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| Owen de la Pole | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lord of Powys | |||||
| Born | c. 1257 England | ||||
| Died | c. 1293 (aged 35–36) | ||||
| Spouse | Joan Corbet | ||||
| Issue | Gruffydd de la Pole Hawys Gadarn, Lady of Powys, Baroness Cherleton | ||||
| |||||
| House | House of Mathrafal | ||||
| Father | Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn | ||||
| Mother | Hawise Lestrange | ||||
Owen de la Pole (c. 1257 – c. 1293), also known asOwain ap Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, was theheir presumptive to theWelsh principality ofPowys Wenwynwyn until 1283 when it was abolished by the Parliament of Shrewsbury. He became the1st Lord of Powis after the death of his fatherGruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn c. 1287. He is not related to the English de la Pole family descended fromWilliam de la Pole, Chief Baron of the Exchequer in the following century, later Earls andDukes of Suffolk.
Owen was born inEngland sometime after his fatherGruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn was driven into exile there in 1257 byLlywelyn ap Gruffudd, ruler of theKingdom of Gwynedd. It was during this exile that his father probably adopted the surnamede la Pole meaning "of the Pool" and referring to the old name forWelshpool which had become his family's capital. Owen's mother wasHawise Lestrange, daughter ofJohn Lestrange.[1] His uncles wereHamo le Strange andRoger le Strange, Baron Strange, and his cousins wereJohn le Strange, 1st Baron Strange of Knockyn andFulk le Strange, 1st Baron Strange of Blackmere.[2] His maternal aunt was queenIsabella, Lady of Beirut,[2] a granddaughter of the Duke of Athens,Guy I de la Roche, and descendant of bothBalian of Ibelin and the Byzantine emperorJohn II Komnenos.
In 1263 following theTreaty of Montgomery his father was restored to some of his lands in return for agreeing to pay homage to Llywelyn asPrince of Wales. However, good relations between Powys Wenwynwyn and Gwynedd were short-lived as Owen and his father were soon implicated in an assassination attempt on the Prince of Wales in 1274. This led to Owen and his father fleeing toShrewsbury where they both led border raids against the Principality of Wales on behalf of the English crown.
Following Llywelyn's defeat at the hands ofEdward I of England in 1277 Owen returned to Wales alongside his father whose lands had been restored. They soon became embroiled in a border dispute with Llywelyn which was one of the catalysts for a renewed campaign by the princes of Gwynedd against English domination. In 1284, following theConquest of Wales by Edward I, thede la Pole family surrendered their princely pretensions, but received back their principality in "free barony" as themarcher lordship of Powys. Owen's father Gruffydd died around 1286.
In 1290, Owen endowed his four younger brothers with portions of the lordship, which were to be held for him as his feudal tenants. Two brothers (who were priests) received their portions for life, the shares of the other two were to revert to Owen on failure of issue. OnlyWilliam left children and they enjoyed the Lordship ofMawddwy and the majority ofMallwyd for several generations, before it was divided between coheirs in the early 16th century. One of the coheiresses was Elisabeth de Burgh, who married Sir John Lingen (d. 1505), and left descendants from this princely house.
Owen marriedJoan Corbet, the daughter of Robert Corbet andCatherine Le Strange, members of theCorbet family; together they had a daughter and probably five sons:
He lived the latter part of his life inPowys Castle inWelshpool and died c. 1293. After his death the lordship of Powis passed to his son Griffith, who died in childless in 1309, and then to his daughter Hawise and her descendants from her marriage toJohn Charleton, 1st Baron Cherleton.
