Occupation:
Date: 1461
Place: High Sheriff of Anglesey
Residence:
Place: Berw
Individual Note:
The Holland family first became connected with Berw when JOHN HOLLAND, described as one of the household servants of Henry VI , m. Ithel ap Howel ap Llewelyn's daughter Elinor . The marriage is believed to have taken place between 1470 and 1480 (Ref: NLW Biographies)
There is some confusion regarding the spouse or spouses of John ap Howel. Gfs and Dwnn record him as being married to Elin vch Ithel who was the heiress of Ithel ap Howel ap Llewelyn, owner of the BerwEstate in Anglesey. These pedigrees show the descendants of both the Berw and Pennant lines resulting from this marriage.
The LDS website has the Berw Line descending from this marriage, but has the Pennant line descending from a marriage between John ap Howel and Angharad vch Dafydd of Penmachno, Caernarfonshire. HHE has his wife as Gwen (Gwenllean) vch Dafydd of Betws Y Coed. As Penmachno is within four miles of Betws y Coed it seems likely that these are one and the same person.
In his notebook HHE quotes the date of the marriage between John and Angharad (Gwen) vch David ap David ap Howel Coetmore as being in 1476. This marriage is confirmed in the Gfs pedigrees page192, but the descent is vch Dafydd ap Howel which is most likely correct. There are no descendants quoted from this marriage. HHE states that the residence of Howel Coetmor was at Hendre Rhys Gethin and that he was known in his day as a gallant soldier by the name of the Knight of Bettws. His remains are interred in the parish church of Llanrwst. He was head of the Tribe of Howel Coetmor (Gfs, p394) and his descendancy from Owen Gwynedd is confirmed in the Ttribe of Owen Gwynedd reproduced in Gfs, p393. His coat of Arms can be seen in the Llanrwst church and there are references to him in Arch Camb 1874, p128-131. None of the above pedigrees show any issues from this marriage.
For the time being, for consistency with the main published pedigrees, I have opted to use Elin vch Ithel as the motherof the Pennant & Berw line descendants. Some more research will berequired to establish the source of the LDS data.
The GFS pedigree (p110) refers to John of Berw and according to Gfs he was High Sheriff of Anglesey in 1461. John's marriage to Ellinor is believed to have taken place between 1470 and 1480 according to a NLW biography. He would have been middle aged by this time so this gives some credence to the suggestion that he married twice. If these dates are correct it implies that he had interests in Anglesey for some timebefore his betrothal to Elin so it seems possible that Elin was his second wife, and that he moved there to start his second family leaving Morgan to inherit the Pennant estate, by which time his other children by his first marriage would have been old enough to fend forthemselves.
In addition to his eldest son Morgan the LDS pedigree and Bernard Holland pedigrees also include a Miss Holland who married Rhys ap Dafydd, Elizabeth, and Jonet who married Hugh Ednyfed. None of these appear on the Gfs pedigree, possibly because they do not form part of the main lines of descent; for completeness I have included them in the Eglwysbach Pedigree.
According to HHE in documents XDS101/23/47 and 101/23/39 the youngest son of John Holland was by Angharad was Gruffydd. He had a daughter Isabella who married Rhys ap Jenkin. There is no reference to his wifes name.
There appear to be two possible scenarios regarding the descendants of John;
Option 1: His first wife Angharad died young without issue between 1476 and 1480 and all the descendants were from his marriage with Ellin. We know that Owen Holland ap John was High sheriff of Anglesey in 1504. If we assume it was unlikely that he would have had had such a responsible office bestowed upon him before the age of twenty one years, then it is unlikely that he was born before 1483. As Gryffydd was born after Owen there would have been just enough time for the other three named children to have been born between Morgan and Owen assuming 18 months per birth. It is also possible that some or all of the others were born after Owen.
Option 2: John and Angharad had all the above named children except Owen by her. This would have left at best 7 years to have had five children which seems highly unlikely.
Option 1 seems to be the most plausible and agrees with Gfs and Dwnn. Unless any further information emerges to underwrite the HHE and LDS versions we have opted to adopt option 1 as the most likely outcome.
According to HHE (XDS/11/1, p 5) Gruffydd had a daughter Isabella from an unknown spouse. Isabella married Rhys ap Jenkin ap Llwellyn of Trofarth and Betws Yn Rhos. Their daughter Gwen married John ap Owen of Ttrallwyn in Llansanffraid and of Gell Y Gell in Eglwys Bach. Their granddaughter by this marriage, Jane Owen, married Jeffrey Holland the great grandson of John ap Howel. Jane Owen’s sister, Mary, by her marriage to Edmund Williams was the mother of Archbishop John Williams (1582-1650). Edmund Williams was of Maes Cadwgan, Township of Arianas, near Conwy. This is in fact in Gyffin Parish and interestingly was later in the tenure of Ellin Holland according to the 1794 land tax records.
Notes include input from Brian Holland.