Prichard Welsh Princes 2

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Ancestry of ?Margaretta Prichard (est 1650 –?1728)

Welsh Princes 2

In the power struggles among Welsh rulers, RHYS ap TEWDWR, the young prince of Deheubarth, took a new stance by finding an ally in the son of CYNAN ab IAGO of Gwynedd, who had returned to Wales from refuge in Ireland. In the battle of Mynydd Carn in 1081 they together defeated all of their rivals and opponents. This happened during the minority of BLEDDYN’s sons, and in a sense, it cleared their way to regain their father’s princedom in Powys and then use their energy fighting the Normans instead of Welsh princely rivals, as will be seen. The story of how this change came about is the story of RHYS ap TEWDWR and his ally GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN in the 11th and 12th centuries.

II-389,248.RHYS ap TEWDWR (d. 1093) and
 II-389,250.GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN (d.1137)

To pick up these events in Deheubarth, we must turn back to CADELL ab EINION who ruled from 999, and whose great nephews Maredudd and Rhys had returned to power there after the death of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn in 1063. Little is known of CADELL’s son TEWDWR MAWR, who was called the Great primarily because he was the father of RHYS ap TEWDWR, who became famous for his success against rival Welsh princes and his recognition as ruler of Deheubarth by the new Norman king William.

RHYS ap TEWDWR took possession of Deheubarth after his second cousin was killed in 1078, and as was just said, in 1081 he sought and gained the assistance of the young heir of Gwynedd, GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN, against their common rivals. RHYS's timing was perfect, because the heir was ready and determined to gain back his father's kingdom of Gwynedd, which had been seized almost two decades earlier by Gruffudd ap Llywelyn ap Seisyll. His father, CYNAN ab IAGO had fled to Ireland for safety from Gruffudd, and had married RADNAILLT, daughter of OLAFR, the Norse royal heir of Dublin (giving us our only known Viking ancestors). OLAFR also gives us Irish ancestors, as he had married the daughter of the Irish king of Leinster, and OLAFR's mother was the daughter of the Irish hero BRIAN BORUMA, king of Munster and Ireland (see Stewart Baldwin’s pedigree given in Branch Chart 2). CYNAN and RADNAILLT's son GRUFFUDD had been only 8 when his father died in 1063, but now he was ready to become an ally of RHYS ap TEWDWR.

In the battle that ensued at Mynydd Carn in 1081 their opponents were all killed: CARADOG ap GRUFFUDD, Trahaearn, and others. As John Davies says: “With that battle, the carnage was halted. The victors were Gruffudd ap Cynan of the senior branch of the royal house of Gwynedd and Rhys ap Tewdwr of the senior branch of the royal house of Deheubarth, branches to which the two kingdoms would henceforth remain loyal” (p.104).

The results for RHYS ap TEWDWR were excellent. On William the Conqueror’s pilgrimage to St David’s shrine in the same year, he publicly recognized RHYS’s position as ruler of Deheubarth (probably to stabilize the political situation in Wales), and according to the Domesday Book RHYS rendered William £40 annual tribute (J.Davies p.105). This brought RHYS several years of peace.

GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN fared less well, and as he marched north to take possession of Gwynedd, his ancestral home, he fell into the hands of the Norman Robert of Rhuddlan, who imprisoned him in Chester. He languished there for more than 10 years, but prison was not the end of his long and varied career, as will be seen.

When William II became King of England in 1087 the Welsh situation worsened, with powerful new Norman barons establishing fortified estates and castles throughout the Welsh border lands. The earls of Shrewsbury, Chester, Hereford and Gloucester were planning to conquer the whole area and penetrate far into Wales. They consolidated earlier gains in the north east, and advanced beyond Rhuddlan along the north coast, and in the south they penetrated as far as Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire, and built castles at Cardigan, Pembroke and Carmarthen. RHYS ap TEWDWR was killed at Easter 1093, resisting the advance of the Normans through Breconshire. Chroniclers in Wales and England saw in his death the end of native (i.e. Briton) kingship in Wales, because the later kings in Gwynedd and Powys were influenced by Norman practices. All later princes and lords in Deheubarth traced their descent from RHYS ap TEWDWR, but none used the title king (Maund p.81). Some of his descendants, including the earls of Shrewsbury who were descended from RHYS through the female line, adopted arms attributed to him ‘Gules, a lion rampant in a bordure indented Or, armed and langued Azure’ (on a red shield, a gold lion upright with blue claws and tongue in an indented gold border).

Arms of RHYS ap TEWDWR

(from Royal and Princely Heraldry in Wales)

Eventually the Normans needed more help than William II could give them, and the Welsh gained a breathing spell in which they were able to regain their territory (J. Davies pp.102-08). Their insurrection against the Norman barons in the 1090s, more than a decade after Mynydd Carn, was led by the three sons of BLEDDYN ap CYNFYN. They captured Montgomery Castle and almost took over Pembroke Castle (J.Davies p.108). MAREDUDD ap BLEDDYN supported his elder brother Cadwgan, who had come to power in Powys by 1093, and by 1100 “Welsh control had been successfully restored over the greater part of Wales” (p.108), though efforts to dislodge the Normans from their strongholds in the lowlands in the south and east were unsuccessful. Cadwgan was forced out by the Normans in 1098, but he recovered his lands soon afterwards and held them until his death in 1111. He was succeeded by his son Owain and then by MAREDUDD on Owain’s death in 1116, and when MAREDUDD died in 1132 Powys passed to his son MADOG.

Meanwhile, about 1094 GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN escaped from the earl of Chester, reestablished himself as ruler in his ancestral land of Gwynedd, and joined with Cadwgan ap BLEDDYN. In 1099 he made peace with the earl of Chester and received Anglesey, then slowly gained other parts of the old Gwynedd. For two decades he patiently rebuilt its strength, then from about 1118 he began to expand and take territory on the borders of Powys and elsewhere, assisted from the 1120s by his sons. He had expanded far out of Anglesey into the rest of Gwynedd and into Cardiganshire before he died in 1137. He was buried in Bangor Cathedral and succeeded by his son Owain, who became known as Owain Gwynedd.

Besides GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN’s military campaigns, he had other strong interests including statecraft, church governance, and literature. We have a great deal of information on his long life, because his Latin biography was written only twenty years after he died. In part it is “a manifesto, a declaration of Gruffudd’s right to Gwynedd ... and a declaration also of Gwynedd’s primacy among the kingdoms of Wales” (J.Davies p.116). He took an interest in ecclesiastical matters and objected to the bishop of Bangor taking an oath of allegiance to the archbishop of Canterbury in 1120. He may have wanted to have the bishop consecrated in Ireland rather than England (J.Davies p.122). There is a tradition that GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN made regulations to govern the literary craft of the bards, and though it is unproved, significantly during his era the literature of Wales in both Welsh and Latin developed greatly increased vigor. GRUFFUDD’s court poet Meilyr Brydydd in his deathbed lament in 1137 wrote that he “expresses a wish to be buried on Bardsey and links the island’s spiritual importance to the resurrection and the saints” (Jones, Every Pilgrim’s Guide, p.19). The arms attributed to him showed ‘Gules, three lions passant in pale, Argent, armed and langued Azure’ (on a red shield, three silver lions walking with the right forepaw raised, arranged vertically, with blue claws and tongue).

Arms of GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN (from Royal and Princely Heraldry in Wales) He married ANGHARAD (est b.1070 – 1162), daughter of OWAIN ab EDWIN (d.1105), the ruler of Tegeingl (Flintshire). She survived her husband by many years, and was singled out for lavish praise by his biographer as a handsome blonde woman, gentle, eloquent, generous, discreet, good to her people and charitable to the poor. It must have been a happy marriage, as GRUFFUDD left her two shares of land and the profits of the port of Abermenai, in addition to half his goods as provided by Welsh law (DWB). Maund describes the complex political actions of her father and her brothers to hold on to their lands, which were on the eastern fringe of Gwynedd and bordered Powys and England (pp.84-5, 95-7). Both RHYS ap TEWDWR and GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN led full lives, and both achieved the security of their kingdoms, at least temporarily, when they joined forces for the battle of Mynydd Carn where all their opponents were killed. In another sense, they joined together a second time in their children, because RHYS ap TEWDWR’s eldest son GRUFFUDD married GWENLLIAN, daughter of GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN, and produced the son who became the LORD RHYS. Their story comes next.

II-194,624.GRUFFUDD ap RHYS and
GWENLLIAN f. GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN

As the eldest son of RHYS ap TEWDWR, GRUFFUDD was taken to Ireland for refuge by friends of his late father in 1093. He returned in 1113 to begin his campaign to recover Deheubarth. In 1115 he sought help of his father’s old friend GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN of Gwynedd, who offered him shelter but was still intent upon regaining his own hereditary lands and could not afford to displease king Henry I. GRUFFUDD’s early attacks in the south continued with raids on Llandovery and Swansea, but he had an impossible task. During Henry I’s reign (1100-1135), the Normans made momentous advances in south Wales, and a distinctively Marcher society was beginning to emerge. Lowlands in Monmouthshire, Glamorgan, Gower and south Pembrokeshire were permanently taken over and colonized, and the Normans advanced into Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire and north Pembrokeshire and established boroughs around their castles at Carmarthen and Kidwelly (R.R. Davies, Conquest, pp.37-39). GRUFFUDD had to come to terms with Henry, and received one commote of land in Caeo in the north of Carmarthenshire, a small fraction of his father’s kingdom.

He married GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN’s daughter GWENLLIAN, and in 1136 he supported her brother Owain Gwynedd in his rebellion against the Norman settlers in Wales after the death of Henry I. This period of the weak reign of Stephen against the opposition of Henry’s daughter Matilda, was called the Anarchy, and despite the power of the Norman lords the Welsh were victorious in taking Cardigan (J.Davies p.124). GRUFFUDD died in the following year.

His wife GWENLLIAN must have been an extraordinary woman. After all, she was the granddaughter of a long line of Viking and Irish kings. In 1136 she herself led an attack with her young sons Maelgwn and Morgan upon the Norman fortress of Kidwelly. Gerald of Wales described how she rode forth at the head of an army “like a queen of the Amazons.” She was killed outside the town at a spot still known as Maes Gwenllian (Gwenllian’s field).

Kidwelly Castle (from A Mirror of Medieval Wales)

Incidentally, GRUFFUDD ap RHYS and GWENLLIAN are ancestors in the Tudor line of the present British royal family, through both their son the LORD RHYS and their daughter Gwenllian (J. Davies pp.140-1). Henry VII was a great grandson of Maredudd ap Tudur, whose mother descended from the LORD RHYS and father descended from RHYS’S sister Gwenllian. In fact, Davies also shows that the present Queen descends from GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN in two other ways: through the Scottish kings and through Elizabeth of York, both by way of GRUFFUDD’s son Owain Gwynedd. More recent research, however, shows that the second of these lines is incorrect, as Elizabeth of York’s father Edward IV was illegitimate. 

II-47,104.MADOG ap MAREDUDD of Powys (est.1100 –1160)

We return at this point to the descendants of BLEDDYN in Powys. MADOG succeeded his father MAREDUDD ap BLEDDYN as prince of Powys in 1132, and he took advantage of the Anarchy in England to expand his border into Shropshire, but he lost Yale in the north of Powys to GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN’S son Owain Gwynedd in 1150. MADOG had allied with the Earl of Chester on that occasion, and he supported the new king Henry II against Owain seven years later, a confrontation that weakened Owain’s influence sufficiently for him to lose Yale (Maund p.103). John Davies comments:”This was one of the numerous examples of the readiness of the rulers of Powys ... to turn to the king of England, a readiness which a later generation portrayed as treachery to the national cause” (p.125).

Maund concludes that MADOG was “a ruler of intelligence as well as a warrior”. He gained from the early rebellion but had shown himself willing to compound with Henry II when it became necessary. He was a patron of the church, and of literature, and his activities form the background to a Welsh prose tale, The Dream of Rhonabwy (Maund p.103). This tale from the Mabinogion can be read online at http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/rhonabwy.html . MADOG arranged important marriages for two of his daughters to grandsons of GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN, as GWENLLIAN married the LORD RHYS of Deheubarth, and Margred married Iorwerth, the son of Owain Gwynedd, and became the mother of Llywelyn the Great.

After MADOG died in 1160, Powys was divided among five rival claimants, with the principal division between the north and south. Earlier MADOG had granted a southern portion called Cyfeiliog to his nephews who succeeded in adding to it, and when it was inherited by a son in 1197 it approximated to the later county of Montgomery and was called Powys Wenwynwyn. His descendants used arms attributed to BLEDDYN ap CYNFYN: Or, a lion rampant Gules’ (on a gold shield, a red lion standing on one hind leg). The northern portion was called Powys Fadog. Two of MADOG’s descendants “succeeded in retaining possession of some of the land of their ancestors in Powys Fadog” and were among the relatively few Welsh nobility who retained the status of Welsh Barons (R.R. Davies, Glyn Dwr, p.165). Nevertheless, the radical division of Powys into five parts reduced their power, and MADOG’s dynasty could no longer be considered equal to the dynasties of Gwynedd and Deheubarth (J.Davies p.127).

Arms of BLEDDYN ap CYNFYN (from Royal and Princely Heraldry of Wales)

MADOG was an ancestor of JANE LEWIS through his son-in-law, the LORD RHYS, and an ancestor of HUGH VAUGHAN through his illegitimate son EINION EFELL. Efell means twin, signifying that he had a twin brother, whose name was Cynwrig Efell. MADOG recognized them as his sons, but they were not included among the family members between whom Powys had been divided. However, EINION is remembered as being of Cynllaith, which was a commote in the south of Powys Fadog belonging to his stepbrother Gruffudd ap MADOG, and which was close to where HUGH VAUGHAN was born.

II-97,312.the LORD RHYS (ap GRUFFUDD) (b.abt 1132 – d.1197) and His Sons

MADOG’s son-in-law RHYS ap GRUFFUDD was the grandson of both RHYS ap TEWDWR and GRUFFUDD ap CYNAN. He used the title prince and later was always referred to as the LORD RHYS. Throughout the reign of RHYS’s uncle Owain Gwynedd in north Wales, Deheubarth in the south west had been undergoing resurgence under the four sons of GRUFFUDD ap RHYS. Much of Carmarthenshire had been recovered from the Normans during the Anarchy, and even Carmarthen castle had been taken for a time. In 1155 the youngest son RHYS ap GRUFFUDD was left as the only surviving son, and the sole ruler after expulsion of the Norman lords. Like Owain Gwynedd he had to come to terms with Henry II, and he had to accept the return of the Normans, but he continued to attack the Norman settlements. In 1163 he and Owain did homage to Henry at Woodstock, but on his return he launched a new invasion of Cardiganshire and drove out the Normans.

After Owain Gwynedd’s death in 1170 the LORD RHYS emerged as the main native leader in Wales, and Henry had to confirm him in the possession of all his gains. This transformed him into an honored ally, and in 1172 he was made Justice of South Wales, which meant that the Welsh rulers of Radnorshire and the uplands of Glamorgan, Monmouthshire and Breconshire were answerable to the king through RHYS. His son Hywel was released after 13 years as a hostage at Henry’s court, and on his return he was given the nickname Sais (the Englishman). His reign also saw new cultural developments. A new castle in stone was begun at the ancient capital Dinefwr, near Llandeilo, and another at Cardigan where an eisteddfod was held in 1176. The LORD RHYS lent patronage to the new religious orders, drawing Strata Florida into his influence, founding the abbey of Talley, and increasing the numbers of White Monks or Cistercians (J.Davies p.130). He may have fostered the development of native towns at Aberystwyth and Rhayader. In 1188 he hosted Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury and (his cousin) Gerald of Wales on their journey through Wales to preach the first Crusade. On Henry’s death in 1189, RHYS took advantage of the absence overseas of Richard I (Lion Heart) and seized Kidwelly, attacked Swansea and Radnor, and burnt Carmarthen.

Gerald of Wales described RHYS as “open in his behavior and of such great natural kindness.” He died on 28 April 1197 aged 65 and was buried at St. David’s Cathedral.

14th century Tomb of the LORD RHYS (from A Mirror of Medieval Wales)

Maund says that rivalry ran high among RHYS’s many sons, and he had early been ”troubled by the waywardness of his sons” (J.Davies p.134). His eldest son Gruffudd and his son Hywel Sais had imprisoned RHYS himself for a time in 1194, and a year later Rhys Gryg (the hoarse) and MAREDUDD GETHIN (the swarthy) seized Llandovery and Dinefwr but were imprisoned by their father. This rivalry continued after the LORD RHYS’s death. His eldest son and heir Gruffudd died in 1201, but his sons continued his claims. MAREDUDD also died in 1201, but his descendants lived in Monmouthshire where they inherited land from MAREDUDD’s father-in-law HYWEL Lord of Caerleon. Hywel Sais died in 1204, but Rhys Gryg continued the conflict with his brother Maelgwn. These conflicts were a fatal blow to the unified Deheubarth which RHYS’s sons had received from their father, and accordingly they could not continue the important role of the LORD RHYS. In fact, they became ”mere pawns in the struggle between the prince of Gwynedd and the king of England” (J.Davies p.134).

Llywelyn Fawr (d.1240) and his grandson Llywelyn the Last (d.1282)

The prince of Gwynedd referred to above was Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, who as the grandson of Owain Gwynedd, and of MADOG ap MAREDUDD of Powys through his mother Margred, was not our ancestor but was a cousin in several collateral lines. He received his epithet the Great because of his statecraft as well as the military campaigns by which he enlarged his control over Welsh territory. He was able to get along with King John for some time and married his daughter Joan, but then acted against John in securing certain Welsh rights in the Magna Carta as well as in creating military pressure to force John’s unwilling acceptance of the Carta in 1215. In the following year he made a tripartite division of Deheubarth, whereby Rhys Gryg received Dinefwr, Kidwelly, and much of the rest of Carmarthenshire. Rhys subsequently extended the castle at Dryslwyn, between Dinefwr and Carmarthen, and on his death in 1234 his lands were divided between his two sons.

Llywelyn was able to gain English confirmation of his preeminence in Wales by the treaty of Worcester in 1218. He secured marriages for his sons with powerful Norman border families, and practiced foreign diplomacy with Pope Innocent III and the ruler of France. In summary, John Davies concludes that in the age of Llywelyn the Great, Wales “was developing all the requisites of a cohesive state” (pp.135-43).

After Llywelyn the Great’s death in 1240, his succession was complicated for several years before his grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffudd became sole ruler of Gwynedd. This new Llywelyn started from a position of weakness, because in 1247 Gwynedd had been reduced to the status of an English lordship, but in 1250 he formed an alliance with Gruffudd ap MADOG of Powys Fadog, and in 1251 with Maredudd ap Rhys Gryg in Deheubarth. Aided by Maredudd he drove the English out of most of eastern Gwynedd in 1256, and they defeated an English army near Dinefwr in the following year. By 1258 Llywelyn was acknowledged as lord by the princes of Powys, Deheubarth, and northern Glamorgan and thus could call himself Prince of Wales (J.Davies p.145), and he was acknowledged as such by king Henry III in the Treaty of Montgomery in 1267. In many ways Llywelyn continued the administrative, legal, and financial successes of the first Llywelyn, and maintained good relations with the Vatican and the religious institutions in Wales (pp.153-4). He used the arms ‘Or and Gules, four lions passant, countercharged’ (on a shield divided into gold and red quarters, four walking lions in the opposite colours), which are now borne by Prince Charles as an inescutcheon on the Royal Arms in his position as Prince of Wales.

Arms of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (from The Development of Welsh Heraldry, Vol. 1) as part of the arms of Prince Charles (from Royal and Princely Heraldry in Wales)

The Treaty was certainly a major triumph for Llywelyn, but he faced formidable problems, and one of our ancestors became involved in an event that presaged Llywelyn’s defeat. In the south east Llywelyn had made little headway against the Marcher lords, and earl Gilbert de Clare, the Norman lord of Glamorgan, was determined to reassert his control over his lordship and bring the Welsh native rulers of upland Glamorgan under his authority. De Clare purchased the lordship of Caerleon in 1268 and thus became overlord of our MAREDUDD ap GRUFFUDD in the LEWIS line. The earl was in dispute with Llywelyn over lands in east Glamorgan, because he had built Caerphilly castle in a strategic position in an area confirmed to Llywelyn by the Treaty. In 1270 Llywelyn attacked and destroyed the castle, and in response de Clare (being persuaded by the king not to attack Llywelyn) seized lands from MAREDUDD, who had given his homage to Llywelyn. Thus he regained control of Caerphilly and began to rebuild his castle. King Henry III was not in a position greatly to influence de Clare. The Marcher lords held their lands by conquest and not by grant from the Crown, and although they were subjects of the king, the March was not answerable to the English system of government. Above all, the king did not have the resources he would need to crush the most powerful men in his kingdom. Henry pressed for a peaceful settlement of the dispute, appointing arbitrators and sending royal commissioners, but by 1272 it was clear that the earl had won the conflict. Llywelyn’s loss of his Glamorgan territories signaled the beginning of the process which ended with his final defeat in 1282 and the extinction of Welsh independence (Altschul pp.54-56, R.R.Davies, Conquest, pp.314-323, J. Davies pp.110, 148-150, 175-6)

The accession of Edward I to the crown of England in 1272, moreover, led to a further weakening of Llywelyn’s position in several ways. Edward gave refuge to Llywelyn’s alienated brother Dafydd, and Llywelyn refused to do homage to the king until his grievances had been dealt with, but neither side was prepared to compromise. Rhys ap Maredudd, lord of Dryslwyn (and son of Maredudd ap Rhys Gryg who belatedly rejoined Llywelyn in 1270 but died in the following year), gave his allegiance to Edward, and other Welsh lords also began to desert Llywelyn. In 1277, Edward brought an army of eight hundred knights and fifteen thousand foot soldiers against Llywelyn, enlarging his holding around Carmarthen castle and taking over most of the north of the county and the whole of Cardiganshire.

Llywelyn was obliged to make peace, and though in 1281 the Welsh were resentful at their treatment and rebelled, Edward responded with great force, and Llywelyn was killed on 11 December 1282, leaving no sons. His severed head was sent to king Edward in London. His brother Dafydd fought on, no longer alienated and now calling himself the prince of Wales, but eventually he too was defeated and captured. He suffered the appalling death of a traitor to England, being hanged until half strangled then drawn and quartered, in October,1283 (Pryce-Jones pp.144-45). The death of Llywelyn, the Last Prince of Wales, and the incorporation of his Principality into the English kingdom were felt as enormous and overwhelming losses. They brought the sense of desolate despair expressed by a poet who wrote: “the whole of Wales was thrown to the ground” and another poet who believed that “the cosmos itself could not but be part of the torrent of grief for Llywelyn” (J. Davies p.161). Elsewhere in a citation to that same second poet, John Edward Lloyd writes that there was no heir 

of the lost leader, and his followers felt there was nothing more to live for--- O God! that the sea might engulf the land! Why are we left to long-drawn weariness?was the lament of the desperate Gruffydd ab yr Ynad Coch, who read the tragedy of the hour in the beating of the wind and of the rain, the sullen wash of the waves upon the grey beach, the roar of the wind-whipt oaks that miserable and more than wintry December.(Lloyd II, 764

This sense of great loss lasted for centuries. Yet life does go on, and troubles often hide benefits. Though John Davies says the effects lasted “until this very day and hour,” he also concludes that the Welsh “did not lose their identity as a result of the Edwardian Conquest. When the princes enjoyed power, the allegiance of the Welsh was fractured, but the Conquest and adversity which followed served to strengthen their self-awareness” (p.163).

It had taken the Normans over 200 years to finally subdue the Welsh, in contrast to the rapidity with which they defeated the Anglo-Saxons in 1066. The final outcome of Edward’s victory was that Wales was unable to create a permanent royal seat, whose occupants might come and go but the office and function would remain in waiting. This lack of a royal court and its many titled retainers stopped the development of Welsh aristocracy, but fostered the gentry class. We see this change particularly clearly in the lines of JANE LEWIS and HUGH VAUGHAN descending from the princes of Deheubarth, Gwynedd and Powys. So far as the princely descendants survived at all, they became land-owning gentry, and gradually other families among the gentry came to prominence through their own talents and efforts rather than descent. This is true of the families of GRUFFUDD ap NICHOLAS and his wife MABLI DWNN. In many cases the most powerful and most important among them became officials under the English Crown. The second part of this HISTORICAL NARRATIVEshows the Prichard ancestors who became gentry and state or royal officials.

Continued in The Gentry 1