Of Madawg from the rage of his
countrymen, who were incensed against him because, having married
Emma, the daughter of James Lord Audley, he had, at the instigation
of his wife and father-in-law, sided with Edward the First against
his own native sovereign. But though it could shield him from his
foes, it could not preserve him from remorse and the stings of
conscience, of which he speedily died.
At present the place consists only of a few ruined walls, and
probably consisted of little more two or three hundred years ago:
Roger Cyffyn a Welsh bard, who flourished at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, wrote an englyn upon it, of which the
following is a translation:-
"Gone, gone are thy gates, Dinas Bran on the height!
Thy warders are blood-crows and ravens, I trow;
Now no one will wend from the field of the fight
To the fortress on high, save the raven and crow."
CHAPTER VII
Poor Black Cat - Dissenters - Persecution - What Impudence!
THE house or cottage, for it was called a cottage though it
consisted of two stories, in which my wife had procured lodgings
for us, was situated in the Northern suburb. Its front was towards
a large perllan or orchard, which sloped down gently to the banks
of the Dee; its back was towards the road leading from Wrexham,
behind which was a high bank, on the top of which was a canal
called in Welsh the Camlas, whose commencement was up the valley
about two miles west.
