Cylchgronau Cymru

Vaughan of Tretower as a result of which Vaughan released any right he had to certain manors in Gower. This is known from a much later deed (of 1520) in which Sir Rice Mansel thanks Cradock for his help in this matter[32]. By quiet and careful "back- pedalling" of this kind, the Vaughans, like their Herbert cousins, retained much of their power in the Tudor period. It was the Vaughans then who controlled the possessions of the Mansels and Hopkyn ap Rhys from 1465 to 1485. Sir Roger Vaughan of Tretower was the head of the elder branch of the family, while Thomas Vaughan headed the younger branch at Hergest. Sir Roger of Tretower's son, Sir Thomas, had three sons (to whom Lewis Glyn Cothi wrote the awdl inserted in the Red Book of Hergest), Roger, Watkyn and Harry. Besides this Sir Thomas, Sir Roger had another son, yet another Roger, who founded a distinguished line at Porthaml near Talgarth, to which we shall again return in our argument. The Vaughans of Hergest, although a younger line, made Hergest into a considerable centre of bardic patronage up to the middle decades of the sixteenth century. All the Vaughan branches were closely allied and they all patronised poets such as Lewis Glyn Cothi[33]. As a point of interest one should add that although the Vaughans had gracefully retired from Gower in 1485, they still maintained some connexions. The Harry Vaughan of Tretower we have mentioned above had a daughter Wenllian who married George ap Richard of Ynysmudw (near Pontardawe) a family of Tawe gentry closely allied to the Herberts. A little later, in the middle of the sixteenth century, Margaret daughter of Thomas Vaughan of Tretower married John ap David ap Hopkyn of Ynysdawy [34]. The purpose of following the detailed connexion of the Vaughans with Gower should now be clear. It looks like a distinct possibility that the Red Book of Hergest was part of the possess- ions of Hopkyn ap Rhys ap Hopkyn seized by the Vaughans of Tre- tower when Hopkyn was attainted and his possessions forfeited in 1465. But it looks as if the Red Book remained with the Vaughans at Tretower or their cousins of Hergest, and did not return with the lands to their former owners in the political reversals of 1485. Maybe some royal official carried out a thorough inquisition of the forfeited possessions of Mansel and Hopkyn ap Rhys in 1465, and