such a pass that in 1747 the parishioners, in vestry assembled, passed a resolution to inflict a fine of one shilling on the person who brought his dog to church during divine service. It does not seem that this order remedied the nuisance, for other resolutions were passed in 1749 on the same matter, and the sexton was granted a quarterly payment “for keeping the Church clear of ’em”; and the vestry provided a stool for the convenience of the sexton by the church door, that he might be ready to pounce on any dog that put its nose in, and drive it out.
The plague of dogs in church was not confined to Wales. It would seem that in 1644 they found their way into Canterbury Cathedral, for Richard Culmer, in his Cathedral Newes from Canterbury, relates how “one of the great canons or prebends there, in the very act of his low congying (congé-ing) towards the Altar, as he went up to it in prayer-time, was not long since assaulted by a huge mastiffe dog, which leapt upright on him once and againe, and pawed him in his ducking, saluting progresse and posture to the Altar, so that he was fain to call out aloud, ‘Take away the dog! Take away the dog!’”
A pleasant excursion may be made from Bangor to Llanidan, in Anglesey, by taking the ferry-boat across at Dinorwic.
Llanidan old church is for the most part in ruins, a new church having been erected in a more convenient situation. The church consisted of a nave and south aisle separated by an arcade. All but the two western bays and the porches are roofless. In the portion still covered is preserved the sandstone shrine of S. Nidan, who was confessor to the monks of Penmon. It still contains what are believed to be his skull and some of his bones. At the Reformation it was not destroyed, as it was in the possession of a hereditary keeper of the relics, and it was retained at a farmhouse in the parish by the family till recently, when it was surrendered to the church, and now the fleshless bones of the founder are in the dismantled church he founded.
The Celtic mode of dedicating a church was this, as described at length by Bede. The founder, having selected the spot, remained on it in constant prayer and fast for forty days and nights, eating only a little after set of sun, and on the Sundays, when he consumed a small piece of bread, one egg, and a little milk and water. At the end of that period the place became his, and was called thenceforth after his name. It is a touching thought, looking on the bones of old Nidan, to think that there he rests who fourteen hundred years ago, by prayer and fasting on this very spot, dedicated it to the service of God.
The south porch is curious. It is overgrown with moss and fern, and contains a stoup that is ever full of water. If sponged out, it rapidly fills again. It has been conjectured that there is a spring underground, and that the stones of the porch suck up the water by capillary attraction, and so supply the stoup. But the church and graveyard are quite dry.
A similar phenomenon existed at Llangelynin, in the old church, between Barmouth and Towyn, but when the roof fell in the stoup became dry. The explanation is that the drip of the roof fell on the porch, saturated it, and thus the water drained into the stoup. And this may be the true explanation of the phenomenon at Llanidan.
In the church by the shrine is preserved a bust, not ill carved, of a female wearing a crown. It is possible that this may have been intended as the head of S. Edwen, patroness of the daughter parish. She is said to have been a daughter or niece of Edwin, king of Northumbria, who, as has been already related, spent his youth in Anglesey.
From Bangor the train may be taken to Llanfair, and thence it is a walk to Penmynydd, where is the Plas, the cradle of the House of Tudor.
The handsome Owen Tudor caught the fancy of Catherine, widow of Henry V.; but before she would marry this Welsh knight she sent a deputation to his ancestral home to inquire into the respectability of his family, its antiquity, and its dignity.
The commissioners arrived at the little mansion and found Owen’s mother shelling peas, and surrounded by goats, to which she cast the pods, and pigeons that pounced on the peas that escaped her fingers. As to the pedigree, that was soon disposed of; the old lady could recite the Aps back to Anna, the cousin of the Virgin Mary, an Egyptian princess. The deputation returned with its report, pulling long faces. The Tudors were petty Anglesey squires and nothing more, not largely estated, nor with a great retinue. But Queen Catherine was very much in love and very eager to lay aside her widow’s weeds. “Make the most of the pedigree,” she said, “but cook the rest of the report; write down the goats as serving-men and the pigeons as ladies-in-waiting.”
They did so. The King’s Council was satisfied, and Catherine married Owen, and became, by him, the mother of Edmund “of Hadham,” who was created Earl of Richmond by Henry VI. in 1453.
His son, Edmund Tudor, married Margaret, daughter of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and great-granddaughter of “old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,” and so became the father of Henry VII.
Queen Catherine died in 1437, leaving, beside Edmund, a son Jasper, and another Owen, who embraced a monastic life and died early.
As soon as the queen was dead bad times ensued for Owen. The marriage had been winked at, but not relished, and he was seized and committed to Newgate, and the three sons were given into the custody of the Abbess of Barking.
Aided by his chaplain and a servant, Owen effected his escape, but he was retaken and delivered to the Earl of Suffolk to be kept in Wallingford Castle; but he was transferred to Newgate. He made his escape a second time.
In the year 1453 his sons were both made earls – Edmund was created Earl of Richmond and Jasper Earl of Pembroke. Owen had an illegitimate son, named David, who was knighted by his nephew, Henry VII.
Owen remained unnoticed till 1459, when his own son Jasper graciously conferred knighthood on him. Henry VI. granted him some lands and a revenue, but a law was passed that henceforth no commoner, under severe penalties, should presume to marry a queen dowager of England without special licence from the king.
In 1461 he fought under the banner of his son Jasper at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross, and would not quit the field, but was taken with several other Welsh gentlemen, and was beheaded soon after at Hereford.
Jones, in his Relicks of the Welsh Bards, 1794, gives a duet which purports to be translated from the Welsh, and which is based on the wooing of Owen Tudor and Catherine. He does not give the original Welsh. The air as well as the words has a very modern smack.
The duet begins: —
“Owen.I salute thee, sweet Princess, with title of grace,
For Cupid commands me in heart to embrace
Thy honours, thy virtues, thy favour, thy beauty,
With all my true service, my love, and my duty.
Catherine. Courteous, kind gentleman, let me request,
How comes it that Cupid hath wounded thy breast?
And chanc’d thy heart’s liking my servant to prove,
That am but a stranger to this, thy kind love?”
And it all winds up with their saying together: —
“Then mark how the notes of our merry town bells,
Our ding-dong of pleasure most cheerfully tells.
Then ding-dong, fair ladies, and ladies all true,
This ding-dong of pleasure may satisfy you.”
Actually it would seem that the spooning was on the side of the Queen and not of Owen.
The house of Penmynydd dates from 1370, and is consequently the same as that visited by the commission. The kitchen is intact, and the Tudor arms are carved about the building, and there still is the courtyard in which the ancestress
