Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/309

Rh of Cambria.’ In all probability the passage about Madog was substantially contained in Llwyd's manuscript, and the story may thus be thrown as far back as 1559. Powel tells us that Madog left Wales to avoid the unbrotherly strife which followed the death of Owain Gwynedd in 1170, and that, after leaving Ireland to the north, he came to a strange land, which must, says our author, have been Florida, or New Spain. He returned after his first voyage, and then with ten vessels made a second expedition, after which he was never heard of more. But reasons are given for believing that he founded a settlement in America, e.g. the occurrence of certain words of Welsh significance in American languages, the fact that in some parts of the continent the cross was honoured, and the avowedly foreign origin of the ruling class in Mexico.

It has been maintained by the defenders of the Madog theory that Powel's narrative is professedly based upon one by Gutyn Owain, who flourished in the age before Columbus. But it is only on one point, in fact, that he cites the bard, viz. the number of ships which Madog had with him on his second voyage; and tradition, we have already seen, had fixed upon ten as the number of Madog's fleet before there was any talk of his having discovered America. Powel's real authority, it is easy to see, was popular tradition—the old legend about the mysterious disappearance amplified into a discovery of the New World. We are told by him that in the popular account there was much exaggeration (of the kind to be expected in a fairy tale), so that he only gave what he took to be the basis of fact (Historie of Cambria, ed. 1584, pp. 166 et seq.)

A story so flattering to national pride naturally made great headway. James Howell accepted it, and in confirmation quoted the four lines from Maredudd ap Rhys (‘Madoc wyf,’ &c.) as having been found upon Madog's tomb ‘in the West Indies nere upon 600 years since’ (Ep. Ho-El. ed. Jacobs, iv. ep. 30). It was believed by Theophilus Evans (Drych y Prif Oesoedd, 1716, pt. i. cap. 1), who also quotes the supposed epitaph upon Madog. Sir Thomas Herbert (1606–1682) [q. v.], in his ‘Travels into Africa and Asia the Great’ (3rd ed. 1677), tells the story with much detail, though his arguments are only those of Powel refurbished. But the doughtiest champions of the theory were Dr. W. O. Pughe and his friend Iolo Morganwg [see, 1740–1826]. In 1791 they wrote a series of notes in its defence for the ‘Gentleman's Magazine;’ in the ‘Cambrian Biography’ (1803, art. ‘Madog ab Owain Gwynedd’) it is stated in the most positive form; and in vol. i. of the ‘Cambro-Briton’ (1820, pp. 57 et seq.), with which Dr. Pughe was closely connected, a Dr. John Jones, who had thrown doubt upon it, is very severely treated. It was from Dr. Pughe and his circle that Southey heard the story; with the result that in 1805 he published ‘Madoc.’ So great was the enthusiasm at this period that Iolo Morganwg at one time thought seriously of visiting America on a tour of search for the ‘Madogwys’ (, Recollections of Iolo Morganwg, 1850, pp. 36–7), and in 1790 a young man named John Evans actually left Wales with the intention of preaching the gospel to his imaginary kinsmen. He wandered about the continent a good deal and endured many hardships, but, though he reached the district (the lower Missouri valley) where the Welsh Indians were at this time generally held to be situated, there is nothing to show that he made any discovery of the kind expected (Enwogion Cymru, 1870).

During the present century the adherents of the theory have gradually disappeared. Catlin believed that the Mandans of the upper Missouri were remnants of the Welsh colony (North American Indians, 5th ed. 1845, ii. 259), but the arguments he alleges are not convincing. Thomas Stephens expressed himself somewhat doubtfully upon the question in the ‘Literature of the Kymry’ (1st ed. 1849), but, when a prize was offered in connection with the Llangollen Eisteddfod of 1858 for ‘the best essay on the discovery of America in the twelfth century by Prince Madoc ap Owen Gwynedd,’ he sent in an elaborate essay showing that the discovery could not have taken place. Though the ablest essay in the competition, this was denied the prize, on account of the opinions expressed in it.

 MADOG GRUFFYDD MAELOR (d. 1236), prince of Northern Powys, probably succeeded on the death of his father, Gruffydd Maelor, in 1191, to the greater part of that principality, and in 1197, by the death of his brother Owain, became ruler of the whole. It was in the latter year that Gwenwynwyn [q. v.] inherited from his father, Owain Cyfeiliog, the southern half of Powys, so that the two regions, remaining for some twenty years in the hands of these two princes, came naturally to be known as Powys Fadog and Powys Wenwynwyn. 