“A square grave was made for Bonwen, the daughter of Llyr, on the banks of the Alaw, and there she was buried.”
The urn that contained the ashes and bones was of the well-known Bronze Age type.
According to the traditional pedigrees of the Welsh, Bronwen was the aunt of the celebrated Caractacus who so gallantly resisted the Romans, and who was taken prisoner and conveyed to Rome. But these very early pedigrees are untrustworthy.
The Bronwen Tower of Harlech Castle is that on the left of the sea-front as we enter the courtyard.
In 1404 Owen Glyndwr got possession of the castle and held a parliament in it.
During the Wars of the Roses, the Earl of Pembroke and his brother, Sir Richard Herbert, laid siege to the fortress. It was defended by the governor, Davydd ab Ifan, who there offered an honourable asylum to Margaret of Anjou, queen of Henry VI., and the Prince of Wales, after the battle of Northampton. When summoned to surrender, he replied that he had held a fortress in France till all the old women in Wales had heard of it, and he now purposed holding out in Harlech till all the old women in France heard of it.
BRONWEN’S URN
According to a contemporary bard, there was great slaughter; he says that six thousand men fell, but this shows him to have been able to draw the long-bow as well as to finger the lyre. Eventually, after a blockade, Harlech was forced to capitulate, and the whole district was then subjected to Edward IV. The famous air, “The March of the Men of Harlech,” is said to have been composed during this siege, more probably long after, in commemoration of it.