Catrin fychan biography of donald

A family of Welsh poets who lived in Ardudwy, Meironnydd, in the 16th and 17th cents.. Their period ranges from c. 1543, in which year Siôn Phylip was probably born, to 1678, when probate was granted of the will of Phylip Siôn Phylip, one of his sons. The royalist poet, William Phylip, is usually accounted of the group. The two brothers, Siôn and Rhisiart, and Siôn's two sons, Gruffydd and Phylip Siôn, wrote mainly in the strict metres. There is abundant evidence that Siôn, Rhisiart, and Gruffydd were professional bards, who paid visit after visit to houses of note, mainly in North Wales, receiving hospitality and payment for their poems. Phylip Siôn Phylip, however, does not appear to have written to any but his immediate neighbours; there is no evidence that he was a clerwr. William Phylip, who wrote more in the free metres than in cynghanedd, was a gwr bonheddig tiriawg (landed gentleman), who wrote as and when inspired. Siôn wrote several poems to members of the Vaughan family of Corsygedol, as did his son Gruffydd a generation later, whilst Rhisiart was bardd teulu (household poet) to the Vaughan family of Nannau. But not one of the three confined the range of his 'family' poems to these Merioneth

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