RHYS GOCH ap RHICERT (fl. 1300), Welsh poet, lived at Tir Iarll in Glamorgan. According to the Iolo MSS. (p. 229), his father was a son of Einion ap Collwyn, one of the figures of the Glamorgan conquest legend. Stephens has shown (Literature of the Kymry, 2nd edit. pp. 454–6) that this parentage is impossible, since Rhys's immediate descendants belong to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and his poetry is of the age preceding that of Dafydd ap Gwilym [q. v.] He is in error, no doubt, in stating that it is poetry without ‘cynghanedd,’ but the alliteration is not uniformly employed, as in later work (Hanes Llenyddiaeth Gymreig, by Gweirydd ap Rhys, pp. 168–9). Rhys's poems (twenty in number) first became known through their publication, from a manuscript of John Bradford of Tir Iarll (d. 1780) in the Iolo MSS. (pp. 228–51); his name was previously almost unknown. They are mostly love poems, marked by much felicity of expression and a keen appreciation of natural beauty, qualities in which Rhys anticipates Dafydd ap Gwilym, his younger contemporary and poetic heir. He was the father of Rhys Brydydd or Rhys Llwyd of Llan Haran, a poet of the end of the fourteenth century (Myvyrian Archaiology, 2nd edit. p. 826; Iolo MSS. pp. 200, 289).
[Authorities cited.]
RHYS GOCH ERYRI, i.e. of Snowdonia (1310?–1400?), Welsh poet, was the son of Dafydd ab Iorwerth of Hafod garegog, near Bedd Gelert, a freeholder and descendant of Collwyn ap Tangno, who founded one of the fifteen tribes of North Wales. If the traditions are correct which assert that he sang in the presence of Edward of Carnarvon and also to Owain Glyndwr, he must have lived during the greater part of the fourteenth century. In the account given in the Iolo MSS. (p. 97) of the ‘three Eisteddfods of revival,’ Rhys is said to have attended the second, held about 1329 at the house of Llywelyn ap Gwilym of Dol Goch in Emlyn, and in a contest with Sion Cent to have composed the best ‘moliangerdd’ or laudatory poem, though beaten as regards the ‘wengerdd’ or religious ode. In all probability the poem printed in Iolo MSS. (pp. 307–10) is addressed by Rhys to this Llywelyn, whom he praises for his poetic skill and invites to North Wales. Another poem shows Rhys as the rival in love of his neighbour and fellow-bard, Dafydd Nanmor [q. v.] Seven of Rhys Goch's poems have been printed: viz. three in ‘Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru’ (2nd edit. pp. 124–131), two in the ‘Brython’ (iii. 451, iv. 307), one in the Iolo MSS. (pp. 307–10), and one in Sir John Wynn's ‘History of the Gwydir Family’ (ed. 1878, pp. 39, 40). A large number still remain unprinted in the Cymrodorion MSS. in the British Museum (Cymrodorion Transactions, 1822, i. 179–95). Rhys was buried at Bedd Gelert, and left a daughter Margaret, who married Ieuan ap Rhys.
[Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru; History of the Gwydir Family, ed. 1878, p. 39 n.]
RHYS (or RICE) ap THOMAS (1449–1525), supporter of Henry VII, third son of Thomas ap Gruffydd ap Nicolas of Newton, Carmarthenshire, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Gruffydd of Abermarlais, was born in 1449. When about twelve years of age he accompanied his father to the court of Philip of Burgundy; the two returned to Wales about 1467, and not long after the father and his sons Morgan and David died, leaving Rhys in possession of an extensive property in South-west Wales. During the reign of Edward IV he organised his tenants and neighbours into a fighting force of several thousand men. The author of the life in the ‘Cambrian Register’ represents Rhys as favourable to the Earl of Richmond (afterwards Henry VII) at the time of Buckingham's rebellion in 1483, and asserts that Richard III demanded his son as a hostage. But he was, on the contrary, in receipt of an annuity of forty marks from the king (Gairdner, Richard III, pp. 271–272), who seems to have suspected nothing until the last moment. It was early in 1485 that the Welsh leader, through his friend Trahaearn Morgan of Kidwelly, entered into communications with Henry, and finally promised to support him if he landed in South Wales. When the landing was carried out in August, Rhys took up arms, and a meeting with Henry soon took place. The story of a meeting at Milford, when Rhys, in literal fulfilment of an oath, allowed the earl to step over his body, deserves no credit. In the battle of Bosworth (22 Aug.) Rhys and his forces rendered valuable aid, and he was knighted by Henry on the field. On 3 Nov. 1485 he received a grant for life of the offices of constable, lieutenant, and steward of the crown-lordship of Brecknock, and on the 6th a similar grant of the offices of chamberlain of South Wales ‘in the counties of Kermerden and Cardigan,’ and steward of the lordship of Builth (Campbell, Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, i. 105, 109). He led a troop of English horse at Stoke (16 June 1487), and was one of the captains of the abortive expedition to France of October 1492 (Bacon, Hist. of Henry VII).
