To see: two alabaster effigies lying side by side on a carved tomb-chest in the aisle of St Peter's. The knight is in full armour, his head on his helm, his shield beside him and a faithful hound at his feet; beside him rests his wife, Lady Janet (Jonet) Mathew. This is the tomb of Sir Rhys ap Thomas (d. 1525), the most powerful lord of south-west Wales, whose support tipped the Battle of Bosworth to Henry Tudor in 1485 — the battle that opened the Tudor century. Look closely and you can still find traces of the bright paint that once covered the stone. The monument first stood in Carmarthen's Franciscan Greyfriars church and was rescued to St Peter's after the friary was dissolved in 1538; some of the small figures around the chest belong to its 1860s restoration.
Did you know?
Without Rhys ap Thomas there might never have been a Tudor dynasty. Tradition holds that he swore Henry would land in Wales only "over his belly" — and kept his oath by crouching beneath a bridge as the claimant passed overhead.
Info
- Person: Sir Rhys ap Thomas (1449-1525), Knight of the Garter, governor of south Wales.
- Material: alabaster on a stone base; original polychromy survives in traces.
- Relocation: from the Franciscan Greyfriars to St Peter's in 1538; Victorian restoration (1860s).
- Interior, within Carmarthen's parish church.