Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/194

  information as to the exact date of Cadroe's pilgrimage may be obtained by reference to Robertson's Hist. of Scotland, i. 66, &c.; Calmet's Histoire de Lorraine, vol. i.; Laing's Chronicles of the Kings of Norway, vol. i.]

CADVAN (6th cent.), Welsh saint, was born in Brittany; his father's name is given as Eneas Lydewig. Cadvan arrived in Wales early in the sixth century, having fled before the Frankish invasion of Gaul. He was accompanied by a large number of persons, like himself of good birth, who proposed to devote themselves to a religious life on the loss of their possessions. Cadvan founded the churches of Llangadvan in Montgomeryshire and Towyn in Merionethshire, where there exists a rude pillar called St. Cadvan's stone to this day. The pillar bears an ancient Welsh inscription, almost the only one of the kind remaining, which is given in Haddan and Stubbs's ‘Early Ecclesiastical Documents,’ i. 165. In conjunction with Einion Vrenin, Cadvan founded a monastery on Bardsey Isle, off the promontory of Carnarvonshire, of which he was the first abbot. He is called the tutelary saint of warriors, and is commemorated on 1 Nov.



CADVAN (d. 617? or 634?), was king of Gwynedd or North Wales. His existence may be regarded as satisfactorily established, but his exploits belong rather to legend or conjecture than history. The tenth-century pedigree of Owain, son of Howel Dha, makes him the son of Iago, a descendant of Cunedda, and the father of the famous (d. 634) [q. v.], the ally of Penda, and the foe of the Northumbrian Bretwaldas (An. Cambriæ, Rolls Ser., p. x; cf. Brut y Tywys. Rolls Ser., p. 2; and Cyvoessi Myrddin in Skene's Ancient Books of Wales, i. 464, ii. 221). Bæda gives us clear accounts of the warfare which went on between Æthelfrith of Northumbria and the North Welsh, culminating in the battle of Chester in 613 (, Hist. Eccl. bk. ii. ch. ii.) With these wars Welsh tradition connects the name of Cadvan, and the probability of the fact may excuse the weakness of the evidence. It is impossible, however, to accept the fabulous stories in Geoffry of Monmouth (Hist. Brit. bk. xii. ch. i.; cf. Myvyrian Archaiology (1801), ii. 17, triad 81) of Cadvan's election as overlord by the princes of the Britons, his agreement to divide Britain with Æthelfrith, and his acting as foster father to the fugitive Eadwine. In 616 the death of Ceredig (An. Cambr. MS. A. s. a.) may have given Cadvan a more commanding position. The legend that his son Cadwallawn began to reign in 617, the same year as Eadwine became king, has suggested that Cadvan himself died in that year, but Mr. Skene has conjectured with much ingenuity that Cadvan continued to reign in Gwynedd contemporaneously with his more energetic son, the leader of the combined British host against the Angles. In 634 Oswald won a great victory at Heavenfield, and the ‘wicked general’ slain there (unnamed by, Hist. Eccl. iii. i; called Catgublaun rex Gwenedote by Nennius, and Cathlan by Tighernac) Mr. Skene conjectures to have been Cadvan himself (Cadwallawn is called Cadwallaun by Nennius, and Chon by Tighernac; see Ancient Books of Wales, i. 71). But such hypotheses are hardly history. A very early inscription, apparently an epitaph, is still found on a stone like a coffin-lid above the southern door of the church of Llangadwaladr in Anglesea, called, as is conjectured, from Cadvan's grandson. ‘The old letters,’ says Professor Rhys, ‘have quite the appearance of being of the seventh century’ (Celtic Britain, p. 125). The words run: ‘Catamanus rex sapientisimus opinatisimus omnium regum’ (, Inscriptiones Britanniæ Christianæ, p. 52, No. 149). Burial near Aberffraw is hardly, though possibly, compatible with death on the field of battle in Northumbria.



CADWALADER. [See .]

CADWALADR (d. 1173), the son of Gruffudd, the son of Cynan, was the son and the brother of the two most famous north Welsh princes of their time. During his father's lifetime he accompanied his elder brother, Owain, on many predatory excursions against rival princes. In 1121 they ravaged Meirionydd, and apparently conquered it. In 1135 and 1136 they led three successful expeditions to Ceredigion, and managed to get possession of at least the northern portion of that district. In 1137 Owain succeeded, on Gruffudd ap Cynan's death, to the sovereignty of Gwynedd or North Wales. Cadwaladr appears to have found his portion in his former conquests of Meirionydd and northern Ceredigion. The intruder from Gwynedd soon became involved in feuds both with his south Welsh neighbours and with his family. In 1143 his men slew Anarawd, son of Gruffudd of South Wales, to whom Owain Gwynedd had promised his daughter in marriage. 