ANCESTRY OF ?MARGARETTA PRICHARD (est 1650 –?1728)

Wife of Oakley I Leigh. dau of John Prichard & descendant of Welsh knights and princes

The Gentry 2

In south east Wales, the early LEWIS line shows the ancestors of GWENLLIAN ferch HYWEL who married MAREDUDD GETHIN, a younger son of the LORD RHYS. In the 11th century, as we saw, some of these ancestors had ruled in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire as well as periodically claiming princely power in Deheubarth. However, the coming of the Normans reduced them to a more subsidiary role as Lords of Caerleon.

Pedigree from II-3,114,048.RHYDDERCH ap IESTYN to Lords of Caerleon

II-3,114,048.RHYDDERCH ap IESTYN and his son and grandson

The first in this line was RHYDDERCH ap IESTYN, whose origins are unknown but who came to power in Glamorgan, as we saw in Welsh Princes 1-2. By 1023 he was strong enough to seize control of Deheubarth from the descendants of HYWEL DDA, but he died in 1033, killed by the Irish (Maund pp.61-2, J.Davies p.99). His son GRUFFUDD ap RHYDDERCH was unable to hold on to his lands, and it was not until 1045 that he had sufficient control of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire to recapture his father’s place in Deheubarth. He resisted the Danes and attacked the English border, but he was defeated and killed by Gruffudd ap Llywelyn in 1055.

After the latter’s death in 1063, GRUFFUDD’S son CARADOG regained control in Monmouthshire. CARADOG had made his first appearance in 1065 on the eve of the Norman Conquest when he destroyed the new hunting lodge of earl Harold near Chepstow. In 1074 he also gained control in Glamorgan, and it was probably in that year that he made a grant to the church at Llandaff, describing himself as “king.” Over several years he attempted to seize Deheubarth, killing the reigning princes Maredudd and Rhys, great nephews of CADELL ab EINION, but he never gained control, and in the battle of Mynydd Carn he was killed by RHYS ap TEWDWR, as we have seen in Welsh Princes 2.

The Lords of Caerleon

The death of CARADOG put an end to effective Welsh leadership in south east Wales, and the Normans took over much of the fertile lowlands, though CARADOG’S son OWAIN WAN (the weak) did retain some influence. OWAIN’S eldest son Morgan was recognized as the Lord of Caerleon (west Monmouthshire) by king Henry II, and after his death in 1158 he was succeeded by his brother IORWERTH ab OWAIN. For some reason Henry dispossessed him in 1171, but two years later IORWERTH and his son HYWEL seized Caerleon and other castles in Monmouthshire. Though they lost them soon afterwards, their friendship with the LORD RHYS induced the king to return Caerleon to them, and in 1184 HYWEL was the only Welshman among six men who held castles in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire in the king’s name when the Welsh attacked Glamorgan (DWB “Morgan ap Hywel”, Bradney, Vol III, p.187). He was complimented by Gerald of Wales for “observing a strict neutrality between the Welsh and the English” (quoted by R.R.Davies, Conquest p.102). Lowland Monmouthshire had been under nominal Norman control for a century, but Davies noted: “It was indicative of continuing native influence in the area that when a Cistercian abbey was founded at Llantarnam near Caerleon in 1179, its mother house should be Strata Florida in the heart of native Wales, and its patron and protector was the local Welsh ruler in Monmouthshire, HYWEL ab IORWERTH ab OWAIN” (p.273).

The story moves now to HYWEL’S daughter GWENLLIAN, who married MAREDUDD GETHIN, a son of the LORD RHYS of Deheubarth, and to HYWEL’S son MORGAN and their descendants. Though MORGAN lost the castle of Caerleon to the Norman earl of Pembroke in 1217, he kept some of his lands and built Machen castle to the west. He lost Machen briefly to a later earl of Pembroke in 1236, but Llywelyn the Great put pressure on the earl, who felt obliged to restore the castle to MORGAN ”‘for fear of Lord Llywelyn” (Chronicle of the Princes, s.a. 1236), and to apologise to Llywelyn for the attacks on MORGAN’S lands (R.R.Davies, Conquest, p.275). MORGAN and his ancestors at Caerleon are known to have had a steward or justiciar. They also had need of clerks, and drew on local clergy and members of cathedral chapters, such as Urban, “my clerk and canon of Llandaff”, who witnessed one of their charters (R.R.Davies, Conquest, pp.262-3).

In the next generation, MORGAN’S daughter GWERFUL married her first cousin GRUFFUDD, the son of MAREDUDD GETHIN. MORGAN died in 1248, and because he held land directly of the king an Inquisition Post Mortem was held in February 1249. It showed that he held two commotes in Caerleon worth £40 a year, but it would take no account of the other lands he held in his own right or as a subject of the Normans. His heir was named as his 14-year-old grandson MAREDUDD ap GRUFFUDD, “if he can prove he is legitimate”, otherwise MORGAN’S four sisters and their sons would succeed (Bradney Vol.III, p.191).

II-12,164.MAREDUDD ap GRUFFUDD
and his son II-6,082.MORGAN ap MAREDUDD

MAREDUDD did inherit, perhaps by proving his legitimacy as the son of GWERFUL, or else as the grandson of GWERFUL's aunt GWENLLIAN. For detailed questions about his mother, see II.24,329.GWERFUL f. MORGAN in Branch Chart 1. In any event, regardless of whether GWERFUL was or was not MAREDUDD’S mother, we have the descent from HYWEL through MAREDUDD’S father GRUFFUDD. The ruins of Machen castle are still known as Maredudd’s Castle, and he also held other lands in Monmouthshire near Newport, including the area around Caerleon. As described earlier, MAREDUDD became a subject of Gilbert de Clare, the Norman lord of Glamorgan who purchased the lordship of Caerleon in 1268, and when MAREDUDD gave his homage to Llywelyn prince of Wales, de Clare seized MAREDUDD’S lands. Thus (as said in Welsh Princes 2) he participated in one of the events which ended in Llywelyn’s defeat by the English king and his death in 1282.
 

The dispute with Gilbert de Clare continued with MAREDUDD’S son MORGAN, who in 1278 unsuccessfully brought suit for the lands, and in 1294 led a revolt against the earl. This was part of a country-wide response to a number of grievances, including the tax imposed on Wales by Edward I after the defeat of Llywelyn the Last. In Glamorgan and Monmouthshire the revolt was directed against the aggressive policies of de Clare, and MORGAN was supported by all the Welsh of the uplands. It was not until the following year that the revolt was put down (J.Davies, pp.166,177, R.R.Davies, Conquest, pp.382-6). MORGAN and the other rebels were pardoned, and he was soon acting as a royal agent in Wales. The king further humiliated de Clare by taking Glamorgan into his own hands before restoring it to the earl in 1296. Gilbert de Clare died 6 weeks later, leaving a 4-year-old heir, and his widow’s second husband granted MORGAN a life interest in a commote in Caerleon, though he was dispossessed when the heir came of age and was granted a hamlet instead. The new earl died fighting the Scots at Bannockburn in 1314, and the Clare line came to an end, but another Norman lord took his place and continued as MORGAN’S overlord.

MORGAN appears in the record again in 1316 as a Welsh tenant in the king’s allegiance (Altschul pp.59-61, 82). After MORGAN ap MAREDUDD’S death in 1331, Inquisitions Post Mortem (Cal. IPM VII, No. 329) show that his daughter ANGHARAD aged 32 was his heir, and that he held 1/3 part of the town of St Clears and of two commotes, all in west Carmarthenshire, which he held of the king by knight service, and land in the west of Gwynedd in north Wales, which he held on payment to the king of 20 shillings per annum. The property in Carmarthenshire had been granted to MORGAN by Edward I's queen, Eleanor, who had inherited it as a descendant of the Norman who had seized St Clears in 1240 (James, “Bledri,” p.15). It was a small part of Deheubarth, the birthplace of his great grandfather, MAREDUDD GETHIN ap the LORD RHYS. Again the IPMs took no account of land that MORGAN held in his own right or that he held from the Normans, which would have included the estate of Tredegar near Newport. His daughter ANGHARAD brought these properties to her husband LLYWELYN ab IFOR, and their descendants became land-owning gentry with estates. They also enhanced their prominent position in the county by obtaining appointments, custodies, and functions, often lucrative and powerful.

Pedigree from Lords of Tredegar to II-95.JANE LEWIS

II-3041.ANGHARAD ferch MORGAN and LLYWELYN ab IFOR

Bartrum describes ANGHARAD’S husband LLYWELYN as Lord of St Clears and of Gwynfe, which is near Bryn-y-Beirdd in Carmarthenshire (pedigree Cydifor Fawr 14, DWB, “Morgan family of Tredegar Park”). He was shown as the son of Ifor ap Llywelyn ap Bledri ap Cydifor Fawr, but as Cydifor died in 1091 it is clear that several generations are missing. Therefore, we are not giving his ancestry, not even his father IFOR (for details of I-164,928.BLEDRI see Primary Chart 2). LLYWELYN and ANGHARAD had three sons, MORGAN, Ifor and PHILIP, of whom MORGAN and PHILIP were both ancestors of JANE LEWIS. The other son Ifor, who lived near Tredegar, was the principal patron of the famous poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, who flourished between 1340 and 1370 and composed seven poems in Ifor’s honor, from one of which he became known as Ifor Hael (the generous). His descendants bore the arms ‘Argent, three bulls’ heads caboshed Sable’ (on a silver shield, three black bulls’ heads without a neck), attributed to their claimed ancestor Bledri ap Cydifor. They continued to patronize the poets, but their home eventually became part of the Tredegar estate.

The LEWIS branch from II-1520.PHILIP ap LLYWELYN

LLYWELYN’S youngest son PHILIP ap LLYWELYN is said to have been the founder of the LEWIS family at St Pierre near Chepstow in the east of Monmouthshire. The hotel and country club now on the site include part of the 14th century manor house, which continued in the family until 1893.

According to Sir Joseph Bradney’s History of Monmouthshire, PHILIP’S son DAFYDD was the first of the family to live at St Pierre, where he was in possession soon after 1395. Bradney also wrote that “DAFYDD ap PHILIP served in the wars of Henry IV and Henry V, and in the reign of the latter king was governor of Calais” (Vol. IV, p.75). His son LEWYS ap DAFYDD was said to have leased out land in 1430, and he was also noted by G.T.Clark as appearing in deeds between 1427 and 1441 (Limbus Patrum Morganiae, p.330). LEWYS’S son THOMAS was named as “Thomas Lewis of Chepstow” when he lost his life in 1469 at the battle of Banbury in the Wars of the Roses, where he supported the Yorkists (Evans p.108). In the 16th century, THOMAS’S descendants sealed with ‘A gryphon segreant’ (a winged monster standing on one hind leg), which was attributed to LLYWELYN ab IFOR. They also used the arms ‘Or, a lion rampant Sable’ (on a gold shield, a black lion standing on one hind leg), which were derived from arms attributed to Cydifor Fawr, quartered with ‘Gules, three towers Argent, two and one’ (on a red shield, three silver towers placed two above one), which were the arms attributed to their ancestor HYWEL of Caerleon. By 1580 the family owned two manors just over the Gloucestershire border in England, and they bought Penhow castle in 1674 and the neighboring Caldicot castle in 1857 (near the church where our Rev. RICHARD NASH LEIGH had christened his infant son EDMUND in 1736).

II-3056.MORGAN ap LLYWELYN and his sons

LLYWELYN ab IFOR’S eldest son MORGAN, who inherited Tredegar, was the ancestor of THOMAS LEWIS’S wife ELIZABETH, and it is known that he witnessed a deed in 1375 (DWB, “Morgan family of Tredegar Park”) and died in 1381. In the next generation MORGAN’S younger son PHILIP was our ancestor, but MORGAN was succeeded by his eldest son Llywelyn ap MORGAN, who in 1387 served on the jury of an IPM, and was appointed sheriff of Carmarthen. He was living at Tredegar House in 1402 as the first recorded owner, but in the following year he forfeited his estates, including that at St Clears, as punishment for supporting the rebellion of Owain Glyn Dwr. However, his wife Margery had received dower of his estates at St Clears, Newport and Cardiff from Henry VII by 1411, so they were returned to the family (Griffiths, Principality, p.270). His descendants at Tredegar continued among the most important families in the county.

II-1528.PHILIP ap MORGAN and his descendants

MORGAN ap LLYWELYN’S younger son PHILIP was named after his uncle PHILIP ap LLYWELYN, and is said by Bradney to have purchased the manor of Langstone to the east of Newport in 1382 (Vol. IV, p.212). His home may have been Langstone Court, where there is still the motte and bailey of a castle. His wife is said to have been GWENLLIAN, the daughter of Sir JOHN NORRIS of Penllyn. The Norris family from Gloucestershire were among the early Norman settlers in Glamorgan, and Sir Robert Norreis / le Norris was sheriff from 1122 to 1149 and had two knights fees in Penllyn, where he probably built the castle keep. Further members of the family continued to appear in charters and records of knight’s fees up to John le Norris who was active between 1317 and 1349, and to another John who appeared in charters in 1358 and 1359. It is not clear which John was GWENLLIAN’S father, so it is not possible to show her ancestral line.

On his tomb at Llanmartin church the family arms are quartered with those of Norris.

Sir ROGER VAUGHAN died at Agincourt in 1415, as did his father-in-law Sir DAFYDD GAM (Gam = disabled as he squinted or had lost an eye). DAFYDD came from the Usk valley near Abergavenny, and his ancestors had given devoted service to the Bohuns, Norman earls of Hereford and Marcher lords of Brecon. R.R.Davies tells us about DAFYDD’S ancestor EINION SAIS (living 1271), whose castle was further west in the Usk valley at Penpont. In the 13th century the Bohuns had “enhanced their control within their lordships by forging links of patronage and service with the leaders of local Welsh society” (R.R.Davies, Conquest, p.284), principally EINION SAIS and his important kinsmen in Brecon. “Such ties … began the slow but crucial process of channelling the loyalty of native Welshmen to the Marcher Lords through the network of clientage and patronage within native Welsh society itself” (p.284). “The service of [EINION SAIS’S] family to the Bohuns as Lords of Brecon extended over more than a century. It stood and suffered with its lord – whether against the prince of Gwynedd in the 1260s, Edward I in 1297, or Edward II in 1327” (p.409), though Llywelyn the Last at his most powerful demanded personal homage from EINION SAIS and other leaders of native Welsh society (p.319). The family was awarded for its loyalty with “annuities, offices in abundance (notably that of Sheriff of Brecon which was virtually a family preserve), lucrative custodies and leases. No one could be in doubt that there was a special bond between EINION SAIS’S family and the Lords of Brecon. It worked to the mutual advantage of both parties.” (p.409-410). DAFYDD GAM’S descendants, who continued to live in Breconshire for 250 years, took the surname Games. They bore the arms, ‘Argent, a chevron between three cocks Gules’ (on a silver shield a red chevron between three cocks), attributed to EINION SAIS, quartered with ‘Gules, a chevron between three spear-heads Argent’ (on a red shield a silver chevron between three spear-heads), which were attributed to their patriarch Bleddyn ap Maenyrch of Brecon.

DAVY GAM was a leading Welsh supporter of king Henry IV, who held the lordship of Brecon where the GAM family lived, and thus DAVY became a fierce opponent of Owain Glyn Dwr (pp.206-7). In November 1401 he was rewarded with rebel lands, but he was captured by Owain in 1412, and his father LLYWELYN assented to his being ransomed (Cal. Pat. Rolls, 11). Though he was already a king’s esquire by 1400 (Cal. Close Rolls, 79), William Shakespeare used the strong oral tradition that as Davy lay dying after the great battle against the French at Agincourt, he was personally knighted by the king. Shakespeare’s play Henry V gives the young King the inspiring speech to his men before the battle on St Crispin’s Day which became famous as the creed of fellow soldiers, “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers,” and the king vowed to ennoble every soldier who would fight with him:

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
(Henry V, IV, iii)

Then after the battle Shakespeare has the king name the fallen warriors, among them “Davy Gam, esquire” (IV, viii).

In addition to our ELIZABETH in the LEWIS line, Sir ROGER and his wife GWLADUS GAM had three sons, Watkin of Bredwardine, Thomas of Hergest (d. Banbury 1469), and Sir Roger II of Tretower in Breconshire (d.1471). Each of the three brothers had an interesting life, and they usually appear in general histories of the period.

After Sir ROGER’S death in 1415 GWLADUS married Sir William ap Thomas, who fought in the French wars and grew wealthy through his position as a local agent of the duke of York in south east Wales. GWLADUS’S sons by ROGER VAUGHAN were brought up with their step-brothers, and GWLADUS was buried with her second husband in a fine tomb in St Mary’s Priory Church, Abergavenny.

Their large family, eventually known as the Herberts, became very important. Sir William had married as his first wife the widowed heiress of Raglan, and had purchased both Raglan and Tretower from her son Lord Berkeley, and in about 1435 he began building Raglan Castle, a veritable palace with a series of state apartments, and still one of the finest late medieval buildings in Britain despite the damage done by the Civil War in the 17th century.
 

He amassed a number of offices in south east Wales, and his son William won a prominent position at court and adopted the fixed surname Herbert from his claimed 13th century ancestor Herbert ap Godwin. This son was summoned to parliament in 1461as Baron Herbert, the first Welshman of full blood to join the ranks of English titled aristocracy, and he was made Earl of Pembroke in 1468 (J. Davies p.209).
 

He gave Tretower to his half-brother Sir Roger Vaughan II, who rebuilt and extended Tretower Court, which John Davies calls “the finest example of a home of a Welsh gentry family.” It had a “fortified gatehouse and a range of luxurious buildings, including a mess for his indentured soldiers” (pp.213-4).
 

This completes the story of the ancestors of JANE, the daughter of THOMAS LEWIS, except for their role in the Wars of the Roses, where the ancestors of JANE LEWIS’S husband MORRIS BOWEN were also involved. The two families interacted as adherents or opponents, so we will outline the story of the Wars before we focus on MORRIS BOWEN and his line.

The Wars of the Roses

The Wars of the Roses were the famous series of battles for the English crown fought in thirty years, 1455 to 1485, between the supporters of the house of York, symbolized by the white rose, and the supporters of the house of Lancaster, symbolized by the red rose. Both houses descended from Edward III, king of England in the previous century. Lancaster was represented by king Henry VI, the son of Henry V (who had died only seven years after his famous victory at Agincourt), but Henry VI showed none of the qualities required for kingship during his long reign of almost forty years. Opposition to him was led by Richard, duke of York, who claimed the throne in 1460 but was killed in the battle of Wakefield. Richard’s son Edward was victorious at Mortimer’s Cross in the following year, and took the throne as Edward IV in 1461.

In general, the LEWIS line were Yorkists, though their close relatives in the MORGAN branch, Thomas and Sir John, were Lancastrian supporters. The VAUGHANS and the Herberts were Yorkists, as was JANE LEWIS’S father THOMAS, whereas the family of MORRIS BOWEN, who later became JANE’S husband, were Lancastrians.

Both sides depended heavily on their territories in Wales for troops, the Lancastrians on the Crown shires of Carmarthen and Cardigan and the lordship of Pembroke in the west (except for the Yorkist DWNNS in Kidwelly), and the Yorkists on the lordships of Edward as earl of March and the Glamorgan lordship of Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, in the east. Mortimer’s Cross was a battle between two Welsh armies (J.Davies p.215). Edward’s victory there depended greatly on the support given by Warwick, who was his cousin on his mother’s side, but Edward subsequently gave the responsibility for Wales to William Herbert, and created him earl of Pembroke. Angered, Warwick rebelled. The earl of Pembroke remained loyal to Edward, and opposed Warwick with troops from Wales when they met in battle at Banbury in 1469, where THOMAS LEWIS, Thomas VAUGHAN of Hergest, and Henry DWNN of Picton were among those killed. Pembroke and his brother Sir Richard Herbert were taken prisoner and executed by Warwick (Evans pp.101-07).

In the following year it was reported to Edward by John DWNN that Warwick was again plotting against him. Edward declared Warwick a traitor, and he fled to France, where he was reconciled with his former enemy, Henry VI’s Queen Margaret, and they returned to London and declared Henry king, for which Warwick is remembered as “the Kingmaker.” Edward was taken by surprise and managed to escape abroad, but he returned in 1471 and defeated and killed Warwick at the battle of Barnet. The Lancastrians were again defeated in that year at Tewkesbury, where Henry VI’s only son was killed, and Henry himself died soon afterwards.

Lancastrian hopes then centered on the Welsh Tudor family, and especially on Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond. Here we must give a little background on the Tudor family, which became very important in English history. Henry’s grandfather Owen Tudor was an Anglesey squire whose grandmother descended from the LORD RHYS. Owen Tudor had married Queen Catherine, the very young widow of king Henry V, so their sons Edward and Jasper Tudor were step-brothers of Henry VI. Edward Tudor was made earl of Richmond and married the Lancastrian Margaret Beaumont, another descendant of Edward III, but he died in 1456, leaving Henry as his only child. Edward’s brother Jasper had Sir Roger VAUGHAN of Tretower executed in 1471, prompted by the accusation that Sir Roger had had a hand in the execution of Jasper’s father Owen Tudor in 1461 (Griffiths, Sir Rhys Thomas and his Family, p.4). After the battle of Tewkesbury, Henry and his uncle Jasper sailed for France to gain the support of the king, but they were shipwrecked on the Breton coast and kept in semi-captivity in Brittany for 13 years.

Edward IV died in 1483 and the crown was seized by his brother Richard III, but Henry Tudor returned in 1485, defeated Richard at the battle of Bosworth, and took the throne as Henry VII. Crucial to Henry Tudor’s success was the immediate support of the Welsh Lancastrians, and their soldiers made up about one third of his troops. Henry then married Elizabeth of York, thus uniting the two factions and ending the Wars of the Roses.

Fully conscious of his debt to his Welsh supporters, Henry VII rewarded them generously, as was seen for members of the MORGAN family, and will be seen with others as we take up their lives. Principal among them was the family of MORRIS BOWEN (the husband of JANE LEWIS), including Henry VII’s chief supporter Sir Rhys ap Thomas, who was knighted and received many other honors during his long life. We now turn to this BOWEN family in Carmarthenshire.