Ex-leader wanted Lord Elis-Thomas back in Plaid
Lord Elis-Thomas, also a former Plaid leader and first the Llywydd - or speaker - of the Welsh Assembly, died aged 78 on Friday.
His biographer, Aled Eurig, told BBC Politics Wales his old party behaved "shabbily" when Lord Elis-Thomas applied to rejoin in 2023.
Plaid Cymru has been asked to comment.
Lord Elis-Thomas left it in 2016 to sit as an independent and became a minister in Carwyn Jones' Labour Welsh government.
But his bid to return to his original political home in August 2023 was abandoned.
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Lord Wigley said he would have "very much" liked to have seen his former colleague return, adding: "I regretted very much that he'd gone."
Conditions, he said, were put on his rejoining and he was "not willing to go along with those".
Mr Eurig said Lord Elis-Thomas was "keen" to return to the party under Rhun ap Iorwerth.
"Instead of Plaid welcoming somebody who'd been of service to the party for 50 years and more, they created a tribunal, a disciplinary process which totally set to one side what Dafydd's record overall had been," he said.
Dafydd was Lord Elis-Thomas' first name.
He left Plaid Cymru over disagreements with then leader Leanne Wood.
Lord Wigley said he last spoke to his former colleague more than a year ago, before the plan to rejoin was ditched.
"The last conversation I had with him was the hopeful one that we would both be working together in the House of Lords on the Welsh agenda, and I was very sad that it hadn't happened," he said.
You can catch up on Sunday's episode of BBC Politics Wales on iPlayer
Lord Elis-Thomas: From maverick to political establishment
Who was ex-Plaid Cymru leader Lord Elis-Thomas?
New political system poses great danger - Wigley
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