Dictionary of Welsh Biography

GRUFFUDD AP LLYWELYN (d. 1064), king of Gwynedd 1039-1064 and overlord of all the Welsh began to look across the Irish Sea for aid. He was kidnapped by the Vikings of Dublin in 1042. According to the testimony of the Historie of Cambria by the sixteenth-century historian David Powel (who claimed that his ultimate source was a medieval Welsh chronicle), the abduction was organized by Iago's son Cynan, but it failed when the captives were freed by the Welsh while being led to the ship
GRUFFYDD ap MADOG (d. 1191) son of Madog ap Maredudd by Susanna, daughter of Gruffudd ap Cynan, and the founder of the principal ruling family of northern Powys during the 13th century. When the province was divided into two spheres of influence on the death of Madog ap Maredudd in 1160, territories north of the Rhaeadr were subject to further subdivision among Gruffydd and his brothers - see Owain Fychan and Owain
GRUFFYDD ap RHYS (c. 1090 - 1137), prince of Deheubarth indisposed to resist the Norman monarchy, including Gruffudd ap Cynan who was prepared to hand his young kinsman over to Henry I when in 1115 he sought sanctuary in Gwynedd. The failure of the resistance movement which reached its climax in the open rebellion of 1116 was inevitable. Gruffydd ap Rhys nevertheless reached an accommodation with Henry and was given land in the commote of Caeo. Apart from a
GRUFFYDD LLWYD Sir (d. 1335), traditional hero of a supposed Welsh revolt in 1322 Mortimer in the previous year. Sir Gruffydd Llwyd died shortly before 12 July 1335. His heir was his son Ieuan, and he also had (according to Welsh pedigrees) seven daughters of his marriage with Gwenllian, daughter of Cynan ap Maredudd.
GRYFFYTH, JASPER (d. 1614), cleric, warden of Ruthin hospital, chaplain to archbishop Bancroft, collector of manuscripts fragments in Latin and Welsh (B.M. MS. Cotton, Jul. C., iii). Some of the most important Welsh manuscripts passed through his hands, e.g. 'The Black Book of Carmarthen,' 'The White Book of Rhydderch,' Peniarth MS 44 and Peniarth MS 53, the 'Dingestow Brut' (NLW MS 5266B), the 'Life of Gruffudd ap Cynan' (Peniarth MS 17), and two manuscripts of the Laws of Howel (Harleian 4353 and Cotton Cleopatra B.V
GWALCHMAI ap MEILYR (fl. 1130-1180), court poet Archaiology of Wales is the work of his son, Meilyr. In one of the poems to Owain Gwynedd there is internal evidence that Gwalchmai was the son of Meilyr, court poet to Gruffudd ap Cynan (The Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, 144b, 16-17 - 'My father sang the praises of his powerful royal father'). The two references in Gwalchmai's poems to the fact that he sang to Cadwallawn, son of Gruffudd ap Cynan, prove
GWENLLIAN (d. 1136) Daughter of Gruffudd ap Cynan, by Angharad, daughter of Owen ap Edwin. She married Gruffydd ap Rhys shortly after 1116, the most famous of her sons being the 'lord' Rhys ap Gruffydd. At the opening of the great Welsh uprising in 1136, she led an attack on the Norman fortress of Kidwelly, in her husband's absence, and was killed fighting outside the town, at a spot still known as Maes Gwenllian.
HARRY, JOSEPH (1863 - 1950), schoolmaster and Independent minister ; Priod-ddulliau'r Gymraeg (1927), which won a prize at the Swansea eisteddfod of 1926; and, Elfennau beirniadaeth lenorol (second to the essay by D.J. Davies, Treorchy, at the Treorchy eisteddfod in 1928, but it was Harry's essay that Foyles chose to publish in 1929). He won a prize at the Pontypool eisteddfod for translating 3 lyrics from German into Welsh, and Cynan praised his lyrics at the
HOPKINS, BENJAMIN THOMAS (1897 - 1981), farmer and poet other poets such as Cynan and R. Williams-Parry. He was called up to the army in 1918, passed his medical in June, but before joining any camp the war ended, and he was saved from having to leave his native area. He was busy there with Blaenafon Chapel, where he was elected an elder in 1923, and was a prominent member of the Chapel Drama Company. He served on Blaenpennal Parish Council from 1922 to
HUGHES, DAVID ROWLAND (Myfyr Eifion; 1874 - 1953), secretary of the National Eisteddfod '. After returning to Wales he was elected treasurer (1941) and president (1944-45) of Undeb Cymru Fydd. He was one of the pioneers and a founding member both of the Caernarfonshire and of the Denbighshire Historical Societies (1925-50). His main contribution was as secretary of the National Eisteddfod Association in 1935-36, and as joint secretary (1937-47) with Cynan (Sir Cynan Albert Evans Jones
HYWEL ab OWAIN GWYNEDD (d. 1170), soldier and poet Cadwaladr was reinstated. In 1145 Hywel and his half-brother Cynan tried unsuccessfully to storm Cardigan castle, which had remained in Norman hands. In 1146 Hywel joined forces with Cadell of Deheubarth against the Normans of West Wales; they took the castles of Carmarthen, Llanstephan, and Wiston. In 1147 Hywel and Cynan drove Cadwaladr out of Meirionydd. When Cadwaladr handed over northern Ceredigion
HYWEL ap RHODRI MOLWYNOG (d. 825), king of Gwynedd A great-grandson of Cadwaladr (died 664), and the last king in Anglesey of the line of Cunedda. The blood of Cunedda was transmitted, on Hywel's death, to a new royal house through his niece, Ethyllt (grandmother of Rhodri the Great), daughter of his brother, Cynan (died 816), with whom he had for long contested Anglesey.

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