indicated a recognition of a kind of feudal superiority. He was, indeed, again and again described as Prince of South Wales by his kinsman and contemporary Giraldus Cambrensis,1 and may well have been at His daughter doline, have been married to recognised by his compatriots as Prince of South Wales de jure, if not de facto. He neither was nor claimed to be Prince of Wales, but when "Rhys ap "Griffith" is mentioned, without further description, as Prince of South Wales, it is always he who is meant. This Rhys ap Griffith led a very active life, fighting battles and taking castles, from the year Gwenllian 1137, in which his father died, to the year 1197, in or Gwenwhich he died himself at an advanced age.2 There could not appears to be no doubt that he really had least one daughter named Gwenllian, but he could Gilbert not have had a daughter Gwenllian who married Talbot, the Gilbert Talbot, the grandfather of the demandant in ant's our case of Cosinage. In one of the Welsh Chronicles grand it is stated that Gwenllian, daughter of Rhys, died in the year 1190, and, as Rhys ap Griffith is mentioned in the sentence next preceding, the daughter was presumably his. In another chronicle, however, it appears that Gwenllian, daughter of Rhys the Great (as Rhys ap Griffith was sometimes called), and wife of Ednyfed Vychan, died in the year 1236.* Vethan, obiit." The husband's name is obviously mis-spelt, Vechan having been misread Vethan. Ednyfed Vychan was not an unknown person. He is mentioned in the Myvyrian Archæology of Wales, and he has a prominent position in the pedigree of Lloyd of Plymog (Burke's Heraldic Illustrations, XL.). Professor Tout in his article Rhys ap Gruffydd, in the Dictionary of National Biography appears to recognise the Gwenllian who married Ednyfed Vychan, and died in 1236, as Rhys's only daughter of that name (p. 90) demand father. The doline so married was a daughter of Rhys Mechyll. It is possible that there was only one Gwenllian, daughter of Rhys ap Griffith, and that the date is wrongly given in one of the chronicles, but in any case she could not have been the wife of Gilbert Talbot, the grandfather of the demandant Gilbert, as she must have died at least fourteen years before the latter Gilbert's father, Richard Talbot, was born. There remains the possibility that Rhys ap Griffith had yet another and younger daughter named Gwenllian. But even if he had a posthumous daughter born in 1198, she would have been fiftytwo years of age when Richard Talbot was born, and the improbabilities practically amount to impossibility. It ought, perhaps, to be mentioned that there was another Rhys son of Griffith, who appears to have been the grandson of Rhys ap Griffith, or Lord Rhys, the Justiciary. He, however, never enjoyed even the position held by his grandfather. He died, while still a young man, in the year 1222.1 He seems to have been always known and described as Young Rhys, "Rys ieuanc," rather than as as Rhys ap Griffith. There is nothing whatever to show or even to suggest that the Rhys the Little or Rhys Vychan 'Rees Vaghan of the record was his son, or Gwenllian his daughter, and there is sufficient to show the contrary. or The field of Welsh pedigrees of this period is extremely slippery, because the same names occur again and again, and one generation may easily be confused with another, and even one family with another. Hereditary surnames were unknown, and territorial descriptions, such as we find in England, were but very rarely used in Wales. A man was commonly described as the son of his father, though often with a nickname for further identification, such as "the hoarse," "the red," "the little or 1 Brut y Tywysogion (Rolls edition), p. 310, &c. "the younger. It may, however, be not impossible to discover who was the father of that Gwenllian whom Gilbert Talbot married. She was, according to the record, the sister of Rhys Vychan, or Rhys the Little, whose name was not unknown to the Welsh chroniclers, and if we can ascertain who was his father we shall know who was hers. That can be done, and Carreg Cennen Castle can be identified with the castle of Keyr Kenny at the same time. In the year 1248 Rhys Vychan, or the Little, son of Rhys Mechyll, regained possession of the Castle of Carreg Cennen, which his mother had treacherously given up.1 Gilbert Talbot's father-in-law was therefore Rhys Mechyll, and not Rhys ap Griffith. lords of ance apparently · Welsh There is some reason to believe that Rhys Vychan Rhys Vychan's died in the year 1271. At any rate a son of Rhys two sons Mechyll, also named Rhys, but described in the text became of the chronicle as Young Rhys, died then at Dynevor Iskennen Castle.2 The point is of some importance because in in accordthe year 1282 we find Griffith and Llewelyn, described as the sons of Rhys Vechan, engaged in another with capture of Carreg Cennen Castle, together with a law. "Resum Vechan filium Resi filii Mailgonis" and several other persons. From the collocation of the words it would appear that Rhys Vechan, the father of-Griffith and Llewelyn, was one person, and Rhys Vechan, the son of Rhys the son of Mailgon, was another, who was described by the name of his father and grandfather to distinguish him from the older and better known Rhys Vychan. 3 Griffith and Llewelyn are here described as lords of Iskennen, from which fact it seems to be clear 1 Brut y Tywysogion (Rolls edition), p 334; edition of Messrs. Rhys and Evans, p. 371. 2 Brut y Tywysogion, A.D., 1271 (p. 358, Rolls edition). $ Annales Cambria (Rolls edition). p. 106. 4 The words as printed are "dominos Deyskennen," but they should obviously be read "dominos "de Yskennen." Demand ant's claim founded on the seisin of that their father was dead. In the following year (1283) they were, with others, taken and thrown into prison in London.1 It is worthy of notice that it is not the one brother Llewelyn who is said to be lord of Iskennen, but the two brothers jointly. This seems to show that the Welsh law had prevailed, and that the seignory had not descended from the father to the eldest son. In the record there is no mention of Llewelyn's brother Griffith, but the whole claim is founded on the seisin of Llewelyn alone, and treated as if the one only law of England had prevailed. Llewelyn ap Rhys (Llewelyn) Vychan is made to appear as what would in England have been called a baron, possessing a fee of considerable extent, but not as a Prince of Wales or of any portion of Wales, except in so far as a great landowner may be called a prince. His grandfather's It appears, nevertheless, to be the fact that Gilbert wife not a Talbot, the demandant, might have traced a descent daughter from Rhys ap Griffith "Prince of South Wales” in but a great grand- another way, though not through his daughter daughter Gwenllian. Gilbert's grandmother, Gwenllian, and her of Rhys ap Griffith. brother, Rhys Vychan, were children of Rhys Mechyll. He, according to one of the chronicles, was a son of Rhys Gryg or Rhys the hoarse, and Rhys the hoarse was а son of Lord Rhys or Rhys ap Griffith.2 Thus Gilbert's grandfather married not a daughter, but a great-grand-daughter of Rhys ap ap Griffith "Prince of South Wales," and this was, in all probability, the origin of the story. The reports of the case: Knowing, as we now do, who the demandant was, what were his connexions with the princely or other a plea to families of Wales, what was the subject of dispute, the jurisdiction. and where the lands claimed were situated, we are in a better position to follow the arguments and statements in the reports and the record. The defence to the action began as follows: "We tell you," said Derworthy, "that, whereas Gilbert Talbot "demands on the seisin of his cousin, as having "been seised in the time of King Edward I., the “fact is that King Edward I. conquered the whole "of Wales, and we tell you that the castle of Carreg "Cennen is in Wales, outside the corpus of every county of England, and we do not understand that "in this Court of Common Pleas you will take "cognisance of the plea. And, as to the commote, "that is not a term of law in England by which "anything can be demanded." Paruynge, the future Chancellor, who was for the demandant, said that the castle and the commote constituted one great seignory holden in capite of the King and his crown, and that pleas concerning it ought not to be held anywhere but in his own Court. thereon. The question of jurisdiction having been apparently Other settled or waived for the time, a charter was pleaded Llewelyn's pleas: on behalf of the tenants, Ralph de Wilyntone and seisin traversed his wife, whereby the King (Edward III.) enfeoffed and issue them; and aid was prayed of the King and granted. joined Afterwards the King sent his writ de procedendo to the Justices, and the tenants vouched to warrant the heir of John Giffard. The ground of the voucher was that the lands were seized into the King's hand by reason of the forfeiture of John Giffard, whose heir 2 sued them out of the King's hand when the proceedings against Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, and his adherents were reversed, but, nevertheless, confirmed the King's estate in them with warranty to the King and his heirs and assigns. Ralph de Wilynton and his wife therefore claimed to be warranted as the King's assigns. No documents, 1 Y.B., Mich., 13 Edw. III., No. 79, p. 176. 2 In the three reports of this part of the case, one in Michaelmas Term, 13 Edw. III., No. 79, and two in Michaelmas Term, 14 Edw. |