Dafydd ap Gruffudd

On this day in 1283 Dafydd ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, was executed at Shrewsbury on charges of plotting the death of Edward I. Dafydd is a controversial figure, and the barbaric manner of his death tends to elicit a sympathy that the details of his career would otherwise scarcely inspire.

Dafydd was born in 1238, a younger son of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn and grandson of Llywelyn ap Iorweth, known to later generations as Llywelyn the Great. In 1241 he and his younger brother Rhodri were handed over as hostages to Henry III of England. He came of age in 1252 and in the following year was summoned to pay homage to King Henry.

His first significant act, in 1255, was to rebel against his older brother Llywelyn, lord of Gwynedd and would-be Prince of Wales. Dafydd and his brother Owain were defeated by Llywelyn at the Battle of Bryn Derwin, where Dafydd was captured and imprisoned. He was released a year later and restored to favour, only to sign a pact with the Lord Edward, Henry's eldest son and the future Edward I.

Dafydd remained in Edward's service for 19 years. In 1264, while Edward ravaged the Derbyshire estates of his rival, Robert de Ferrers, Earl of Derby, Dafydd and Hamo Lestrange invaded the earl's Staffordshire estates and destroyed towns, castles, churches and villages. After Edward's capture at the Battle of Lewes, Ferrers had his revenge when he marched to Chester and inflicted a humiliating defeat upon Dafydd and his Marcher allies. Dafydd escaped the field and is next heard of in 1267, when Llywelyn again restored him to favour via the terms of the Treaty of Montgomery.

Despite his brother's mercy, Dafydd again chose to rebel. In 1274 he colluded with Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, lord of Powys, in an attempt to assassinate Llywelyn. The plot was discovered, and Dafydd and Gruffudd fled for protection to the English court. Dafydd then sided with the English crown in Edward I's first Welsh war of 1276-77. During this campaign Dafydd served at the head of 200 Welsh infantry under the Earl of Warwick in the English invasion of the Perfeddwlad. He twice complained to Warwick that he wished to keep the plunder his men had taken from Welsh villages, and the matter was still unresolved when Dafydd met Edward at the king's new castle of Flint. Here an agreement was made whereby Dafydd stood to gain his share of any land conquered from Llywelyn. In 1277, after Llywelyn's defeat and the Treaty of Aberconwy, Dafydd was again reconciled with his brother. Llywelyn's patience with Dafydd is almost beyond belief, and arguably led to his downfall.

Eternally dissatisfied, Dafydd took no pleasure from the postwar agreement or his English estates, granted to him by Edward as reward for his services. He complained to the king that he was bored on his manor of Frodsham, and asked to be given hunting rights for a little amusement. His request was granted, but he took umbrage at the behaviour of Reynold de Grey, who allegedly infringed on Dafydd's estates in the Perfeddwlad. In early 1282 Dafydd made a dramatic appearance in the county court at Hope, where he declared his rights 'in a loud voice' and then stormed out.

Edward appears to have had no inkling of the trouble brewing in Wales. On Palm Sunday 1282, Dafydd suddenly descended upon the royal castle at Hawarden, butchered the garrison and captured the constable, Roger de Clifford. At the same time his Welsh allies in the southwest seized the castles at Llanbadarn and Carreg Cennen. Rhuddlan and Flint were also besieged. Dafydd and Llywelyn were almost certainly in collusion, since Dafydd was supplied by his brother with materials for artillery.

Edward's response was furious. The war that followed was bitter and prolonged, but the king was hell-bent on victory: he raised staggering amounts of money, imposed emergency taxes, called up unprecedented numbers of mercenaries, mustered every available fighting man in northern England and the March. Dafydd's decision to attack Hawarden on a holy day handed the English the propaganda advantage, and he and his followers were excommunicated. The result was almost inevitable, and it became clear that Llywelyn and Dafydd had made a terrible mistake: perhaps, as RR Davies suggests, they hoped to sweep away Edward's hegemony in Wales as easily as they had done in 1257. If so, again to quote Davies, they had mistaken their man.

On December 11th 1282 Llywelyn was killed near Builth by the forces of Edmund Mortimer and his Marcher allies, in circumstances that remain murky. Now, at last, Dafydd could realise his lifelong ambition and assume the title of Prince of Wales. Fate mocked him, MacBeth-style, for his doom was rapidly closing in. Edward's armies, bolstered by reinforcements, swamped the mountainous heartland of Snowdonia. The key strongholds of Castell y Bere and Dolwyddelan fell, apparently without a fight, and Dafydd was forced back to his last redoubt at Dolbadarn. He broke out to raise the men of Meirionydd, only to find that Edward had undercut him by offering a free pardon to any Welshman of Meirionydd who came into the peace. The war swiftly turned into a man-hunt, as hundreds of Welshmen laid down their arms and joined in the pursuit of their erstwhile prince.

On 28th June 1283, Dafydd and one of his sons was captured on the Bera mountain by 'men of their own tongue'. He was wounded in the fight, and Edward gave orders that he should be nursed back to health. Nothing was going to rob the king of his vengeance upon the man he regarded as the arch-traitor, who for 19 years had accepted Edward's gifts, protection and hospitality and then spat on him. A special parliament was called at Shrewsbury, where Edward asked his nobles what should be done with the prisoner. For plotting the death of the king and sundry other offences, Dafydd was condemned to the grotesque sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering.

The form of execution was nothing new: Henry III had practised a version of it on an assassin who tried to kill him in 1238, and later a poisoner named Walter de Scoteney. The Welsh themselves seem to have practised it on English prisoners at Deganwy in 1245. Dafydd, however, was the first man of noble birth to be formally executed in such a manner. The gruesome task was carried out before a large crowd at Shewsbury on 3rd October 1283, and the executioner, Geoffrey of Shewsbury, paid 20 shillings for the job. Dafydd's daughter, Gwladys, was sent to the convent of Sempringham in Lincolnshire, and his two sons to perpetual imprisonment at Bristol Castle.