And the flocks conceived before the rods,
and brought forth cattle speckled and spotted." - Gen. xxx.
{170} Owen Gwynedd, the son of Gruffydd ap Conan, died in 1169, and
was buried at Bangor. When Baldwin, during his progress, visited
Bangor and saw his tomb, he charged the bishop (Guy Ruffus) to
remove the body out of the cathedral, when he had a fit opportunity
so to do, in regard that archbishop Becket had excommunicated him
heretofore, because he had married his first cousin, the daughter of
Grono ap Edwyn, and that notwithstanding he had continued to live
with her till she died. The bishop, in obedience to the charge,
made a passage from the vault through the south wall of the church
underground, and thus secretly shoved the body into the churchyard.
- Hengwrt. MSS. Cadwalader brother of Owen Gwynedd, died in 1172.
{171} The Merlin here mentioned was called Ambrosius, and according
to the Cambrian Biography flourished about the middle of the fifth
century. Other authors say, that this reputed prophet and magician
was the son of a Welsh nun, daughter of a king of Demetia, and born
at Caermarthen, and that he was made king of West Wales by
Vortigern, who then reigned in Britain.
{172} Owen Gwynedd "left behind him manie children gotten by
diverse women, which were not esteemed by their mothers and birth,
but by their prowes and valiantnesse." By his first wife, Gladus,
the daughter of Llywarch ap Trahaern ap Caradoc, he had Orwerth
Drwyndwn, that is, Edward with the broken nose; for which defect he
was deemed unfit to preside over the principality of North Wales and
was deprived of his rightful inheritance, which was seized by his
brother David, who occupied it for the space of twenty-four years.
{173} The travellers pursuing their journey along the sea coast,
crossed the aestuary of the river Conway under Deganwy, a fortress
of very remote antiquity.
{174} At this period the Cistercian monastery of Conway was in its
infancy, for its foundation has been attributed to Llewelyn ap
Iorwerth, in the year 1185, (only three years previous to Baldwin's
visitation,) who endowed it with very extensive possessions and
singular privileges. Like Stratflur, this abbey was the repository
of the national records, and the mausoleum of many of its princes.
{175} [David was the illegitimate son of Owen Gwynedd, and had
dispossessed his brother, Iorwerth Drwyndwn.]
{176} This ebbing spring in the province of Tegeingl, or
Flintshire, has been placed by the old annotator on Giraldus at
Kilken, which Humphrey Llwyd, in his Breviary, also mentions.
{177} See before, the Topography of Ireland, Distinc.
