The Sunday Times had decided to reconfirm history. At the close of the last decade the newspaper commissioned a hundred world-renowned and influential people to form a consensus. The Top Ten Makers of The Millennium poll that resulted, formed by international opinions from prestigious arenas including high-level politics, was used to place Owain Glyndwr seventh in a roll call of millennial importance. That a former American president should cite Glyndwr to be of critical historical importance to the world, above both Galileo and Newton, shows why the Mab Darogan is enlisted in the poll; it is because he represented far more than being just a nationalistic firebrand and statesman.

Owain Glyndwr had the prescience of centuries and brought to medieval Wales the beginnings of a nation state and a 20th century-styled democracy and economy. Fused with social bearings and relative peace in Wales, along with the rest of Britain, the flare of revolution would have been captured by the Welsh and have cast a crystalline guide of progress to Europe and beyond for centuries.

Glyndwr’s torrent of success was quashed by English warfare, however, and history surrounding his fate was cloaked and eschewed by centuries of purposeful and well-intentioned myth. He remained a ghost in Wales, and the tragedy of a hollow national defeat was never realised for the fact that he remained elusive and met his own eventual defeat in uncommitted defiance. History does show Glyndwr with children, however, and so proves a physical legacy.

It is quite well known that a modern but well-established English family, the Scudamores, are descended from one of Glyndwr’s daughters, although the lineage of the family dates back before Glyndwr. Historians have long associated land owned by the Scudamores on the Herefordshire borders with Glyndwr, although his supposed burial site has never been found there. A Hollywood actress, Julia Ormond, is even apparently descended from Glyndwr, although again this is through one of Owain’s daughters.

However, Maredudd Glyndwr, one of Owain’s sons and chosen successors, survived on his own reputation throughout this turbulent period of history, and even thrived after the Welsh rebellion of the early 1400’s.

The question is what happened to Maredudd Glyndwr or his descendants? We know the history and descendants of Owain Glyndwr’s daughters, yet nothing of his heir, successor and son. Maredudd Glyndwr accepted a pardon from Henry V in 1421 and proceeded to establish himself in normalised English life, so surely his descendants (if there were any) would have been well documented. Does anyone know what happened to Maredudd Glyndwr or his descendants at all? Any further information would be appreciated. Diolch yn fawr. Thank you.

Cymdeithas