Rhys ap Tudur

Rhys ap Tudur (died 1412) was a Welsh nobleman and a member of the Tudor family of Penmynydd. He held positions of power on behalf of King Richard II of England, including two periods as the Sheriff of Anglesey in the 1370s and 80s. Rhys accompanied the king on a military expedition to Ireland in 1398, but in 1400 began to support the revolt of his cousin Owain Glyndŵr against King Henry IV of England. In 1401, he and his brother Gwilym ap Tudur took Conwy Castle after infiltrating it, and liaised with Henry Percy prior to his own rebellion in 1403. After being outlawed by the king in 1406, Rhys was captured and executed at Chester in 1412, although later oral tradition claims he returned to Anglesey to die there. Ancestry and early life Rhys was one of five sons of Tudur ap Goronwy and Marged ferch Tomos; alongside Ednyfed ap Tudor, Maredudd ap Tudur, Goronwy ap Tudor and Gwilym ap Tudur. Tudur had served with the forces of King Edward III of England during the campaigns in France in 1337, assuming the rank of knight in the process. Afterwards, he became a royal officer for the island of Anglesey and ensured that all of his sons found similar roles. The family were descended from Ednyfed Fychan, and his son Goronwy ab Ednyfed, the founder of the Tudor family of Penmynydd. Service to the crown Rhys and his brother Goronwy were rhaglaws (bailiffs) for the commote of Dindaethwy across three decades; from the 1370s through to the 1390s. He was made Sheriff of Anglesey twice, first between 1374–75 and again in 1381–84. This was a post more typically held by an Englishman at the time. In 1386, Rhys was one of the leaders of a contingent of soldiers raised in Caernarfonshire to protect against a potential invasion by the French. King Richard II of England paid Rhys £10 a year to retain his service should the crown require it, and accompanied him on a military expedition to Ireland in 1398. However, that same year Rhys was summoned before the king's justicar of North Wales to explain why he had managed to become indebted to the sum of £60 in his role of rhaglaw at Dindaethwy. Rhys held lands in Anglesey and Caernarfonshire which he inherited from his father, and these would have provided a steady income.