a powerful spiritual force which
swept the country, stirring the nation to its depths,
and rousing it out of its lethargy to new life.

Its most prominent leaders were Hywel Harris of

Trefecca, Daniel Rowland, of Llangeitho, and William
Williams, of Pantycelyn. The three were very young
men at the time ; in 1 735, Harris was 2 1 , Rowland was
22, and Williams 1 9. Of the three, the most remarkable
personality is Hywel Harris .

Born at Trefecca Uchaf, Breconshire, he may have

been educated at Llwynllwyd Academy, and he had in­
tended proceeding to Oxford to prepare for Holy Orders .
The whole course of his life, however, wa� changed by a
remarkable experience which· came, to him in Talgarth
Church in 1 735, when he heard the V�ar ·urging people
to attend Communion on Whit.:.. Sunday. - ._ This was the
first step in Harris's great conversion . . . He now felt
impelled to go round the people of his district, preach­
ing to them and warning them of their sins. This
·

offended the Vicar, who refused to approve him for

ordination. When Harris sought counsel from Griffith
Jones, Llanddowror, he was urged to be moderate and
advised to open a school . He taught . for a while but
the impulse to preach was too strong t�) be checked . ' He
�egan to gather his converts together.: �ji sinall commu
nit­
ies, to exhort them and to strengthen · their faith .
The
first was held in Y Wernos, near Erwood in Brecon
s hire .
Harris met Daniel Rowland (q.v .) in 1 7 3 7, and a

68
friendship imn1ediately grew up between them . �h ey
realised that they had been working along si1nilar hnes
in their various localities, and the two personal move­
ments now joined forces and merged into the full flood
of a wider revival, which soon spread over the whole
of Wales.
Shortly after this, Harris came into contact with the
leaders of English Methodism, Wesley and Whitefield,
the latter of whom exercised such an influence on the
revival in Wales. When a cleavage arose between the
two English leaders in 1 742, Harris and the Welsh
movement decided to follow Whitefield.
By this time the " Societies " were growing so rapidly
throughout Wales that Harris decided to organise
them on the lines of the Societies which he had seen
in London. His great organising ability is apparent
in the framework which he now devised to supervise
the " Societies," to link them together and to connect
them with a central assembly Y Sasiwn (The Associa­
tion). This framework is the one still adhered to by the
Calvinistic Methodists.
The revival spread in a remarkable manner throughout
Wales, aided by the powerful preaching of its leaders,
the increasing " Societies" where people proclaimed
their intense religious experiences, and the unforgettable
effect of the hymns · of Williams, Pantycelyn. Harris
however, was a difficult man to co-operate with. He
was autocratic by nature ; he had begun to preach a
doctrine which was unwelcome to his fellow-leaders,
especially Rowland, and, above all, he had fallen under
the influence of Madam Griffith, of Cefn Amwlch, a
woman who fancied herself as a prophetess and as the
spiritual mother of Methodism in Wales . In 1 750, the
religious movement split openly into two camps-one
under the leadership of Harris and the other of Rowland.
During this unfortunate period in the history of
Methodism in Wales, Harris founded a "community"
in Trefecca, on the lines of experiments conducted by
the Moravians in England and in Gennany. In this

69
 f one fami ly, s haring
conununity all lived as 1nember� � .
on the lan d, pra cn s1n g a gre�t van ety of
all, working
e s a da y.
crafts, and worshipping together three ttm .
at one nm e, they
They ha d over 700 acres of lan d, and
ple fro m North
practised about 60 different crafts . Peo
y," some for
and South Wales joined this "communit .
b , oth ers perma n ent ly, and · at one t� e
a rief period
d le.
the group at Trefecca numbere� ove r a �undre P�?I?
a ng
Here again, Harris showed his e�cept1o�al org IDrst
powers, in the methodical way 1n which work ... was
planned for each member of the group. J:Ie ado�ted
many of the new agricultural methods of the period,
and was a prime mover in forming t�e Breco�shire
Agricultural Society. ..
Another interesting experiment conducted at Tre­
fecca during this period was the founaing, by Lady
Huntingdon, of a college for training y�ung p�.eachers . ·
This is not to be confused with the pr�sent College at
Trefecca. . ·

Ultimately the rival factions of Methodism were recon­

ciled, and in 1 769 we find Wesley and Wliitefield, .
Rowlands · and Williams together with -_ _.Hatris; at Tre­
fecca. Harris died in 1 773 and was burled in Talganb ·

Church where a �ablet has been erecte� to his memory.

Hywel Harns .
is remember�d as a · powerful ·preacher,
and as the organi. ser of .the Methodist .Revival He
travelled extensively on · preaching tours � · tfu��ghout
Wales, and had to suffer frequent, . bittet persecution.
Th� mass ?f ma�erial which h� has left be�d·� gives
an mteresn�g picture of his life, his remarka ble experi-
ences and his ceaseless activity.
. . · ·

DAN IE L ROWLAND . .
( 171 3-1 7 90) . ' 1
,

_.
D ANIEL ROWLAN .
D? the great preacher of the Methodist
Re b
vival ' was orn in th
e parish of Nantcwnlle C ardigan
shire' and was th -
e son o f the Rector.: · pf that parish,
'· ·

. ' '

70
and of Llangeitho. He i s believed t o have been edu cated
at Hereford Grammar School . In 1 735, he was ordained,
and was given the curacies of Llang eitho and Nant­
cwnlle, wher e his brother was now rect or. Lat er, he
held curacies in Ystrad Ffin and Llanddewi Brefi.

Dani�l Rowland was deeply influenced by two men

.
�
in p �rtlcu a�, Philip Pugh of Llwynpiod, a Noncon­
fonmst nuruster, and Griffith Jones of Llanddowr�r ·

It was a sermon by the latter at Llanddewi Brefi which

impelled him to preach wherever he could get an
opportunity. His sermons had tremendous power ;
people were terrified out of their careless way of living,
and were possessed with a deep conviction of sin.
Acting on Philip Pugh's advice, he changed this stern,
reproving manner, and henceforward preached the
saving Gospel of Christ with great inspiration �d
·

remarkable effect. This preaching out . of his parish,

and in unconsecrated places, was strongly disapproved
of by the Church, and it is -hardly surprising that
Rowland remained a curate throughout his life, serving
first under his. . brother, and later under his own son.
.
. .

When Rowland met Hywel Harris (q.v.), in 1737, and

realised that they had been working along similar lines,
they decided to ·co-operate, and to broaden their sphere
of activity. They became the main leaders of the
Methodist Revival in its first years, and their influence
soon spread throughout Wales. When they decided
that the " Societies," now rapidly increasing . in number,
should be better organised, Rowland was put in charge
of the " Societies " in Carmarthenshire and part of
Cardiganshire, with Williams Pantycelyn to assist him.
He was one of the prominent members of the Assoc­
iation which met at Watford, Caerphilly ( 1743),- under
Whitefield, and, as the latter was rarely able to attend,
Rowland became his deputy .

During the unfortunate rift in Welsh Methodism

Rowland tried to fill Harris's pla�e as leader of th �
movement, bu� he lacked Harris's gift for. organising.
Above everything · else, Rowland was a great preacher.

71
 Exel uded from the Established Church because of his
enthusiasm, he built a chapel near his old Church and
carried on his work there until his death in 1 790 . A
statue has been erected to his memory in the cemetery
of the New Church, Llangeitho, where he was buried.
It i s difficult for us to realise to-day what tremendous
influence Daniel Rowland exercised through his preach­
ing. Llangeitho became a sort of Mecca for the whole
of Wales on Communion Sunday. People flocked here
from every part, and strange stories are told of their
adv entures on the way. We read how one party came
by boat from Caernarvon to Aberystwyth, and walked
the remaining distance to Ll angeitho ; how they had
to return all the way on foot because of a change in the
direction of the wind , and how they suffered bitter
persecution in various places through which they passed.
Thousands gathered together at Ll angeitho to receive
the Communion at Rowland's hands . Some had to
begin their journey on Friday night, others as early as
Thursday ; the various groups met on their way and
proceeded in a mighty throng to Llangeitho . After the
service, they returned to their homes , relating their
religious experiences and inging hymns on the way.
Pantycelyn in his elegy to Rowland describes these
crowds .-
"Dense the folk along the highway,
Sweet ascends the heavenly song,
Till the golden sounds re-echo
All the crags and vales among. "

37. RICHARD WILSON

(1 714-1 782).
RICHARD WILSON was the son of the Vicar of Penegoes,
Montgomeryshire. He was educated at home by his
father, and showed signs of .his remarkable a rtisti c
gift while still young. His uncle, Sir -' George Wynne,

72
 took him to London and placed him in charge of the·
a rtist, Thomas Wright . He became well known as a
portrait painter, and painted the Prince of Wales .
With his own savings, eked out by gifts from friends,
he went to Rome to continue his studies . His tutors
suggested that he should specialise in landscape paint­
ing, and he studied with great thoroughness the work
of the old Masters and the natural scenery of Italy.
After spending six years on the Continent, he returned
to London in 1 755.
He won. fame in 1 760 and 1 76 5 , when he exhibited his
Niobe, View of Rome from the Villa Madama, and
other works . This was the period of his canvases of
Snowdon and Caernarvon Castle. When George III
founded the Royal Academy in 1 768, Richard Wilson
was one of the members ; he became librarian of the
Academy in 1 776.
Richard Wilson did not achieve great popularity
during his life, mainly because of the prejudice of his
contemporaries, especially Sir Joshua Reynolds . Many
of his friends forgot him, and -eventually he had to
accept commissions from pawnbrokers. Although his
poverty embittered him, he did not allow this to affect his
artistic integrity. He became impatient and sharp­
tongued, but never compromised with the rich and
their artistic coteries .
In 1 78 1 he returned to Wales and spent . his last days
on the Colomendy estate near Mold, where he died ;
he was · buried in Mold churchyard in 1 782 . He . is
now accepted as one of the greatest of the school of
British landscape artists .
·

38. MORGAN RHYS

( 1 7 1 6-79).
MORGAN RHYS was born at Efail-fach, Cil-y-cwm,
near Llandovery, in 1 7 1 6 . He joined the Methodist
reformers there, ,and probably conducted a school for
some time at Capel Isaac, Carmarthenshire. He is known
73
to have been a teacher in the schools of Griffith Jones,
Llanddowror, and Madam Bevan, from 1 757 to 1 775,
and was a member of the Established Church during that
period . He died in 1 799, and was buried in Llanfynydd
churchyard where a mo�ument has been raised to his
memory.
Morgan Rhys is re1nembered as a hymnologist. His
hymns were published in his chief work Golwg o Ben Nebo
( 1 755), and in other booklets .
In this period religion laid its stress on the 's oul of
the individual rather than on any social amelioration;
and this attitude is reflected in the hymns of Morgan
Rhys . Like other contemporary hymn writers, he
frequently strikes a plaintive note, but Morgan Rhys
is full of hope even when he writes of tribulation. This
is seen, for instance, in his hymns ' ' Beth sydd i mi yn· y
byd" and "Fe welir Seion fel y wawr. " He loves to de­
scribe ChI"ist as physician and friend. The word cyfail!
(friend) appears over one hundred times in his hymns .
Compared with Williams Pantycelyn, Morgan Rhys
wrote but little, and, though he lack.s Pantycelyn's bold
· imagination, he is one of the chief hymn writers of
Wales . His hymns deal mainly with the permanent and
universal aspects of life ; they are characterised by
spiritual travail and profound experience, and are
expressed in simple, concise and homely form. As may
therefore be expected, many of his hymns-" Dyma
Geidwad i'r colledig," " Pechadur wyf, 0 Argl'Wydd,"
" Gwnes addunedau fil," " 0 agor fy llygaid i weled,"­
are among the best in the language .

• 1,

. . .

39. WILLIAM WILLIAMS

(1716-91 ).
WILLIAM WILLIAMS was born at C�fn-y-Coed, near
Llandovery, Carmarthenshire, and m�y have attended
Llwynllwyd Academy. Tradition says . that he intende d

74
to become a physician, but that, on his way ho�e
n �
1 738, he stayed to listen to Hywel Harris preaching 1n
the churchyard at Talgarth . He was converted, and
set his heart on becoming a clergyman. In 1 7 40 he
became curate to Theophilus Evans, the author of
.
Drych y Prif Oesoedd, but because he and Theophilus
Evans could not agree upon Methodism, he was not
priested, and in 1 7 43, he gave up his curacy, and j oined
the travelling preachers . In the n1eantime, his mother
had inherited Pantycelyn, near Llandovery ; Williams
went to live with her and it is_ as " Williams, Pantycelyn "
that he has been known since. In 1 749 he married Mary
Francis, Penlan, Llansawel, and bought a small estate
w�th her dowry.
Fr om this time on, the story of Williams 's life is that
of travelling and preaching. He travelled thousands of
nii l es each year, and did that for over fifty years� He died
in 1 79 1 and was buried at Llanfair-ar-y-bryn, Llandovery.
Williams is Wales's foremost hymn-writer, and it was
he, more thari anyone else, who succeeded in his poetry
and in his prose, in. giving expression to the emotions
anq aspirations of the Methodist Revival.
In his prose works he attempts to classify those
emotions and experiences which move the mind and
heart of ·man. In his two great poems, one might
aln1ost d:escribe them as epics, he tries to do the same
thing. The more important of the two is Theomemphus ;
in this work Williams makes a study of the process of
conversio�. Theomemphus is portrayed before his
·conversion, then his conversion is described, and his
realisation that the old pleasures have lost their charm
.and that the new life in Christ is one of self-denial . .
It would have been impossible for Williams to describe
all the subtle changes in the mind of his hero without
.a wide knowledge of ad�lescent and adult psychology .
But valuabl� though his prose works and his two epic
.
poems are, his most 1mportant works are his hymns .
.
� t is here th�t we see his gr�a tness as a poet, and his
importance in the Welsh litera ry tradition. Taken
together, the hymns form a valua bl e intro duction to the
Methodist Revival . Every emotion, every thought, ever y
75
 feeling, grave and gay, find expression in the hymns .
They are the experiences of common folk, expressed in
simple language, and this accounts for their popularity.
The metres are simple and the style unaffected . This
very simplicity led Williams into difficulty more than
once, for his chief fault is carelessness, sometimes
indeed a sheer disregard for any kind of rule. But, at
his best, he wrote some of the finest lyrics in the Welsh
language ; they meet the demands of scholarly criticism,
and yet to many a Welshman they are the means by
which he may give expression to his deepest experiences,:
his sorrow and his longing for the presence of God, and
his exultation when the clouds have rolled by.
Williams begins the modern period in Welsh poetry.
Huw Morns and Edward Morus clung to many of the
modes and manners of the " strict " metres, but Williams
cast them all aside. The lyric as we know it to-day, in
matter and in form, has now appeared, and its first writer
is Williams, Pantycelyn. As one critic said of him,
he is the first Wel sh romantic poet.

40. GORONWY OWEN

( 1 723- 1 769).
GoRONWY OWEN was one of the leaders of the Classical
Renaissance in Wales in the 1 8th c�ntury. He was brought
up in Y Dafarn Goch, in the parish of Llanfair Math­
afarn Eithaf, Anglesey. Although his family was poor,
Goronwy received a good education, according to the
standards of the period, .at Pwllheli, and at the Friars'
School, Bangor. After teaching for a short period at
Pwllheli and Denbigh, he was ordained and was given a
curacy in his home parish, but was soon turned ., away
in favour of a person of superior .status. ·Mu ch to 'his
disappointment, he was never given a living in Wales,
but served in SeJ atyn, Donnington, Walton and Northolt,
'vhere he constantly felt himself an exile from his own
country, and lived in dire poverty. ··Finally, he left
England in 1 757 to try his fortune ii;i Ameri ca . His
\vife and two of his children died on·� t he voyage. He
·'

76
 r ook charge of a school in Virginia, and died in Bruns wick
Comity in 1 769.
Goronwy Owen's life was full of tribulation . He was
h appy neither in his social circumstances nor in his
work ; he was beset by family trouble and consta ntly
yearned to return to Wales. He wrote 78 letters to the
Morris brothers of Anglesey and to others, " literary "
letters which contain excellent passages of Wel sh pros e,
In these letters, he tells of his discontent, his longing
for Wales, his poverty, and his intense desire for books,
. . .Welsh classics, old manuscripts, Greek and Latin
books. · These gave him a sanctuary to which he could
escape from the disappointment and sordidness of his
life. In these letters he also expounds his h � ries of
�f
poetry, and many influences which affecte &� m are
made evident. Foremost among these � ( 1 ) ruselassical
e�ucation and his studies in Greek and Latin poetry ;
(2) English poets and literary men, mainly Milton,
Dryden, Pope, · Addison, and others of the Augustan
school ; (3) Welsh classics and his studies in the art of
the professional bards, whose works he rated as highly
as anything produced in England.
Go.ronwy scorned the popular bards of the l 8th
century, the \\1riters of songs and ballads and interludes.
This was the period when ancient Welsh history and
literature were being re-discovered, and Goronwy Owen
'"·ished to write poetry which was worthy of the classical
standards . This he cori$idered impossible without
using the strict metres and cynghanedd, so he revived
the cywy dd metre and used. it with as much mastery as the
old professional bards.
His ambition, like that of some English poets at the
period, was to write a Christian epic. He deplored the
fact that there was nothing in Welsh which could be
compared with Milton's Paradise L ost, but tied as he
was to the strict metres, he found it impossibl e to
produce an epic himself. His ideas on the nature of
epic poetry are reflected in his famous Cywydd, Y Farn
Fawr (The Great J udgment) .
One of the lite rary fashions of Wales in the 1 8th
century was to write in praise of various counties , and
77
 it was only natural that Goronwy in his exile should.
sing of Anglesey and idealise the county for which he
longed so intensely. In his Hiraeth am Fon he is at his
best. Here he rises above his poetic theories, and is
often moved by deep emotion.

41. DR. RICHARD PRICE

( 1 723-1791 ) .

RICHARD PRICE came of a well-known Nonconformist

family of Tynton in the parish of Llangeinor, Glamor­
gan. He was educated at home, and later at academies
in Neath, Llannon (Carmarthenshire), and Chancefield; .
Talgarth, under Vavasor Griffith. On the death of his
parents, he went to live with his uncle . in London, and
continued his education at Coward's Academy, Waltham- . .
stow. In 1 744, he was appointed private chaplain to a
rich Londoner, and was thus given leisure to continue
his studies . He inherited considerable property in 1 756,
and married in the following year. When he was thirty..:·
five years old, his Rev£ew of the Principal Questions and
· Difficulties in Morals, was published, an essay regarded
as an authoritative contribution to philosophic thought.
He became minister to Stoke Newington Church, and
came into touch with some . of the country's eminent
thinkers. In 1 765 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society.
As an authority on financial and political matters,
Richard Price soon became well.;..known in the capital.
He gave a scientific basis to life insurance both by his
Observations on Reversionary Payments and his statistical
tables . He also wrote on the National Del;t, and Pitt
accepted his advice when he re-established the Sinking
Fund in 1 786. A better known work is his . Observations
on the Nature of Civil Li'berty publis hed in 1 776. In
_
this work he elaborated reasons for parliamentary
reform, � d ]?leaded eloquently for freedom, and for
the colorusts 1n the War _ of American Independence.
Thousands of copies of the work were sold. It
78
profoundly influence d cont e?1porary op inion, particularly
in America ' and he was inv tt� d by t he newly established
Congress, throu gh his friend B en j amin Franklin , to
accept Ame rican ci tizenship and to cros s the Atlantic
to help in the setti ng up of a fina ncial syst em there.
Yale University gave him an honorary LL.D. in 1 78 1 .

The radical ideas which were expressed by him as a

preacher in Lo ndon received considerable attention.
It was possibly in a sermon, Love of our Country, in which
he emphasised that p'atriotism should not exclude love
of mankind, that public judgment was fi rst prono�nced
on the French Revolution. . The sermon was published,
and it was in reply to it that Burke wrote his Reflections
on the French Revolution . The people of France
acclaimed Price for his enunciation of the basic principles
of the revolution.
Richard Price, " the friend of the Universe, the Great
Apostle of Liberty," was a man of great intellectual
integrity and ability. He died in 1 79 1 .

42. TWM O'R NANT (Thomas Edward s) . .

(l 739�1 810).
THOMAS EDWARDS was born in Penparchell Isaf in the
Parish of Llannefydd, Denbighshire. When his parents
moved to Nant Isa, near Nantglyn, he soon became
known as Twm o'r Nant, to distinguish him from a youth
of the same name who lived at Nant Ucha. ·

Twm was the eldest of ten children in a poor family,

and he started working on the farm when he was only
eight years old. His formal education was of a most
meagre kind, consisting of short periods at a school in
Nantglyn, and a fortnight in Denbigh, learnjng English�
But his desire for learnin� to �ead �nd to write poetry
was so great that he persisted in spite of all difficulties
and discouragem�nts . In his Autobiography, he tells
us how his moth �r managed to procure for him some
79
 ht
ha lf- burnt leave s of pape r from a shop that had cau�
ies .
fire , and how he ma de ink hims elf from eld erb err
, wh o
He took the paper to a bla cks mit h at Wa und wy sog
Before h e
\\Tote him a top line whi ch he cou ld cop y· .
po em s an d int erl ud es,
\\T as ni ne he ha d beg un t o write
y ru ral � ard
an d by constantl y ass ociat ing with th e m an
·of his dis t rict the cultured craftsmen wh
o fas h1o ne J
y com pe ten t
songs an d b ;llads, Twm be c�e . . a ver .
Eis t� dd fod au
ver si fier and a frequent competitor in the
His poe ms
arr anged by the Gwy11eddigion S ? ciety.
at Trefecc a
\\·e re pub lish ed by the Hywel. Harris pre ss
under the title Gardd o Gerddi (A Gar den of Son gs).
Twm had a very troub led life, battling with P.overty,
debts and lawyers. He followed a great variety of
occupations in his effort to make both ends meet, among
them being fanning, hauling timber in Denbigh�hire
and Flintshire, and stone-masonry. He was sued for
a debt incurred by his uncle, for whom he had becom�
surety, and fled to Montgomeryshire and thence to
Carmarthenshire, where he kept a tollgate and worked
for a timber merchant. He describes himself in a line
from the craftsman's song in one of his· interludes · as
" Y turnpeiciwr a'r trwyn pica " (the· turnpike · keeper
\\Tith the hooked nose).
Here again misfortune pursued ·him : his master
became bankrupt and Twm had to go back to North
Wales empty-handed, returning to his old occupations
and writing interludes which he took on tour in. order to
clear his debts . He died in 1 8 1 0 and was buried at
Eglwys '!'/en, Denbigh. A tablet to his memory was
erected in the church by the Gwyn eddigion Socie ty.
Twm 's name is always assoc iated with the " inter­
ludes ". of the ! 8th century, the most popu lar form of
entertainment in Wale s during that perio d . No fair
or feas t was complete without an " interlude " whi
' ch
:v as a kind of play, usua lly performed on a wagon
in ��me open spac e. The se inte rlud es are of
the
traditional type ; most of them hav e a foo
l and a her ald
a�d there are abstract characters li�e pov
.
pie ty, and wis dom . Twm also
erty, death :
.i ntroduc es typica l

80
 parncularly
characters from contemporary Welsh life,
·

a d-
thos e who oppressed and robb ed the · poor, such � Ian e
dialogu
lords , stewards, lawyers, and parsons . The
uentl.Y
is �-ritten in rhyming stanzas ; songs are freq
ant"'
introdu ced, and also an occasional jig to the accomp
the
ment of the fiddler who was always pres ent. on .
g t
stage. These interludes throw a most interesting h �
r
on social life in Wales in the 1 8th century. Twm o
e
Nant wrote many interludes. ; seven of t�e:tn w er
published, the best known of these being Tn Chryfi<»:
Byd (The Three Powers of the World), and Pedair
Colofn Gwladwriaeth (The Four Pillars of Society).

43. ROBERT JONES, RHOSLAN

(1745-1 829).
ROBERT JONES was born in 1 7 45 at a small farm called
Suntur, in the parish of Llanystumdwy, in Caernarvon­
shire. He was fortunate in having an excellent mother,
and under her guidance and instruction he learnt to
read Welsh at an early age. He read diligently, and was
gifted . with a good memory. Unfortunately, his mother
died when Robert Jones was only eleven years old .
He had but little formal education, no more than a few
weeks at Thomas Gough's school ; afterwards he
educated himself.

\Yhen he was about eighteen ye��s old he felt a strong

desire to secure better opporturutles for education for
the young people of his neighbourhood and he travelled
on foot all t�e way to Laugharne, in Carmarthenshire,
to plead ·with Madam Bevan for Schools for the children
of the poor in North Wales .. The. lady \Vas away from
home, and he had to return d1sappo1nted. He journeye
d
to Laugharne a s�cond time but discovered that
Madam
Bevan was not disposed .to agree to his re quest,
becaus e
teachers formerly appointed by her to suc h
school
had been unfaithful to their charge.
Robert Jon e �
F 81
pleaded earnestly with her, and finally she agreed to
establish a s chool on condition that he undertook to
run it himself. So the joiner returned from South
Wales to start work as a schoolmaster. It is thought that
his first s chool was at Capel Curig, and it was there also
that he began his work of exhorting and preaching.
Afterwards he conducted schools at Rhuddlan, Bryn�
siencyn, Llangybi, Brynengan, Llanbadam and Llan­
llyfni. He is credited with possessing a special gift of
imparting knowledge to his pupils, and it is said that
his geniality charmed his pupils everywhere.
On leaving Brynengan school he took a place called
Tir Bach, Rhoslan, on a seven years' lease. Here he
put up a spacious building, one portion intended for a
dwelling house and the rest as a place qf worship . When .
the lease expi�ed Robert Jones was given the option of
renewing it, on condition that preaching would be
discontinued there. He refused to agree to these terms,
and moved to Ty Bwlcyn, near Dinas, at the foot of
Garn Fadrun in Llyn. On the death of his wife he
moved to Madrun Mill, and later to Dinas Chapel House
where he spent the rest of his life. He died in 1 829, at
the age of 84, and was buried at Llaniestyn.
Robert Jones laboured diligently and �uccessfully as
a minister for 60 years ; though he was frail in body he
walked great distances to minister ·and to preach ;
occasionally he would walk over twenty miles on .Sundays
and preach three sermons. He lived dµring $e period
of the Methodist Revival, and played ; a prominent part
in establishing religious causes in Caernarvonshire.
In 1 820 he published his reminiscences in .Drych yr
Amseroedd (Mirror of the Times), a picture, written in a
lively and charming style, of the conditions in Wales
in his days, and a record of the available means for
enlightening the people, the Charity Schools ,of the
Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, the
Circulating Schools and the Sunday Schools.
In addition to Drych yr Amseroedd, he also published
Lleferydd yr Asyn, Hanes tri o Bregethwyr, Drych y r
Anllythrennog, and the first collection of Welsh hymns,
called Grawnsypiau Canaan.

82
 Robert J one s's works, together with
a number of his
!etters, �ere publ ished in Y Llenor (1 898)
; in the
m�oductto� to this volume Sir
O . M. Edwards pays
tnblJte to him as one of the great
benefactors of religion,
educatt. on, and literature
in Wales.
·

,
44· IO L O MORGANWG (Edward Williams)
( 1 747-1 826).
�OLO MORGANWG was born in the parish of Llancarfan,
m �e Vale of Glamorgan. His parents moved to
Fl�ngston, and Iolo spent most of his life in that
locali ty, with its interesting traditions and historical
background. His father was a stone-mason, and Iolo
learnt this craft at an early age. From his mother, who
was a well-educateq woman, he acquired an interest in
literature. Iolo's education followed the early Welsh
tradition ; he learnt the rules of grammar and poetic
art from some of the bards and literary men of Glamor­
gan. When he was still a young man, he wrote poems
which show the influence of Dafydd ap Gwilym.
About 1 772, Iolo's work took him to London and
later to Kent. At this time Welsh literary folk resident in
London were forming societies for the study of Welsh
Jiterature. Here Iolo met Owain Myfyr, William Owen
Pughe, and other ardent students of Welsh literature,
history and antiquity, and was himself fired with the
same zeal. He read old Welsh manuscripts, copied
many of the poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym, often contri­
buted to Welsh and English periodicals, and wrote and
published many English poems.
In 1 7 77, he returned home to practice his craft, but
still worked diligently at his researches, �orrespondence,
and literary compositions. London, however, had an ·
irresistible attraction for a Welshman of his interests,
and he returned there in 1 791, the period of the French
Revolution, of which he became an ardent supporter.
As a member of the Gwyneddigion Society in London,
he was cons tantl y hearing the praises of the bards of
83
 Gwyhedd and the literary tradition of North Wales .
The effect of all this was that Iolo's love of Glamorgan
developed into an obsession. He deliberately set himself
the task of extolling his own county and of proving it
to be a home .of bardic traditions which had persisted
with unbroken continuity from the time of the Druids,
and which would thus be far older than the tradition of
Gwynedd.
To " prove " this, he fabricated old tales, genealogies
and records ; he composed triads and poems, and
developed a whole body of theory about early Eistedd­
fodau and bardic ceremonies, declaring that he . had ·

found all this material in old manuscripts . Glamorgan ·

was thus transformed into a most romantic and inter­
esting county, with a bardic society that had kept alive
these traditions throughout the centuries . Most famous ·
of all Iolo's fabrications are the poems which he himself
wrote, put attributed to Dafydd ap Gwilym. These are
called Cywyddau'r Ychwanegiad (additional poems) .
Iolo's theories were too readily accepted by Welsh
historians in the nineteenth century, and they were
led completely astray as to the origin of such ceremonies
as Gorsedd Beirdd Ynys Prydain (The Gor.s edd of the
Bards of Britain), which originated purely in Jolo's
fertile imagination.
Recent research by Professor G. J. Williams has thrown
penetrating light on Iolo's work and motives . · It was his
great love for Glamorgan and his poetic dream� · about
it that drove him to such labour on its behalf. He \Vas
undeniably a man of remarkable ability and unbounded
energy. No less than seventy-five volumes of his work
are to be found in the Llanover collectio.n of manu­
scripts.
His interest was not entirely confined to the past
history of Glamorgan ; he also wrote many articles on
various aspects of Welsh life in his own day.
Iolo died in 1 826, in poor circumstances, and was
buried in Flemingston Church in the Vale which h e
loved so well. A commemorative tablet has be en placed
on the house in Cowbridge, where, for some time, h e
lived and condu cted business as a bookseller.

84
 45· THOM AS CHARLES
( 1 755-1 8 1 4).
THOMAS CHARLES was born in the farm of Longmoor,
near St. Clears, Carmarthenshire, and received his
education first at Llanddowror and later at Carmar­
then Academy and Jesus College, Oxford. He joined
one of the Methodist " Societies· " while at Carmarthen,
and also heard Daniel Rowland preach, an experience
which deeply influenced him. He held curacies in
various places in England, and at Llanwddyn and Llany­
mawddwy. He was deprived of his office because of
his sympathies with the Methodists, whom he joined
at Bala in 1 784.
During his extensive preaching journeys, he continued
to catechise, and also revived the Circulating Schools in
many places. At first he was not in favour of Sunday
Schools, but by 1 797 he had changed his mind, and
initiated the distinctively Welsh development of these
schools . He always ·emphasised their religious purpose,
and in the Rules which he framed in 1 8 1 3 for their
conduct, can be seen the weight he gave to democratic
control and friendly discipline. In 1 798, he prepared a
short catechism for the use of children ; in the following
year, he and Thomas Jones started publication of
Y Drysorfa Ysbrydol, a Methodist periodical. In 1 803,
a printing press was brought to Bala, and from that year
· to the year of his death, 320,000 copies of his school
books were printed. This, too, was the period that saw
the publication of the work which enlightened thousands,
his Geiriadur Ysgrythyrol (Bible Dictionary).

He frequently preached in London, and continued to

keep contact v1ith the leaders of English Methodism .
He was an ardent supporter of th� London Missiona ry
Society, an� took part 1n the estabhshment of the British
and Foreign Bible Society.
By the end of the century, the number of Methodists
had increased, but, particularly in North Wales there
� �
were too few Met �dists in Holy Orders, so that ppor­
tunities for rece1vmg Holy Communion were very .
85
inadequate. Thomas Charles and the other clerical
leaders of Methodism did not approve of the movement
in the " Societies " for the ordination of lay preachers,
yet when the matter came to a head in 1 8 1 1 , it was
Charles's conciliatory manner which led to a satis­
factory solution, and prevented a serious split in Metho­
dism, when eight preachers were ordained in that year in
Bala, North Wales . The officers of the chapel at Llan­
geitho were unwilling to welcome the ordination service
for South Wales, and it was therefore held at Llandeilo,
when thirteen preachers were ordained in Charles' s
presence. Although many Methodists continued to
take their children for baptism to the Church, and also
went to the parish church for communion, Methodism
had ceased to be a party within the Church and had
now become a separate denomination.
Thomas Charles died in 1 8 1 4, and was buried in
Llanycil. His was a full and active life, preaching,
organising, writing and publishing, but it is his work
for the Sunday School in Wales which is his greatest
glory.
·

MORGAN JOHN RHYS

(1 760-1 804).
MoRGAN JOHN RHYs was born ·in the . farmhous� of
Graddfa, in the parish of Llanfabon, Glamorgan. He ·
opened a school for the children of the neighbourhood
of Hengoed Chapel about 1 782, and also began preaching.
In 1 786, he was a student at the Baptist College in
Bristol, and was there brought into contact with some
of the important .social movements of the · rim�. .
For four years he was minister at Pen-y...garn · near
Pontypool ; in this period he began writing against the
slave trade and became well known as a preacher in
Wales and England . Towards the end of the s umme r
of 1 79 1 , he went to France to try to convert the French
to Protestantism. He returned in a few months, re­
sumed preaching, and began collecting money to

86
publish Bibles in Fre nch. He was one of the few Welsh
supponers of the French Revolution.
In 1 793 , he published and edited the first number of
one of the first Welsh periodicals . This was Cylchgrawn
Cynmraeg in which he and others brought current social
movements to the notice of the Welsh people.
He proclaimed the value of education as a natural
right, and he worked to establish schools in Wales on
0e pattern of the English Sunday School . He believed
m teaching children to read through the medium of their

�other tongue, and accordingly wrote a small primer

in Welsh.
I n the closing years of the l 8th century there was
much emigration from Wales to America, and as Morgan
John Rhys regarded the United States as the promised
�and, and Britain as the home of oppression, he emigrated
m 1 794. He was the chairman of a company formed
to establish, in the state of Pennsylvania, a Welsh Colony
called Cambria, with Beulah as its chief town. He
established a chapel, library, printing press, a Sunday
S chool, and a day scho·o1 there, and founded a news­
paper 'called " The Western Sky." He died in 1 804.

' ,

47· ; THOMAS WILLIAM

'"
(1761-1 844).
.

THOMAS WILLIAM is one of the best known Welsh

hYJ111:1 writers . He was born in Trerhedyn farm in the
parish of Pendeulwyn, in the Vale of Glamorgan. His
father was a wealthy fa1mer and a man of culture. His
conversion to religion took place when he was but ten
years of age, under the ministry of the Rev. David
Jones, Llangan, and he joined the Calvinistic Methodists
in Trehill. He was a member of the Calvinistic Metho­
dists for twenty years, but in the dispute that arose over
the exp�ision of Peter Willi�ms he left them, and
subsequently he and a few friends began to worship
together at a dwelling house in Brittwn, near Aberthaw.
I n 1 806, Bethesda chapel, near Llantwit Maj or, was
built. Up to 1 8 14, the cause at Bethesda was not
87
attached to any denomination, but in 1 8 1 4 it was regarded
as one of the Independent churches ; Thomas William
was chosen as its minister, and he remained its minister
till his death in 1 844 . Being a fairly well-to-do farmer
he received no payment for his services.
The chief collection of his hymns is Dyfroedd Bethesda
(" Waters of Bethesda ") which was published by him
in 1 824 . It contains 1 08 hymns, and it may be seen,
therefore, that the sum total of his literary output was
not great . But Thomas William was an artist, and there
are very few hymns in the whole collection which are
stereotyped or ineffective, while the best of them are
wonhy to rank with the finest hymns in the Welsh.
language . They are characterised by simple dignified
language, the speech of one who knew his Bible intim­
ately. Many of them are written in the minor key.
Thomas William lived in the period between two
revivals, being old enough to remember the sweeping
influence of the first, and seeing that fire dying down.
It must be remembered, too, that he was a man of
unusl:lal temperament ; he was occasionally visited by
moods of intense depression, and this inevitably affected
his poetry. But some of his hymns give j9yous expres­
sion to the faith and hope of the Gospel, and to the
happiness that is known to none save those who have
-
walked in the company of God.
A vivid portrayal of the character of Thomas William
may be found in the story by Professor w . J. Gruff:ydd,
.

entitled Bethesda'r Fro ( Y Llenor, Vol. 1 9, p. 72) . .

48. JAC GLANYGORS (John Jones)

(1766-1 821 ) .

JOHN JONES was born in 1 766 in a fannhou_se named

Glanygors, near Cerrig-y-Drudion, Denbighshire. At
an early age he became interested in writing poetry
and especially satire.
He left for London in 1 789, and took a leading part
in London-Welsh affairs. He was president of the
88
 ders.
Society of the Gwyneddigion , and one of the foun
t�e
of the Cymreigy ddion Socie ty . In 1 8 1 8, he beca me
. it
tenant of the King 's Head tavern, Luogate Stree_t ;
es,
was there that the meetings of the Welsh Soci eti
the Gwyneddigion and the Cymreigyddion, were held
for some years . He died in 1 82 1 .
Fre nch
Glanygors was deeply influenced by the
ly,
Revolution . He wrote two political pamphlets, name
Seren Tan Gwmmwl ( 1 795) and Toriad y Dydd ( 1 7 97) .
In the former, he refers to oppression by kings and
the nobility ; to Parliament (" the most corrupt and
defiled house that was ever built anywhere ") ; the weak­
nesses of bishops and priests ; America (" so ready to
receive those who wish to live as free people ") ; Frfil:lce
(" which had dispersed the clouds and darkness which
tried to cover the light of freedom ") ; ·and the t�"{es .
In the latter pamphlet he emphasises the deficiencies of
the British system of goverrunent, and looks forward
to a future when there will be justice and peace for all.
Apparently he had to flee from London for a time
after publishing the Seren. In one of his letters, Glany­
gors states that some people " were going from house
to house to burn the book I wrote," and that " gentlen1en
ia Wales were threatening to wreck the livelihood of
booksellers who wished to see what was true."
There was hardly a Welshman of note who did not
disagree with the views of Glanygors ; for instance,
Thomas Jones, Denbigh, attacks him in his pamphlet,
Gair yn ei amser ( 1 798). Glanygors was not a clear and
deliberate thinker on political matters, but it is easy to
understand his passion for reforming some aspects of
the social and political life of the period. Although the
Seren was, in the author's opinion, but " a h urried
effort, and somew�at cl�sily fashioned, " yet Glany­
gors ' , gave expression to liberty and homely sincerity . "
In one of . !1Js
letters he writes : " Let it b e known to
those perverse persons who talk of putting me in pris on
that I should prefer the honour of dying as a free m �
than in�ur �he disgrace of sl avishly acqui escing under
.
oppression . , As the war agamst France continued and
Bonaparte attempted to attack Britain, the infl�ence

89
of �lanygor s waned, and he himself doub
tless lost much
of his zeal for criticising the State.
Glanygors is regarded as a Welsh satirist of note ;
among his · satirical poems are Cerdd Die Shon Dafydd
and Hanes y Sessiwn yng Nghymru . The well-known
expres sion " Die Shon Dafydd " is derived from the
former poem.

49. CHRI STMAS EVANS

(1766-1 838).
CHRISTMAS EVANS was born in 1 766 in a cottage named
Esgair Wen, in the parish of Llandysul, Cardiganshire.
When very young, he went to work as a parish apprentice
at various farms until, finally, he went to the farm of the
Rev. David Davies, Castell Hywel, the author of Telyn
Dewi. David Davies, in addition to being a literary man ·
and a schoolmaster, was minister of the Presbyterian
Arminian Church of Llwynrhydowen, and Christmas
Evans became a member of that church. · Although
he was seventeen years old before h� could read at all,
it is related that he learnt to read the Welsh Bible
within a month when he was as Castell llywel, and, ·at
about the same age, he began to preacli. Because of
�

his warm, enthusiastic nature, and . of -the tendency of

Arminianism towards cold intellectualism, he joined
the Baptist Church at Aberduar, Carmarthenshire.
In 1 789, he went to Llyn, Caernarvonshire, and was
a successful itinerant preacher there for two years .
It was in LI yn, he said, " that the Holy Spirit so inspired
him as to create within him a burning desire for the
saving of souls, and to exalt the cause of Christ in the
world." . .
This was followed by an important period in his life,
his charge of the Baptist congregations in Anglesey
( 1 79 1 - 1 826) . These congregations were regard�d as
branches of one church, under the charge of one minister,
Christmas Evans . That arrangement was a very unusu al
one in the history of the denomination, and was a
90
difficult one to work. For a time he lost his zest fot
preac�ng and prayer, and the Baptist cause in Angle� ey
langwshed . But, once more, the old evangelica l sp1nt
revived within him, and a religious revival took place in
Anglesey.
He was afterwards a minister at Caerphilly ( 1 826-28)
Cardiff (1828-32), and Caernarvon (1 832-38). While
on a tour through South Wales he died at Swansea,
in 1838, and he was buried at the side of Bethesda Chapel
in that town.
It was as a preacher that Chrisnnas Evans most pro­
foundly influenced Welsh life. He - belonged to the
" Golden Age " of Welsh preaching, the age of John
Elias, of Anglesey, and Williams o'r Wern. Christmas
Evans was a man of distinctive characteristics in his
preaching as in his ordinary daily life. He had but one
eye, but that eye "was large and protruding." Among
contemporary preachers he was considered to be un­
equalled in the splendour of his imagination. This is
Hiraethog's description of his preaching :-" Evans was
aglow throughout, like the volcano ·Etna or Vesuvius,
casting out his lava like a seething river over his listeners
until all their emotions were aroused, and became aflame
in his overwhelming intensity. His power of imagination
was unequalled, he would personify his subject matter
before his hearers so as almost to force them to grasp it.
So graphically did _he depict any incident that all felt
they, w�re l�king at the actual occurrence and not
listening to a description of it. If the subject was that
.of the demoniac Gadarene swine, he made the congre­
gation feel that it was actually witnessing the headlong
rush of the herd, bristling with fear, past the herdsmen
and over the precipice into the sea."

50 . . ROBERT OWEN
- '

( 1 771-1 858).
ROBERT OWEN ' S father was an ironmonger in Newto\\'ll
Montgomeryshire, and it was to the village school tha �
91
 the boy went in 1 7 7 5 . When he was seven years of age
he could read, it \Vas stated " as well as the school­
master," ' and from then until he left at nine years of age,
he was the school usher. Robert Owen was a voracious
·
reader ; he \Vas lent books of all kitids by the educated
people of Newtown, including books on religious subjects
by a Methodist family. Although he was a precocious .
boy, he was also fond of games and dancing, played the
clarinet and was popular with his fellows.
After working for a year at a Newtown shop, he
followed his brother to London when he was ten years
of age, with forty shillings in his pocket, and, as he
says, " speaking ungrammatically, a kind of Welsh­
English, in consequence of the imperfect l anguage
spoken in Newto\vn. " He .�rayed a few weeks in London,
and was then apprenticed to . a draper in Stamford,
Lincolnshire. His new master was an enlightened man i
the boy was free to read for five hours a day and, in
addition, he learnt the value of honest trading. He
worked for a short time in London, where. _he found
conditions very different. He then S'ecured a post in
Manchester, and at eighteen he had acquired extensive
experience of retail trade, and an expert knowledge of
the value of textiles.
I
With money borrowed from his brother_, he opened
a factory in 1 789 to make textile machinery. This
�enture was successful , and befo�� long he was managing
one of the largest cotton mills in Manchester. He became
·

friendly with enlightened people in the city, among

them John Dalton the scientist, and Robert Fulton
the inventor.
.

The company with which Robert Owen was associated

bought the large New Lanark Mills , and he went there
as manager in 1 800 . He inade the factories pay well
b�t wh�t is mo�e· importa�t, he used them to try ou �
his social theories . As he believed that environmen
t
is the decisive factor in the development of charact
er
he revolutionised social conditions for his work
peo pl �
at Ne:w �anark. CleanJiness \\'as encouraged
and
saru. tanon improved ; honestly conduc
ted shops were

92
 d
opened , s�hool s and playgrounds were built , an
pauper children were given employment. T e New �
Lanark experiment became famous, and the Mills were
visited by · distinguished people ; its manager was con­
sidered a successful and enlightened employer, and,
although some of his partners obj ected to his ref�r ms,
he persisted, made a fortune , and earned the gratitude
of his workers .
In 1 8 1 3 he published his social ideals in A New View
of Socze y. These essays attracted much attention, 3:nd
soon Robert Owen moved in influential circles which
included J. S . Mill, Francis Place, Lord Liverpool, and
the Archbishop of Canterbury. .
The economic depression which followed the end of
the Napoleonic wars stirred th� ruling classes, and a
ria tional committee was set up, with th� ArchbishoI? of
Canterbury as chairman, to collect funds to relieve
distress and to recommend means of ending the de­
-pression. Robert Owen was asked to prepare a statement
of his vie\vs . He did so at considerable length, outlining
means of 2r�yidi.Q.g_ work, and at the same time laying
the foundations of a new social order. He proposed
the establishment of vi11ages of co-operation, each to
be an economic unit and a complete community. The
Archbishop's committee suggested that the plan sh9uld
be laid before a parliamentary committee, but Owen
was not given a hearing ; he then decided to appeal
directly to the public. He pleaded with great sincerity
and eloquence in public meetings and through the press,
but the Government would not accept " Mr. Owen's
Plan. "
I n New Lanark, however, he carried on with his
� ? �
work, parti�u arly in t e field o �ducation ; but, by
.
1 ��5 his religious op1n1ons made It Impossib le for him
to continue working with his partners, so be resigned.
�
�ence orth, h � devoted all his energies to spreading
his social theones, but people were not conv inced . He
therefore decided to set u p a model comn1unity and
�
bou ght New Harmo n y in Indian a to be the first f his
Utop ias . This atrempt was a failur e ; so was a later
effort at Queenwood, Harnpshire.

93
 While Owen \Vas engaged with · the New Harmony
experiment, many small societies were establis hed in
England aiming at achieving the community ideal
through co-operation. By 1 832 . there were more than
four hundred such societies in existence, and from them
has sprung the Co-operative Movement of to-day. �
In 1 82 1 , in his Report to the County of Lanark, Owen
had suggested that man's labour was the natural
standard of value, and that currency should therefore
be based on it . An attempt was made to set up such a
system, but this also failed . Many of the trade unions
which were established during this period were inspired
by Owen's theories, and he himself attempted to lead
the movement, but the " Grand National Consolidated
Trades Union of Great Britain and Ireland," under his·
presidency, broke down in 1 836. From this date
onwards, " Owenism" tended more and more to become -
solely an ethical system, though its founder still con­
tinued to plan on a grand scale, as can be seen in his Book
of the New Moral World. He also travelled and lectured
in Europe and the United States .
By 1 844, his personal wealth had been used up, yet
he went on writing, and lecturing with his customary
energy, until his death. This took pl�ce in 1 858, when
he was revisiting the town of his birth.
Robert Owen was a prophet and dreamer, the world's
great Utopian Socialist, but a dreamer who had the faith
to try to realise his dreams . "There is no single measure
of social or industrial reform which has since been
advocated about which he did not have something to
say."

51. JOHN ELIAS

( 1 774-1841). .
.

JOHN ELIAS was born at Brynllwyn Bach; in the parish

of Abererch, near Pwllheli . His grandfather and his
father were both weavers, and he also started life in
that occupation. He was taught to read Welsh by his
94
 grandfather, and he was able to read the Bible with ea .
at a very e3 rly age . It was his custom to accom pany his
grandfather to the Parish Church regularly on Sun day
mo rnings, and to the meetings of the Methodis ts in the
afternoons . As a youth he used to join the cr?wd of
people who j ourneyed to the Association meetings �t
Bala. The first important event in his career was his
move to Penmorfa to stay with Griffith Jones, a weaver
and a preacher. It was here, in 1 793, at a place ca�led
Hendre Howel, that he joined the Calvinis tic Methodists,
, and soon afterwards he began to preach. He studie d
diligently, but the brethren refused to allow him to pro­
ceed to school in Manchester, though later he attended
the Rev. Evan Richardson's school at Caernarvon.
He delivered his first sermon in Anglesey, deputis ing
for Mr. Richardson at a monthly meeting at Bryn-Du .
Soon after, he was invited to make a preaching itinerary
of the island, as a result of which he decided to reside
in Anglesey. After the Methodist break from the
·

Established Church in 1 8 1 1 , John Elias was among those

chosen for full ministerial work among the Calvinistic
Methodists in North Wales. He entered on his work
with zeal, preaching wherever he found opportunity,
in the chapels, on the highways, in the open fields, and
on the squares where men assembled for markets and
fairs . He succeeded in putting down many evil and
unworthy habits and practices of the period, such as the
stealing of wreckage, and attending Sunday fairs and
games . He was an inflexible opponent of carousals
and the performance of interludes.
He had marked personal dignity, and his dramatic
oratory electrified the crowds . He became the idol
of the Association, and for a period of twenty years
he reigned supreme over it. He was a also a doughty
champion of the Bible Society and of the tondon
Missionary Society .
He died in 1 84 1 , and was buried at Llanfaes, near
Beaumaris ,_ � Anglesey. His views on matters of doctrine
an� politics may appear nar�ow to us to-day, but John
Elias, nevertheles �, ranks high as one of tjie princes
of the Welsh pulpit.

95
52. ANN GRIFFITHS
(1 776- 1 805).
ANN GRIFFITHS is one of the most distinguished of
Welsh hymn writers . She was born in 1 776 in a farm­
house called Dolwar Fach, in the parish of Llanfihangel­
yng-Ngwynfa, Montgomeryshire. It is said that her
father was better educated than the average man of his
time, and that he also wrote verse. Books and song
were l oved in her home, and somewhere she learnt to
\\·r ite � good hand. The family attended the parish
church.
It used to be said about Ann Griffiths that in her early
youth she was given to frivolity, and that she loved
dancing and "merry-making nights," and amusement
of all kinds . It is difficult for us in these days to regard
a love of dancing and jollity as a heinous sin, and
there is no reason to think that Ann Griffiths was very
different from her contemporaries in rural Wales . She
\\·orked hard on the farm, and occasionally enjoyed the
diversion of a dance. But this peaceful, uneventful life
·was suddenly changed. One day in the town of Llan­
fyllin she went to hear a sermon by the Rev. Benjamin
Jones, Pwllheli, and was profoundly stirred. For a
time she suffered great tribulation of mind, but came
to know Christ as her Saviour, and for the remainder
of her brief life, lived in the pure joy of His presence.
In 1 797, she joined the Methodist " Society" at Pont
Robert ; her elder brother John was already a member,
and shortly afterwards her father also became a member.
Her mother had died in 1 794, and the care of the
home had rested on her ; in 1 804 her father died, and
in the same year she married Thomas Griffiths, a farmer
from Meifod. In the following year she died at the age
of 29.
The sum total of her hymns is small, fill:d we have only
a single verse in her own handwriting. She w-0uld recite
them, as she composed them, to her servant Ruth ·

Ruth in turn treasured them in her memory, and whe �

l;
she married the Rev. John Hughes, Pont RQ ert, they
96
 School, Llanrwst, but he had to leave before long on
account of the poverty of his family. In 1 8 1 6 he taught
at Tal-y-bont, Caernarvonshire, and began to take part
in eisteddfodau. From 1 8 1 8 to 1 820, he worked in
Chester as sub-editor of a monthly journal, Goleuad
Gwy nedd, but took Holy Orders after a period of prepara­
tion at Aberriw and St. Bees College. He became a
curate in Chester, and died in 1 855.
Much of his poetry is written in the strict metrical
forms fashionable in the first half of the nineteenth
century. His contemporaries considered his ode Gwledd
Belsasar a masterpiece, but more recent critics value
his free verse more highly. Probably his best known
poem is Cyfiafan Mor/a Rhuddlan, of the first stanza
of which the following is a rough rendering :

"The sun is setting below the lofty mountains

of Arfon, and the shades of night are closing over
vale and moor. The rustle of the trees is stilled,
and I hear the sound of the waves die down . In
my breast I hear my fond heart beating with
strong anger as I meditate on that dread and
bloody massacre when Wales was betrayed on
Rhuddlan Marsh. "

His poetic gifts are also seen in Ysgoldy Rhad

L/anrwst. Here is a translation of one verse :

" The school bell is silent, no children come any

longer from the town. The bolts of the great
doors rust where they stand. The bats in their
silent flight weave their darkling way where once
were chanted the sweet songs of Homer and
Virgil."

But Ieuan Glan Geirionydd is best known as the

ddedwydd yw rhai tr.wy
· ·

writer of such hymns as Mor y

ffydd, A r Zan lorddonen ddof.n, tymhestlog
and A r for
. teithio 'rwyf. Gwy/iedydd
He was a contnbutor to the
and edited Y Gwladgarwr for three years . He also
wrote on musical subjects and published a collection
of hymn tl,l,Iles.
99
55· JOHN JONES, TALSARN
( 1 7 96-1 857).
JOHN JONES was born in the year 1 796 at Tan-y-castell,
a small farmhouse near Dolwyddelan, in Caernarvon­
shire . As a child he was very fond of reading, singing
and preaching. The desire to preach was very strong
in him, and he spent much of his time exercising his
gifts along the slopes of Moel Siabod, and in Nant-y­
�
Tylathau. Though the .opportunities afforde him in
his youth were scanty, he laboured diligently and became
one of the foremost men of his generation.
His mother was left a widow with nine children,
when he, the oldest of the boys, was · eleven years old .
He worked hard for years at his home and in the quarry,
and for a period was· employed on Telford's new road
betwen Capel Curig and Ogwen Lake. He spent his
leisure hours reading and studying ; he learnt the · ·

elements of music and was made precentor at Dol­

wyddelan. In later years he composed a number of
hymn tunes, two of which, Llanllyfni and Tanycastell,
are favourites to this day.
He received permission to preach in the Calvinistic
Methodist denomination in 1 82 1 , and ·he applied all ·

his energies to the work. In 1 823 he moved to Talsarn,

where he married, and for a period he was busy as a
quarryman, shopkeeper and preacher. He was admitted
to membership of the Association in 1 824. He ·then
retired from the quarry, bought a horse, and devoted
all his time to travelling widely throughout Wales on
preaching tours . He was ordained in 1 829. For the
rest of his life he continued to advance in influence and
power, winning for himself a unique position among the
great preachers of his age.
He had a commanding figure, a comely fac�, and a
voice that was pleasing and powerful ; he had also a
penetrating mind, a lively imagina�on and a godl y
spirit.
He died in 1 857, and was buried in the churchyard
at Llanllyfni .
100
56. SAMUEL ROBERTS ( S. R. "), "

( 1 8 00-1 885).
S . R. was born i n Llan-bryn-mair, Montgomeryshire .
His father, the Rev. John Roberts, was minister of the
"Hen Gapel" there. He was educated at the IndeJ? en­
dents' College at Llanfyllin, and in 1 827 he was ordained
co-pastor with his father ; his father died in 1 834, and
S.R. took entire charge of the church. In 1 857, he
emigrated to America and was· there ten years, but then
had to return, much the poorer. He went to live in
Conway with his two brothers, and resided there for
the remainder of his life.
S .R. is in the front �rank of the Nonconformist (with
few exceptions one might say Independent) Radicals of
the last century. It is true that radical sentiments had
flourished in Wales long before S.R's time : they are
to be found, for example, in the work of Twm o'r Nant,
but it was S.R. and his contemporaries who converted
these sentiments into principles, into a "programme" to
be propagated in every possible way . The list of
subjects in which S .R. was interested is a lengthy one,
and he cast his eye over the entire world, but everywhere
we find him consistently applying the fundamental
principles of Radicalism to the problem of bettering
the conditions of mankind.
This is what he did when he fought against the
tyranny of landlords and stewards, when he plead ed
the cause of peace and freedom of nation s, when he
argued for the emancipation of the slaves, in wri tin cr
on the "topics of the day," �he tollg�tes, the rail ways �
the exten sion of the franchise, taxation, Free Tra de
and Poor Laws, Temperance, and ma ny similar
s ubjects, and in his campaign for extending education
and knowledge among . the l?eople. I t was thi
s
�
Ra calism that made him enugra�e to America, the
.
longing which was felt so strongly 1n WaJes in the las t
century to fo�nd a colony where there woul d be freedo
m
from oppression and tyranny. It was this too wh
ich
impelled Iµm, in 1 843, to found his famo s � m' z
aga ine
101
Y Cronic!, the year in which Hiraethog 's Amserau was
first published . It is certain that he contri buted hundreds
of thousands of word s to the "Little Chro nicle" alone ;
the difficultv indeed was to refrain from writing, because
there was hardlv a subject in which S.R. was not
.,

interested and upon which he had not something

definite to say. His writings have very little lit�rary
value-in this respect Hiraethog is far ahead of him­
but many of his articles show that he had �n eye for . ·
the weak spot in his opponent's argument, and a gift,
which he used unsparingly, for lacerating anybody who .
disagreed with him. · .·�
S.R. constantly refers to the needs of Wales, but
these needs usually �ppeared to him as part of the needs· ·
of humanity in general. We cannot · think of S .R. as a
nationalist in the sense in which the word is understood
to-day.

57. EBEN FARDD (Ebenezer Thomas) .

(1 802-1 863).
EBEN FARDD was one of the famous poets of Eifionydd.
He was born at Tan-lan, a little cottage in the parish . of
Llanarmon, in Caemarvonshire. His father· was a
weaver, and he followed the same craft for a perio4 . ··

He was at schools in Llangybi, Llanarmon, A:bererch

and Tudweiliog . In 1 822 he returned to his old home
district and opened a school there ; and from his friends
Dewi �yn, �obert �p Gwilym Ddu and · Sion Wyn
he received instruction and encouragement which
led him to develop his abilities and power. In 1 824,
at the age of twe�ty-two, he won a prize at the Powys
.
Eisted dfod for his ode, Dinist r Jerusalem. In 1 827 he
mov�d to Cly�og �o conduct a school ; interesting
d�ta1ls concermng this school are to be found in his
<liar>: . These appear in a volume of Eben Fardd' s works
publ�she� by Owen M. Edwards in Cyfres y Fil.
He
married in 1 830, learnt book-binding, and bu�lt hi
mself
102
 e, and er
a house whe re his wife baked bread for sal
became a so
worked as a book-binder. Later, the hou se
the village post office . .
Meth odi st
In 1 842, Eben Fardd joined the Calvini stic
t pened
Connexion, gave up the National school, bu ?
ith the
another school which was mostly conce rned w
had
tuition of prospective ministerial students. H�
� con-
charge of this school for the rest of his lif�, an It
ol
. tinued to flourish till 1 929. Despite the clatms his scho
a
made upon his time and energies, Eben Fardd won .
s
very prominent place amongst the literary men of . hi
generation as a poet and critic. He compose d a vanety
_-of poems in a wide range of forms and modes ; an , �
though he produced a number of popular poems m
the "free" metres, it is claimed that he excelled mostly
in the "strict" metres. Amongst his masterpieces may
be mentioned the odes, Dinistr Jerusalem (1824), Brwydr
·Maes Bosworth (1858), and Awdl y Flwyddyn ( 1862).
He died in _1 863 , and was buried in Clynnog . Church-
yard.

S�· GWILYM HIRAETHOG (William Rees)

- (1 802-1883).
GWILYM HIRAETHOG was one of the most versatile
Welshmen of the nineteenth century. He was born in
1 802 in a farmhouse, called Chwibren Isaf, on the
·

lower slopes of the Hiraethog range, in the parish of

Llansannan, Denbighshire, the home of Tudur Aled
and William Salesbury. When Hiraethog was a boy
the family lived in Cae Du, the old home of Willi aiti
Salesbury.
He lost the sight of one eye when he was three years
old. He had but little formal education, and when h
s�r�ed preaching, about 1829, in· the Independ
. . en
rrurustry, he was still working on the farm. He bec
�
am
a minister at Mostyn ( 18 3 1 -3 7 ) , Denbigh ( 1 8 3 7-43)an�
.
103
• < '
Liverpool ( 1 843-75). Although he did not devote his
whole time to the ministry (as did his brother, Henry
Rees), Hiraethog was, nevertheless, one of the greatest
preachers of his age. He died in 1 883 .

Hiraethog was one of the first Welshmen to realise

the influence and value of newspapers, and he felt the
need for a Welsh newspaper which could deal in some
detail with political matters. The newspaper Yr Amserau
commenced publication under Hiraethog's editorship
soon after he had moved to Liverpool. This was the
first Welsh newspaper of its kind which established
itself firmly. Its success was assured when Llythyrau
'Rhen Ffarmwr appeared in it. These "letters" were
written by Hiraethog in the dialect of the Hiraethog
district and dealt \Vith such subj ects as Corn Law Repeal,
The Tithe, Elementary Education, Disestablishment,
and the Oxford Movement. Under Hiraethog's influence
the Amserau (which was amalgamated with Y Faner
in 1 859) aroused a general enthusiasm in Wales for
political and religious liberty. Hiraethog paid much
attention to political movements in Europe. He wrote
regularly in support of the efforts of Mazzini and
G aribaldi in Italy, and of the Kossuth movement in
Hungary against Austria. He corresponded with
Mazzini ; and he was thanked for his work by a
Hungarian deputation. His book Aelwyd F'ewythr
Robert (to some extent, an adaptation of Uncle Tom's
Cabin) did mtich to gain support in Wales for the
emancipation of the slaves in the United States.
Hiraethog was the most popular lecturer of his time ;
it was he who established the lecture in Wales as a
means of enlightening the public on important �ubjects.
His choice of such subjects as "The 1 848 Revolution ,,
"Garibaldi, " created special interest in Wales i n
the stirring contemporary events in Europe. His lecture
on Pantycelyn helped the Welsh people to appreciate
the real greatness of the famous hymn writer .
In prose and poetry his literary activity was unceasin
. g.
His ode on J:Ieddwch (Peace) ( 1 8 5 1 )
is p9$sibl y the best
known of his poems.

1 04
 On e of Hiraethog's hymns,
. Dyma Gariad fel y moroedd,
is ve ry w el l known .
His nov els , Aelwyd F' ewy thr Rob (1853), Cyfrinach
ert
.
Y1 A elwyd (1 � �6-58 ),
and, more especially, Helyn tion
Bywyd Hen Deilzwr ( 186
7) place him among the pion eers
of th� novel in Wales . He makes
a special fe�ture of
th e dialogue as a means of delineating character an d
of pre senting the story.

59· SIR HUGH OWEN

(1 804 -1 88 1 ).
SIR HUGH OWEN was born in 1804
at Y Foel, an Anglesey
farmhouse standing Ion the shores of the Menai Straits
between Tal-y-foel and Brynsiencyn. For nine years he
attended Evan Richardson's School at Caemarvon. In
1 825, he secured employment at Mr. Bulkley Hughes's
office in London. Soon afterwards he moved to the office
-0f Mr. R. Vaughan Wynne Williams, a successful lawyer
of Hatton Gardens, where in the course of the next ten
years he gained much knowledge and experience. In
1836, he was appointed to a post in the office of the
Poor Law Commission, later known as The Local
Government Board. He won the regard and esteem
of all \vho came in contact with his work, and he attained
an honourable position in the Civil Service. He took a
leading part in many important religious and social
movements in the capital, was instrumental in re­
starting the Cymmrodorion Society in 1873, and strove
diligently to bring about useful reforms in the Eistedd-
fod . .
Though he wo n renow in the many fi�lds in which
.

�
vements were In th� field of
he laboured , his finest . achie
Wel sh Education. � 1s Llyth;rr. a t y Cymry �n 1843
m establishing �o� den?Irunational
prove d instrumental
..

ldren of Wales ; It 1s mamly to him

hools fo r the chi
est�blishment of n�n-denominat ional
� at vie owe the
11 c0� the trairung of teachers In Wales, and to a
co eg es 14
ree also 1t was hi s personal euorts which
a
substantial . deg
•
·

.
105
secured the establishment and maintenance of the
U�versity College at Aberystwyth . In 1 872, he relin­
qwshed his post in London, i n order to devote - his
whole time and energies to the work of this college.
Later on he realised the need for Secondary Schools
�d for scholarships for Welsh children, and he. gave
mvaluable guidance to the Departmental Committee
under the chairmanship of Lord Aberdare in 1 880.
In 1 88 1 , he received the honour of knighthood in
recognition of his services to Welsh Education. But
he died at Mentone before the year was out, and was
buried in Abney Park Cemetery, London.

6o. DR. LEWI S - EDWARD S·

( 1 809-1 887) . . . . :; .
..

LEWIS EDWARDS was born in 1 809 in a farmhouse ·

called Pwllcenawon, n�ar 'Pen-llwyn, Cardiganshire �':

He began to preach when he was at a school in Llan­
geithio. For a brief period afterwards he was a student
at University College, London, although a college
·

education was not then deemed necessary for a Methodist

preacher. He settled in Laugharne as a home missioner
and also conducted a school there. He went to Edin­
burgh University in 1 833, and was , the first Methodist
preacher to obtain the degree of M.A. Thirty _years
later, Edinburgh University awarded him the honorary
degree of D.D. He died in 1 887, and was - buried in
Llanycil churchyard, close by the grave of Thomas
Charles, of Bala .
Lewis Edwards laid emphasis on the value of educa­
tion and culture . When his in�ention of going to
University College, London, became known-, h� was
censured in the Association meeting by Thomas
Richards, Fishguard (Henry Richard's uncle) for such
an indication of a "proud spirit." After his return
from Edinburgh University, he and his broth�r-in-law;
the Rev. David Charles (a grandson of Thomas C harle s
of Bala) opened a school at Bala, mainly for preachers.
This school was afterwards adopted as a · Calvinistic
1 06
 Methodi st academy in North Wales. When the college
\\7as opened, there was much prejudice against "manu­
factured preachers," as such students were call ed.
Dr. Edwards was Principal at Bala for about half a
century , and during that period hundreds of stu dents
came under his charge, including several of the most
prominent men of the denomination.
. .

He greatly admired English and Scottish penodi �als

such as Blackwood's Magazine, The Edinburgh Review,
and The Quarterly Review, and in 1845 he �n� Roger
Edwards began to publish a Welsh penod! cal, Y
. Traethodydd. This publication, which he edited nll .
the end of 1 8 5 4, exercised considerable influence on
.Welsh thought . To Dr. Edwards is also mainly due
the idea of starting Trysorfa ' r Plant a children s '

magazine. Some of his articles in Y Traethodydd were

· published in two volumes, namely, Traethodau Llenyddol
and · Traethodau Diwinyddol.
· ·His most famous book is A thrawiaeth yr Iawn (The ·

Doctrine of the Atonement) which had much influence

on conte�porary religious thought in w.al es.
Apart from his influence upon Wales in general,
Lewi� Edwards has a special place in the history of
the Calvinistic Methodist system. If Thomas Charles
may be regarded as the founder of the Methodist
Connexion, so Lewis Edwards may be called its
architect and builder.
Three of Lewis Edwards' sons entered the ministry,
and one of them, Thomas Charles Edwards ( 1 837- 1 900)
became weH known as the first Principal of Aberystwyth
University College, and afterwards Principal of the . Theo­
logical College at Bala.

61. T ALHAIARN (John Jones)

( 1 8 1 0-1 870).
,
"TALHAIARN " w� s b�rn at The �arp I nn, L la
. nfair
Talhaearn, Denbighshire, tn a locality which was not
ed
for the virility of its native culture. H e was nurtu
red
107
in the atmosphere of popular song and ballad, playing
on the harp and penillion singing, and these left a
lasting impression on him.
to an
When he was fifteen he was apprenticed
r of
architect and later was employed by a superviso
�
bridge-c nstruction in Denbighshire an
.
�
Mont­
the
gomeryshire . In 1 843 he went to London, JOtned
ry
Gwyneddigion Society, and applied hims elf to poet
in earnest.
He took part in the building of the Crys�al Palace
in London. He afterwards spent three years 1n Franc e,
where he came under the influence of popular
poets, notably Beranger. From 1 860 onwards, he w�s in
great demand as an Eisteddfod conductor in Walesi �
His store of ready wit and his gift of popular song ,
equipped him admirably for this work.
Talhaiarn, like other poets of his period, 'Y�ote · .
·

awdlau for the Eisteddfod, but these have no ·li�erary

value . His poetry in the free metres, and his lyrics in
particular, are by far his best work. He remembered �

snatches of old songs and ballads from his childhood

days at home, and wove these into his poems. . His
work was published in three volumes-in 1 855, 1 8 6 2 ,
1 869. . . . .-

Talhaiam lived at a time when concerts were beinCT

t>
first organised in connection with the Eistedd fodau
and \vhen there was a growing demand for popttla ;
words fitted to Welsh airs which could be sung at
.
su�h gatherings . �e was among the first to resp ond to
_
this �eed, and he, hke Ceiri og, had a particular gift for
wedding W?rds to song. Many of his poems wer e
set to music by Pencerdd Gwalia, Brinley Rich
ards ,
� .
warn Alaw and others, and soon gained pop
ularity
m the concerts of the per iod
. · .

He translated and adapted songs by

poets like Bu rns
Moo�e, Shelley nd Byron . Bu rns in
�
to him, and his adaptatio .
particular ap peale d
n of Tam o' Shan ter is
masterly.
·

108
 L o e and
v p atriotism (of a somewhat sentim ental
char acter) are the main themes of his original songs,
and man y o his wor ds will always remain wedded to
�
the Welsh airs for which they
were writt en, and to
.
which they ar e sti ll sung.

· 62 . HENRY RICHARD
(1 8 1 2- 1 888) .
.!fENRY RICHARD was born in Tregaron, Cardiganshire? .

m 1 8 1 2, and was a son of the Rev. Ebenes er Rich ard .

!fe received his education in a school at Llangeitho and
at High bury Independent College, London (1830-34).
·He was the minister of Marlborough Congregational
. · Church, London, from 1835 to 1850, and for the rest
- of his life was prominent in his activities as "Apostle
of Peace" and "Member for Wales. " He died in
, 1 88� . There is a monument to him at Tregaron.
· He was appointed secretary of the Peace Society in
l e48, an ·exciting year in the history of Europe. He
took a prominent part in the Peace Conferences which
were hel� in Brussels, Paris, Frankfort, and other places
in 1 848-50. Henry Richard was · a close friend of
Cobden and John Bright, and it was he who edited the
Peace Society's monthly magazine, Herald of Peace.
Although his work, hitherto, had been mostly outside
Wales, Henry Richarn . had not lost his interest in
Welsh affairs . He had already protested against the
Blue Books in 1847. In his letters to the English press
(which were published in 1866 under the title, "Letters
on . . . the condition of Wales ") he had been the
means of interpreting Welsh life to the English people.
He was elected Member of Parliament for Merthyr
Tydfil in 1 868, and continued to be its member until
his death.
His main interests �ere the Land Question, Religion
.and the S tate, Ed u cat i on, and P eace . He prote sted in
1 09
 Parliament against the oppression of Cardiganshire
landowners who evicted their tenants from their farms
because of their political and religious views . His
protest probably facilitated the passing of the Ballot
Act shortly afterwards (1 872) . He '¥as opposed to the
idea of using public funds to maintain schools where
denominational religious instruction was given . He
was a member of the Departmental Committee which
was appointed to consider the problem of Higher Educa­
tion in Wales ( 1 880-8 1 ), and also of the Royal Com- ·
mission on Education in England and Wales (1 886-�) .
He availed himself of every opportunity in Parliament
to promote the cause of Peace, and was especially
effective in a speech in 1 873 on a resolution which ·
supported the idea of setting up a system of inte_rnatiohal
·

arbitration.
He was elected Chairman of the Congregational Union .
of England and Wales for the year 1 877 ; this was the
first occasion for one who was now regarded as a layman
to be chosen.
He is remembered to-day as the "Apostle of Peace,"
but in the opinion of Tom Ellis he was also the first to
represent in Parliament the new national spirit which
arose in Wales during the second half of the nineteenth
century.

63. THOMAS GEE

( 1 8 1 5-1 898).
THOMAS GEE was a staunch Radical and Nonconformist,.
�ho figured I?rominently in most progressive movements.
m Wales during the nineteenth century. '

His father was an Englishman who had come to

.
Denb1gh to take charge of the printing· press set up
by Thomas Jones , and he had learnt to understand and
love Wales .

1 10
 Thomas Gee was educated in Denbigh, and at
Grove Park School, Wrexham. He decided to be co m e
a printer like his father, and, as a boy, spent the m orn­
ings in the printing office and the afternoons at the
local schoo l. In 1 836 he went to London to widen his
experience, and there he came into conta ct with th e
democratic movements of the time, and with som e
notable figures like Mazzini, the prophet of nationalism .
All this must have influenced him deeply.
I{is parents were members of the Established Church,
but. Thomas Gee joined the Calvinistic Methodists at
an early age, and the family followed him into the ranks
of Nonconformity. Although he was accepted as a
preacher, he never had charge of a church, but he
preached regularly and was always ready to give his
s.ervices to any Nonconformist denomination. Through­
out his life, he took a very prominent part in religious
matters, and was particularly interested in the work of
the Sunday School .
Gee could not fail to come under the influence of the
rich cultural traditions of the Vale of Clwyd. His
literary interests and gifts are r�flected in a Welsh
Encyclopaedia which he published in parts between
1 854 and 1 879, Y Gwyddoniadur Cymraeg, a tremendous
work which cost about £20,000 to produce. He also
published the second edition of the Myvyrian Archaiol­
ogy, and printed the Welsh quarterly, Y Traethodydd
(1 845) edited by Dr. Lewis Edwards and Roger Edwards .
But Gee's name will alw·ays be mainly associated with
Y Faner, the national weekly paper which he began to
publish in 1 857. This wyas combined in 1 859 \Vith
Hiraethog's paper Yr Amserau ( 1 843) and henceforth
appeared un�er �he title Baner ac Amserau Cymru .
Under the direction of Thomas Gee, this pap er exer ­
cised consid erable influence on Welsh tho ught in the
last century . It helped to for m and to enlighten opinion
on important matters of the day ; it expr ess ed the view
­
point of Radical and Nonconformist Wales on curre
nt
�opics ; and it foug� t the ?�ttle� of Welsh dem ocra c
m the fi eld of edu c au on, religi on and p o liti �
cs . Th e thre
111
main movements with which Gee associated himself
prominently were-.

(1) Free, undenominational education at the

elementary, secondary and university stage ;
(2) The struggle against oppressive landlordism,
and the tenant's right to vote according to the
dictates of his conscience ;
(3) Religious equality, and the st1uggle for the
Disestablishment of the Church in Wales .
Y Faner strongly supported every effort made in
Parliament by men like Henry Richard and Osborae
Morgan to bring 'about much-needed reforms. Towards
the end of the century, when the political rev�v�l in
Wales culminated in the election of a number of young .
men imbued with the new ideals, Thomas Gee had
reason to feel proud of the part which he had played in
fostering the principles of freedom which these· ·new-
members set out to champion. .
Though he was of op�on that the stDJ.ggle for
Disestablishment should take precedence oyet. . that of
·

Home Rule for Wales, Thomas Gee was far from

indifferent in this latter subject, and held that the four
nations comprising the British Isles should each receive
the same freedom as Ireland demanded. He urged the
formation of a Welsh National .Party, and he was elected
the first president of the New Wales League ( Cynghrair
Cymru Fydd) . .

He died in 1 898, and was buried in Denbigh.

64. JOHN AMBROSE LLOYD

( 1 8 1 5-1 874)
.

JOHN AMBROSE LLOYD was born in Mold, Flintshire.

In 1 830 he went to Liverpool with his brother to prepare
f�r the t �aching pr�fes �ion, but he had already shown
his affection for music, 1n the choir of the parish church
�d by his knowledge of the wo�ks of Handel and others:
His h� tune Wyddgrug was first sung in public when
he was sixteen years of age.
1 12
 I� 1 838. he wasappointed to the staff of the Mechanics'
I nstitute 1n Live rpool, and duri ng his stay in that city
he was precentor at the Chap el of "Wil liams o'r We rn,"
and late r of Brownlow Hi ll . He drew up a s chem e of
.
mu �1cal instruction, as he wishe d all m em ber s of his
choi r to be able to read music at sight.
He also felt the need of a satisfactory collecti on of
� ymn tunes, and in 1 841 his Casgliad o Donau was Pub­
.
hshed . I t consisted of 229 hymn tunes and eight
anth ems , 2 7 of the former and two of the latter being
of his own work . These show evidence of his knowledge
of Lut heran chants and Elizabethan music. He was
greatl y encouraged in 1845 when he won a prize for
�usical composition at the Groeswen Eisteddfod. At
tpjs time he was a member of the Liverpool Philharmonic
Society, thereby extending his knowledge · of classical
music . He moved in music-loving circles in the city
and, from 1 846 to 1 85 1 , he was the conductor of the
Liverpool Welsh Choral Society.
The theme of Belshasar's Feast was suggested to him
by Hirae�og as a suitable subject for setting to music,
and the · poet-preacher himself wrote the libretto for the
work which was sung for the first time in 1 848 . Lloyd's
cantata Gweddi Habacuc shared the first prize at the
1 85 1 . National Eisteddfod, and was regarded as the
most important composition of sacred music by any
Welshman up to that time. His anthem Teyrnasoedd
y Ddaear became one of the most popular in th� Welsh
repertoire, and his part-song Y Blodeuyn Ola/ was
received with affection by his fellow countrymen. He
collaborated with Hiraethog in Aberth Moliant, a hymn­
book published in 1 873 .
For the last twenty-four years of his life he was a
commercial traveller, and at various times lived at
Conway, Chester and Rhyl. He made a voyage to
Egypt for the sake of his health, but died in Liverpool
soon after returning in 1 874.
He did much to improve the standard of music in
our chapels, and his name will not be forgotten while
tunes like Eifionydd, Henryd, Wynnstay , Whit/ord, and
others are sun g.
H 1 13
65. DAVID DAVIES, LLANDINAM
( 1 8 1 8-1 8 90).
DAVID DAVIES, the most distinctively Welsh of the
Victorian industrialists who made great fortunes in
Wales, was born at Drain Tewion, Llandinam, Mont­
gomeryshire. He was the eldest of nine children, and
was educated at the village school which was held in •

the gallery of the parish church . He left school at the

age of eleven to work on his father's farm. His strong
physique, his initiative, and his industry and thrift in·
farming and as a sawyer, enabled him to achi�ve
financial independence.
·· ·

He possessed remarkable skill and judgment jn

organising drainage and constructional . work. This
came to the notice of the Montgomeryshire surveyor,
Thomas Penson, who gave David Davies his first
public contract, which was to make .the foundations,
an emb ankm ent, and an approach road for a new iron .

bridge across the Severn at Llandinam. Contratting

soon became his chief activity, and many roads in the
Upper Severn area were built by him .

In 1 855 he secured his first contract as .a railway

constructor, and it was as the contractor responsible
for building many of the railways through mountainous
parts of mid-Wales that he became widely known.
So great was his fame that he was invited _to _yisit
Sardinia in 1 862 to advise on railway constriictjon ..
On his return, he proceeded with the constructio,n of
the Pembroke and Tenby Railway, and the line from
Pencader to Aberystwyth. In this period of railway
development, he amassed a considerable fortune, and
became a large landowner.
When 47 years of age, he found a new outlet for his
capital and energies in opening up the coal resources
of the Upper Rhondda Valley. So successful was he,
that in a few years the Ocean Company which he formed
became one of the largest in the coalfield . In order to
expedite the export of coal from the Rhondda, it \Vas

1 14
proposed to construct a new railw
ay to Barry, which
was to be develop ed as a port . David Davies and others
had to fight the opposition of the Bute interests befo re
.
P �lia ment eventually sanctioned the scheme in 1 884.
Five years later this great project, David Davies 's
greatest achievement, was completed.
Although he was not keenly interested in politics,
he served as Liberal M.P. for Cardigan from 1874 to
1 880 . In the House his customary candour, good
humour, and independence of mind, ensured him a
careful hearing, but he never became a · great parlia­
mentarian.
By . his great business ability he won a position of
wealth and influence in his native land. He was a great
benefactor to his denomination, to the University
COllege of Wales, Aberystwyth, and to other good
causes . A man of strong · will, he retained throughout
his life, deep religious convictions, and the puritanism
of his Calvinistic Methodist upbringing.

66. IEUAN GWYNEDD (Evan Jones)

( 1 820--5 2).
ALTHOUGH· Ieuan · Gwynedd died at an early age, after
a life of much affliction, his work as a defender · of the
good name and rights of Wales undoubtedly influenced
the life of his generation.
He was born in 1 820 in a cottage called Bryn Tynoriad,
near Dolgelley, . Merionethshire. For a time he con­
ducted a school and ·preached occasionally. Then, after
receiving some education at Marton and Minsterley
(Salop), he entered Brecon College in 184 1 , and was
there for four years .
In 1 845 he was ordained minister of Saron, Tredegar
(Monmouth�hire). After re?ring from �he ministry
because of ill-healt.h, he edited for a brief perio d a
weekly newsp�per, The Principality, which .was pub­
lished at Cardi ff, and subse quently The Standard of
Freedom, in London. He returned to Cardiff in 1 849 ,
1 15
and in 1 850, under the patronage of Lady Llanover,
he edited a monthly magazine Y Gymraes, to serve
the interes ts of the women of Wales. His hope of
strong support for such a magazine was not realised,
and the venture failed. About the same time he was
appointed editor of a new quarterly magazine Yr
Adolygydd.
He died at Cardiff in 1852, and was buried in the
graveyard of Groeswen Chapel, Glamorgan. The
women of Wales erected a monument to him there.
Ieuan Gwynedd was a man of strong convictions,
keen intellect, tireless industry despite his poor health,
and possessed of a passionate zeal for Wales. He was
an alert critic of contemporary tendencies and move­
ments, and used the Press rather than . the platform as a
means of expressing his opiriion on current affairs.
He strongly supported the Temperance Movement, and
opposed the idea of accepting Government grants to
maintain day schools. Though he wrote much poetry,
his work is not considered to be of great merit .
In 1 847 were published the Reports of the Govern­
ment Commissioners on the state of education in Wales,
known through�ut the Principality as "The Treachery
of the Blue Books .. " Although Ieuan G:wynedd was
then but a young minister in Tredegar he unqertook
the task of replying to the charges made by the Govern­
ment Commissioners and others. In his maily articles
and in his booklets : The Dissent and Morality· of ·Wales
( 1 847), A Vindication of the Educational and · Moral
Condition of Wales (1 848), and Facts and Figures and
Statements (1 849), he shows how p�ejudice and
ignorance had combined to make accusations which
had no substantial basis .

67. IEUAN GWYLLT (John Roberts)

(1 822-1877).
IEUAN GWYLLT was born at Tan-rhiw-felen, Pen-llwyn,
near Aberystwyth, in 1 822. He was educat�d at schools
in Penllwyn and Aberystwyth. From his early days
1 16
 he was inte rest ed in
music, and he attended clas �es
held .by the mu sicia
ns, James and Richa rd Mills
( Llarudloes).
After �olding various
minor posts, Ieuan Gwyl lt
yentured mto a new world when he went to Liverpool
in 1 852 , to assist Hiraetho
g in editing the A mserau.
He became well-known throughou Wales as a journalis t,
t
and he made full use of the facilities available in Liver ­
pool to improve his knowledge of music. He was a
�ember of the Philharmonic Society, and it was during
his st�y at Liverpool that Ieuan Gwyllt began "t�
.
recogruse and to develop the church style in music.
He also became known as a lecturer on music.
In 1 858 he settled in Aberdare as editor of the
Gwladga rwr. He attended Bethania Chapel, where he
met musici ans like Silas Evans, Alaw Ddu and David
Rosser. It was there, under Ieuan Gwyllt's leadership,
that the first Gymanj(l in Aberdare was held.
Ieuan Gwyllt's Llyfr Tonau Cynullei.dfaol was pub­
lished in 1 859, a year of religious revival. This hymn­
book has an important place in the development of
congregational music in Wales. As there were hardly
any tune-books available in that period it was cus­
tomary to sing only two lines at a time ; the congrega­
tion would sing the two lines after the preacher had
read them. Congregational singing, therefore, was
largely ineffective . In his introduction to Llyfr Tonau,
Ieuan Gwyllt set forth his views on these matters. " In
the case of many congregutions," he wrote, "sacred music
is almost as slovenly now as it was forty years ago, .and
much more lacking in vitality. " In his opinion, this
applie d even to the largest congregations of "our large
towns and populous districts, and indeed in districts
with a wide reputation for choral singing." As many
of the hymn- tunes then in use were uns uitable as a
means of worship, there was needed a collection of
"simple dignified and devotional" hymn-tunes which
had be�n b.armonis ed in a "classical, strong and
m aje stic' ' style . "L et everybody sing" was one of
hi s exhortations .
1 17
 Llyfr Tonau contained 220 hymn-tunes and twelve
chants . It was intended to be a collection " not only
of good tunes but of the best ones. " Some were of
opinion that it contained too many German tunes, but
included in it were several Welsh airs, adapted for
church use, such as Llantrisant. To avoid abridging
the lines of Ann Griffiths's hymns he composed suitable
tunes specially for them, such as Esther.
Ieuan Gwyllt edited several magazines- Telyn y Plant
( 1 859-6 1), Y Cerddor Cymreig (1861-74), and Cerddor
y Solffa (1869-74). The last two led to an improvement
in music in Wales and aroused interest in. the new and
imponant Tonic Solfa movement. A new Tonic· Solfa
edition of Llyfr Tonau was published.
He was ordained as a minister during . his stay at
Aberdare, and subsequently had charge of church�s at
Merthyr and Capel Coch (Llanberis). It was he who
founded the Temperance Musical Festival of Snowdonia.
He died in 1 877 and was buried in Caeathro cem�t<;cy,
Caernarvonshire, where there is a monument to him:
Throughout his life, Ieuan Gwyllt aimed .· at raisiiig
the standard of Congregational music. lJe composed
some fine hymn tunes, such as Moab and · Liverpool,
but it was through his lectures and writings; and as
an adjudicator and a conductor of cymanfqoedd, that
his influence was mainly felt in Wales . He p,ublished
SiJJn y JiwbiJi' (a translation of Sankey and.-�. Moody's
book) in 1874. Despite his temperamental nature, and
his unreadiness to co-operate with other musicians,
leuan Gwyllt's contribution to the ·- development · of
congregational music must be regarde� .as the inost
important in his period. ..

68. MICHAEL D. JONES

(1 822-1 899).
MICHAEL D. ]ONES was born in the Manse,. �Llanuwch­
llyn, Merionethshire. He was the son o(.: · a notable
Independent minister of the same name, who had come
1 18
 to Llanuwchllyn to take charge of the now famous "Hen
Gapel . " He also conduct ed a school at The Mans e,
.and Micha el D . Jone s received his early education there .
He was brought up in the atmosphere of the unfo�na�e
.
theological battles which had led to an open split m
the congregation of " Yr Hen Gapel," a short time
before his birth.

His father was later called to take charge of churches

in Bala and the surrounding districts, and to be Principal
of the Independent College at Bala.

Michael D . Jones decided to follow in his father's

footsteps, and proceeded to Carmarthen College, and
later to Highbury College, London, to prepare himself
for the ministry. In 1 848, he we11-t on a voyage to
America. This was the period of the great emigrat�. on
from Wales to the United States, the result of oppressive
_landlotdism, aggravated by the terrible agricul_tural
depression of 1 840-1850. Michael D . Jones was
welcomed by relatives and friends in Cincinnati, people
from Bala and Llanuwchllyn and Llan-bryn-mair. They
persuaded him to remain with them for a while as
minister to the large body of Welsh people established
there. Krlowing of the great hardships in Wales ,
.Michael D'.. Jones decided to establish a society to give
financial aid to poor people from Wales who wished
to escape from oppression and want. Several .branches
of this society sprang up in various parts of America.
This was the beginning of Michael Jones' s life mission,
which was to establish a Welsh Colony for thos e who
emigrated from their country.
On his return to Wales, he accepted the pastorate
of Independent churches in Carmanhenshire. His father
died in 1 853, and in 1855 Michael D . Jones was invited
to take his place as minister and as Principal of the
College in Bala. i:roi:n now on, his name is associated
with Bala, where his life was no less trouble d than th t
a
?
of his fath9r in Llanuw� llyn. As a �es�lt of the bit
ter
�
fe-. 1d rel�nng to t e Two Constttunons ,
'' a rival
coilege was opene 1d n B a1a. Afiter a time one o
f these
1 19
colleges was moved to Bangor, and ultimately both were
united there .
·

But Michael D . Jones was riot a man to shir� a·battle.

I-Ie was a remarkably strong personality, a true Inde­
pendent, firm in his convictions and totally uncompro­
mising. With his long, flowing beard, his homespun
clothes, his tall grey hat and his stout walking..stick, his
appear�e always compelled attention .
·

He detested and vig_orously denounced every sign

of servility amongst his fellow-Welshm�n, and every
·

lack of independent �pirit and self-respect. As a Welsh

Radical he staunchly believed in freedom, both for the
common people and for nations. His activities on behalf
of the Welsh colony were, at first, base4 pn humanitarian
sympathies, but the idea soQn grew into a national vision,
which had as its aim, not only to aid Welshmen to escape
from oppiession and poverty, but also to keep .them
together, after they had emigrated, as a self-governed
national entity, preserving and using thei� own language
and traditions.. The Welsh Colony was to be a: patte�ll
of an independent Wales . This vision appeared to him
to have been realised in . the Welsh Settlement of .
Patagonia . For this he laboured, travelled, · wrote,
a�dressed meetings, collected money, and · suffered
- enormous financial losses ; and it was there that his
son, Llwyd ah Iwan, was z.nurdere d.
·

Michael Jones also fought against the oppression of

Tory landlords, and particularly against the domination
of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn. When he was elected
by Llanuwchllyn, in 1 889, as its representative on the
.County Council, against Sir Watkin's candidate, it
was a tremendous personal victory for him, as well as
for Welsh Radicalism .
He died in 1 899, and wa� buried in the graveyard of
"Yr Hen Gapel," Llanuwchllyn.
Tom Ellis and Owen M. Edwards paid high tribute
to his vision, his faith and his enthusiasm. He and
Emrys ah Iwan are mainly responsible for developing
We lsh Pat ri otic feeling into a vigorous , practical
.

.
nanonahsm .
1 20
 69. I SLWYN (William Thomas)
(1 832-7 8 ).
lsLWYN was born near the village of Ynys Ddu, at the
foot of Mynydd Islwyn, in Monmouthshire. He was
the youngest of nine children . He was educated at
schools in Tredegar, Newport, Cowbridge and Swansea,
but his education was cut short by the sudden death of
his father, and he began to work as a land surveyor.
He became engaged to be married to Ann Bowen, a
young woman from Swansea, but she died when Islwyn
was only 2 1 years of age. This tragic loss. deeply
influenced his life and work ; apart from direct refer­
ences to �er, and to his grief at losing her, the \\rhole of
his poetry is characterised by a deep sadness. His
eldest sister had married the Rev. Daniel Jenkins,
minister of Y Babell, Ynys Ddu, under whose influence
Islwyn decided to enter tne ministry. He began to
preach among the Calvinistic Methodists in I 854, and
was ordained in Llangeitho in I 859. He spent the
remainder of his l ife in the district where he was born,
and died there in I 879.
Islwyn is the greatest Welsh poet of· the nineteenth
century, and one of the greatest of all Welsh poets .
He was not recognised as such in his. day, and even
later, when the ideas of critics on the nature and
function of poetry were broadening, it was only slowly
that his worth was recognised. The reason for this lay
not so much in anything that was new in his tecluiJque,
as that his subject and his treatment of it were quite
new in Welsh poetry.
He was only 22 or 23 years of age when he began to
compose his great poem, The Storm. His aim was to
compos e an epic of a bout 9,000 lines dealing with the
relation of the Creator to His Creation, with man at the
�
centre . He did not fi sh the poem ; to be exact it is
not one poem but a senes �f poems dealing with various
h_
aspects of t e same subJect, but he wrote eno ugh
.
(a bout 6,9<)0 Imes) to ena b l e . u s to perceive his strength
and \\'eakness as a po et. It 1s dear, too, th
at the work
121
of some English poets, notably Wordsworth and Young,
had influenced him .

Islwyn is a mystic,.and The Storm gives expression to

his mysticism. Professor Gruffydd calls him a philo­
sophical mystic, because in The Storm, his development
of the idea of the Unity which lies behind all the
apparent diversity of this life is given philosophical
form. The poem is uneven ; the phrasing is sometimes
clumsy, the diction high-flown, and the thought hazy.
But at his best, Islwyn stands quite alone, and his
vision of the unity that lies behind all diversity and
reconciles all things within itself is then clear.
Islwyn wrote a fairly substantial body of poetry.
He won the chair four times in the National Eisteddfod,
and became a well-known adjudicator. He wrote a
great deal to the Press and, at various times, edi�ed
four Welsh journals. But, for all this activity, it is
fairly certain that his fame as a great poet will rest on ·
The Storm .
·-

' . . ,

70 . CEIRIOG (John Ceiriog Hughes)

(1 833-1 887).
CEIRIOG was born in Llanarmon, Dyffryn Ceiriog,. in
1 833. When he was 1 6 he was apprenticed� to a printer
in Oswestry, but in a year he moved to Manchester
to work as a railway clerk. In 1 865, he returned
to Wales as station master at Llanidloes, and in 1 87 1
he became sl@.tion master at Caersws . He died in
Caersws in 1 81l,'7 , ae-d was buried i� J..Aanwno church-
,

yard •
r,
',.t
-...
t
(
� ( I �
•
(

...
\. I '
�·
'
..

Though the opinion of critics about the value of

Ceiriog's poetry has changed more than one�, there can
be no doubt about his continued popularity among
Welsh people in general, and he may be fairly ranked
among the greatest Welsh lyric poets . He began to
write in a period when poetry written in the " fre e ,,
1 22
 metres had, in the \vorks of the " poet
-preachers," sunk
to a low lev� l, the diction being pom
pous and affected,
an� t �e subJ e�ts unsuitable. Ceiriog did Welsh poetry
a Slilll lar service to that rendered to English poetry by
Wor� s�orth and Coleridge . He restored to it simplicit.Y
�f diction and sincerity, in other words he brought 1t
into the tradition of Welsh poetry in the free m etres .
As Profes sor Gruffydd shows, the influence of William
Williams, Pantycelyn, may be clearly seen in his work,
especially his early work, and we can see in him the
weaknessses as well as the strength of Pantycelyn's work .
Much of his poetry is the poetry of the exile, the work
of a Welshman living in the great city of Manchester,
and longing for the peace of his native vale and its
scenery, for that life which he describes so magnificently
in his pastoral poem Alun Mabon . This is the note
that he strikes in his best-known lyric Nant y Mynydd,
and again in his hymn Rwy'n liefain o'r anialwch.
Sometimes he overdoes it, and lapses into ·sentimentality,
but this is . ·a f�ult to which many poets writing in
· exile are · prone .
Ceiriog became a notable figure in the literary life
of Wales, especially in the National Eisteddfod and on
the concert platform. He wrote a large number of
poems intended for the concert platform, many of them
bemg set to traditional Welsh melodies, and in his book
Y Bardd a'r ,Cerddor (The Poet and the Musician) he
disco.urses on the craft of writing this type of verse.
Altogether he wrote a considerable body of verse,
" too much, undoubtedly," says Dr. T. Gwynn Jones
" for even his best pieces bear signs of carelessness."
But, at bis best, � e is in the front r�nk of Welsh lyric
poets , and there 1s h� rdly a s �hool in �elsh- speaking
Wales where something of his work 1s not stu died .
Moreo ver, the work of Ceiriog is among the chief in­
fir:.ences which inspired that other poet who is so well
known tQ Welsh children, Eifion Wyn.

1 23
71. DANIEL OWEN
(1 836-1 895).
DANIEL OWEN was a native of Mold, Flintshir e . The
hous e in which he was born, and the shop which he
kept, can still be seen in M�ld, as well as .the statue
which has been erected to his memory. His. mother,
who belonged to the family of Twm o'r Nant (q.v. ) was
a woman of remarkable personality, and Dani:I Owen
acknowledges his great indebtedness to her. His father
and two brothers, who worked in the Argoed coal mine,
met their death in a very tragic manner when the mine
\\ras flooded in 1 837. The rest of the family was
brought up in poverty, with few opportunities for
receiving normal education. The Sunday School and
the Bible were the chief educative forces in Daniel
Owen's life as a child. ·

At the age of 1 2, he was apprenticed to a tailor in

Mold. In the workshop he would hear arguments on ·

religious, political and cultural topics . Welsh and

English books were being read and discussed, and
Daniel Owen acquired a taste for literature. He began
to take an interest in the competitive meetings .which
Roger Edwards had begun to hold in Mold, anp he
contributed to Welsh and English newspapers . ·:'.�.;

When he was 29, he entered Bala College, but re­

turned home before completing his course, to take
charge of the family, to follow again his occupation
as a tailor, and to preach on Sundays . He frequently
addressed young people's meetings in Mold, and these
addresses were published later in a volume called Y
Siswrn (The Scissors) .
In 1 876, his health broke down and he had to abandon
preaching. Roger Edwards, who was then editor of
Y Drysorfa, and who had detected his literary talent
�ow urged him to .. write to every monthly issu� of thi �
Journal, and thus it was in serial form that Daniel ,Owe
n,s
fir� t tw� novels appeared, Y Dreflan
. and Rhys Lewis,
His wr1t1ng s immediately became popular. Peop
le·
1 24
who were dee . . . . .
pl Y pr�Judiced against
stor ies with fictton read his
e�at e1,1JOym nt, in the belief that they
were tru e an �
J
the circulation of Y J?rysorfa incr�as ed
rapi dly.
vi vidly the
1�
n he se �o
novels, Darn el Owen pai nted
. 1 � whi ch he knew so well, the Wels h
co mmu
c. ruty
as its i o ca poin s
�
l w ch had the chapel and seiat( " society ")
t .
I his
n�xt . book,
J!noc Hu�s,
he broke through the
We. h pre Judi ce against fictton
� and established the
r gh t of the novel to stand independently as a form of
. ue ratu re. The central theme in Enoc Huws
is the new
industriali m
� which threatened to break the unity of
Welsh society. D aniel Owen's most remarkable char­
a cter, Captain Trefor, symbolises the new values, the
lust for making money and for " getting on. " In his
founh novel, Gwen Tomos,
the author chose as his
background the old rural Welsh life before Methodism
po ssesse d it.
. Daniel Owen took Welsh life as his material, and used
It as only a great artist can. He saw Wales during one of
the most important periods in its history, and " inter­
preted the change from the light-hearted gaiety of the
l 8th century, through the intense fervour of the
Methodist revival, to the troubled days of industrial­
ism.''. He had a remarkable understanding of these
peri(;>.ds, and he has portrayed fine characters typifying
each, Thomas and Barbara Bartley, Robert Wynn,
Mari Lewis and Abel Huws, Bob Lewis, Mr. , Denman,
Captain Trefor and Wil Bryan the humorous �nlooker,
commentator and critic .
·

Daniel Owen' s books have been widely read. Many .

kno"'n as though they
of his characters are as well
some of their sayings have
were living people, and
Among his most popular episodes
b ecome proverbial.
of Thomas Bartley ' s visit to Bala.
are the des criptions
clock-cle�ning, and Robert Wynn's
Wil Bryan and his
ce of shavmg on a Saturday night.
weekl y performan
of character, he shows keen observa­
In his -portrayal
tion, real symp� t
�
th a �d a fun . of �umou� ; he has
st s g1ft for wntmg interesttng natural
also the- d ramati
1 25
di
W.alogu e. Ac cording to one critic " to thi da
s y as a
els h nove i ist,
· D aruel Owen stands by himself,' and
'

his pla ce wou ld not be low

·
·

. among the best writers of

fi ction anywhere. "

72 . SI R JOHN RHYS
(1 840- 1 9 1 5).
�iR JOHN RHYS was born in Ponterwyd, Cardiganshire,.
m 1 840 . At the outset of his career he enjoyed few·
advantages ; he attended classes held at certain farms
in the neighbourhood, and it is believed _ that he was. ,,
first inspired t{') take an interest in language and grammar
by a weaver named Dafydd Gruffydd of Wern Deg .
When a British school was opened in Po.nterwyd he was
sent to it. After a while he went to study, under a better
teacher, in the school at Pen-llwyn, about seven miles ·

from his home, and it was there that he began his ·

career, as a pupil teacher. Later he was admitted to the

Normal College at Bangor . His teachers did not find
in him any outstanding gifts, but at the end of the Course
he gained his teacher's Certificate a.nd was appointed.
Head-teacher of the school at Rhos-y-bol, Anglesey.
During his stay in Anglesey, he became prominent
through his writings on the Welsh language and Welsh
antiquities . He found some good friends among the
clergymen of Anglesey, and it is believed that he was
enabled to go to Oxford in 1 865, through the good offices
of the Rev. Morris Williams, of Llanrhuddlad. He
revealed unusual capacities as a student at Jesus College,
graduated in 1 869, and pursued research work in t e �
u niversities of France and Germ.any. He returned to
Wales in 1 87 1 , and for a time was an Inspector · of
Schools in the counties of Flint an.d Denbigh.
When a Chair of Celtic was established at Oxford
in 1 877, he was invited to fill it, and he held it ti ll his
death in 1 9 1 5 . He was elected Principal of Jesu s
College . in 1 895. •

'
1 26 I
'·
He lived in Denbigh, and was associated with Y Faner ;
he held pastorates in Ruthin, Trefnant �nd Rhewl .
He died in 1 906 and was buried in Rhew!.
Emrys ab Iwan was a great patriot. He believed that
the life of a nation is as sacred as that of the family.
He was an ardent supporter of the Irish cause, and
always championed the rights of small nations. The
servility of the Welsh people revolted him, and he
lashed them mercilessly with his pen, in the hope that
he could thus sting them to greater self-respect. He
fought for the right to use the Welsh language in the
Courts and in the schools.
Emrys was a scholar and a distinguished man of letters.
His Welsh style was unique in that period. His sermons
\\1ere always written out in full, and these were pub ­
lished in three volumes under the title Homiliau
(Homilies). In content and style, these sermons rank
am�ng the classics of Welsh literature.
Emrys ab Iwan was misunderstood and misrepre­
sented in his day. Despite all antagonisms_, and all
slanders, he stoutly maintained the right as he saw it.
Here is what he says in his Llythyr Alltud (Letter from
an Exile) :-
" That which is right is always clear and simple
to him whose vision is simple ; hold to it in great and
small things, even if the whole world is against you ."

76. SIR OWEN M. EDWARD S

(1 858-1 920).
OWEN MORGAN EDWARDS was born on Christmas Eve,
1 85�, at the farmste�d of Coed-y-pry, Llanuwchllyn,
_
Menoneth. He received his early formal education at
the village National school where he became a pupil
· teacher. Later he attended the Grammar School at
ala, where Tom Ellis and J. Puleston Jones were his
131
fellow-pupils . Afterwards he entered the Caly inist�c
Methodist College in the same town, and dunng his
final session, acted as assistant tutor there. He preached
regularly during his student years, but his te�perament
and gifts led him towards learning and teaching rather
than to the pulpit and the pastorate. In 1 880 he became
a student at the Unive.rsity College of Wales, Aber­
ystwyth ; went for a session (1 883-84) to Glasgow
University, and in 1885 entered Balliol College, Oxford,
where he had an outstanding career.
After a period of a year spent in· travelling through
France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy, he returned
to Oxford, and in 1 889 he was elected Fellow and Tutor
of Lincoln College where he remained until 1 907, and
was an Honorary Fellow until his death. At Oxford he
established a great reputation for himself as a lecturer
and tutor ; he was also one of the founders and guiding
influences of the Dafydd ap Gwilym Society, a Univer­
sity club which is conducted entirely in the Welsh
language, and which has included so many well-k�own
Welshmen amongst its members.
In 1 899, after the death of Tom Ellis, M.P , he was
.

returned unopposed to the House of Commons as

·

Liberal member for his native county of Merioneth.

However, at the next General Election he did not seek
re-election, though in all probability he would have
been returned unopposed.
His vital interests throughout his life were literature ,
history, the culture of his native land, and education ;
and he found the appropriate avenues for his great
ability and skill as a writer in a prodigious literary
activity which embraced creative work of his own, and
the provision of popular literature in the Welsh language
for his own people.
In 1 890 he became joint-editor of the periodical
Cymru Fydd, but resigned when it developed too much
· on political lines. His own first monthly journal Cymru
was published in 1 89 1 , and was followed in 1 892 by
Cymru 'r Plant, a monthly magazine for children which
1till survives. He continue d to edit both thro�ghou
132