OWEN GLYNDWR'S ARMS. THE armorial bearings of "the irregular and wild Glendower," as Prince of Wales, having been recently the subject of inquiry in a justly popular contemporary, I am induced to send, as a not inappropriate contribution to the Archæologia Cambrensis, the following details connected with this interesting subject,on the Great Seal and Privy Seal of Owen, attached to two documents deposited in the Hotel Soubise, at Paris, in the Cartons I. 623, and I. 392, relating, it is supposed, to the furnishing of troops to the Welsh prince by Charles VI., king of France.-Casts of these seals were taken by the indefatigable Mr. Doubleday, to whom the seal department of the British Museum, over which he presides, is so much indebted; and impressions were exhibited by Sir Henry Ellis at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, on the 12th of December, 1833, Engravings of them, accompanied by the following notice, were communicated by Sir Henry to the Archæologia, and will be found in that publication, vol. xxv. plate lxx. figs. 2, 3, p. 616, and ibid. pp. 619, 620: "The great seal has an obverse and reverse. On the obverse Owen is represented, with a bifid beard, very similar to Rich. II., seated under a canopy of Gothic tracery; the half body of a wolf [a dragon?] forming the arms of his chair on each side; the background is ornamented with a mantle semée of lions, held up by angels. At his feet are two lions. A sceptre is in his right hand, but he has no crown. The inscription, 'OWENUS PRINCEPS WALLIE.' On the reverse of the great seal Owen is represented on horseback, in armour; in his right hand, which is extended, he holds a sword, and with his left his shield, charged with, Quarterly, four lions rampant; a drapery, probably a kerchief de plesaunce, or handkerchief won at a tournament, pendant from his right wrist. Lions rampant also appear upon the mantle of the horse. On his helmet, as well as on his horse's head, is the Welsh dragon [passant]. The area of the seal is diapered with roses. The inscription on this side seems to fill the gap upon the obverse, 'OWENUS DEI GRATIA WALLIE.' "The privy seal represents the four lions rampant towards the spectator's left, on a shield, surmounted by an open coronet [crown]: the dragon1 of Wales, as a supporter, on the dexter side: on the 1 This supporter and the crest, as also the supporter which I shall mention presently, attached to the respective shields of Arthur Prince of Wales, and of Henry Prince of Wales, sons of Henry VII., is a Welsh dragon, viz., a dragon sans hind legs. The supporter in respect of Wales, afterwards alluded to as assumed by the English monarchs of the House of Tudor, was a dragon with hind legs. ARCH. CAMB., NEW SERIES, VOL. IV. 2 C sinister a lion. The inscription seems to have been 'Sigillum Oweni PRINCIPIS WALLIE.' No impression of this seal is probably now to be found either in Wales or England. Its workmanship shows that Owen Glyndwr possessed a taste for art beyond the types of the seals of his predecessors." The dragon is a favourite figure with Cambrian bards; and, not to multiply instances, the following lines may be cited from the poem of the "Hirlas Horn," by Owen Cyfeilioc, Prince of Powys Wenwynwyn, "Mathraval's Lord, the Poet and the Prince," father of Gwenwynwyn, Prince of Powys Wenwynwyn (the Gwenwen of Sir Walter Scott's Betrothed): "A dytwc i Rufut waywrutelyn Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales. London, 1801, 8vo. vol i. p. 265. "And bear to Grufydd, the crimson-lanced foe, Wine with pellucid glass around it; The Dragon of Arwstli, safeguard of the borders, The Dragon of Owen, the generous of the race of Cynvyn, Of triumphant slaughter, or afflicting chase." Gray, whose "Bard" indicates the inspiration with which he had seized the poetry and traditions of the Cymri, thus refers to the red dragon as the cognizance of the Welsh monarchs in his Triumphs of Owen [ap Griffith, Prince of North Wales] :"Dauntless, on his native sands, The Dragon, son of Mona, stands; 2 Mathraval, in the vale of Meifod, in Montgomeryshire, the palace of the sovereigns of Powys, erected by Rhodri Mawr, King of Wales: "Where Warnway [Vwrnwy] rolls its waters underneath Cyveilioc's princely and paternal seat."-Southey's Madoc. 3 Cynfyn, father of Bleddyn, King of Powys, by his consort Angharad, Queen of Powys, derived from Mervyn, King of Powys, third son of Rhodri Mawr (the Great), King of all Wales, progenitor of the three dynasties of North Wales, South Wales, and Powys :"chi fu di noi E de' nostri avi illustri il ceppo vechio." : In glittering arms and glory dress'd The dragon and lion have been attributed to the Welsh monarchs, as insignia, from an early period, and the former is ascribed, traditionally, to the great Cadwalader. In the Archeologia, vol. xx. p. 579, plate xxix. p. 578, are descriptions of engravings of the impressions of two seals appendant to charters of Edward, son of Edward IV., and Arthur, son of Henry VII., as Princes of Wales, the obverse of each bearing three lions in pale passant, reguardant, having their tails between their legs, reflected upon their backs, upon a shield surmounted by a cap of maintenance: Prince Edward's shield has on each side a lion as a supporter, holding single feathers, with the motto "Ich dien." On Prince Arthur's seal the feathers are supported by dragons. Thomas William King, Rouge Dragon, in a letter to Sir Samuel Meyrick, dated 4th September, 1841, published in the Archæologia, vol. xxix. p. 408, Appendix, regards the lions on these shields as the ensigns attributed at the period of the seals to certain Welsh princes, and the dragon as the badge of Cadwalader. In a MS. (for reference to which I am indebted to the courtesy of Sir Frederick Madden) which was recently sold at Sotheby's, containing translations by Johannes Boerius, presented to Henry Prince of Wales, son of Henry VII., about 1505, there is a beautiful illumination containing the arms of that prince: Quarterly, France and England, with the red dragon as the dexter, and the greyhound of the House of York as the sinister, supporter. "The red fierye dragó beeten upo white and greene sarcenet" was the charge of a standard offered by Henry VII. at St. Paul's on his entry into London after his victory at Bosworth Field; and this standard was represented on the corner of his tomb, held by an angel (Willement's Regal Heraldry, 4to., London, 1821, p. 57). The red dragon rampant was assumed as a supporter by Henry VII. in indication of his Welsh descent, and was borne as a supporter, either on the dexter or sinister side of the shield, by all the other English monarchs of the House of Tudor, with the exception of Queen Mary, who substituted for it an eagle; and among the badges attributed to our present sovereign is, in respect of Wales, "a dragon passant, wings elevated gu., upon a mount vert." It may be assumed, with little doubt, that the colour of the dragon borne by Owen Glyndwr was rouge; and although the the colour of the other supporter of his shield, the lion, is not susceptible of such positive inference, it may be conjectured to have been sable, the colour of the lion, the principal charge on his hereditary shield. The blazon-colour of the field and charges. Of the arms on these seals I can afford no direct answer, never having met with any trace of these arms in the extensive collections of Welsh MSS. to which I have had access. These ensigns may have been adopted by Owen as arms of dominion (as those of Ireland by the English sovereigns) on his assumption of the principality of Wales, a suggestion countenanced, if not established, by four lions quarterly ("Quarterly gules and or, four lions rampant, counterchanged") being assigned to Griffith ap Llewelyn (killed April, 28 Hen. III., 1244, in attempting to escape from the Tower), eldest son of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, prince of Wales, (dead 31st November, 25 Hen. III., 1240,) father of the ill-fated and gallant Llewelyn ap Griffith, last sovereign of Wales, slain at Builth, December 10, 8 Ed. I., 1282. Further confirmation is, perhaps, afforded to this suggestion by Owen having, it is understood, vindicated his assumption of the Cambrian throne as heir of the three sovereign dynasties of North Wales, South Wales, and Powys respectively,―of the last, as male representative, through the Lords of Bromfield, of Madoc ap Meredith, the last monarch of that principality; and of the two former as their heir-general, in respect of his mother, Elenor, sister of Owen (ap Thomas ap Llewelyn) Lord, with his paternal uncle, Owen ap Llewelyn ap Owen, of the comot [hundred] of Iscoed, September 23, 1344, representative paternally of the sovereigns of South Wales, and, by female descent, of those of North Wales, through Griffith ap Llewelyn above named. The hereditary arms of Owen's paternal line, the Lords of Glyndwrdwy, are those of his ancestor, Griffith Maelor ap Madoc, of Dinas Bran, Lord of Bromfield, Yale, Chirk, Glyndwrdwy, &c., who died A.D. 1191, viz. "Paly of eight argent and gules, over all a lion rampant sable," thus differenced, apparently, from the "Black Lion of Powys" (Argent a lion rampant sable), the royal ensigns of his father, Madoc ap Meredith, last sovereign Prince of Powys, who died at Winchester in 1160. I am unable to refer to any seal of the Lords of Glyndwrdwy, 4 "His [Owen Glyndwr's] father's name was Gryffyd Vychan: his mother's, Elena, of royal blood, and from whom he afterwards claimed the throne of Wales. She was eldest daughter of Thomas ap Llewelyn ap Owen, by his wife Elinor Goch, or Elinor the Red, daughter and heiress to Catherine, one of the daughters of Llewelyn, last Prince of Wales, and wife to Philip ap Ivor of Iscoed."-A Tour in Wales [by Pennant]: Lond. 4to. 1778, p. 302. or of the Lords of Bromfield, bearing the family arms of their line; but they are thus given invariably by the Cambrian heralds, and, so far, are susceptible of proof by the most authentic MS. authorities of the Principality. It is, however, remarkable, that the Heraldic Visitations of Wales of Lewis Dwnn, appointed in 1580 Deputy Herald for all Wales, by Robert Cook, Clarenceux, and William Flower, Norroy King-atArms, published in 1846 by the Welsh MSS. Society, contain no pedigree of the house of Glyndwrdwy. Of the descendants, if any, of Owen Glyndwr himself, beyond his children, I am not aware that there is any authentic pedigree, or other satisfactory proof; and there seems to be presumptive evidence that in 12 Henry VI., 1433-a period so recent as nineteen years from the last date, 19th February, 1 Henry V., 1414, on which Owen is ascertained to have been alive (Rymer's Fadera, ix. p. 330),his issue was limited to a daughter and heir, Alice, wife of Sir John Scudamore, Knt., described in a petition of John, Earl of Somerset, to whose father, John, Earl of Somerset, Owen's domains, on his attainder, had been granted by his brother, Henry IV., as "Un John Skydmore, Chivaler, et Alice sa femme, pretendantz la dite Alice etre file et heir au dit Owyn (Glyndwr).”—Rot. Parl. 12 Hen. VI. I have not found evidence to show that there were any children of Alice's marriage with Scudamore; and assuming the failure of her issue, and also the extinction of Owen's other offspring, the representation of the three dynasties— 66 una reverted to that of his only brother, Tudor ap Griffith Vychan, a witness as "Tudor de Glyndore," in the Scrope and Grosvenor controversy, 3rd September, 1386, and then twenty-four years and upwards, who is stated to have been killed under Owen's banner at the battle of Mynydd Pwll-Melyn, near Grosmont, Monmouthshire, fought 11th March, 1405. Tudor's daughter and heir, Lowry [Lady] of Gwyddelwern in Edeirnion, Baron. de Edurnyon," became the wife of Griffith ap Einion of Corsygedol, living 1400 and 1415; and from this marriage descend the eminent Merionethshire house of Corsygedol (represented by the co-heirs of the late Sir Thomas Mostyn, Bart., of Mostyn and Corsygedol; namely his nephew, the Honourable Edward Mostyn Lloyd Mostyn, of Mostyn and Corsygedol, M.P., Lord-Lieutenant of Merionethshire, and Sir Thomas sister, Anna Maria, Lady Vaughan, mother of Sir Robert |