ELSTAN (or ELYSTAN) GLODRYDD
,
founder of the fifth of the ‘royal tribes’ of Wales
,
though scarcely anything is known about him, may serve as the heading of a concise account (compiled entirely from
Lloyd
,
Hist. W.
) of the later lords of ‘Rhwng
Gŵy
a
Hafren
’ (between
Wye
and
Severn
) — the cantreds of
Maelienydd
and
Elfael
; pedigree in
Lloyd
, op. cit., 770.
Elstan
(
Hist. W.
, 406) had a son,
Cadwgan
, who had three sons. One of these,
Idnerth
, also had three sons; of these,
Madog
(d.
1140
) had five sons. Two of
Madog
's sons,
Hywel
and
Cadwgan
, were killed in
1142
, and a third,
Maredudd
, in
1146
; the other two,
CADWALLON
(d.
1179
) and
EINION
(d.
1177
), ruled
respectively over
Maelienydd
and
Elfael
. They were not on good terms, and in
1160
Cadwallon
seized
Einion
and handed him over to
Owain Gwynedd
, who surrendered him to
Henry
II
; but
Einion
escaped from custody. In
1163
both brothers rallied to the banner of
Owain Gwynedd
at
Corwen
, and later both were homagers of the
‘
lord
’
Rhys ap Gruffydd
; both, again, co-operated in the re-establishment of
Cwm Hir abbey
,
1176
. Of
Cadwallon
's three sons,
Maelgwn
(who took the cross in
1188
) d. in
1197
; his son
Cadwallon
d. in
1234
.
Einion Clud
had two sons: the elder,
EINION
, usually known as ‘
Einion o'r Porth
,’ is said to have m. a daughter of the
‘
lord
’
Rhys
, took the cross in
1188
, and d. in
1191
. In the
13th and 14th cent
, the house of
Mortimer
(q.v.)
, which had from an early date encroached upon the lands of the
Elstan
dynasty, succeeded eventually in acquiring complete possession of them.
Bibliography:
-
J. E. Lloyd
,
A History of Wales
, more especially 406, 477, 516, 545, 563, 567, 585, 770.
Author:
Emeritus Professor Robert Thomas Jenkins, C.B.E., D.Litt., Ll.D.,
F.S.A., (1881-1969), Bangor
