Widowed, childless, landless...

In 1282 Margaret of Bromfield, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd’s sister, fell from royal favour. The cause of her downfall is unknown, though she may have incurred the wrath of Edward I by insisting on her rights. In an undated petition she asked the king for justice because Earl Warenne had ‘wrongfully’ seized the manor of Eyton and three vills which Margaret held of her brother-in-law, Gruffydd Fychan.

The king’s response was unequivocal. ‘This woman,’ the answer reads, ‘offended against the king to such an extent that the king is not held to do her favour.’ Margaret was thus deprived of her lands, which along with the rest of Bromfield and Yale was granted to Earl Warenne on 7 October 1282. She also lost her sons. Her two children, Gruffydd and Llywelyn, were probably dead by October, when Warenne was granted all the land of Bromfield, ‘which Griffith and Llewelyn, sons of Madoc Vaughan, held at the beginning of the said war’.

Historians from the 16th, 18th and early 20th centuries claim the boys were murdered by their guardians, Earl Warenne and Roger Mortimer, who drowned them in the Dee at Holt Bridge. The story was cited by T. Pennant in 1784, who quoted an MS by the Reverend Price, Keeper of the Bodleian Library. Another source, JYW Lloyd, claimed in the 1880s that the story came from a continuation of the Peniarth MS 20 version Brut y Tywysogion. The Brut, however, contains no such account. The story can be traced back no further than David Powel’s Historie of Cambria in 1584, a deeply problematic work.

Even so, if the boys weren’t drowned they were certainly made to disappear. Their age in 1282 is unknown, so possibly they were killed in battle. Margaret was thus left widowed, childless and landless. A few weeks later her brother Prince Llywelyn, and brother-in-law Llywelyn Fychan, were both slain at Cilmeri.

Margaret presumably spent the next year and a half living on charity. On 11 May 1284 she came into Chancery at Aberconwy and demanded her dower lands from Earl Warrenne and Gruffydd Fychan. King Edward responded by issuing her with two grants. On 30 May he ordered Margaret to be given five marks a year (about £3) out of charity, to be paid from the Exchequer at Caernarfon. In the second, dated 22 October, he restored to Margaret the vills of Boduan and Hydref for life, which gave her an extra annual income of £1 and £5 respectively. Margaret did not get her dower, but the king permitted her some land and income. Her troubles were not over. In 1297 the king ordered the chamberlain at Caernarfon to pay over the full amount of five marks ‘without delay’: it seems Margaret was being cheated of half the annual payment.

There is one last reference to her in 1299, when the king granted land worth £15 to Morgan ap Maredudd. The land had come into the king’s hands because of the recent death of Margaret, ‘sister of Llewellin, then prince of Wales’.