The Jewel of Ynys Galon, Being a Hitherto Unprinted Chapter in the History of the Sea Rovers (1895)

The Jewel of Ynys Galon, Being a Hitherto Unprinted Chapter in the History of the Sea Rovers was written by “Owen Rhoscomyl,” the pseudonym of Robert Scowfield Mills (1863-1919), a Welsh adventurer and author. Mills, a Welsh patriot, wrote both non-fiction about Wales’ history and fiction set in Wales. Mills was a contemporary of the great Stanley J. Weyman (see: From the Memoirs of a Minister of France) and was one of the Yellow Nineties historical romance authors influenced by Weyman.

The Jewel of Ynys Galon was Mills’ first novel, and it is a fine debut. Set on the coast of Wales in the mid-seventeenth century, the novel is about Ivor Meyric, a.k.a. Ivor Ap Griffith Ap Howel, and his family and friends in the village of Pwllwen. Ivor’s foster-brother, Will Barry, is one of the two rightful heirs to the Island of Ynys Galon and the Spanish galleon treasure hidden somewhere on the island. Unfortunately, the other rightful heir is Meyric Ddu ap Morgan, a.k.a. Sir Henry Morgan, the infamous pirate “Captain Morgan.” According to the deathbed requirement of the last king of Ynys Galon, the island can only be claimed by the owner of the Jewel of Ynys Galon after he fights all other claimants, naked and armed with swords. Will eventually fulfills these requirements, and after the men of Pwllwen have bloodily slaughtered Morgan’s pirates, Will and Morgan duel, and Will kills Morgan.

It is Will and not Ivor who dominates much of the action of The Jewel of Ynys Galon, so that a summary of the plot inevitably makes Will, rather than Ivor, sound like the hero of the novel. Ivor is the narrator and main character, but he is almost a supporting character in his own story, since the plot is about the restoration of Ynys Galon to the Morgans. But Ivor is nonetheless an interesting case. He is heroic and good in a fight; after the main battle with Morgan’s pirates Ivor earns the name “Ivor-y-Fwyall,” or “Ivor of the Axe,” since he used an axe to kill several pirates. Ivor is also extremely immature, almost insufferably vain, and not a little headstrong. After the first thirty pages the modern reader is predisposed to dislike Ivor. But, interestingly and to Mills’ credit, Ivor is not a stereotypical teenager. He loves his father, even reveres him, and, even better, respects him. When Ivor does wrong, he immediately confesses it to his father, who loves Ivor back and forgives him his wrongs, which are the product of impetuous youth rather than maliciousness. Ivor genuinely respects the elders of his town, and though proud–he repeatedly struts and swaggers through Pwllwen in his finery–he is polite and respectful toward his father’s friends and contemporaries and even his father’s tenants. And though Ivor is proud, he is not boastful, and would prefer to sing the praises of his father or foster-brother than himself.

The Jewel of Ynys Galon is not a little entertaining because of this. It has swashbuckling, pirates on the Welsh coast, an immortal prophesying witch, and enough derring-do to keep most readers entertained, but besides all that it has in Ivor a teenager who is a three-dimensional character rather than a stereotype.

As mentioned Mills was an adventurer, having spent time in the 1880s as a “cowboy, Indian fighter, and outlaw under the assumed name of ‘Robert Glyndwr’...his American adventure, however, ended with the violent closing of the open range–an event known as the Horse Thief War.”¹During the first of Rhoscomyl’s peripatetic stays in Wales in the 1890s,

the inspiration of Young Wales still echoed. He regarded Wales in much the same way as he had once regarded the wild plains and boom towns of the American west, an open land of opportunity on the verge of national development, promising personal prosperity and fulfilment. Recognizing the absence of Welsh characters and themes in contemporary English fiction, his writing was a conscious attempt to assert a Welsh presence in the popular historical imagination. Playing the role of a Cymric Sir Walter Scott, Rhoscomyl penned a series of ‘romances’ to compel the Welsh–particularly the English-speaking Welsh–to reclaim the glories of their past, employing a style that ‘dry histories or humdrum textbooks’ could never inspire.²

Rhoscomyl’s historical romances were only modestly successful financially, but modern readers will agree that–at least as far as The Jewel of Ynys Galon is concerned–they were far more successful aesthetically and have aged quite well.

¹ John S. Ellis, “Outlaw Historian: Owen Rhoscomyl and Popular History in Edwardian Wales,” in Writing a Small Nation’s Past: Wales in Comparative Perspective, 1850-1950, Neil Evans and Huw Price, eds. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 111.

² Ellis, “Outlaw Historian,” 112-113.