one they had forgotten about, Llywelyn’s great-nephew. They were taking no chances. But say one branch of the family had survived, a branch they had also forgotten, which kept its head down, living on its estates in the countryside. And so the quiet centuries began. This is the branch from which the Anwyl family, a name they adopted in the 16th century, is said to be descended, still in Merionethshire, as they have always been. On the Internet they have no doubts. And on the Anwyl family tree there are no doubts, with name after name moving relentlessly back into the Middle Ages. But at the National Library of Wales I was told, “ The registration of births only dates from the early 19th century. Before that it’s church registers and of course this is long, long before church registers. People turn up here claiming to be descended from Owain Glyndwr, a few from King Arthur, I think we’ve even had one who claimed to be descended from Merlin. So we are sceptical about such claims, but in genealogy anything’s possible.” Professor Prys Morgan of the University of Swansea echoed this. “It is possible.” And what tethers it even more closely to possibility is the complete lack of interest on the part of the Anwyl family. If there had been enthusiasm of any kind, but
no, to them it is just matter of fact. As Janet Mostert, Vaughan Anwyl’s sister, said, “ I look at all this with a mixture of pride and embarrassment, we don’t like fuss.” Or as his other sister Margaret Williams said, “To be honest, our family tree was just something that was there, hanging on the wall. If it had been my husband, that would have been very different. He’s fascinated by history. “Only in his case he can only go back to 1700.” But there may have been a clue to their survival among the slns in what she said next. “We’re just a family that loves to pootle along quietly.” There are probably no political implications, though Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalist Party, has in the past flirted with constutional monarchy. Knowing nothing about Vaughan Anwyl, they opted in the 1950’s for the late Lord Dynevor, one of the Welsh gentry with a long descent though not from royalty. He told me what happened next. “I was living in Notting Hill Gate at the time and I’d just been down to the supermarket. When I got back two men were waiting at my door. They introduced themselves and asked me to be the Pretender of Wales. I stood there with these Sainsbury’s bags and said very politely that I was going through an extreme republican phase, so I couldn’t really become the Pretender of Wales.” The
Sainsbury’s bags, he went on, had been very heavy. Things have changed a lot since then. Representatives of tthe National Eisteddfod and the Gorsedd attended the Investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales in 1969. The new Archdruid said earlier this year that they would not do so again. But then it has been a feature of both Investitures, the only ones ever held in Wales, that those who took part later showed a marked eagerness to distance themselves. The Duke of Windsor wrote of his “ preposterous rig”, the knee breeches and coronet in which he appeared, and had to deliver one line of Welsh, Mor o gan yw Cymru i gyd. Anyone obliged to materialise in knee breeches in a mediaeval tower and inform the crowds beneath him that all Wales was a sea of song might have thought he was just one step ahead of the men in the white coats. And the Duke had his revenge: when he abdicated and went into exile he took the coronet with him, which meant another had to be commissioned for the 1969 ceremony. Of this the Earl of Snowdon has said that the ceremony was “bogus as Hell”, and that his own costume had made him look like “a cinema usherette from the 1950’s
or the panto character Buttons”, overlooking the fact that he designed the costume himself. But more to the point, Lord Elis Thomas, Presiding Officer of the Welsh Assembly, has gone on record to say there should never again be an Investiture. Only he went further. He said the title of Prince of Wales was “no longer relevant in the constitutional development long shifted to Wales’s own institutions.” But that was before a home-grown candidate had been identified. “Know what that king did ?” I was trying to interest Vaughan Anwyl in his family. “He put out the eyes of one of his nephews, then castrated him. He wouldn’t have been a threat to the succession then.” “Really?” said Mr Anwyl distantly. It would make a wonderful black comedy, with Sir Anthony Hopkins as the head of the House of Aberffraw who, when a wanderer called to pay homage, did not offer him a cup of tea. I have talked about this to anyone who would listen. “I’m sure you’d have had a cup of tea off Llywelyn ap Gruffydd,” said the poet Bobi Jones. Poni welwch-chwi hynt y gwynt a’r glaw? Poni welwch-chwi’r deiri’n ymdaraw?
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