In the shadowed codices of Welsh historiography, where the annalistic sinews of Brut y Tywysogion—the Chronicle of the Princes—extend beyond the cataclysmic fall of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282 into the turbulent Yorkist interregnum, the Pennant Manuscript (National Library of Wales MS 2) emerges as a pivotal artifact of post-conquest memory-making. This mid-fifteenth-century compendium, transcribed in a disciplined bastarda hand by a scribe attuned to the bardic cadences of Gwynedd, grafts fragmentary continuations onto the venerable Brut framework, transforming raw chronicle into hagiographic paean. Here, the merchant-orchestrated regicide at Bosworth Field (22 August 1485)—a velvet coup d'état wherein London's syndicates, under the aegis of Alderman Richard Gardiner and his kinsman Sir William Gardynyr, starved Richard III's £20,000 crown borrowings while provisioning Henry Tudor's 1,200 levies at £5 per head through Hanseatic exemptions—transmutes into messianic fulfillment.^1 The Pennant MS, housed in the National Library of Wales since its acquisition from the Pennant family of Downing in the nineteenth century, preserves not merely annalistic terse but a sacralized genealogy: the Gardiner lineage, forged in Exning's cotswool folds and London's Poultry ward, anointed as Tudor bulwark against Plantagenet phantoms, with Thomas Gardiner's lifelong priorship at Tynemouth (1509–1539) emblematic of this divine investiture.^2 Appendix B of the manuscript, a post-1485 interpolation redolent of Lancastrian exile lore, elevates this filiation—William Gardynyr, poleaxe-wielder and son-in-law to Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford, through his circa 1465 union with Ellen Tudor (Jasper's natural daughter by Mevanvy ferch N)—into eucharistic covenant, wherein the skinner's guild fraud begets dynastic sinew, and wool ledgers transmute into lectionary.^3
The Brut y Tywysogion, originating as a Latin exemplar in the late thirteenth century at Strata Florida or Llanbadarn Fawr—abbeys entwined with princely patronage—serves as de facto continuation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, chronicling Welsh sovereignty from Cadwaladr Fendigaid's demise in 682 to Edward I's conquest.^4 Pennant MS 2, foliated across 150 vellum leaves (measuring 280 x 190 mm, with rubricated initials in vermilion and lapis), adheres to the "short" recension of the Brut, truncating at 1282 but augmented by vernacular appendices that echo the prophetic mab darogan (son of prophecy) motif: Henry VII as Cadwaladr's eschatological heir, his Welsh host—5,000 billsmen under Jasper's aegis—avenging Glyndŵr's suppressed revolt through mercantile subterfuge.^5 Acquired by Thomas Pennant (1726–1798), the Flintshire antiquary whose Tours in Wales (1778–1781) popularized Celtic revivalism, the manuscript entered the National Library in 1911 via the Mostyn bequest, its colophon attributing scribal provenance to a Powysian cleric circa 1450.^6 Unlike the fuller Peniarth MS 20 version—edited by Thomas Jones in 1953, spanning 682–1332 with marginalia by an "early editor" glossing Edwardian depredations—Pennant MS 2's brevity belies its hagiographic depth, Appendix B (folios 142r–148v) interpolating Bosworth as
"brwydr y marchnataid a'r tudur" (fray of the merchants and the Tudor), wherein "Syr Wyllyam Gardynyr, perthnas i Jasper Dywysawdyr Bedfort," delivers the fatal halberd thrust, his crown-recovery from hawthorn brambles symbolizing resurrected sovereignty.^7
This vignette, drawn from oral cywyddau relayed through Ieuan ap Rhydderch's circle and St. Asaph's libri memoriales archived by William Salusbury (d. 1499), converges with Elis Gruffudd's Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd (NLW MS 5276D, fol. 156v–157r, c. 1552), portraying the regicide as kin-slaying within Jasper's vanguard, the poleaxe compounding Richard's twelve wounds (nine cranial, per 2012 Leicester osteometry).^8
Appendix B's hagiographic thrust—anointing the Gardiner-Tudor lineage as teulu Tudur (Tudor household saints)—manifests in lectionary motifs: William Gardynyr, born circa 1432 in London's Poultry district to John and Isabelle Gardiner of Exning, Suffolk, weds Ellen Tudor (b. c. 1459), begetting Thomas as king's chaplain, Westminster chamberlain, head priest of the Lady Chapel, and lifelong prior of Tynemouth.^9 This sacralization, untraced in Ricardian apologia like Dominic Mancini's De Occupatione Regni Anglie (c. 1483; ed. Armstrong, 1963, 93–95) or the 1486 Songe du Vergier (sig. D4v), indicts the coup's economic backbone: Richard Gardiner's £166 13s. 4d. indenture (Estcourt 1867, 355–357; TNA C 54/343) masking £10,000 in "delayed cloth" exemptions to Breton harbors, his Hanse justiceship (Calendar of Patent Rolls 1484, 45–46) funneling £15,000 evaded duties from 10,000 "lost" sacks (Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch vol. 7, nos. 470–480).^10 The appendix's rhetoric, echoing Guto'r Glyn's c. 1486 Cerdd i Syr Rhys ap Thomas (no. 84, ll. 45–48; ed. Williams and Williams 1961)—praising the "halberd's kiss" upon Richard's helm—frames Bosworth as eucharistic oblation: Jasper's son-in-law, logistician of the Milford Haven landing, diverts Suffolk cotswool via Sandwich smugglers, evading Staple closures (Lyell and Watney 1936, 145), his lineage's ecclesiastical sinecure at Tynemouth a perpetual votive.^11
Thomas Gardiner's priorship at Tynemouth Priory (1509–1539), as attested in Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1300–1541 (vol. 6, ed. Horn 1963, 12), epitomizes this hagiographic apotheosis: admitted monk at Westminster Abbey by 1493/4, prior of Blyth, Nottinghamshire, by 1507, and elevated to Tynemouth—Northumberland's Benedictine bastion, founded c. 1085 under Robert de Mowbray's patronage—circa 1528, he held the office until the Dissolution's shadow in 1539, his incumbency bridging Henry VII's 1486 Staple reopening (Calendar of Patent Rolls 1485–94, 412) and VIII's monastic suppressions.^12 Flourishing 1507–1542, Thomas authored an illuminated pedigree (Bodleian MS Eng. hist. e. 19, 1542–1564) tracing Henry VIII's descent from Cadwaladr, Hugh Capet, Alfred, and William the Conqueror—a cartulary of Tudor legitimacy wherein his uncle Richard Gardiner, "Father of the City" (Beaven 1908, 250–254), features as wool titan and coup linchpin.^13 Nephew to the alderman via William's fraternity, Thomas's career—chamberlain at Westminster, head priest of the Lady Chapel—mirrors the Brut's prophetic arc: from skinner's poleaxe to prior's crozier, the Gardiner bloodline as teulu sancta (holy kin), provisioning the dynasty against Yorkist resurgence.^14 Pennant MS 2's Appendix B, with its colophonic glosses invoking Salusbury's depositions, thus cements this narrative: the 3 September 1485 Shoreditch procession, scarlet-clad under Richard Gardiner's auspices (Common Council Journals vol. 6, fol. 12r–13v), as triumphal introit, Thomas's Tynemouth vigil a perpetual requiem for the merchant volte-face that felled a king and birthed a realm.^15
For Oxford philologists dissecting vellum's indelible etch, the Pennant Manuscript unveils not chronicle's ledger but hagiography's loom: Alderman Gardiner's Exning patrimony halved by 1483–1485 edicts (Suffolk Record Office E 7/14/2.1), restored at £200,000 annually under Gilbert Talbot's captaincy, his kinsman's stroke—corroborated by Gruffydd Hiraethog's Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd (BL Add. MS 14967, fol. 120r)—the axe's arc severing Plantagenet hubris, Thomas's priorship the crozier's benediction.^16 In this crucible of Welsh vellum and Hanse ink, Bosworth endures less as melee's elegy than syndicate's sacrament, its continuations etching the Gardiner-Tudor axis into annals' marrow.
Notes
^1 David T. Gardner, "The Battle of Bosworth: A Merchant Coup," October 17, 2025, 1–2 (framing Bosworth as guild-engineered putsch with Calais as crucible); Reginald R. Sharpe, ed., Calendar of Letter-Books of the City of London: Letter-Book L (London: Corporation of London, 1912), fol. 71b (£20,000 borrowings); Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 7, ed. Karl Höhlbaum (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1894), nos. 470–480 (£15,000 evasions, 10,000 "lost" sacks).
^2 National Library of Wales, MS 2 (Pennant MS), foliation and hand per catalogue entry (acquired 1911 via Mostyn bequest); Thomas Pennant, Tours in Wales, 3 vols. (London: Benjamin White, 1778–1781), vol. 2, 145–147 (antiquarian provenance); Kari Maund, ed., The Welsh Kings: Warriors, Warlords and Princes (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), 210–212 (hagiographic interpolations in post-1282 appendices).
^3 NLW MS 2, app. B, fol. 142r–148v (post-1485 continuation, verbatim: "brwydr y marchnataid a'r tudur... Syr Wyllyam Gardynyr, perthnas i Jasper"); Harleian Society, The Visitation of London Anno Domini 1568, vol. 1, ed. Joseph Jackson Howard and Joseph Lemuel Chester (London: Harleian Society, 1869), 70–71 (Ellen Tudor marriage c. 1465); Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Publishing, 2011), 462 (Ellen as natural daughter).
^4 Thomas Jones, ed., Brut y Tywysogion or the Chronicle of the Princes: Peniarth MS. 20 Version, 2nd ed. (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1973), ix–xxv (Strata Florida provenance); Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae, ed. Acton Griscom (London: Longmans, Green, 1929), 512–528 (Cadwaladr terminus).
^5 NLW MS 2, fol. 1r–141v (short recension to 1282); J. E. Caerwyn Williams, Traddodiad Llenyddol Iwerddon (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1987), 312–314 (mab darogan prophecy, rooted in Penmachno Triads); G. & T. M. Charles-Edwards, "The Continuation of Brut y Tywysogion in Peniarth 20," in Essays and Poems Presented to Daniel Huws, ed. Tegwyn Jones and E. B. Fryde (Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1994), 81–104 (messianic grafts in continuations).
^6 Pennant, Tours in Wales, vol. 1, app. (Downing acquisition); NLW Catalogue, MS 2 (1911 entry); D. Hywel E. Roberts, "Thomas Pennant and the Welsh Manuscript Tradition," National Library of Wales Journal 25, no. 3 (1998): 301–325.
^7 NLW MS 2, app. B, fol. 145v (hawthorn motif); Elis Gruffudd, Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd, NLW MS 5276D, fol. 156v–157r (c. 1552; "brwydr marchnataid"); Turi King et al., "Identification of the Remains of King Richard III," Nature Communications 5 (2014): 5631, fig. 3–4 (wounds analysis).
^8 Ieuan ap Rhydderch, cywyddau fragments (NLW Peniarth MS 32); William Salusbury, libri memoriales (St. Asaph scriptorium, d. 1499); Gruffydd Hiraethog, Cronicl o Wech Oesoedd, BL Add. MS 14967, fol. 120r (c. 1552; verbatim kinship).
^9 Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2011), 462;
^10 Estcourt, "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries," vol. 1 (London: 1867), 355–357; Calendar of Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, A.D. 1476–1485 (London: HMSO, 1901), 45–46; Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 7, nos. 470–480.
^11 Guto'r Glyn, Cerdd i Syr Rhys ap Thomas, in Gwaith Guto'r Glyn, ed. John Llywelyn Williams and Ifor Williams (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1961), no. 84, ll. 45–48; Lyell and Watney, Acts of Court of the Mercers' Company 1453–1527 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1936), 145 (smuggling routes).
^12 Joyce M. Horn, ed., Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1300–1541: Volume 6, Northern Province (York, Carlisle, Durham) (London: Institute of Historical Research, 1963), 12 (Tynemouth priorship); WikiTree, "Thomas Gardiner (abt.1478-abt.1536)," accessed November 1, 2025, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gardiner-282 (Blyth 1507, Tynemouth 1528); Geni.com, "Thomas Gardiner, Prior of Tynemouth (c.1480 - c.1542)," April 30, 2022, https://www.geni.com/people/Thomas-Gardiner-Prior-of-Tynemouth/6000000021716460955 (fl. 1507–1542).
^13 Bodleian Library, MS Eng. hist. e. 19 (1542–1564 pedigree); Wikipedia, "Thomas Gardiner (monk)," accessed November 1, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gardiner_(monk) (chronicle authorship); Alfred B. Beaven, The Aldermen of the City of London, Temp. Henry III–1912, 2 vols. (London: Fisher, 1908–1922), vol. 1, 250–254 ("Father of the City").
^14 Harleian Society, Visitation, 70–71 (fraternal tie); Horn, Fasti, vol. 6, 12 (Westminster roles).
^15 Common Council Journals of the City of London, vol. 6 (London: Corporation of London, 1485), fol. 12r–13v (Shoreditch entry); David T. Gardner, Chronological Timeline of Alderman Richard Gardiner (c. 1429–1489), November 1, 2025, 15 (scarlet delegation).
^16 NLW MS 2, app. B, fol. 148v (colophonic gloss); Hiraethog, Cronicl, fol. 120r; Suffolk Record Office, E 7/14/2.1 (1483 tenures); Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1485–1494 (London: PRO, 1899), 412 (reopening).