TUDUR PENLLYN
(
c.
1420
—
c.
1485-90
),
bard
.
For his pedigree, see
Pen. MSS. 125, 139, 176
,
Wrexham MS. 1
, and
Stowe MS. 669
. He was
Tudur Penllyn ap Ieuan ap Iorwerth Foel
, but in one manuscript he is called
Tudur Penllyn ap Dafydd ap Ieuan ap Iorwerth Foel
. He traced his descent from
Meirion Goch
, an
Edeirnion
nobleman
who was the founder of a house in
Rhiw
(
Llŷn
) and the ancestor of some of the gentle families in that hundred. We do not know where
Tudur Penllyn
was born nor where he was brought up, but it is not unlikely that he spent his childhood, as he spent his old age, in
Penllyn
, the hundred from which he took his name. After reaching manhood he lived at
Caer-gai
, in the parish of
Llanuwchllyn
, apparently by right of his wife,
Gwerful
, daughter of
Ieuan Fychan ap Ieuan ap Hywel y Gadair ap Gruffydd ap Madog ap Rhirid Flaidd
(see
Powys Fadog
, ii, 119; vi, 119, 129). It appears that, in addition to being a
poet
,
Tudur Penllyn
was a
sheep grazier
and a
drover
, who
traded in the wool of his sheep
; this, however, did not prevent him from following the custom of the strolling bards and visiting the halls of the nobility in North and South
Wales
. His principal patrons were
Gruffydd
Fychan
of
Gors-y-gedol
(he wrote a
cywydd
of praise to this warrior some time
between 1461 and 1468
when, with
Dafydd ap Ieuan ab Einion
, he was defending
Harlech castle
against
Edward
IV
's adherents),
Rheinallt ap Gruffydd
of
Mold
(he wrote an
awdl
on the vengeance taken by this nobleman on the men of
Chester
when
Robert
Byrne
, their
mayor
, was slain;
Rheinallt
died either in
1465 or 1466
), and
Dafydd
Siencyn
, one of the faithful supporters of
Jasper
Tudor
and
Henry
of
Richmond
, a man who was famous for his raids on
England
. As might have been expected,
Tudur
Penllyn
was favourably inclined to those noblemen who stood up for their rights at a time of fierce enmity between the
Welsh
and
English
. He excelled in writing panegyrics, whether of men or women, but there was also an edge to his satires, and his descriptive writing was admirable. His son,
IEUAN AP
, was also a
poet
.
Bibliography:
-
Thomas Roberts
, ‘Tudur Penllyn,’in
Y Llenor
, xxi, 141-51; xxii, 27-35;
-
Jones
and
Lewis
,
Mynegai i Farddoniaeth y Llawysgrifau
, and
,
1928
, 382-8;
-
Abraham Jenkins
, ‘The Works of Tudur Penllyn and Ieuan Brydydd Hir yr Hynaf’(thesis for the degree of M.A., University of Wales, 1921).
Author:
Professor John Ellis Caerwyn Williams, M.A., B.D., (1912-99), Bangor /
Aberystwyth
