Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/307

Rh Pont Aberglaslyn to Gêst point. He then constructed across Traeth Mawr an embankment nearly a mile in length, which shut out the sea, and was the means of reclaiming nearly three thousand more acres of land. A road was also constructed along the embankment, and it forms the line of communication between the counties of Carnarvon and Merioneth. The work was completed in 1811, at an expense of more than 100,000l. The town of Tremadoc, so called after its founder, with a neat Gothic church and other public buildings, was built by Madocks on Penmorfa at his own expense. Madocks sat in parliament for Boston in Lincolnshire from 1802 until 1820, when he became M.P. for Chippenham. He took an active part in politics on the whig side, and on 11 May 1809 moved an impeachment of Lord Castlereagh and of Spencer Perceval for bribery at an election (, Parl. Debates, xiv. 380–92, 486–527). He also seconded, on 15 June 1809, Sir Francis Burdett's plan of parliamentary reform (ib. xiv. 1056). He became involved in pecuniary difficulties, and retired to the continent, where he died, in Paris, in September 1828. He married in 1818 Mrs. Gwynn of Tregunter, Breconshire, by whom he had one daughter, who survived him.

Madocks is the author of a little dramatic dialogue, called ‘The Amateur Actor and the Hair Dresser,’ published in the ‘European Magazine,’ liii. 215–16.  MADOG MAREDUDD (d. 1160), prince of Powys, was the son of Maredudd ap Bleddyn ap Cynfyn and nephew of Iorwerth ab Bleddyn [q. v.] His father, who at his death in 1132 was lord of all Powys (Annales Cambriæ, sub anno, ‘dux Powisorum;’ Brut y Tywysogion, as printed in the Oxford edition of the ‘Red Book of Hergest,’ p. 308, ‘tegwch a diogelwch holl powys ae hamdifyn’). The son Madog, if he did not at once succeed to his father's position, doubtless attained it before long, and held it for some years. The contemporary poet, Gwalchmai, speaks of the influence of Madog as stretching from Plynlimmon to the gates of Chester, and from Bangor [Iscoed] to the extremity of Meirionydd, i.e. over all Powys (Myvyrian Archaiology, 2nd ed. p. 148); the same idea prevailed, too, as to the extent of his power when (probably at the end of the twelfth century) the story of ‘Rhonabwy's Dream’ was cast into its present form (Mabinogion, Oxford edition, p. 144). According to Powel (Historie of Cambria, ed. 1584, p. 153), on the other hand, Madog ruled only over Northern Powys, which thus got its title of Powys Fadog. Maredudd, Powel tells us, ‘had two sons, Madoc … and Gruffyth, betweene whom Powys was diuided;’ but the fact is that Gruffydd died before his father in 1128 (Annales Cambriæ, sub anno). As to the name Powys Fadog, it clearly came into existence at the same time as Powys Wenwynwyn, viz. about the beginning of the thirteenth century, when Madog ap Gruffydd Maelor [q. v.] and Gwenwynwyn [q. v.] ruled Northern and Southern Powys respectively. Madog ap Maredudd was certainly lord of Powys Wenwynwyn, for about 1149 he gave Cyfeiliog, one of its regions, to his nephews, Owain and Meurig ap Gruffydd, and in 1156 he built a stronghold in Caer Einion, which was also a region of Southern Powys (ib.; Brut y Tywysogion, pp. 316, 318).

Madog was prince of Powys during the reign of Stephen, the period during which the Welsh shook off the rigid control established by Henry I, and regained much which they had lost through the Norman conquest. Like other Welsh princes, he seems to have profited by this movement. About 1149 he rebuilt the castle at Oswestry, a spot which had not been Welsh ground for nearly a century, and which was soon recovered by the English. Madog's appearance in the district was probably directly due to the turmoil caused by the civil war, for Oswestry was part of the Fitzalans' territory, and William Fitzalan [q. v.] took active part on the side of the empress (, in Y Cymmrodor, x. 43). Rhys Cain's attempt (Cae Cyriog MS. quoted in History of Powys Fadog, i. 119–20) to represent the Fitzalans as the new-comers is discredited by its gross anachronisms.

The salient feature of Madog's career is not, however, his success against the English, but his friendship with them. During the first half of the twelfth century Gwynedd had been gradually growing at the expense of the minor northern principalities, until in Madog's time it was a formidable neighbour to Powys, conterminous with it from Machynlleth to Chester. Madog first adopted the policy, which afterwards became popular with princes of Powys, of protecting his realm by cultivating the friendship of his English neighbours. In the year in which he had fortified Oswestry, his neighbour, Owain Gwynedd [q. v.], had built a castle in Ial, always reckoned a district of Powys. The encroachment called for immediate