Lewys Glyn Cothi

Lewys Glyn Cothi (c. 1420 – 1490), also known as Llywelyn y Glyn, was a prominent Welsh poet who composed numerous poems in the Welsh language. He is one of the most important representatives of the Beirdd yr Uchelwyr ("Poets of the Nobility") or Cywyddwyr ("cywydd-men"), the itinerant professional poets of the period between the 1284 Statute of Rhuddlan and c. 1600.

He was born in c.1420, possibly at Pwllcynbyd farm, near the remote hamlet of Rhydycymerau in the parish of Llanybydder in south-west Wales: he took his bardic name from the nearby forest of Glyn Cothi in the Cothi valley. His given name was Llewelyn, but he generally used the name "Lewys" in his verse, and is more usually known by this name. One of his manuscripts suggests that he may have received some education at Carmarthen Priory, but his early life is otherwise rather obscure.

Lewys lived through the Wars of the Roses, in which he was an adherent of the Lancastrian party, becoming an outlaw as a result after the Battle of Mortimer's Cross. He likely witnessed the battle himself in the company of Owen ap Gruffudd ap Nicolas, the son of a prominent Carmarthenshire esquire, and subsequently Owen and Lewys spent time as outlaws in Snowdonia. Lewys was a supporter of Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Pembroke, and later of Henry Tudor. Although many of his poems are addressed to pro-Lancastrian gentry, he was not above praising Yorkist patrons when occasion demanded it, such as the Vaughan family of Hergest, Herefordshire, with whom his name is often associated.

There is a story, originating in a note on a manuscript copy of his poetry, that Lewys settled at Chester and was later ejected from the city by its burgesses for marrying a widow without their consent. Other stories attached to different manuscripts state that he was driven out of the staunchly Yorkist city for making a verse prophecy that Henry Tudor would become king. Although unconfirmed, it seems certain that something occurred to make him a laughing-stock of Chester's citizens and to spur him to satirise them mercilessly in an awdl, describing them as the offspring of "eight kinds of intercourse in the bushes" ("cyw wythryw cyfathrach — dan lwyn") and calling the vengeance of a pro-Lancastrian Welsh noble, Rheinallt ap Gruffydd ap Bleddyn of Mold, on their heads.

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