The late Mr. Alfred Neobard Palmer, in his Notes on the Earlyh History of Bangor Is y Coed (1) and in a very able paper on Welsh Settlements, East of offa's Dyke during the Eleventh Century (2) has made out a good case for the recovery of portions of the lands held by Tudur Trefor by Rhys Sais and his family. He says (3):
"It is possible to give the name of the Welsh lord who about this time [some years before 1086] seized the greater part of the parish of Bangor. This was no other than Elidyr ap Rhys Sais. His father, Rhys Sais, a descendant of Lluddoccaf, one of the sons of Tudor Trefor, was already in possession of most of the country about Chirk and Whittington, and before the coming of the Normans had got possession of Erbistock (4). . . .It was the lands of St. Chad [which Leofric of Mercia had granted in 1043] that Elidyr appear for the most part to have seized."
(1) Y Cymmrodor, X. (1889), p. 12 &c.
(2) Ibid., p. 29 &c.
(3) Ibid., X. (1889), p. 25.
(4) Mr. Palmer says that Rhys Sais seems to have held his English lands under the Earl of Mercia (Y Cymmrodor, X., p. 25, n. 6), which would satisfactorily account for the epithet "Sais." Before the end of the eleventh century the Mercians and Welsh had, to some extent, become allies.101