The son of Gruffydd ap Bleddyn and his wife Gwerfyl, Rheinallt ap Gruffydd was a Lancastrian supporter and part of the rebel garrison at Harlech which backed Jasper Tudor and the exiled Henry VI in their campaigns against Edward IV. Harlech, held since 1460, finally surrendered to William Herbert in 1468, by which time Rheinallt was dead. Marginal notes in a number of manuscripts (BL Harley 1975, p. 103; NLW Peniarth 75, p. 5; BL Add. 14866, p. 329) record Rheinallt’s death in 1465 when he was ‘not yet 27 years old’ (Roberts 1958, 112).
A year or so before he died, Rheinallt attacked the men of Chester, a
Yorkist stronghold, at a New Year’s fair at Mold (Yr Wyddgrug), his home
town. The attack followed a proclamation by Edward IV in 1464 requiring
the mayor and sheriff of Chester to announce that the defenders of
Harlech would be put to death unless they submitted by 1st January 1465
(Rot. Parl., 512).
Rheinallt himself was found guilty of treason and told that his lands
would be forfeit to the crown unless he took an oath of loyalty before
Ascension Thursday that year (1464). The men of Chester took this to be
an invitation to start plundering Rheinallt’s lands around Mold, and
Rheinallt retaliated with a brutal attack on them which took place on
The fact that the poem survives in at least 30 copies, mainly from the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, suggests that it held a particular
resonance for the antiquarian gentry scholars of early modern Wales. A
Author:
Tudur Penllyn
Metre:
Awdl with some englynion
Manuscripts:
Printed Text:
Roberts, 1958, 19
Einion: Rheinallt’s great-grandfather on his father’s side. For his genealogy, see Roberts (1958), p. 111.
Hywel: Rheinallt’s maternal grandfather. References to the genealogy and ancestors of patrons was an important part of the Welsh tradition of praise poetry.
Oswallt, ‘Oswald’: king of Northumbria from 634 to 642, who united Bernicia and Deira into the kingdom of Northumbria and was responsible for the spread of Christianity there. He defeated the British ruler, Cadwallon ap Cadfan, and a pagan army at Heavenfield, near Hexham in Northumbria, where, according to Bede, Oswald raised a cross on the field which subsequently became associated with miracles of healing.
Emrys, ‘Ambrosius’: this is the character known as Aurelius Ambrosius in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
Cad Gamlan, ‘the battle of Camlan’: this was the battle in which Arthur and Mordred were both killed. It is mentioned in the ninth-century
Ffwg, ‘Fouke’: The dynasty of Fouke le Fitz Waryn, lords of Whittington in Shropshire, was celebrated in a late-thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman verse romance, surviving only in a prose version of about 1325-40. There are quite a number of references in Welsh poetry of the fourteenth and fifteenth century to Ffwg, or Syr Ffwg, celebrating his outlaw exploits and martial heroics.
egin Alis, literally ‘offspring of Alice’: that is, the English. ‘Alice’ is Alice Rhonwen, the daughter of Hengist whose marriage to Vortigern was regarded by the British as the beginning of the hated Saxon race in Britain.
Efrawg, ‘York’: in Welsh legend, Efrawg was the father of Peredur, the Welsh equivalent of Perceval the Grail knight. Efrawg (modern Welsh
gwirgrog, ‘true cross’: a silver-gilt cross in the church of St John’s in Chester was supposed to contain relics of the true cross. References in Welsh poetry suggest that it was renowned for its healing powers. See Lewis and Thacker, 2003, pp. 85-6
y ddelw fwy, ‘the living image’. There was a ‘living image’ of Mary in the church at Mold (Yr Wyddgrug), that is, a wooden statue which probably had some kind of jointed parts which allowed movement of head or hands (Cartwright, 2008, 61-2). Here Rheinallt, who comes from Mold, is likened to a ‘living image’ of Christ, as if he were the counterpart to the statue of Mary.
Alac: probably a man’s name – Alec? The poet is deliberately using a list of very English names to indicate the kind of men – ordinary working men, not soldiers - cut down by Rheinallt and his forces.
bon: possibly an English borrowing? See OED bane, with variants ban, bon, meaning (1) murder, death, destruction; (2) that which causes ruin, the curse; (3) ruin. So perhaps means
Iarll y Ffynnon, ‘lord of the Fountain’: a reference to the medieval Welsh tale of
Einion: Rheinallt’s great-grandfather on his father’s side. For his genealogy, see Roberts (1958), p. 111.
Hywel: Rheinallt’s maternal grandfather. References to the genealogy and ancestors of patrons was an important part of the Welsh tradition of praise poetry.
Oswallt, ‘Oswald’: king of Northumbria from 634 to 642, who united Bernicia and Deira into the kingdom of Northumbria and was responsible for the spread of Christianity there. He defeated the British ruler, Cadwallon ap Cadfan, and a pagan army at Heavenfield, near Hexham in Northumbria, where, according to Bede, Oswald raised a cross on the field which subsequently became associated with miracles of healing.
Emrys, ‘Ambrosius’: this is the character known as Aurelius Ambrosius in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
Cad Gamlan, ‘the battle of Camlan’: this was the battle in which Arthur and Mordred were both killed. It is mentioned in the ninth-century
Ffwg, ‘Fouke’: The dynasty of Fouke le Fitz Waryn, lords of Whittington in Shropshire, was celebrated in a late-thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman verse romance, surviving only in a prose version of about 1325-40. There are quite a number of references in Welsh poetry of the fourteenth and fifteenth century to Ffwg, or Syr Ffwg, celebrating his outlaw exploits and martial heroics.
egin Alis, literally ‘offspring of Alice’: that is, the English. ‘Alice’ is Alice Rhonwen, the daughter of Hengist whose marriage to Vortigern was regarded by the British as the beginning of the hated Saxon race in Britain.
Efrawg, ‘York’: in Welsh legend, Efrawg was the father of Peredur, the Welsh equivalent of Perceval the Grail knight. Efrawg (modern Welsh
gwirgrog, ‘true cross’: a silver-gilt cross in the church of St John’s in Chester was supposed to contain relics of the true cross. References in Welsh poetry suggest that it was renowned for its healing powers. See Lewis and Thacker, 2003, pp. 85-6
y ddelw fwy, ‘the living image’. There was a ‘living image’ of Mary in the church at Mold (Yr Wyddgrug), that is, a wooden statue which probably had some kind of jointed parts which allowed movement of head or hands (Cartwright, 2008, 61-2). Here Rheinallt, who comes from Mold, is likened to a ‘living image’ of Christ, as if he were the counterpart to the statue of Mary.
Alac: probably a man’s name – Alec? The poet is deliberately using a list of very English names to indicate the kind of men – ordinary working men, not soldiers - cut down by Rheinallt and his forces.
bon: possibly an English borrowing? See OED bane, with variants ban, bon, meaning (1) murder, death, destruction; (2) that which causes ruin, the curse; (3) ruin. So perhaps means
Iarll y Ffynnon, ‘lord of the Fountain’: a reference to the medieval Welsh tale of