Rhys ap Gruffudd ab Ednyfed Fychan

Events

Date of Birth: unknown.

Place of Birth: unknown.

Rhys was presumably born in the first half of the 1200s.

Date of Death: 1284.

Place of Death: unknown.

The date is given by Edwards (DWB). Bridgeman (p. 231 fn) cites a charter dated 20 April 1284 which refers to Rhys’s widow, Margaret.

Relationships

Father: Gruffudd ab Ednyfed Fychan ap Cynwrig.

This relationship is shown by Bartrum (Marchudd 14, Marchudd 17) and given by Roberts (p. 274).

Mother: uncertain.

Bartrum does not specify whether Rhys was a child of his father’s marriage with Gwenllian ferch Hywel or with Margred ferch Einion ap Gwalchmai.

Spouse: Margaret, daughter of John le Strange.

This relationship is shown by Bartrum (Marchudd 17), and given by Edwards, by Bridgeman (p. 232 fn), and by Carr (p. 141). Bridgeman (p. 231 fn) cites a charter dated at Caernarvon on April 20, 1284, in which “King Edward I concedes to Margaret, widow of Res ap Griffith ap Ednevet Vechan and daughter of John l’Estrange, for the term of her life, the whole Lordship of the Vill of Trefgarned, which had been settled on her by her late husband at the time of her marriage.” Le Strange (pp. 175-6) argues that John le Strange must be the fourth of that name.

Children:

Sir Gruffudd Llwyd (died 1335) married Gwenllian ferch Cynan.

References

Bartrum, Peter C., “Mabon Glochydd 2” in An Electronic Version of Welsh Genealogies AD 300-1500. [The sources that Bartrum cites for Rhys are: Peniarth 131 (229), written by Ieuan Brechfa about 1500; Peniarth 129 (118), copied from a 1497 MS by Gutun Owain; and Peniarth 137 (15) by Syr Thomas ab Ieuan ap Deiews, written between 1510 and 1523.]

Bridgeman, George T.O. History of the Princes of South Wales (Wigan: Thomas Birch, 1876).

Carr, Antony David. The Mostyn Family and Estate, 1200-1643 (PhD thesis, University of Wales, 1975).

Edwards, Sir John Goronwy. “Gruffudd Llwyd, Sir” in Welsh Biography Online.

Edwards, Sir John Goronwy. “Sir Gruffydd Llwyd” in The English Historical Review volume XXX, pp. 589-601 (1915).

Le Strange, Hamon. Le Strange Records: A Chronicle of the Early Le Stranges (London:1916).

Roberts, Glyn. “Wyrion Eden’: The Anglesey Descendants of Ednyfed Fychan in the Fourteenth Century” in Aspects of Welsh History. (University of Wales Press, 1969).