Edward and Llywelyn

“Nor did they [the Welsh] wish to obey Lord Edward, the son of the king, but they laughed boisterously and heaped scorn upon him. And so consequently Edward put forward the idea that he should give up these Welshmen as unconquerable.”

 - Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora [v]

Edward allegedly said this in 1257, after the destruction of his army at Cymerau and the failure of his father’s campaign in North Wales. Paris despised Edward, so you can’t take his word as gospel, but the entry may reflect something of the prince’s attitude towards the Welsh. In 1265 he deliberately abandoned some of his land interests in Wales and granted the lordships of Carmarthen and Cardigan to his brother, Edmund, who also received the Three Castles. Two years later, via the Treaty of Montgomery, the Four Cantreds in the north were formally conceded to Prince Llywelyn. Edward’s vast appanage in Wales, granted to him in 1254, was wiped out. Edward probably had little say in the treaty, but must have known what was coming. 

He went further. The Treaty of Montgomery had conceded to Llywelyn the homage and fealty of all the lords of Wales except Maredudd ap Rhys, lord of Ystrad Tywi and grandson of the Lord Rhys. Edward repeatedly asked his father, Henry III, to permit Llywelyn to buy Maredudd’s homage, which had been granted to Edmund. At last Henry gave way and allowed Llywelyn to purchase Maredudd for the sum of 5000 marks. This sum was never paid over and added to Llywelyn’s growing mountain of debts. Edward also went to the Marches in person to grant Llywelyn the homage and fealty of Maredudd ap Gruffudd, a lord of Glamorgan. This further strengthened Llywelyn’s grip on the principality, and at the expense of the Earl of Gloucester, the greatest of Marcher lords.

Paris’s claim that Edward wished to give up Wales to the Welsh was in fact an understatement. In these years Edward not only surrendered his own land interests in the principality, but actively worked to bolster the power of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. No wonder the Welsh prince wrote to Henry III, expressing ‘delight’ at his negotiations with Edward in the summer of 1269.