He was born and generally resided at a place called Coed y Pantwn, in the upper part of the Vale of Clwyd.

He was a warm friend and partisan of Owen Glendower, with whom he lived, at Sycharth, for some years before the great Welsh insurrection, and whom he survived, dying at an extreme old age beneath his own roof-tree at Coed y Pantwn.

He composed pieces of great excellence on various subjects; but the most remarkable of his compositions are decidedly certain ones connected with Owen Glendower.
Amongst these is one in which he describes the Welsh chieftain's mansion at Sycharth, and his hospitable way of living at that his favourite residence; and another in which he hails the advent of the comet, which made its appearance in the month of March, fourteen hundred and two, as of good augury to his darling hero.
It was from knowing that this distinguished man lay buried in the precincts of the old edifice, that I felt so anxious to see it.

After walking about two miles we perceived it on our right hand.
The abbey of the vale of the cross stands in a green meadow, in a corner near the north-west end of the valley of Llangollen.

The vale or glen, in which the abbey stands, takes its name from a certain ancient pillar or cross, called the pillar of Eliseg, and which is believed to have been raised over the body of an ancient British chieftain of that name, who perished in battle against the Saxons, about the middle of the tenth century.