who had thrown down their arms, and putting upwards of three thousand to the sword in cold blood! In vain did David endeavour to throw dejected garrisons-literal 'forlorn hopes-into his various castles, while he himself was swept with the torrent of universal despair which had overwhelmed his people, and was forced to conceal himself in the deepest recesses of the forests and morasses of the country. For some months he, his princess and children (two sons and seven daughters), and a few adherents and companions in misery, evaded the search of their merciless pursuers, suffering almost every privation which human nature can endure, when he was one night (June 21, 1283) surprised in a morass near Aber, within sight of the ancient palace of his royal ancestors, and carried in chains to Rhuddlan, where Edward was then residing. He earnestly begged to see the king, probably thinking that early recollections might awaken some degree of pity in Edward's breast, and, like Claudius with Caractacus, he might be moved to commiserate the condition of a fallen prince, who had staked his dominions, his liberty, and life, for his country; but he was sternly refused, and kept a close prisoner for three months. When he was taken, the crown-jewels of the ancient British princes were found in his possessionKing Arthur's crown, and a curious relic, highly prized by the Welsh princes, called crocsenydd, which was said to be made from the very tree on which Jesus Christ was crucified, and brought to Wales by the Empress Helena.

"Prince David was then carried to Shrewsbury, where he was tried for high treason and other alleged crimes.

"On June 28, 1283, summonses were issued to eleven. earls, one hundred temporal barons, nineteen justices and members of the council, two citizens of upwards of twenty towns, and two knights of each shire in England; but not more than one half attended the trial. The king presided in person. Being already prejudged by the royal injunction, which accused him of every crime and ingratitude which the thirst for his blood could rake up

or invent, he was very soon found guilty, and 'condemned to five different kinds of punishment:-to be drawn at the tails of horses through the streets of Shrewsbury to the place of execution, because he was a traitor to the king, who had made him a knight; to be hanged for having murdered Foulk Trigald and other knights in the castle of Hawarden; his heart and bowels to be burnt, because those murders had been perpetrated on Palm Sunday; his head to be cut off; his body to be quartered, and to be hung up in four different parts of the kingdom, because he had conspired the death of the king in several places of England. The latter charge must be considered false. This sentence was executed in its literal severity. He was torn to pieces by horses', as Hartshorne observes, then hung and beheaded, his heart and bowels plucked out from the palpitating corpse, the mangled carcase distributed among four of the chief towns of England, to the eternal infamy of a barbarous age, and to glut the greedy appetite of sycophants, who savagely contested the possession of them, and the head stuck up at the Tower of London by the side of his brother's."

"These were the last acts of this mournful tragedy."

"The citizens of York and Winchester", says Warrington, "contended, with savage eagerness, for the right shoulder of this unfortunate prince. That honour was decided in favour of Winchester, and the remaining quarters were sent, with the utmost dispatch, to the cities of York and Bristol, and the town of Northampton."

It is also said that the knight who had the honour of burning his entrails, enjoyed the delight of probing the flaming heart with the point of his poignard, but that

1 "The King of the English had ordered the head of Prince Llywelyn, that had nobly worn a crown more ancient and illustrious than his own, to be fixed on the point of a spear, with a wreath round the temples, etc., to be paraded through the principal streets of London and afterwards set upon the highest turret of the tower—a monument unintended, but most true, of ruthless cruelty and fiendish malice.”

the heart, swollen by the heat, exploded, and flew into his face, blinding him for life, as its final act of revenge -and how just.

But we should have prefaced that "his sons remained with him to the middle of July, when the English king sent a writ from Caernarvon to Henri de Lacy, ordering him to deliver the young Prince Llywelyn to Richard de Boys, and another writ to Reginald de Grey to deliver up the Prince Owain, the other son, to the same Richard de Boys.

"Both of them were to wait further mandates, the dark nature of which we are only permitted silently to conjecture. We know not the ultimate fate of the princess, his widow, who was a daughter of Robert de Ferrars, the sixth and last Earl of Derby of that house, vair or and gules. The fate of their sons was discreetly hidden from the world; but we are informed that the daughters of the two last Princes of Wales sought, under the habit of nuns, in the convent of Sempringham, a more certain tranquillity than regal life can bestow."

"The death of Prince David closed the only sovereignty which remained of the ancient British empire; an empire which, through various changes of fortune, had opposed the arms of imperial Rome, and, for more than eight hundred years, had resisted the utmost efforts of the Saxon and Norman princes."

Prince David left also an illegitimate son, David Goch of Nant Conwy, who bore sable, a lion rampant argent, in a border engrailed or, and was the father of Gruffudd ab David Goch, who was buried at Bettws Wyrion Iddon, or Bettws y Coed, where his tomb still exists, on which he is represented recumbent, in armour, with the following inscription, "HIC IACET GRUFUD AP DAVID GOCH, AGNUS DEI MISERERE MEI". A full description of this tomb has been given by Mr. Bloxham, Archeologia Cambrensis, 1874, p. 128. It appears from the Extent of Nant Conwy, or Record of Caernarvon, or Great Extent of North Wales, as it is also called, taken on the

1 Ancient and Modern Denbigh. By John Williams (Glanmor.).

next Monday after the translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury, 26 Edw. III (1352), that Gruffudd was the foreman of the jury for taking that extent. Gruffudd

ab David Goch was the father of the Baron Hywel Coetmor of Gwydir, and Castell Cefel Ynghocdmor, in the parish of Bettws y Coed or Llanrwst, at which last place he lived. This place once belonged to Peredur ab Efrawg The Baron Hywel Coetmor bore azure, a chevron, inter three fleurs-de-lys argent. He had a brother named Rhys Gethin, who lived at Hendref Rhys Gethin, in the parish of Bettws y Coed. The sepulchral effigy of the Baron Hywel Coetmor is in the church of Llanrwst, recumbent, in plate armour, with a tabard of his arms, with this inscription, "HIC IACET HOEL COET

MORE AP GRUFF. VYCHAN. AMN.

112

Peredur ab Evrawg who, as before stated, once lived at Castell Cefel Ynghoedmor, was a chieftain who flourished in the early part of the sixth century. He is mentioned by Aneurin in the Gododin, as "Peredur arvau Dur", who fell at the fatal battle of Cattraeth in 540, and frequent allusions are made to his deeds of prowess by the poets of the Middle Ages. He is also a distinguished character in Welsh romance. He is recorded in the Triads as one of the three knights of the court of King Arthur who were engaged in seeking the Greal, and are celebrated for their continency. other two being Bort, the son of King Bort, and Galath, the son of Lancelot du Lac. The adventures of Peredur ab Evrawg form one of the interesting series of the Mabinogion, published by Lady Charlotte Guest. saying of Peredur is preserved in Chedleu y' Doethion—"Hast thou heard the saying of Peredur, sovereign of the isle of Britain? Harder is the brave than a blade of steel'."

1 Llyfr Gruffudd Hiraethog, p. 3, c. 2.

The

2 Archæologia Cambrensis, 1874, pp. 128-131; and 1876, p. 178. 3 Williams's Eminent Welshmen.

A

VOL. I.

13

GLYNDYFRDWY, IAL, AND CYNLLAITH. GRUFFUDD FYCHAN, the third son of Gruffudd ab Madog, Lord of Dinas Brân and Prince of Powys Fadog, was surnamed "Y Barwn Gwyn", or the White Baron, and had the lordships of Glyndyfrdwy' and Iâl' for his share of his father's territories. He was nursed in Glyndyfrdwy, as we learn from Huw Lleyn.

The lordship of Glyndyfrdwy contained the parishes of Llansanfraid yn Nglyn Nyfrdwy, Gwyddelwern, Aelhaiarn, and parts of the parishes of Corwen, and Llanfihangel Glyn Myvyr, and the parish of Bettws Gwerfyl Goch. The lordship of Iâl contains the parishes of Llanveris, Llanarmon, Llandegla, Bryn Eglwys, and Llandysilio.

By a treaty between King Edward I and Llywelyn ab Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, dated on the Tuesday next before the Feast of St. Martin, 5 Edw. I, 1277, it is stipulated that Gruffudd Fychan shall do homage to the king for the lands which he holds in Iâl, and to Llywelyn for the lands which he holds in Prince Llywelyn's domi

nions.

By a charter dated the fifth of the ides of February 1 Archæologia Cambrensis. 2 See Archæologia Cambrensis.