Lewys Glyn Cothi - Life

Life

He was born in c.1420, possibly at Pwllcynbyd farm, near the remote hamlet of Rhydycymerau in the parish of Llanybydder in south-west Wales: he took his bardic name from the nearby forest of Glyn Cothi in the Cothi valley. His given name was Llewelyn, but he generally used the name "Lewys" in his verse, and is more usually known by this name. One of his manuscripts suggests that he may have received some education at Carmarthen Priory, but his early life is otherwise rather obscure.

Lewys lived through the Wars of the Roses, in which he was an adherent of the Lancastrian party, becoming an outlaw as a result after the Battle of Mortimer's Cross. He likely witnessed the battle himself in the company of Owen ap Gruffudd ap Nicolas, the son of a prominent Carmarthenshire esquire, and subsequently Owen and Lewys spent time as outlaws in Snowdonia. Lewys was a supporter of Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Pembroke, and later of Henry Tudor. Although many of his poems are addressed to pro-Lancastrian gentry, he was not above praising Yorkist patrons when occasion demanded it, such as the Vaughan family of Hergest, Herefordshire, with whom his name is often associated.

There is a story, originating in a note on a manuscript copy of his poetry, that Lewys settled at Chester and was later ejected from the city by its burgesses for marrying a widow without their consent. Other stories attached to different manuscripts state that he was driven out of the staunchly Yorkist city for making a verse prophecy that Henry Tudor would become king. Although unconfirmed, it seems certain that something occurred to make him a laughing-stock of Chester's citizens and to spur him to satirise them mercilessly in an awdl, describing them as the offspring of "eight kinds of intercourse in the bushes" ("cyw wythryw cyfathrach — dan lwyn") and calling the vengeance of a pro-Lancastrian Welsh noble, Rheinallt ap Gruffydd ap Bleddyn of Mold, on their heads.

He travelled widely in Wales, visiting the houses of various patrons, and seems to have had a particular affection for Anglesey, where he paid tribute to the hospitality he received, writing "Gorddu yw brig Iwerddon / gan fwg ceginau o Fôn" ("Blackened are the trees of Ireland / by the smoke of the kitchens of Anglesey").

He is known to have had at least one son, John, whose death at the age of 5 led Lewys to write one of his most powerful poems, the elegy Marwnad Siôn y Glyn, part of which runs, in a translation by the academic and poet Gwyn Williams, as:

Siôn's death stands near me

like two barbs in my breast.

My son, child of my hearth,

my breast, my heart, my song,

my one delight before my death,

my knowing poet, my luxury.

Yngo y saif angau Siôn

yn ddeufrath yn y ddwyfron.

Fy mab, fy muarth baban,

fy mron, fy nghalon, fy nghân,

fy mryd cyn fy marw ydoedd,

fy mardd doeth, fy moeth im oedd

A tradition states that Lewys, who appears to have died around 1490, was buried at Abergwili, but his place of burial and exact date of death remain unconfirmed. One of his last poems is addressed to Henry Tudor after the latter had been crowned as King Henry VII.