THE
CONSORTS AND CHILDREN OF GRUFFUDD AP LLEWELYN
By Darrell Wolcott
Born c. 1011, Gruffudd
ap Llewelyn became king of Powys by birthright in 1039; king of Gwynedd that same year by conquest; king of Deheubarth in
1044 by conquest; and king of all the other territories which comprised Wales in 1056, also by conquest. While
he had maternal ties to the Gwynedd and Deheubarth royal families, his father had also ruled those kingdoms. Taking
Gwent, Morgannwg and Brycheiniog was unprecedented and accomplished solely by force. At his death in 1063, his empire
did not survive intact. Whether it might have if his sons had been old enough to succeed him is debatable; they weren't
and it didn't.
It is
not our purpose here to rehash the birth, reign or death of Gruffudd, but to examine his immediate family: his wives and children.
Our discussion will begin with his known, or suspected, children. In 1069, his sons Ithel and Maredudd brought a kingship
claim to the battlefield at Mechain against Rhiwallon ap Cynfyn, who was aided by his younger brother, Bleddyn. In the
battle, Ithel was slain as was Rhiwallon. Maredudd fled the field and was pursued by Bleddyn into the mountains, where
he subsequently died of thirst and exposure to the elements. [1] We are not told which of Gruffudd's two sons was staking
a claim, but think it was Ithel for these reasons:
Ithel appears to have
been the primary target of the Cynfyn sons just as Rhiwallon was the primary target of Gruffudd's sons. The latter was
true because it was Rhiwallon who held the kingship of Powys [2], the kingdom which was the only birthright of the sons of
Gruffudd. Gwynedd had been taken by conquest. The fact that Maredudd fled the field after his brother was slain
indicates that he wished to remain alive to pursue his own claim when he reached the required age. There is considerable
anecdotal evidence that a kingship claimant must have attained the age of 28, and indeed neither Ithel nor Maredudd lodged
such a claim in 1063 when their father was killed. We believe Ithel turned 28 in 1069 and his younger brother came to
the Mechain battle to support his claim. Thus we would date the birth of Ithel ap Gruffudd to the year 1041, with Maredudd
being born a year or two later.
Ten years earlier, the
Brut recorded the death of Owain ap Gruffudd. No such man (who could have died in 1059) is found among Peter Bartrum's
charts or indexes, nor is such a man identified by any of the standard histories of Wales. But Kari Maund (the
brilliant Welsh historian who quit academia to become the noted writer Kari Sperring) makes Owain another brother
of Ithel and Maredudd. [3] We agree with her identification; this Owain was clearly a man of importance since the
Brut does not cite obituaries for ordinary men. We further think he was the eldest son of Gruffudd ap Llewelyn whose
early death around age 20 was mentioned by the Brut author since he had been the favored heir to the powerful king.
We would thus date his birth near 1039.
Gruffudd also had a daughter,
Nest, who married Trahaearn ap Caradog. [4] This man, in 1075, succeeded Bleddyn ap Cynfyn as king of Powys, and probably
also king of Gwynedd. [5] Born c. 1035, Trahaearn had sons Owain and Llywarch (among others) who were born c. 1065/1070.
These dates point to c. 1050 as the birthdate of Nest, with the marriage taking place shortly after Gruffudd's death in 1063.
Gruffudd had a second
daughter, also named Nest, about 1056. It is known that this second Nest was the mother of a daughter, also named Nest,
who married the Norman knight Bernard Newmarch. [6] The husband of this c. 1056 Nest is widely cited by modern authors
as the Saxon baron, Osbern fitz Richard. There are, however, no ancient or even medieval manuscripts which confirm
that marriage.
The identification
is made by inference alone. The 1086 Domesday Book for Warwickshire notes that Binley (located just east of Coventry)
was held by the Cathedral Priory, and that 3 hides of that land had been acquired from Osbern. And before
the Conquest, those 3 hides were held by Ealdgyth wife of Gruffudd. One assumes, but cannot be certain, that Osbern
had owned the land "et uxor" as the husband of the heiress daughter of Ealdgyth.
This assumption is strengthened
a bit by a c. 1100/20 entry in the Cartulary of Worchester Cathedral Priory wherein Hugh fitz Osbern confirms a grant
made by his father "for the souls of his father Osbern and his mother Nest". Accordingly, the wife of Osbern was named
Nest ferch "unknown".
Finally, in his 1188 Journey
Through Wales, Gerald of Wales said about Bernard Newmarch "He married Nest, the daughter of Nest, herself a daughter
of Gruffudd ap Llewelyn." While Peter Bartrum cites this passage as his authority for a marriage between Nest ferch
Gruffudd and Osbern fitz Richard, it nowhere mentions the father of Newmarch's wife.
By assuming such a marrriage,
the other sources we mentioned above seem to dovetail. Ealdgyth (the daughter of Earl Aelfgar) owned some land in Binley,
Warwickshire. She married Gruffudd ap Llewelyn and had a daughter named Nest, her only child by him. After the
death of Ealdgyth (sometime after 1066), this land descended to her daughter Nest. Nest married Osbern c. 1070 and he,
likely late in life, gave it to the Cathedral Priory in Coventry. Of course, there are other ways in which Osbern
might have acquired that land and other ladies named Nest he might have married. Thus, we label the marriage as quite
possible but unproven. If true, the chart would appear as:
979 Llewelyn Aelfgar
1017
l
l
1011 Gruffudd====Ealdgyth(a) 1041 Richard
1010
l
l
1056 Nest(b)==============Osbern
1045
l
1071 Nest==============Newmarch 1058
(a)
This marriage would have been about 1055 when Gruffudd and Aelfgar were known to be allies
(b) She would have been yet a child when her father was killed in 1063, and likely married at age 14 c. 1070
1010 Richard le Scrob/Scrope
(a)
l
1045 Osbern
(b) ===========Nest 1056 (c)
l
1080 Hugh (d)
(a) Built Richard's Castle in Herefordshire
about 1048 as a baron of King Edward the Confessor
(b) Held Stanage in Herefordshire
according to the 1086 Domesday Book
(c) The wife of Osbern who was
probably, but not certainly, a daughter of Gruffudd ap Llewelyn
(d) About 1110, confirmed to the monks
of Worchester Priory, his father's grant of Boraston and the church at Dodderhill "for the souls of his father, Osbern, and
his mother, Nest." She is not further identified. It was common for a son to confirm grants made by his father
when the father died
We also should mention
the liklihood that Gruffudd ap Llewelyn had a base son named Cynyn or Cynid. An early source says that while Cynfryd
ferch Rhirid Mawr was a hostage, she had a son by Gruffudd before later marrying Trahaearn ap Maelog Dda:
980
Rhiryd Mawr Maelog Dda 955
l
l
1011 Gruffudd=======Cynfryd======Trahaearn 995
l 1015 l
1029 Cynyn Brochwel
1030
If the above chart is
an accurate portrayal of the c. 1200 source [7] which says "A Ririt hwnnw a wystlws Keinvryt y ferch Ruffudd ap Llewelyn.
Kynyn oedd un mab yddaw ena, ag yn y wystledigaeth honno y mynnws Trahayarn ap Maelawg hi", then it would appear that Rhiryd
Mawr of Caerwedros had been required to give his daughter as a hostage to Llewelyn ap Seisyll c. 1022 and that the lady was
still being held by interim king Cynfyn ap Gwerystan (at whose manor Gruffudd lived after his father died); that a teenaged
Gruffudd seduced the young lady who likely took the resulting child with her when she was later released to marry
Trahaearn. Clearly, the child was never acknowledged by Gruffudd as his legitimate son. No one knows, or cares,
what became of him.
We turn now to the wives/consorts
of Gruffudd. Since we have suggested elsewhere that he and other members of the Powys Royal family had taken refuge
in Ireland in 1033 when Iago ap Idwal came to power in Gwynedd, this tends to support the oral tradition that Gruffudd married
an Irish lady. One writer [8] names her as Nest daughter of "Alfred". By the description given, this was an error
for "Amlaib" otherwise known as "Olaf", son of Sitric Silkbeard. This author then immediately conflates this lady with
Ranulf (actually Rhanillt) ferch Olaf who was mother to the first Gruffudd ap Cynan. Such a Nest would have been
born c. 1024, might have married Gruffudd ap Llewelyn about 1038 and been the mother of Owain ap Gruffudd in 1039:
960 Sitric Silkbeard
l
995
Olaf/Amlaib
_____________l_________________
l
l
l
1025 Nest (a) 1026 Rhanillt (b) 1030
Sitric (c)
(a) Possible
first wife of Gruffudd ap Llewelyn, married shortly before his rise to power in Powys and Gwynedd
(b) Wife of
Cynan ap Idwal, the man who fled Gwynedd in 1039, and the mother of the first Gruffudd ap Cynan c. 1041
(c)
Married Nest ferch Tewdwr of Deheubarth, sister of king Rhys ap Tewdwr, and was father of Eidio Wyllt
The Brut account
for 1041 says that during a battle with King Hywel ap Edwin of Deheubarth, Gruffudd ap Llewelyn seized Hywel's wife and:
a. Took her for his own [9]
b. Took her as his own wife [10]
c. Took her and controlled her [11]
The 3 principal
versions of the Brut differ as to what Gruffudd had in mind when he took the lady. Version (a) above implies he took
the lady as his mistress, while version (b) claims he married her. Verson (c) might describe his simply taking the lady
hostage, a common occurrence in warfare during that era. Since we believe he already had a wife, and knew
the lady was a daughter of Earl Leofric [12], we suspect she was taken as a barganing chip in the event Mercia interferred
with his plans to take Deheubarth and, indeed, all of Wales. While this doesn't preclude Gruffudd from having later
seduced the lady, we doubt he disposed of his wife to marry her. In our timeline of events, his wife was then pregnant
with his son, Ithel, and later had another son, Maredudd, and a daughter, Nest. She likely died after bearing Nest about
1050, leaving him free to take a new wife. We suspect the daughter of Leofric was reunited with her English siblings
after 1055 when Gruffudd entered into a military alliance with her brother, Aelfgar. It was, we think, through this
lady that those two men first became acquainted. As described in another paper [13], we also believe the lady had
one, and perhaps two daughters who were under the age of 5 in 1041 when Gruffudd took her, and that those daughters were
with their mother when the expedition returned to Powys.
990 Leofrig(a), ob 1057
Edwin 963
_______l_____________
l
l
l l
1017 Aelfgar, ob 1062 1015 Ealdgyth(b)===Hywel 997
l
l
1041 Ealdgyth(c)===Gruffudd 1011
daughter(d) ?
(a) Earl of Mercia
and husband of Lady Godiva
(b) Lady taken
in battle in 1041 by Gruffudd ap Llewelyn
(c) Married
Gruffudd ap Llewelyn about 1055, had one child by him about 1056, a daughter named Nest. After Gruffudd was killed in
1063, she was taken to wife by Harold Godwinson and bore him one or more children before 1066
(d) Possibly
born c. 1039 and taken with her mother to Gruffudd's fortress at Rhuddlan. She may have also had a sister a year or
two older. These children are nowhere recorded and are only our conjecture
When Gruffudd was beseiged by Harold Godwinson
in 1063, and killed by the Welsh to appease Harold, he left a widow called Ealdgyth whom Harold took to wife. Most
suppose this was the same lady he had taken from Hywel in 1041, but the chronology does not fit. The lady widowed in
1063 bore 2 sons to Harold before 1066, but the lady taken from Hywel would have been in her mid or late 40's by then.
Historians are divided
on the matter, with some reporting that Gruffudd married a sister of Aelfgar, and others claiming she was Aelfgar's daughter.
We suspect these were two different ladies, it being a sister of Aelfgar who had been married to Hywel, and a daughter of
Aelfgar who was Gruffudd's widow. The latter would have been born c. 1041 and only in her early 20's when she remarried
Harold.
To recap, the following
born-in-wedlock children should probably be credited to Gruffudd:
1. son Owain, born
c. 1039, died in 1059
2. son Ithel,
born c. 1041, killed in 1069
3. son Maredudd,
born c. 1043, died in 1069
4. daughter Nest,
born c. 1050, married Trahaearn ap Caradog c. 1063
5. daughter Nest,
born c. 1056, married Osbern fitz Richard c. 1070; had a daughter, Nest, born c. 1071 who married Bernard Newmarch c. 1085
We would assign
the first 4 children to the Irish lady, who may have died during the final childbirth. The 5th child, and second named
Nest, was by the wife who survived Gruffudd, Ealdgyth the daughter of Earl Aelfgar of Mercia. We do not think the
lady Gruffudd took from Hywel ap Edwin bore him any children, and question if she was even his mistress.
