Welsh Journals

and it would have in no way suited his purpose to have embodied the Welsh account even if he had knowledge of it. On the other hand the biographer, though he is as manifestly inspired by his theme and though he writes some fifty years later than Hall, was a Welshman with Welsh sources and local traditions accessible to him. That he could have given to the world a fabrication openly at variance with the story as accepted in South Wales is highly improbable. Moreover the Welsh poems, both vaticinatory and personal, are unanimous in speak- ing of Rhys as the mainstay of the expedition from the outset,1 and the contemporary English ballad, The Song of the Lady Bessy, makes ap Thomas a party to the enter- prise before Henry's landing.2 Another incident, recorded by Hall, would seem to indicate that Henry himself at least was confident of Welsh support. Early in 1485 Richard III, to thwart the designs of his enemies, contemplated a marriage with his niece, Elizabeth of York, the proposed bride of Henry, 1 e.g., Lewis Glyn Cothi's poem to Jasper Tudor­ written before the landing:— Cymer di, wyr Cymmry d'ach, Y Vran yn dy gyvrinach. The ballad describes how Stanley, preparing for the plot, con- cealed the Lady Bessy in Leicester and sent Lord Strange to Richard III to lull his suspicions; and- Thereon the hart's head was set full high Sir Gilbert Talbot ten thousand doggs In one hour's warning for to be, And Sir John Savage fifteen white hoods, Which would fight and never flee; Edward Stanley had three hundred men, There were no better in Christantye Sir Rees ap Thomas, a knight of Wales certain, Eight thousand spears brought he. The most pleasant Song of Lady Bessy (Percy Soc.), p. 33. Lewis Glyn Cothi, Poems, Dos. viii, 5.