An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170Williams, John
History
An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170
Williams, John
America -- Discovery and exploration -- Welsh; Madog ab Owain Gwynedd, 1150-1180?
The best copy of these registers was taken by Guttun Owen, a Bard,
in the Reign of Edward the IVth. King of England, about the year
1480; before the first Voyage of Columbus; but that the continuation,
though not Caradoc's, is a true History, we have no just reason
to question.
Cynfrig ab Gronow, about the same time with Guttun Owen, mentioned
this Event. Those Bards lived between two and three Hundred Years
after Madog's Emigration; and _before_ them it is alluded to by Sir
Meredyth ab Rhy's about the year 1477. Humphry Llwyd the Translator
of Caradoc flourished in the reign of Henry the VIIIth, King of
England, about 50 or 60 years after Guttun Owen,[f] and Dr. Powel
published Llwyd's Translation, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, about
40 Years after the death of Humphry Llwyd, whose death prevented
its earlier publication.
[Footnote f: Guttun Owen was a Person of Note in the Reign of Henry
the VIIth. of England; for he was the second Person named in a
Commission issued by that Prince to search the pedigree of Owen
Tudor, that King's Grandfather. Caradoc's History. p. 325. and
Appendix, p. 334. Edit. 1697. This Commission, probably was issued
about the Year 1500, when Henry sent his Son Arthur into Wales.]
There can be little doubt, but that the writings of Guttun Owen,
Cynfrig ab Gronow, and of Sir Meredyth ab Rhys, were extant in
the Days of Llwyd and Powel, and known to many persons who lived
in the principality, as Powel did.
The next account I have met with of this Event is in Hakluyt.
"After the death of Owen Gwynedd, his Sonnes fell at debate who
should inherit after him, for the eldest Sonne born in Matrimony,
Edward, or Jorwerth Drwidion (Drwyndwn) was counted unmeet to govern
because of the maime upon his Face, and Howel that took upon him
the Rule, was a bare Sonne, begotten upon an Irish Woman. Therefore
David, another Sonne, gathered all the power he could, and came
against Howel, and fighting with him, slew him, and afterwards
enjoyed quietly the whole Land of North Wales until his Brother
Jorwerth's Sonne came to Age.
"Madoc, another of Owen Gwyneth's Sonnes, left the land in contentions
betwixt his Brethren, and prepared certain Ships with Men and munition
and fought adventures by Seas, sailing West and leaving the coast
of Ireland so farre North, that he came to a Land unknown, where
he saw many strange things.
"This Land must needs be some parts of the Countrey of which the
Spanyards affirm themselves to be the first Finders since Hauno's[g]
Time: whereupon it is manifest that that Countrey was by Britons
discovered long before Columbus led any Spanyards thither.
[Footnote g: The Carthaginian Admiral, supposed to have flourished
about 450 years before Christ.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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