User talk:Tipcake

Your GA nomination of Urien

The article Urien you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Urien for comments about the article, and Talk:Urien/GA1 for the nomination. Well done! If the article is eligible to appear in the "Did you know" section of the Main Page, you can nominate it within the next seven days. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Reverosie -- Reverosie (talk) 14:45, 15 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

DYK for Urien

On 17 August 2025, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Urien, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that eight poems to the 6th-century Brittonic king Urien Rheged may be among the oldest works of vernacular literature in post-classical Europe? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Urien. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Urien), and the hook may be added to the statistics page after its run on the Main Page has completed. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 00:03, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(Attributed?) arms of Llywelyn

Hi Tipcake. In this edit summary you've said that one author doesn't believe that Llywelyn the Great or his father ever used the arms traditionally attributed to Llywelyn. Should this be covered at Royal Badge of Wales? The relevant section there is essentially our main coverage of those arms (and it's entirely without references!). Ham II (talk) 10:05, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Ham II. Yes, that's right. Matthew Paris first uses the arms in reference to the death of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn ab Iorwerth in 1244 and Dafydd ap Llywelyn in 1246. The arms are attributed to Iorwerth Drwyndwn in Fouke le Fitz Waryn, however, which was written in about 1260. This is, of course, postdating the use of these arms by Matthew for Gruffudd and Dafydd, and was concurrent with their use by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, so Michael Siddons does not seem to think they were contemporaneously used by Iorwerth or his son Llywelyn. He also says the lions are drawn from the Royal Badge of England, as Dafydd was a grandson of King John of England. I can give you specific quotes this afternoon. Tipcake (talk) 10:22, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Ham II Ok, here is what he says:

LLYWELYN AB IORWERTH DRWYNDWN (WG, Gruffudd ap Cynan 5)

i.e. Llywelyn the Great (d.1240), Prince of Gwynedd. See under Wales, princes of, and chapter 7 of vol.I. No contemporary evidence of his bearing arms has survived. The Welsh MSS mostly give:

• Quarterly Gules and Or, four lions passant gardant counter-changed.
  • (d: Pen.127D, part 2, p.274; TLLI, 99, not gardant; GrH 2, 102; Pen.147B, 146, not gardant; Sotheby C 3, 128, not gardant; Geo.O.2, 86; WDLL, 79; p: GrH 3, 320; Pen.149B, 29; WC 2, 316; Harleian 1143, No.7; Geo.O.1, 16v, 'arglwydd Lewelyn'; TJC 1, 72, ditto; EP, 3r; NLW MS 6434D, 16)
• ditto, colours reversed
  • (d: NLW MS 3032B, 65)

This is from vol. 2, p. 343 of the book series I cited. As you can verify, all these manuscripts are sixteenth century or later. Likewise for Iorwerth Drwyndwn, from p. 275 of the same volume:

IORWERTH DRWYNDWN AB OWAIN GWYNEDD (WG, Gruffudd ap Cynan 4)

(late 12th c.), father of Llywelyn the Great. For the arms of the princes of Gwynedd, see under Wales, princes of; see also entries for Gruffudd ap Cynan and Owain Gwynedd. Their heraldry is discussed in detail in vol. I, chapter 7.

• Qu. Or and Gules, four leopards (lions passant gardant) counter-changed.
  • (d: FFW, 19)
• ditto, colours reversed.
  • (d: GrH 5, i, 112 and 118; p: WC 1, 23r; WC 2, 531)
• also: Sable, a lion rampant Or, armed and langued Gules, in a bordure engrailed Or.
  • (p: EP, 5v, [.........]wyndwn; NLW MS 6434D, 9, plain bordure)

And for the origins of the heraldry, from chapter 7 of book 1, p. 280. I have put in page-numbers for ease of your citation:

The earliest clear evidence of the arms of the princes of Gwynedd appears in one of the manuscripts of Matthew Paris, dated c.1253. In the margin of f.169 of this manuscript is depicted Gruffudd ap Llywelyn falling to his death while trying to escape from the Tower of London on St. David's day 1244. Beneath is a shield painted upside down, to denote Gruffudd's death, and bearing the arms: Quarterly Or and Gules, four lions passant counter-changed (frontispiece)?. The accompanying text reads: Quomodo Griffinus Leolini filius de Turri Londoniarum corruens expiravit. The same manuscript gives on f.198 the same arms for Dafydd ap Llywelyn, Gruffudd's half-brother, on a reversed shield, with the mention: De morte David principis Norhwallie (pl. XXI (a)) . Dafydd died on 25 February 1246. The same Dafydd is given quite different arms by Matthew Paris in another manuscript: Or, three roundels Vert; on a chief dancetty Vert a lion passant Sable, the shield again being reversed (pl. XXI (b)). The text reads: Et cito post memoratus David.... This last coat appears nowhere else, either in contemporary or later sources.

At least three impressions have survived of the seals of Llywelyn ab lorwerth (Llywelyn the Great, who died on 11 April 1240), father of these two half-brothers. They are all equestrian, and from at least two different matrices, but show no heraldry. They have been fully described elsewhere. Llywelyn, styling himself Prince of Aberffraw and Lord of Snowdon, writing shortly after 2 May 1230 to William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, explained that he sealed this letter with his secret or privy seal, because he had not got his Great Seal with him. Evan Evans (1731-88) copied a charter of Llywelyn ab lorwerth dated 1230, and described the seal as being of green wax 'with the print of a man in armour of the one side, & a floure of the other side, and the Tagg is of twist silk'.

Owen and Blakeway described with the aid of an engraving the seal attached to a bond by Dafydd ap Llywelyn, the son of Llywelyn the Great by his wife Joan, daughter of King John, to his uncle, Henry III, in 1241 or 12428. This was from a double matrix, very imperfect, and with all the inscription missing. The obverse showed a sovereign enthroned, holding a sword in his right hand. The left hand is outstretched, but whatever it held has been lost. The reverse showed a man mounted on a horse, carrying a shield charged with what appeared to be a lion rampant. The authors remarked that apart from the lion, the seal impression appeared exactly like that of the Great Seal of Henry III, and an examination of Henry's first Great Seal, used at the period of this document, confirms that this is [p. 281] almost certainly the matrix used in this case. The lions of England were evidently shaved off the seal impression, and the single lion cut in subsequently. This seal therefore affords no evidence as to Dafydd's arms.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, writing to the Bishop of Bath and Wells on 17 December 1282, informed him that Llywelyn ap Gruffudd's 'small seal' was found in his breeches after his death. The Archbishop said that he was keeping it safely to send to the king if he so wished. As another source states that Llywelyn's privy seal was found on his body, we may safely assume that this was that just referred to as his 'small seal. A further tantalising reference to Welsh princely seals is given by A.J. Taylor. The Jewels Roll for 1284 records the receipt into the Wardrobe of the seals of the late Princes of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and Dafydd ap Gruffudd, sons of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, and of the Princess Eleanor (Eleanor de Montfort, wife of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd). These seals were, it seems, melted down, and the silver from them made into a chalice for the new abbey of Vale Royal. Unfortunately, it does not appear that any impression of any of these seals, which were very probably heraldic, has survived.

The coat given for Dafydd ap Llywelyn and his brother Gruffudd by Matthew Paris was clearly accepted, with variations, as that of the native princes of Gwynedd and later of Wales, and they are quoted in English and French sources of the late thirteenth century, either as the arms of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, or else as those of the Prince of Wales. The Wijnbergen Manuscript, a French armorial of c.1270-80, gives them as the arms of le Roy de Gales (pl. XXII (a)), and Girart d'Amiens, in his Arthurian romance Escanor', dedicated to Eleanor of Castile, c.1280, gives arms clearly referring to these for the 'King' of Wales.

Li rois de Gales, qui avoit / Le meillor cheval c'on savoit / Mais les armes et granz et lees / D'or et d'argent esquartelees / A liepardiaus de l'un en l'autre.

Fouke le Fitz Waryn, a romance in French from the Shropshire-Welsh border country, considered to be a recension dated c.1320 of a poem originally composed about 1260, gives to Yervard Droyndoun, prince de Gales (lorwerth Drwyndwn, father of Llywelyn the Great), the arms: de or e de goules quartyle e en chescun quarter un leopart.

I have found these arms of the Welsh princes of Gwynedd, and later of Wales, in ten heraldic rolls which date either certainly or probably from before the extinction of Welsh independence in 1282. Some of these are painted and others in blazon. Some have not survived in the original and only much later copies are now available. The painted arms are almost always shown as quarterly Or [p. 282] and Gules, although in Segar's Roll the order is reversed. The lions are variously shown as passant, in a manuscript of Matthew Paris (frontispiece and pl. XXI (a)), in one copy of Segar's Roll, and in the Lord Marshal's Roll (pl. XXII (c)); as rampant gardant in the Fitzwilliam version of the Heralds' Roll (pl. XXII (b))1; rampant in the Wijnbergen Manuscript (pl. XXII (a)); passant gardant in the Heralds' version of the Heralds' Roll, a copy of Segar's Roll and St. George's Roll; and statant gardant in Smallpece's Rolls. Unfortunately much of the paint has been lost from some of the surviving original rolls, such as the Camden Roll, where it is now no longer possible to make out any lions on the shield of the Prince of Wales. They are given as leopards in later copies. Only one lion passant gardant can now be distinguished on the Prince's shield in the Heralds' version of the Heralds' Roll, the other three no longer being identifiable.

In those rolls where the coats are given in blazon, the lions are most often blazoned as leopards, i.e. lions passant gardant. This is the case in one version of Walford's Roll, c.1275, and the Camden Roll, c. 1280, whereas another version of Walford's Roll gives lions, i.e. lions rampant. It has been seen above that in 'Fouke le Fitz Waryn' and 'Escanor' they are described as leopards.

The arms of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd's brother Dafydd, who was executed on 3 October 1283, are shown in St. George's Roll as: Quarterly Or and Azure, four lions passant gardant counter-changed; and in the Lord Marshal's Roll as David, son ffrere, the previous coat being that of Prynce de Wales, as: Quarterly Argent and Azure, four lions passant counter-changed (pl. XXII (d)). It is not possible to date all these rolls precisely enough to be sure whether they were made in the lifetime of this prince or no, although Denholm-Young suggests that St. George's Roll was drawn up between the tournament at Kenilworth in 1279 and the agreement in 1281 between Roger Mortimer II and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. This suggests that Dafydd did in fact bear a differenced version of his elder brother's arms.

As has been seen above, the various rolls and other sources were not unanimous concerning the position of the lions, the majority however giving lions passant or passant gardant, and later English sources of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries also mostly show the lions in the same fashion.

The colours and charges of the arms of Gwynedd, together with their almost contemporary attribution to the sons of Llywelyn the Great, the younger of whom, Dafydd, was the son of Llywelyn by his wife Joan, daughter of King John, and was named by Llywelyn as his heir, all point to the most likely derivation of this coat being from the English royal arms: Gules, three leopards, or lions passant gardant, Or.

I hope this helps! Tipcake (talk) 14:33, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]