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THE
FAMILY OF EMYR LLYDAW
By Darrell Wolcott
Peter Bartrum and other writers tend to treat Emyr Llydaw as the name of a specific historical man. [1] In fact, it was merely
a title applied to men who ruled the territory in Brittany which the Welsh called Llydaw. If they had followed the same
logic later used by the puritans of England who migrated to "New England" in America, they would have called it "New Llydaw".
In the 3rd and 4th centuries, Llydaw was a Celt kingdom comprising what were later called the cantrefs of Rhos, Rhufoniog,
Dyffryn Clwyd and Tegeingl. The portion which lay east of the River Clwyd was an appanage called Meriadog. A brother
of Eudaf Hen, Gereint ap Eunydd, was king of Llydaw, while Cynan, son of Gereint, was lord of Meriadog. About the year
300, Roman Emperor Maximianus Herculius sought the assistance of Welsh soldiers for a campaign he planned in Gaul. Cynan
Meriadog agreed to recruit an army of Llydaw men to aid the Roman venture, which rid Gaul of a rebellious sect that opposed
Roman rule. For their reward, Cynan and his men were granted a substantial tract of land in Brittany, which they named
after their own Welsh lands. Not all of Cynan's men brought their families to live in this new Llydaw, but were pleased
to own additional lands to vacation upon and leave to their sons. Others took up residence there almost immediately.
By the time Cunedda came to Wales c. 440, Cynan's great-great-grandson, Budic, had permanently moved to the new land in Brittany,
likely due to the hordes of Irish who swarmed into north Wales after the Roman legions left in the first decade of the 5th
century. The intervening generations, we suspect, had resided part-time in both Llydaws. This
Budic was the original Emyr Llydaw. The family had descended as follows:
235
Gereint
l
270 Cynan Meriadog
l
300
Gradlon (a)
l
330 Selyf (b)
l
360
Aldroen (c)
l
390
Budic (d)
l
420
Hywel I (e)
DATING NOTES:
(a) This man was a
maternal grandson of Emperor Carausius, born c. 250; his daughter was the mother of Maxen Wledig (born c. 344) by Constans
I. He became a break-away Emperor in Britain as Carausius II. [2]
(b) His daughter, born
c. 365, was the mother of Cadell Ddyrnllwg of Powys. [3]
(c) He was asked to
replace Maxen Wledig as Emperor for Britain, but offered instead his brother, Custinnen. That man agreed to marry a
daughter of Maxen Wledig and ruled until 411 as Constantine III. [2]
(d) He resided
at Llydaw in Brittany, a territory he ruled as Emyr. He had a younger brother, Yspwys, who relocated to Britain c. 445.
[4] He had an eldest son, Hywel born c. 420, who became the new Emyr Llydaw about
the year 450. A second son, Pedrwn born c. 435, married Gwen (450)
ferch Ceredig (415) ap Cunedda (385) [5], so he either resided at, or frequently visited, the old family lands in Wales. They had a
son, St Padarn. A daughter of Budic was named Gwen, born c. 432, who was later called "Tierbron", meaning "with 3 breasts".
Her first husband had been a man called Eneas of Llydaw (further ancestry unknown) and they were the parents of St Cadfan,
born c. 447, [6] and perhaps, Rhun. However, the latter may have been a son of Eneas prior to his marriage to Gwen.
St Cadfan was perhaps 8 years old when Gwen, apparently widowed, married a man called Fracan . She had twin boys about
456 (Jacob and Gwethenot) and a further son, Winwaloe, in 457. [7] It was this birth, we suspect, which gave rise to her nickname.
With 3 nursing children (a newborn plus twins less than a year old),
it was clear the lady needed 3 breasts but we don't seriously believe she actually had them.
(e) Also called Hywel
Mawr, he had a younger son, Tewdwr Mawr, whose daughter, Thenaf born c. 495, married Alltu Redegog (485) ap Carcludys (455)
[8]
SUBSEQUENT GENERATIONS:
Nothing but the names of the subsequent generations are known until we reach the 7th century. We
chart these later Emyrs of Llydaw as: [9]
390 Budic
l
420 Hywel I
l
450 Hywel II
l
480 Alan I
l
510 Hywel III
l
545 Judicael
l
575
Selyf II
We have no genealogical sources which assert that
this was a string of father-to-son relationships, so it is possible one or more succeeding Emyrs was a nephew. However,
the timeline does allow us to say that each Emyr in the list occurs a full generation after the last, so at least none of
the named men were brothers or first-cousins.
Selyf II apparently had no sons to succeed himself,
since Emyr Alan II of c. 615 is called his nephew. [10] The family continues in the following chart:
545 Judicael
_____________l______________
l
l
575 Selyf II 580 unnamed son
l
615 Alan II
l
645 Conobert
Names in red = Emyr of Llydaw
INTERFACE WITH KINGS
OF GWYNEDD:
During a plague which swept over Britain in the
mid-7th century, King Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon of Gwynedd, in 664, took refuge in Brittany, [11] where his father-in-law
was Emyr Alan II. About 655, Cadwaladr had married the daughter of Alan II. [12]
In addition to the daughter,
Alan II had 3 sons. The eldest son, Alan III, had a daughter who would later marry Idwal Ywrch ap Cadwaladr of Gwynedd.
[13] However, Alan III died within the lifetime of his father, so never became Emyr. Instead, the second eldest brother,
Conobert, succeeded their father.
569 Cadfan
Judicael 545
l l
598 Cadwallon unnamed
son 580
l l
l
Alan II 615
l ______l____________________
l l l
l l
627 Cadwaladr===daughter 641 Ifor 650 Alan III Conobert
l l 642 645
656 Idwal Ywrch=========Angharad 670
l
685
Rhodri Molwynog
Names in red = Emyr of Llydaw
Names in bold = King of Gwynedd
About 675, Emyr Alan II commissioned
his youngest son, Ifor, to take an army to Wales [14] and aid Cadwaladr in recovering his abandoned lands. A resurgence
of the pestilence came to Gwynedd in 682 and killed Cadwaladr. Ifor ap Alan of Llydaw ruled Gwynedd as interim king
until his death about 713. The son of Cadwaladr, Idwal Ywrch, had turned 28 in 684 but stayed in Llydaw and married
his own first-cousin, Angharad ferch Alan III. Rhodri Molwynog, son of Idwal Ywrch, moved back to Gwynedd and
reclaimed the kingship for its royal family in 713. [15]
Our story of the men of Llydaw, Brittany ends here
since that family no longer played a role in Welsh history.
NOTES:
[1]
Virtually all the early citations which mention an Emyr Llydaw DO refer to Budic ap Aldroen, but they were mostly pedigrees
of 5th century saints
[2]
See our paper on Britain's Royal Roman Family at the following link:
and
our paper on Constans I at this link:
[3]
Harl 3859 calls her Selemiaun, a variant spelling of Selyfion
[4]
See our paper on Yspwys at the following link:
[5]
ByS 21
[6]
ByS 19
[7]
Vita St Winwaloe. Gwen's second hisband, Fracan, is called the cousin of Cado, Duke of Cernyw, but this could not have
been the Cado ap Gereint cited by JC 29, 10 and ByS 76, a man born c. 480
[8]
ByS 47; some copyists of the lost Hengert Ms 33 said Tewdwr Mawr was a son of Madog ap Emyr Llydaw, a man wholly unknown elsewhere
[9]
Powell's "History of Wales", 1832 edition, page 7
[10]
Geoffrey of Monmouth, "Historia Regum Brittanniae" book xii, part 16
[11]
op cit Powell, page 8
[12]
Pen 270, 246; Cardiff 2, 136; Cardiff 5.6, 30
[13]
Pen 131, 161 calls the lady Agatha
[14]
Both the accounts in Powell's "History of Wales" and the largely fictitious work of Geoffrey of Monmouth, mention
these events but wholly conflate Cadwaladr of Gwynedd with King Caedwalla of Wessex, and conflate Ynyr (a relative of Ifor
who came to Gwynedd with him) with King Ina of Wessex. While this Ynyr had no ruling role in either Llydaw or Gwynedd,
some later pedigrees, including LB 141, called him "the second son of King Cadwaladr and ancestor of the 11th century
Ynyr Gwent". He was likely neither. Geoffrey wrote that Alan II sent to Wales "his son Ifor and Ynyr
his nephew". If the second use of the pronoun "his" refers to Alan II, this Ynyr was a cousin of Ifor, and could
not be Cadwaladr's son. But if that "his" referred to Ifor, then Ynyr could have been a son of Cadwaladr, by Ifor's sister
[15]
op cit Powell page 13 gives the date as 720, but we suggest a date a bit earlier better fits with the other contemporary events
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