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ISABEL Monnington-Taylor is not the archetypal raging Welsh nationalist.
She is quintessentially English middle-class, lives in a fashionable area of London and has a flourishing career as a freelance linguist.
Yet one of Welsh nationalism’s greatest figures is a frequent subject of conversation among family and friends because she may well be a direct descendent of Owain Glyndwr.
Research shows that her family tree stretches back to the communities of Herefordshire where Glyndwr found sanctuary and hid for the remaining years of his life after his failure to make Wales independent.
Isabel’s connections are through a large clan with many branches called Monnington. The Monningtons have owned land and held much influence across Herefordshire since well before 1400 when Glyndwr’s rebellion started to rip through Wales.
She can trace her heritage back to the Monningtons of Monnington-on-Wye and Sarnsfield. They would have been relatives of families at Monnington Court, at the now disappeared village of Monnington Straddel where Glyndwr is thought to have been buried.
All three villages lie in almost a straight line north to south across only nine miles of rich Herefordshire farming territory, a fact that shows how very closely inter-linked families were at that time by birth as well as geography.
Isabel’s research suggests she is descended from one of Glyndwr’s daughters, Margaret, who married into the Monningtons. “There is obviously a connection and I cannot prove it, but I’m tantalisingly close,” said Isabel.
The Monnington links also fascinated Isabel’s father, Leonard Tibbetts, many years ago. Mr Tibbetts, an academic, moved the family to Bangor from London when Isabel was young, and the family lived there till she was 14. He found that the family’s link back to the late 14th Century goes through Isabel’s great grandmother from Herefordshire. Such discoveries were enough to persuade Isabel to change her married name of Taylor to Monnington-Taylor.
Her interest in the whole subject of exactly who had married into the Monningtons all that time ago, and what it might mean for her, was heightened when she contacted the Owain Glyndwr Society.
Since then, she has started to learn Welsh and is deeply interested in this year’s 600th anniversary celebrations surrounding Glyndwr who, incidentally, had another daughter called Isabel. She is also researching the fate of Glyndwr’s wife and children who ended up in the Tower of London and died in suspicious circumstances.
“I think Owain Glyndwr was an excellent leader who recognised a need for the Welsh people to have an identity" said Isabel. “He was not a one-culture man and had he succeeded he would have been a statesmanlike leader. It’s interesting that the Welsh generally tend to underrate their background.
“It’s important for Welsh people that they take on the Owain Glyndwr thing for their own self-esteem”
Somebody already satisfied that he has the Glyndwr pedigree that Isabel is researching is a former railway employee who is also an archaeology and history expert. Bob Barnsdale, of Llandudno, spent the best part of 30 years putting his family tree together and discovered he is a direct descendant of the great Welsh leader.
The documented proof and links to much earlier princes of Wales add up to an incredible 100 pages. Mr Barnsdale’s family tree goes through Jane Owen who was born around 1563 and was the sister of Lewis Owen, of Twickenham, a “Sergeant at Arms to King James l’s Larder.”
Jane married the author and translator William Salisbury from Llanrwst who settled at Glanwydden between Colwyn Bay and Llandudno. She is descended from Glyndwr’s daughter Lowri, one of a total of 11 brothers and sisters.
Mr Barnsdale admires his descendant greatly. “Like William Wallace in Scotland and Hereward the Wake in England, Owain was a hero,” he said. “But I would say to anyone asking me that the greatest Welsh hero was William Salisbury. He helped save the Welsh language because of the books he wrote in Welsh. There is no monument to where he died and I have actually found out that he died of pestilence in London.
“Owain Glyndwr has been given his recognition, but we have to remember that there are problems with rebellions. Many Welsh people could not hold office after his revolt and all the Welsh suffered in one way or another. “Having said that of course, if I had been alive at the time I would have supported him.”
Mr Barnsdale says many Welsh people would be pleasantly surprised if they traced their family trees. ”Most Welsh people, because of the way we are and the structure of the country, could trace their ancestry back many generations, and anyone with the Williams name descends from Owain Gwynedd.”
When world leaders and eminent figures in cultural and scientific fields were asked to name the most impressive and influential figures during the previous millennium they predictably selected the likes of printing press inventor Johann Gutenburg, William Shakespeare and Leonardo Da Vinci.
But at number seven was Owain Glyndwr, placed above Sir Isaac Newton, Galileo and Abraham Lincoln.
Welsh historian John H Davies said “His position in the poll shows the rest of the world appreciates him a lot more than we realise.”
The Makers of the Millennium poll, and its timing, also delighted the Owain Glyndwr Society. It has been running a national and international appeal in memory of the Welsh hero, and the resulting publicity can only have primed Wales and the world for events unfolding later this year.
The appeal is for funds to honour Owain Glyndwr on the 600th anniversary of his bid for Welsh independence. Donations will go towards a memorial that the society hopes to unveil during a ceremony in September at Machynlleth where the first Welsh parliament inspired by Owain Glyndwr met in 1404.
The appeal has got off to a good start with some high-profile help. The Manic Street Preachers have given £1,000 and other public figures, including Sir Anthony Hopkins, Lord Cledwyn and Lord Prys.
A seven-tonne block of Welsh slate vhich will help form the memorial has been donated by McAlpine Ltd. Ammanford sculptor Ieuan Rees is already working on plans drawn up for a l6ft high memorial.
Leading the appeal’s publicity drive is television weathergirl Sian Lloyd, and actress Sian Phillips, a vice-president of the Owain Olyndwr Society, has put her name to the official appeal message. Ms Phillips said, “Owain made many fundamental contributions to our heritage, the most significant of which was the establishment of a Parliament for Wales, whose apotheosis is today’s National Assembly. “We hope readers of The Western Mail will give the campaign their energetic endorsement so the aims of the society can be realised in this millennium year.”
The OGS, founded in 1996, is also dedicated to locating Glyndwr’s grave.
Chairman Frank Lane, a retired headmaster, said the society was non-political and non-sectarian, with the support of prominent figures in Welsh life and members of all the political parties in the National Assembly and both houses of Parliament. He has urged people from all walks of life to give financial support to the memorial appeal. Schools could tie in fundraising with educational projects involving Owain Glyndwr while groups might consider local projects along the same lines.
Donations to the Owain Glyndwr Memorial Fund should be marked (WM) and sent to Eirwyn Evans (treasurer), 37 Glanyrafon Road, Pontarddulais, Swansea. SA4 1LT.
Membership applications for the Owain Glyndwr Society (Cymdeithas Owain Glyndwr) should be sent to the same address. Annual fees are:
individuals £5, families £10, societies £25, concessions (pensioners and unwaged) £3.
Owain Glyndwr was responsible for the Welsh nation’s deepest drink at the well of freedom during the last millennium.
For a few years between 1400 and 1408 he practically united north and south and kept the English on their side of Offa’s Dyke. Wales got its first parliament, plans for its own universities and release from England’s apartheid laws that bore down on anyone born Welsh.
The national saviour responsible for this and plans to establish Wales’s own Christian church was of noble birth. His parents were connected to all the various ruling families and the pedigree ranged back to the ancient Welsh princes. Glyndwr had led a conventional life by studying law in London and serving as a loyal soldier with Richard II in France and Scotland. He had homes in the Dee Valley and at Sycharth near Bala where he looked after his lands happily until middle age approached.
Life changed when Henry IV removed Richard while ordinary Welsh people groaned under the harsh laws that made them second-class citizens in their own country. Owain then fell into dispute with a neighbour and ally of Henry in 1400 who contrived to place the previously loyal Welsh noble in a bad light with the king. This confrontation flared into the great revolt that started with an attack on Ruthin and other towns in North East Wales.
Henry outlawed the rebel Welsh noble and skirmishing escalated into battles, notably the bloody mayhem of Hyddgen in the mountains near Machynlleth. That huge triumph for Owain brought thousands of recruits into his armies.
Owain’s star shone bright as he hosted the first parliament at Machynlleth in 1404 and others in Dolgellau and Harlech. A treaty was signed with France and long-term independence seemed to beckon for Owain and his rebel nation.
Then things began to go wrong. The English got their military act together and won battles in the south and east.
Aberystwyth Castle was attacked with guns in 1408 and eventually fell because people inside were starving. The winter that followed - freezing conditions and little or no food - saw thousands die and such communal suffering on top of military misfortune broke many a rebel heart.
His French allies eventually sailed away taking their promises of treaties with them. Harlech Castle was surrendered and Owain’s family was taken prisoner.
Glyndwr and his supporters could do little but melt away into the mountains and by 1410 his whereabouts were unknown.
Only now is there circumstantially good evidence of an old age for the great man as a secret exile in South Herefordshire. He had two daughters there with English husbands. How Glyndwr actually died, when, and where his body was laid to rest were unrecorded facts that helped to glamorise his life even more.
So the OGS thought it appropriate to try and solve the puzzle. Members now think the grave was at Monnington Straddel, the village that eventually disappeared and is now Monnington Court farm near Vowchurch.
Attempts already made to commemorate Owain Glyndwr have not produced anything that truly befits the stature of the statesman, warrior and visionary.
His statue in Corwen, near his birthplace, might be suitable if he were a hero from a children’s comic but inspires none of the awe and respect with which he has been regarded for six centuries.
As the 600th anniversary of Glyndwr’s rebellion approaches, it is time to create the kind of monument which world leaders who voted him one of the most important people of the last millennium would have expected to find in Wales.
Machynlleth is the right place for that monument. It is the town Glyndwr chose for his parliament.
It is also in the centre of Wales, at the meeting point of Ceredigion, Powys and Gwynedd. Glyndwr had a vision of a united Wales, and a monument in Machynlleth would be accessible to people from all parts of the country.
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