TWO
FAMILIES HEADED BY A RHYDDERCH AP IESTYN
By Darrell Wolcott
Both the Welsh Brut
and Annals mention a man named Rhydderch ap Iestyn who became king of Deheubarth in 1023 and was slain by the Irish in 1033.
A very early manuscript [1] mentions a Morgan ap Hywel ap Iorwerth ap Owain ap Caradog ap Gruffudd ap Rhydderch ap Iestyn
in Gwent. Neither of these sources mention the father of Iestyn. When we chart the families of men cited as having
descended from Rhydderch ap Iestyn, and match those men with references to them in later Brut entries, we find evidence these
were unrelated same-named men, one Rhydderch located in Penfro commote, Dyfed, and another Rhydderch located in Caerleon,
Edeligion commote, Gwent.
Various
medieval genealogists made their own guesses as to the ancestry of what they all believed to be a single Rhydderch ap Iestyn.
Several careless writers [2] identified Iestyn as "ap Gwrgant", the man who was king of Glamorgan between c. 1070 and c. 1095;
for that guess to be correct, Rhydderch ap Iestyn could not have been born earlier than c. 1065, a full generation after his
1033 obit. Lewis Dwnn, writing between 1586 and 1613, was the first source to claim Iestyn was "ap Owain ap Hywel Dda". [3]
While this ancestry works chronologically, it has little else to recommend it. Owain ap Hywel Dda was a well-known king
of Deheubarth until his death in 988, yet no source for 600 years ever mentioned a son named Iestyn. That name is wholly
absent from all early lists of Owain's sons [4], appearing only as the father of Rhydderch in pedigrees and Brut entries which
do not identify his own father. And no early sources credit Owain ap Hywel Dda with any lands, rule or even influence
in Gwent. [5]
We would separate
the Rhydderch of Dyfed (thus Deheubarth) from the Rhydderch of Gwent with these charts:
DEHEUBARTH FAMILY
950 Iestyn
l
985 Rhydderch (a) obit 1033
__l________________
l
l
1015
Caradog 1017 Rhys
_______l_______
l
l
l l
1045 Rhydderch (b)
1050 Owain (c) Meirchion (d)
1045
___l_______________
l
l
1075 Maredudd (e) 1076
Caradog
l
1110 Gronwy (f)
(a) Obtained
the kingship of Deheubarth in 1023 when Llewelyn ap Seisyll died; killed by Irish in 1033
(b) Shared the kingship
of Deheubarth with Rhys ap Owain ap Edwin ap Einion in 1075, killed in 1076 by first-cousin
(c) Living in 1116, had
been granted lands in Cantref Mawr, Ystrad Tywy, by Henry I
(d) In 1076, killed his
first-cousin Rhydderch ap Caradog
(e) In 1116, held Cantref
Bychan under Richard fitz Pons and defended the castle at Llandovery, Cantref Bychan, against Gruffudd ap Rhys ap Tewdwr
(f) Ancestor of
the Cradock/Newton family of Dyfed, see chart at link below:
Everything
known of this family places it in Deheubarth, with no connection to Gwent at all. Should we reject the modern identification of
Iestyn as a son of Owain ap Hywel Dda, how do we account for the two men who held or shared the kingship of Owain's kingdom?
The sources place Iestyn in the southmost commote of Dyfed, lands long ruled by men descended from the Irish Deisi tribe.
These men remained lords of their lands when Dyfed was subsumed into Deheubarth by Hywel Dda. We would identify this
Iestyn as a son of Llawrodd Dyfed descended from Sawl Felyn ap Meurig, and a brother of Collwyn ap Llawrodd who was the ancestor
of Llewelyn ap Gwrgan of Cydweli. [6] And we suggest Iestyn married one of the daughters [7] of Owain ap Hywel Dda, making
his son Rhydderch a first-cousin of Edwin ap Einion. When Llewelyn ap Seisyll (who held the kingship of Deheubarth from
1022-1023) died, neither his own son nor any of the sons of Edwin were yet old enough to become king. Accordingly, Rhydderch
ap Iestyn was the only male member of the Royal Family both alive and old enough to become king in 1023. His father was,
in our construction, the son-in-law (not son) of Owain ap Hywel Dda.
GWENT FAMILY
945
Iestyn
l
973 Rhydderch
______________l__________
l
l
1001 Caradog (a)
1010 Gruffudd (b)
l
l
1028 Rhydderch (c)
1045 Caradog (d)
l
1080 Owain Wan (e)
l
1115 Iorwerth (f)
l
1150 Sir Hywel (g)
(a) A Caradog ap Rhydderch was
killed by Saxons in 1035. The Deheubarth man of that name had sons born well after that date, so it was this Gwent man
whose obit is recorded. He resided near Saxon lands to his east and he is much more likely to have encountered
hostile Saxons than a man in Deheubarth in 1035
(b) killed by Gruffudd ap Llewelyn,
who thereby supposedly added Gwent to his kingdom. This occurred just before that man invaded Hereford in 1056...a
short march from Gwent
(c) mentioned in Book of
Llandaf, p. 279, as a king of Gwent Is Coed during the reign of William I
(d) Married a daughter of Bleddyn
ap Cynfyn who would have been born c. 1060; allied with Bleddyn's successor for an invasion into Deheubarth in 1081 where
he was killed at Mynydd Cairn
(e) ByT entry for 1116 calls
him a son of Caradog and Gwenllian ferch Bleddyn ap Cynfyn. The other Owain ap Caradog mentioned in this
entry was the Deheubarth man, son of Caradog ap Rhydderch, who was a full generation too old to have been Gwenllian's son,
she born c. 1060
(f) In 1171, King Henry II took Caerleon
from him; he retook it in 1173
(g) In 1175, both he and his father
were driven out of Caerleon, and about 1184 he gave up any claim to it and, in return, was knighted by Henry II; married
Gwerfyl (c. 1160) ferch Owain Cyfeiliog (c. 1125)
This family was seated
at Caerleon in southern Gwent. One of its lords invaded Deheubarth in 1081, together with Trahaearn ap Caradog, king
of Powys and Gwynedd. Both were trying to unseat Rhys ap Tewdwr, but it isn't clear which of these men initiated the
campaign nor how they planned to divide Rhys' kingdom among themselves. In any event, the expedition failed and both
were killed in the battle at Mynydd Cairn. While one of the victors is said to have laid waste to Trahaearn's paternal
lands in Arwystli after the battle, there is no report that Caerleon suffered any such reprisal.
We think the Iestyn who
heads this family was the son of Owain ap Morgan Hen [8], and a brother of Hywel ap Owain. Morgan Hen had ruled all
of southeast Wales, and his kingdom appears to have been divided as follows:
885 Morgan Hen
_____l_________________
l
l
915
Owain 913 Morgan the younger
_____________l_________
l
l
l l
943 Hywel
945 Iestyn 945 Idwallon
NORTH GWENT
SOUTH GWENT GLYWYSING
Hywel ap Owain was
the ancestor of Ynyr of north Gwent who ruled from Abergavenny c. 1065/1095. Idwallon ap Morgan was the ancestor
of Iestyn ap Gwrgan who ruled the western lands of Glywysing from Dinas Powys near Cardiff during the same period. Caradog
ap Gruffudd ap Rhydderch ap Iestyn was contemporary with those 11th century men, his 4th cousins.[9]
