Dafydd Gam - Legacy

Legacy

Like his opponent Glyndŵr, Gam has gained a sheen of legend and many stories about him are late oral traditions, folklore and family legends which may be unreliable. Chief amongst them is the tale that he tried to assassinate Glyndŵr at his parliament at Machynlleth in 1404. The still standing Royal House in that town is where, according to local lore, he was imprisoned when the attempt failed. The legends differ on his fate after the attempt failed some state Glyndŵr in a generous gesture let Gam go soon after the Parliament, despite Gam’s refusal to submit, a decision he was later to regret. Others claim he was imprisoned for years, but given Gam’s seeming participation in the Battle of Pwll Melyn in 1405 they certainly cannot be true. The stories concering his rivalry with Glyndŵr include satirical englyn in Welsh supposedly composed by Glyndŵr himself on his rival after burning his house to the ground. These stories also contain descriptions of Gam recorded by George Borrow: “He was small of stature and deformed in person, though possessed of great strength. He was very sensitive of injury, though quite as alive to kindness; a thorough-going enemy and a thorough-going friend.” Whatever the truth of these tales there seems no doubt that Glyndŵr and his men, and popular tradition, regarded Dafydd as one of the chief enemies of the rebellion. Gam is a key character in John Cowper Powys's novel Owen Glendower.

The stories certainly testify to Dafydd Gam’s position as typifying the loyal and valiant Welshman by the Tudor period. He is better known in England as "Davy Gam," by which name he is mentioned briefly in Shakespeare's Henry V (4.8.102) as the last name in the short list of the noble fallen read out to King Henry. He may have made an even larger contribution to the play for as the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states Dafydd: “may indeed, as has been suggested, be the model for Shakespeare's Fluellen, the archetypal Welshman.” This theory making Dafydd Gam one of the sources for the play has long been discussed, as early as 1812 it was said “There can be little doubt but that Shakspeare, in his burlesque character of Fluellen, intended David Gam.”

Fluellen: "If your Majesty is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps, which your Majesty knows, to this hour is an honourable badge of the service, and I do believe, your Majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day". King Henry: "I wear it for a memorable honour; for I am Welsh, you know, good countryman".

Shakespeare captures the local Monmouthshire dialect (still readily to be heard in the town of Monmouth and the hill villages of Trellech and Catbrook) with its glottal sounds.