Welsh Journals

borrowed light falls upon him from the story of Owain, and it is thus that we hear of his marriage and acquisition of property in South Wales. In the middle of the fourteenth century, the line of hereditary princes of South Wales, descended from the great Lord Rhys, was represented by Owain ap Thomas ap Llywelyn ab Owain, owner of a very modest estate in South Cardiganshire, which upon his death without issue, soon after 1355, passed to his sisters, Helen and Margaret.1 Helen married Gruffydd Fychan and brought to him the commote of Iscoed Uch Hirwen, lying to the north of Newcastle Emlyn, with part of the adjoining commote of Gwinionydd. Thus Gruffydd gained a useful accession of territory and probably thought a good deal less of the other result of this alliance, the union in the person of his son of the blood of the ancient dynasties of Powys and Deheubarth. It may be remarked that the genealogists of a later age are not content even with this distinction they proceed to heighten its effect by alleging that Helen was descended on her mother's side from a daughter of the last Llywelyn, so making Glyn Dẃr represent Gwynedd as well as the other two principalities. But there is no evidence that Llywelyn had any daughter but Gwenllian, born in the last year of his life and after his death confined for the rest of her days as a nun of the order of Sempringham. It is quite enough honour for the future Welsh leader that he should be born of parents who incorporated in themselves the claims of two great ruling families and stood almost alone in that position among the landowners of Wales; he can very well dispense with the borrowed plumes which injudicious admirers would foist upon him. 1 The history of the family and the devolution of their property is very fully elucidated by Bridgeman in his History of the Princes of South Wales" (1876).