“Yes, sir,” said the girl; “yon figure is that of Owen Tudor; the other is that of his wife, the great queen; both their bodies rest below.”
I forbore to say that the figures were not those of Owen Tudor and the great queen, his wife; and I forbore to say that their bodies did not rest in that church, nor anywhere in the neighbourhood, for I was unwilling to dispel a pleasing delusion. The tomb is doubtless a tomb of one of the Tudor race, and of a gentle partner of his, but not of the Rose of Mona and Catherine of France. Her bones rest in some corner of Westminster’s noble abbey; his moulder amongst those of thousands of others, Yorkists and Lancastrians, under the surface of the plain, where Mortimer’s cross once stood, that plain on the eastern side of which meanders the murmuring Lug; that noble plain, where one of the hardest battles which ever blooded English soil was fought; where beautiful young Edward gained a crown, and old Owen lost a head, which when young had been the most beautiful of heads, which had gained for him the appellation of the Rose of Anglesey, and which had captivated the glances of the fair daughter of France, the widow of Monmouth’s Harry, the immortal victor of Agincourt.
Nevertheless, long did I stare at that tomb which, though not that of the Rose of Mona and his queen, is certainly the tomb of some mighty one of the mighty race of Theodore—then saying something in Welsh to the pretty damsel at which she started, and putting something into her hand, at which she curtseyed, I hurried out of the church.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Mental Excitation—Land of Poets—The Man in Grey—Drinking Healths—The Greatest Prydydd—Envy—Welshmen not Hogs—Gentlemanly Feeling—What Pursuit?—Tell him to Walk Up—Editor of the Times—Careful Wife—Departure.
I regained the high road by a short cut, which I discovered across a field. I proceeded rapidly along for some time. My mind was very much excited: I was in the birth-place of the mighty Tudors—I had just seen the tomb of one of them; I was also in the land of the bard; a country which had produced Gwalchmai who sang the triumphs of Owain, and him who had sung the Cowydd of Judgment, Gronwy Owen. So no wonder I was excited. On I went reciting bardic snatches connected with Anglesey. At length I began repeating Black Robin’s ode in praise of the island, or rather my own translation of it, executed more than thirty years before, which amongst others, contains the following lines:—
“Twelve sober men the muses woo,
Twelve sober men in Anglesey,
Dwelling at home, like patriots true,
In reverence for Anglesey.”
“Oh,” said I, after I had recited that stanza, “what would I not give to see one of those sober patriotic bards, or at least one of their legitimate successors, for by this time no doubt, the sober poets, mentioned by Black Robin, are dead. That they left legitimate successors who can doubt? for Anglesey is never to be without bards. Have we not the words, not of Robin the Black, but Huw the Red to that effect?
“‘Brodir, gnawd ynddi prydydd;
Heb ganu ni bu ni bydd.’
“That is: a hospitable country, in which a poet is a thing of course. It has never been and will never be without song.”