A Book of North Wales

by S. Baring-Gould

He was buried at Ruthin, of which he was once warden, but there is no monument there to his memory.

In the episcopal library is preserved the Red Book of S. Asaph, originally compiled in the fourteenth century, containing a fragmentary life of the saint who gives his name to the church and diocese, and early charters and other documents connected with it.

The site was granted to S. Kentigern, of Glasgow, when driven away by the king of Strathclyde, Morcant, and he only returned after the defeat, in 573, of Morcant by Rhydderch Hael. Then he left his favourite disciple Asaph to take charge of the foundation he had made on the banks of the Elwy.

CATHERINE OF BERAIN

In the cathedral library is preserved the polyglot dictionary of Dick of Aberdaron, a literary vagabond. He is reported to have acquired thirty-four languages. He was a dirty, unkempt creature, who wandered about the country, his pockets stuffed with books. His predominant passion was the acquisition of languages. A dictionary or a grammar was to him a more acceptable present than a meal or a suit of clothes. He had no home, and was sometimes obliged to sleep in outhouses.

Bishop Carey did what he was able for him, but his personal habits made him unsuitable to have in a decent house, and he was impatient of every restraint. He died in 1843, and was buried at S. Asaph.

The little parish church consists of nave and aisle of equal length—one dedicated to S. Kentigern and the other to S. Asaph. It lies at the bottom of the hill, and has a somewhat original Perpendicular east window.

Not far from S. Asaph is Berain, the residence once of Catherine Tudor, an heiress with royal blood in her veins, for she was descended from Henry VII., who, when he was in Brittany collecting auxiliaries for his descent on England to win the crown from Richard III., had an intrigue with a Breton lady named Velville, and became the father of Sir Roland Velville. Sir Roland’s daughter and heiress, Jane, married Tudor ab Robert Vychan of Berain, and their only child was Catherine. She is commonly spoken of as Mam Cymru, the Mother of Wales, as from her so many of the Welsh families derive descent.