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Gruffydd
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Gruffydd

not required to restore any land which he had held when with the king (Fœdera, i. 474).

Gruffydd was not long contented as a vassal of the prince of Wales. In 1274 Llewelyn upbraided him for his deceit and disloyalty, took from him part of his land, and kept his eldest son Owain at his court (Brut y Tywysogion, s. a.) In 1276 Gruffydd and Owain joined with Davydd, Llewelyn's brother [see Davydd III, d. 1283], in a conspiracy against Llewelyn (Fœdera, i. 532). But the prince found out the plot, and Owain was forced to confess before the Bishop of Bangor. Llewelyn sent five of his nobles to Gruffydd, who at first received them well at Pool Castle, his chief residence. But he soon treacherously shut them up in prison and prepared his castle for a siege. Llewelyn now overran Powys; but the king's campaign in 1277 compelled him to relinquish his conquests, and Gruffydd was again restored. Henceforth Gruffydd remained faithful to King Edward. Fresh lawsuits broke out between him and Llewelyn, which were soon referred to the sword. The fall of Llewelyn left him no longer any temptation to do more than play the part of an English baron. He secured a royal charter in 1282 for a weekly market at his town of Welshpool, which had been previously suppressed as likely to injure the king's town of Montgomery. In 1283 he was summoned to the council which tried his former ally, Davydd, at Shrewsbury (Fœdera, i. 630).

He died some time after 27 Feb. 1286. His career as well as that of his father illustrates very remarkably the process of transition by which Welsh princes became English barons.

Gruffydd had married Hawise, daughter of John L'Estrange of Knockin, some time before 1242. He left by her a numerous family, among whom he distributed his estates by a deed or will, preserved in the Welsh Roll of 6 Edward I ('Rotuli Walliæ,' privately printed by Sir T. Phillips). Owain the eldest had Cyveiliog and Arwystli. Lesser portions were provided for his other sons, Llewelyn, Sion, Gwilym, Davydd, and Gruffydd. He also left a daughter Margaret, who married Fulk Fitzwarren of Whittington (Calendarium Genealogicum, p. 258). Hawise, his wife, died in 1310. His heir, Owain of Pool, as he was generally called, died in 1293, leaving his son and heir, Gruffydd, only two years old. On the latter's death, before he came of age, Powys went to his sister, Hawise Gadarn, who in 1309 married John Charlton [q. v.], first lord Charlton of Powys.

[Brut y Tywysogion; Annales Cambriæ; Matthew Paris, Hist. Major; Shirley's Royal Letters, all in Rolls Ser.; Rymer's Fœdera, vol. i. Record ed.; Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum et Patentium, Rotuli Chartarum, Rotuli de Liberate, Record editions. The facts are all collected in Bridgeman's Princes of Upper Powys in the Montgomeryshire Collections of the Powysland Club, i. 22-50, 112-68; Eyton's Shropshire, especially vol. vii.]

T. F. T.

GRUFFYDD ab LLEWELYN (d. 1063), king of the Welsh, was the son of Llewelyn, the son of Seisyll. His father, who, according to a late authority, had married Angharad, daughter of Maredudd, son of Owain, a descendant of Hywel Dda (Gwentian Brut, sub an. 994), had been a vigorous ruler over Gwynedd. On Llewelyn's death in 1023 the old line of North Welsh kings had been restored in the person of Iago, son of Idwal. In 1039 Gruffydd defeated and slew Iago, and made himself king over Gwynedd, In the same year he led a destructive foray against England, and won a battle at Crossford (Rhyd y Groes) on the Severn, in which Eadwine, brother of the great Mercian earl Leofric, and many other good men were slain. But his main energies were directed towards the subjection of the rival Welsh princes. In 1039 he drove out Hywel, son of Edwin, from the throne of Deheubarth after a battle at Llanbadarn in northern Ceredigion. Howel sought the support of the Irish Norsemen, and made a long series of attempts to win back his territories. In 1041 Gruffydd won another victory over him at Pencader, halfway between Carmarthen and Lampeter. Here he captured Hywel's wife, and took her as his concubine; 'this was the only one of Gruffydd's actions,' says the Gwentian chronicler, 'which displeased the wise.' Next year Hywel's Danish allies triumphed at Pwll Dyvach. Gruffydd was now for a time the prisoner of the 'black pagans' of Dublin, who, if the 'Gwentian Brut' could be trusted, endeavoured to restore Cynan, son of Idwal, to the North Welsh throne. But Gruffydd soon regained his power. In 1044 Howel again appeared with a fleet from Ireland, and entered the mouth of the Towy. Gruffydd defeated him with vast slaughter at Abertowy (not Aberteivi as Freeman, 'Norman Conquest,' ii. 56, says), and the death of Hywel in the battle secured for Gruffydd the permanent possession of Deheubarth.

In 1045 Gruffydd and Rhys, sons of Rhydderch, whom the sons of Edwin had expelled from the throne of Deheubarth, stirred up sedition against Gruffydd [see Gruffydd ab Rhydderch]. Gruffydd, who had prudently

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