At Llanfair, which is about a mile distant from this road, was born the
celebrated scholar and poet, Goronwy Owen, who, notwithstanding his
acknowledged and admired abilities, was, after a series of hardships and
struggles, obliged to expatriate himself to the wilds of Virginia, where
he was appointed pastor of the Church. He was well versed in the Latin,
Greek, and oriental languages, was a skilful antiquary, and an excellent
poet. His Latin odes are greatly admired; but his Welsh poems rank him
among the most distinguished bards of his country.
About five miles west of Beaumaris is Peny-mynydd, the birth-place of
Owen Tudor, a private gentleman, who, having married Catherine of France,
the Dowager of our Henry V., in 1428, became the ancestor of a line of
monarchs. They had three sons and one daughter. The daughter died in
her infancy: Edmund was created Earl of Richmond, and marrying a daughter
of the Duke of Somerset, had Henry, afterwards Henry VII. Jasper was
created Earl of Pembroke; and Owen became a monk. By means of his
marriage, therefore, Owen Tudor not only became father to a line of
kings; but in his son, as Gray says, Wales came to be governed again by
their own princes.
The Tudor family became extinct in Richmond Tudor, who died in 1657, and
the estate belongs to Lord Bulkeley. In the Church is one of their
monuments, removed from Lanvaes Abbey at its dissolution.