years old. To his own great grief he
survived his patron, and all hopes of Welsh independence. An englyn,
which he composed a few days before his death, commemorates the year of
the rising of Glendower, and also the year to which the chieftain
lived:--

'One thousand four hundred, no less and no more,
Was the date of the rising of Owen Glendower;
Till fifteen were added with courage ne'er cold
Liv'd Owen, though latterly Owen was old.'

Glendower died at the age of sixty-seven: Iolo, when he called him old,
was one hundred and eighteen.

Gwilym ap Ieuan Hen flourished about 1450. He was bard to Griffith ap
Nicholas, chieftain of Dinefor, in whose praise he wrote an ode,
commencing with lines to the following effect:--

'Griffith ap Nicholas! who like thee
For wealth and power and majesty?
Which most abound--I cannot say--
On either side of Towey gay,
From hence to where it meets the brine,
Trees or stately towers of thine?'

Griffith ap Nicholas was a powerful chieftain of South Wales, something
of a poet and a great patron of bards. Seeing with regret that there was
much dissension amongst the bardic order, and that the rules of bardism
were nearly forgotten, he held a bardic congress at Carmarthen, with the
view of reviving bardic enthusiasm and re-establishing bardic discipline.
The result of this meeting--the only one of the kind which had been held
in Wales since the days of the Welsh princes--to a certain extent
corresponded with his wish. In the wars of the Roses he sided with York,
chiefly out of hatred to Jasper Earl of Pembroke, half-brother of Henry
VI. He was mortally wounded at the battle of Mortimer's Cross, which was
gained for Edward IV. by a desperate charge made by Griffith and his
Welshmen at Pembroke's Banner, when the rest of the Yorkists were
wavering. His last words were: 'Welcome death! since honour and victorie
makes for us!'

Dafydd ab Edmund was born at Pwll Gwepra, in the parish of Hanmer, in
Flintshire. He was the most skilful versifier of his time. He attended
the Eisteddfod, or congress, at Carmarthen, held under the auspices of
Griffith ap Nicholas, and not only carried off the prize, but induced the
congress to sanction certain alterations in the poetical canons of
Gruffudd ab Cynan, which he had very much at heart. There is a tradition
that Griffith ap Nicholas commenced the business of the congress by the
following question: 'What is t