ELEN (c.1207 – 1253), sometimes referred to as Ellen or Helen the Elder (because another Helen, another of Llywelyn’s daughters, was born a couple of decades later and referred to as Helen the Younger), was the daughter of Llywelyn the Great of Gwynedd in North Wales by Joan, Lady of Wales, the natural daughter of King John of England.

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Elen married John of Scotland (or John de Scotia), 9th Earl of Huntingdon and 7th Earl of Chester (c. 1207 – 6 June 1237), sometimes known as “the Scot”, an Anglo-Scottish magnate, the son of David of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon by his wife Matilda of Chester, daughter of Hugh de Kevelioc in c.1222. John died aged thirty in 1237 of suspected poisoning.

 

Following the death of John of Scotland, in that same year Elen was forced by King Henry III (her mother’s half-brother) to marry Sir Robert de Quincy, the son of Saer de Quincy.

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She had three daughters with Robert:

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• Anne (who became a nun)

• Joan de Quincy (-25 Nov 1284), who married Humphrey de Bohun, son of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, & his first wife Maud de Lusignan

• Hawise ([1250]-before 27 Mar 1285), married (before 5 Feb 1268) Baldwin Wake, son of Hugh Wake & his wife Joan de Stuteville. Their daughter, Hawise, married Baldwin Wake, Lord Wake of Liddell.

 

Hawise and Baldwin’s granddaughter, Margaret Wake, was the mother of Joan of Kent. Joan of Kent, the first English Princess of Wales, was the wife of Edward, the Black Prince and the mother of Richard II of England.

 

Elen died c. August 1253.