ROMANTICS liken Owain Glyndwr, the last native Prince of Wales, to a spear aimed at the heart of the English and hurled with all the power and passion of a Welshman fighting for his religion and language.

Unsurprisingly, the English view is of a political opportunist and terrorist, a pariah to be hunted down and his pack of supporters dispersed or killed in the name of stable government.

However he is seen, there can be no dispute that for 15 or so years in the early 15th century Owain Glyndwr managed to reverse the English conquest and instal himself as Prince of Wales at Harlech Castle. England was shaken, a thwarted King Henry IV having to retreat and to regroup. It was the high water mark of Welsh independence, elevating the Glyndwr name to the extent that Shakespeare writes of it, and pubs are still named after the warrior.

Around 1413 and following the re-imposition of English rule, Glyndwr went into deep hiding, and in a secular reversal of the Resurrection, disappeared from public view. Around 1415 he died fugitive but uncaptured in his own country and is buried nobody knows where.

Until now.

Abergavenny's Alex Gibbon, 45, a writer and self-taught medievalist, believes he can identify the church, beyond reasonable doubt, within which the bones of the last native Prince of Wales are entombed. We revealed in our later editions yesterday how Gibbon says the warrior prince is buried at the church in Llanwrda, near Llandovery.

"Detailed research from contemporary records indicate Llanwrda - there are many coincidences that nail the site neatly," Mr Gibbons said.

"There is a vault that has never been opened which I very much suspect contains his bones. It is possible that plans to bury him there were disturbed at the last moment, but I do not think so."

Since his death in 1415 Owain Glyndwr has achieved mythical status in Wales. The romantic background against which he lived inspire nationalists to this very day.

His fate, Gibbon says, is bound up with that of the semi-mythical Jack of Kent, the Robin Hood-like figure who roamed Wales shortly after Glyndwr's career was past its zenith. In fact, he believes the two figures may be one and the same, the soldier transformed into a Franciscan friar who, having made pacts with the Devil, delighted in double-crossing the Prince of Darkness.

Gibbon says: "People have been looking for Glyndwr's grave for hundreds of years with, among other things, dowsing rods. But despite my immersion in the Middle Ages I haven't taken the mystical route."

Owain Glyndwr's interment in the church at Llanwrda he says, was rediscovered after years of patient and rigorous research.

"I have been to the Bodleian and to the Guildhall Library in London and to Aberystwyth and and talked to people in several different fields.

"Ten years ago I got interested in Jack of Kent, whose name appears in stories from Merthyr Tydfil to Chepstow and into Herefordshire, and began to investigate the idea that Jack of Kent and Owain Glyndwr were one and the same."

As to Glyndwr's role as either national hero or obstacle to good governance Alex Gibbon says he is "delightfully neutral".

"In 1413 he effectively said to his followers 'I am going from you. You will never see me again,' and he went walkabout, perhaps in the costume of a Franciscan friar, perhaps as Jack of Kent," Gibbon says.

"It is now thought that he had five daughters and six sons and any number of illegitimate children and that he died in 1415."

Whether excavation at Llanwrda will ever be permitted, Alex Gibbon does not know. Absolute, irrefutable proof of the location of Owain Glyndwr's grave maynever be found, yet, there is something about Llanwrda and its ancient little church that feels right.

* The Mystery of Jack of Kent and the Fate of Owain Glyndwr, by Alex Gibbon, is published by Sutton Publishing at £18.99.