John Games (1559 - 1613)

Born 1559 in Newton, Breconshire, Wales

Ancestors

Husband of Elizabeth Ann (Gwyn) Games — married 1580 in Breconshire, Wales

Descendants

Died 1613 at about age 54 in Newton, Breconshire, Wales

Problems/Questions Profile manager: John Gaines [send private message]

Biography

The will of Sir John Games, Knight, was written on the 17th of October 1613 and proved on the 13th of December the same year.
It names his two sons:

1. Edward Games son and heir apparent, his sole Executor
2. John Games, who is left 40 pounds towards purchasing chambers at the Middle Temple, London. ^[1]

The seat of this branch of the Games family at this time was Newton House, Breconshire, Wales. Sir John Games made modifications to the house and had carved into the main fireplace there a list of his male ancestors in the supposed line to Dafydd Gam. This gives Sir John's father as Edward Games.^[2]
The inscription, dated 1582, reads:
JOHN GAMES, MAB AG ETYFEDD HENA EDWARD GAMES AP JOHN AP MORGAN AP EVAN AP DAFYDD GAM 1582
In English this would be ‘ John Games, son and eldest heir of Edward Games, son of John son of Morgan son of Evan son of Daffyd Gam.’

Games of Newton Pedigree 01

Notes on the family etc. :

Sir John Games. He was the great-great-great-grandson of the famous David Gam. Sir John built, in 1582, and lived in the manor fortress called Newton on a piece of land that had been in his family for hundreds of years. This farm, Newton, is still in existence; I visited there last summer. This was all the info my wife and I had to go on when we scheduled 3 days in a B and B in Brecon. It is beautiful pastoral mountainous country. Our first day there we located Newton at the confluence of two rivers. We met the current tenants, they had lived there as tenant farmers for over 60 years. They live in only 3 rooms of the huge four story home, the rest is very medievel with tall ceilings and massive windows and doors. The focal point is the mantle above the fireplace in the great hall. It was installed by Sir John Games and traces his lineage, in Wel[s]h, back 6 generations to David Gam. Above the fireplace is the family coat of arms, said to have been deliberatley defaced by Cromwell's revolutionary troops. The Games family was prominent in Brecon and there are other notable estates with Games connections. One of them is called PenPont. It was built around 1666 on land that belonged to David Gam's greatgrandfather Einion Sais. A great castle there was destroyed in 1400 by Owain Glendower the revolutionary Welchman who was an enemy to the royalist Gams. Anyway, the grand[d]aughter of Sir John, was the first inhabitant of this fine mansion which we visited. It is now a B and B and is run by descendants of Sir John Games. I read in a book that many old family portraits were housed there including on of Sir John himself. I asked the owner to see it, [but] she informed me that it had been auctioned off in 1992! They don't know where it is now. I would like to track this down somehow.

David Gam, d. 1415, Welsh warrior, is more properly styled Davydd ab Llewelyn. "Gam" is a nickname meaning "squinting," which, like other Welsh nicknames, became equivalent to a surname. David's father was Llewelyn, the son of Hywel, the son of Eineon Sais. Llewelyn possessed fair estates in the parishes of Garthbrengy and Llanddew, which lay within the honour or lordship of Brecon, a dependency of the earldom of Hereford, and after 1399 lapsed to the crown by the accession of Henry IV, who had long enjoyed that earldom. Peytyn was the name of Llewelyn's chief residence. David is described in a verse attributed to Owain Glyndwr as a short red-haired man with a squint. He was faithful to his lord, Henry IV, even during the revolt of Owain. He was rewarded for his services by a large share in the South Welsh lands confiscated from rebels in 1401 (Wylie, Hist. of Henry IV, p. 245). There is a story that David plotted against the life of Owain when attending the Welsh parliament at Machynlleth. But it rests on no early authority, misdates the year of the Machynlleth parliament, and wrongly makes David a brother-in-law of Owain. There seems nothing to show that David ever wavered in his allegiance. David was taken prisoner by Owain, probably at a time when Owain's successes were very few. On 14 June 1412 David's father, Llewelyn ab Hywel, and the seneschal and receiver of Brecon were empowered to treat with Owain, and by ransom or by capturing rebel prisoners to extricate David from his rigorous imprisonment (Federa, viii. 753). It is said that David soon after got into trouble by killing a kinsman in an affray in Brecon town. In 1415 David, accompanied by three foot archers only, followed Henry V on his invasion of France (Nicolas, Battle of Agincourt, p. 379). It is reported that when, on the eve of the battle of Agincourt, he was questioned by the king as to the number of the enemy, he replied "that there were enough to be slain, enough to be taken prisoners, and enough to run away." The story, however, first appears in Sir Walter Raleigh's "History of the World" (p. 451). David was slain at the battle of Agincourt, which was fought on 25 Oct. 1415. The contemporary chroniclers who notice his death simply describe him as an esquire (Walsingham, ii. 313; cf. "Chronicles of London," quoted in Nicolas, pp. 279-80). There is a tradition that he was knighted for his valour when dying on the field of battle, and the fact that one chronicler says that two recently dubbed knights were slain (Gesta Henrici Quinti, p. 58, Engl. Hist. Soc.) is thought to bear out the story. But one writer at least mentions both the two knights and David Gam (Nicolas, p. 280). Lewis Glyn Cothi, a Welsh poet of the next generation, who celebrated the praises of David's children and grandchildren, regularly speaks of him, however, as "Syr Davydd Gam" (Gwaith, pp. 1, 8).

It has been suggested that David is the original of Shakespeare's Fluellen. This is not at all an improbable conjecture, as Fluellen is plainly a corruption of Llewelyn, and David was generally called David Llewelyn, or ab Llewelyn. The reference to him in Raleigh shows also that his name was familiar to the age of Elizabeth.

David is said to have married Gwenllian, daughter of Gwilym, son of Hywel Grach. He left a family. His son Morgan became the ancestor of the Games of Breconshire. His daughter Gwladus was by her second husband, Sir William ab Thomas of Raglan, the mother of William, the first Herbert Earl of Pembroke.

Llewelyn Ap Howel (David Gam's Father). Llewelyn possessed fair estates in the parishes of Garthbrengy and Llanddew, which lay within the honour or lordship of Brecon, a dependency of the earldom of Hereford, and after 1399 lapsed to the crown by the accession of Henry IV, who had long enjoyed that earldom. Peytyn was the name of Llewelyn's chief residence. On 14 June 1412 Llewelyn ab Hywel, and the seneschal and receiver of Brecon were empowered to treat with Owain Glendower, and by ransom or by capturing rebel prisoners to extricate David from his rigorous imprisonment (Federa, viii. 753).

Einion Sais: (David Gam's Great-grandfather). His residence was near Bettwa Chapel in Brocknockshire, Wales though "not a stone remains" Dwnn's visitations of Wales, Vol III page 36 footnote 12.

Sennybridge Castle, aka Castell Rhyd-Y-Briw & Castell Du Powys, mid Wales. Location map link for Sennybridge Castle. Only fragments of the south wall of a courtyard with a projecting round tower about 7.8m in diameter now survive of a 13th century castle, alternately known as Castell Rhyd-Y-Briw. This may have been the castle begun by Llywelyn ap Gruffydd in 1262, and in 1271 was occupied by his ally Einion Sais, who is traditionally said to have had a second castle at Penpont where a tributary stream flows into the River Usk halfway between Castell Du and Brecon.

From History of the County of Brecknock by Theophilus Jones (1898), volume 2, page 77: [1321] The younger [Hugh] D'Espencer was now constituted governor of Brecknock castle; and afterwards obtained a grant of the lordship, together with Penkelly, Cantreff-Selyff, Blanllyfni and Dinas, late the property of the earl of Hereford and Roger Mortimer, [John] Giffard and Rhys ap Hywel, who had been attainted for the late rebellion. [The Earl of Lancaster's rebellion, which ended at Boroughbridge in 1321]. This last was the lineal descendant of Bleddyn ap Maenarch and grandson of that Trahearn fychan who was so inhumanly murdered by William de Breos of Brecknock

page 80: Einion the second son of Rhys ap Hywel, whose attainder has been noticed, embraced a military life and served our third Edward in the memorable battles of Cressy and Poictiers; after a long residence in England he returned to his native country with considerable

opulence and married the rich heiress of Howel, lord of Miscin in Glamorganshire; he became possessed by purchase of nearly the whole of what is now called the hundred of Devynnock, from Llywel on the borders of Carmarthenshire to the river Tarell near Brecon. He built a

castellated mansion for his residence in the parish of Llandspyddid, lately called the castle field, now the property of Penry Williams of Penpont, esquire: it is described to have been situated on the fall of a small brook into the Usk, near Bettws or Penpont chapel: there is still an

unevenness in the surface of the ground, though there are not now the smallest vestiges of buildings remaining; Hugh Thomas, who wrote in 1698, recollects to have seen the ruins, and there are others living who remember the rubbish being removed and the soil cleared of the

stones and materials of the walls: it was called from the owner, Castell Einion Sais, or Einion the Englishman's castle, an appellation by which the Welsh to this day sometimes distinguish not only the English settlers among them, but also their own countrymen who have been brought up and educated in England. - Curt Gaines

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Sources

1. ↑ Will of Sir John Games, 1613. PROB 11/122/651 Will catalogue entry
2. ↑ Newton House on Wikipedia

• Poole, Edwin. The Illustrated History and Biography of Brecknockshire pp. 92-93

• Jones, Theophilus. The History of Brecknockshire. vol 2, p. 175. Brecknock: 1805. Games Pedigree

• Walcotts of Shropshire (19)

See Also

• Descendants of David Gam NB this gives Sir John Games naming his father as Edward Games.

• NAME, BIRTH [Heritage Consulting. The Millennium File. Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Heritage Consulting]

NAME, BIRTH, DEATH

• Alabama, Surname Files Expanded, 1702–1981, Alabama Department of Archives and History; Montgomery, AL; Alabama Surname Files; Box or Film Number: M84-4669, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Provo, UT