The tragedy of Dafydd (2)

Henry III’s order to Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and Owain Goch to restore to Dafydd an equal share of his patrimony was a deliberate royal strategy: the king meant to ensure that Gwynedd would be a partitioned state, of no further threat to the English crown. He applied the same principle to Powys Fadog, where the royal council insisted that Gruffudd ap Madog should, according to the custom of Wales, share his land with his co-heirs. It was no coincidence that Gruffudd was Llywelyn’s most loyal ally.

In early 1254 Llywelyn and Dafydd were informed that Henry was sending a commission to hear the disputes between the brothers. The king was subtle: the commission consisted of Alan la Zouche, John Lestrange, Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn and Gruffudd ap Madog. By appointing two Welsh lords to the enquiry, Henry could not be accused of anti-Welsh prejudice. His choice of Gruffudd ap Madog as one of the four commissioners was an effort to split the alliance of Gwynedd and Powys Fadog.

The arguments rumbled on. At last it came to civil war, and in June 1255 Llywelyn met his brothers in open battle on the slopes of Bryn Derwin. It seems Owain and Dafydd attacked uphill and were defeated in less than an hour, after which Llywelyn ‘fed lavishly upon their lands without difficulty’.

Owain and Dafydd were both captured. Llywelyn’s ancestors, men such as Gruffydd ap Llywelyn or Owain Gwynedd, would most likely have blinded and castrated the prisoners. Llywelyn chose to imprison Owain at Dolbadarn and give Dafydd another chance. The prince’s merciful attitude did little to resolve the tensions in Gwynedd; a Welsh poet, Hywel Foel ap Griffri, bewailed his personal loss at Owain’s confinement. He was left an exile in his own country, a lordless man, without gifts, without the chief of warriors:

‘Difro wyf heb rwyf, hed roddion/Heb Owain, hebawg cynreinion’.

The very earth was left barren by Owain’s loss: ‘Diffrwythws daear o’i fod yng ngharchar’.

Despite his lucky escape, Dafydd continued to intrigue with the English. On 8 August 1257, as he prepared to invade Gwynedd, King Henry issued an order of safe-conduct for Dafydd to join him at Chester. The document was witnessed by the baronial core of the royal army, including the Lord Edward, on his first expedition into Wales.

Dafydd thought better of it. He declined to come, so the king had the document torn up. After the failure of Henry’s campaign Dafydd chose to stay loyal to his brother for a time, and accompanied Llywelyn on his march south to punish Maredudd ap Rhys Gryg, lord of Ystrad Tywi, who had given his homage to the king. 

On 8 September 1258 Dafydd enjoyed perhaps his greatest moment. Wearing ‘his most splendid armour’, he advanced with his cavalry to attack Maredudd and his ally, Patrick Chaworth, at Cilgerran. Shortly after noon the two armies engaged and Dafydd won a splendid victory, killing Chaworth and Walter Malifant, an English knight, and forcing Maredudd to flee into the castle.

The tragedy of Prince Dafydd, Part One

We’re coming up to the anniversary of the execution of Dafydd ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, on 3 October 1283. To commemorate this unhappy event, let’s have another look at him.

Dafydd was the third of the four sons of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, eldest son of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth. He was born in 1238 and in 1241 handed over to the English, along with his younger brother Rhodri, as part of a peace agreement between their uncle, Prince Dafydd ap Llywelyn, and Henry III.

The influence of Dafydd’s upbringing in England has possibly been exaggerated. He clearly spent some time in Wales. In 1247, at just eight years old, he appears as a witness on a charter of his eldest brother, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, which granted land to the priors and canons of Ynys Lannog.

Dafydd next appears in 1252, presiding over a lawsuit in which the canons of the church of Aberdaron resolved a dispute with the Austin canons of Bardsey. Aged about fourteen, Dafydd was already exercising lordship over Cymydmaen, the westerly commote of the cantref of Llŷn.

Despite his earlier association with Llywelyn, it seems that Dafydd owed his lordship in Cymydmaen to the influence of his eldest brother, Owain Goch. The chronicler states that Dafydd was appointed captain of the household (dux familia) in Owain’s service. He therefore occupied the position of penteulu which, according to the custom of his lineage, was reserved for the near kinsman of the ruler.

No comparable grant of land was made over by Llywelyn to Dafydd. This is the first sign of tension between the brothers; by 1253 Dafydd had decided to take steps to gain an appropriate share of his patrimony, and offered his homage and fealty to Henry III. The king agreed to receive him, but had sailed for Gascony by the time Dafydd arrived at Westminster. Even so, he came to an arrangement with the royal council, who ensured that the king would endorse his tenure of whatever part of Gwynedd he acquired for himself.

Owain and Llywelyn, who had divided Gwynedd between them after the death of their uncle, were informed that Dafydd had sworn fealty to the king. This oath was sworn for the portion of lands in Gwynedd which had been held by Gruffudd ap Llywelyn and Dafydd ap Llywelyn. The brothers were thus required to provide him with a due portion ‘according to the custom of Wales’.

March mafia

On 25 January 1290 Edward I issued a proclamation ordering the earls of Gloucester and Hereford to stop waging private war in Brycheiniog. A few days later, 3 February, Clare sent four of his bailiffs ‘with a multitude of horsemen and footmen’ to invade Bohun’s territory, ‘with a banner of the earl’s arms displayed’. They pillaged the land up to two leagues beyond Clare’s new castle at Morlais, built to nail down his control of the territory, killed a number of Bohun’s men and carried off goods.

It seems Clare was attempting to set himself up as a rival potentate in the March. When Edward visited Glamorgan in 1284, the earl had greeted him almost as a fellow monarch. In pure military terms Clare was by far the most powerful of the Marcher lords: he could call upon the service of over 450 knights in England and Wales. His rival Bohun, by contrast, could summon a measly twenty-six.

Clare used his feud against Bohun as a way of striking back against the king, his lifelong rival. A second raid took place on 5 June, shortly after Clare had married Edward’s daughter, Joan of Acre. The terms of the marriage contract required the earl to surrender all his lands into the king’s hands, to be restored after the wedding. Under the terms of the new arrangement, Clare’s lands would pass to the heirs of his wife’s body, not his. Thus, if he died without issue and Joan remarried, all the vast Clare estates in England and Wales would pass to the heirs of her next husband. 

Yet another raid took place in November. This was another tit-for-tat act of defiance. On 3 November Clare had conceded the king’s rights to all the revenue from the See of Llandaff; since he had previously snaffled the revenues of the bishopric during vacancy, Clare was judged to have usurped the king’s rights. Edward was tying the earl up in knots (not knights) and Clare’s response was to keep attacking Bohun, in defiance of the king’s prohibition against private war. A head-on collison loomed.

Meanwhile the Marches descended into chaos, and it seems the government struggled to keep track of who was doing what to whom. Tacked onto the end of a severely condensed abstract of the Clare-Bohun case is a mysterious reference to John Giffard, lord of Builth. This tells us that 'item placitum contra Iohannem Giffard et homines suos pro vexillis displicatis apud Gloucestriam' - the same plea against John Giffard and his men with banners displayed near Gloucester. This would imply that Giffard had led his men out of the March to attack Clare’s estates in Gloucestershire, possibly on behalf of Humphrey Bohun. There is no further reference to his actions, so it remains a mystery.

March Mafia

In 1284 Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford, brought a case at law against John Giffard over the land of Isgenen, above the Tywi near Llandeilo. Bohun claimed that he had defeated Rhys Fychan, the Welsh lord of Isgenen, during the war of 1282-3 and ought to have the land. King Edward had granted it to Giffard, who stood high in the king’s favour and was one of his chief enforcers in Wales.

Technically Isgenen had been ‘conquered’ by William Valence and Rhys ap Maredudd, when they led a royal army through the district in the autumn of 1282: the men of the commote had agreed to come into the king’s peace and then immediately enlisted in the army. Valence and Rhys were powerful enough already, and the king chose to grant it to Giffard instead.

Bohun was nervous about the location of Isgenen, which bordered on his own lands. His plea in 1284 failed and Giffard confirmed in the grant. When the war of Rhys ap Maredudd broke out in 1287, the tenants of Isgenen revolted and were put down by Bohun, who could now claim a ‘double right of the sword’ to the commote.

All this kerfuffle was over a minor patch of land: the army payrolls for 1282 contain wages for no more than 60 men of Isgenen, implying a fairly small territory. Yet the honour - or rather the ego - of the Bohuns was at stake, and a disgruntled Marcher knew only one way of resolving disputes. Soon after the defeat of Rhys, Bohun armed his tenants and attacked Giffard’s men of Builth, inflicting ‘homicides, arsons, robberies and other felonies’ agains them.

March Mafia

In 1286 Edward I sailed for Gascony and did not return for three years. He left the kingdom in the hands of a deputy, his cousin Edmund, Earl of Cornwall.

Once the pard was away, his nobles started to play. In December 1286 William de Warenne, son and heir of Earl Warenne, was killed at a tournament in Croydon. He was rumoured to have been murdered. The earl had granted to his son the lordship of Bromfield and Yale on the March, which just happened to lie adjacent to the lands of Reynold Grey, justice of Chester. As a matter of course the dead man’s lands were taken into the king’s hands, which meant Grey took custody of them. Earl Warenne protested that he had granted Bromfield and Yale direct to his son and not in chief from the king. Eventually, at a council meeting in London at Candlemas 1287, Grey was forced to release the lordship.

Grey wasn’t used to being thwarted. He raised an army on his lands in the March and invaded Bromfield and Yale, seizing most of it for himself. When Earl Warenne protested, Grey stuck two fingers up at him and replied that he would keep what he had conquered, and take more if he felt like it. This man, supposedly, was a royal justice invested with the responsibility of enforcing law and order in the king’s absence.

Warenne wrote his friend, the earl of Warwick, asking for assistance. Full-scale civil war in the March was on the cards, but fortunately Warwick had a few more brain cells than the average feudal gangster. He informed the regent of the brewing crisis, and Cornwall in turn issued a general prohibition against military activity. This order was specifically aimed at the earls of Gloucester, Warwick and Norfolk, Hugh Despener, William de Braose, William Fitz John, Earl Warenne and Reynold Grey.

Who promptly ignored it.

Raging in his fury: the trials of Madog ap Llywelyn (4)

The ‘war of Madog’, as it was remembered, began either on 29 or 30 September 1294. The Brut describes the start of the revolt thus:

Geoffrey Clement, justice of Deheubarth, was slain at 'Y Gwmfriw' in Builth. And there was a breach between Welsh and English on that feast of Michael. And Cynan ap Maredudd and Maelgwn ap Rhys were chief over Deheubarth, and Madog ap Llywelyn ap Maredudd over Gwynedd, and Morgan ap Maredudd over Morgannwg.

To judge from this, there were four main leaders, and they intended to partition Wales. As a member of the house of Aberffrau, Madog would have Gwynedd. Cynan ap Maredudd and Maelgwyn ap Rhys were both direct descendants of the Lord Rhys of Deheubarth, and would divide their patrimony between them. Morgan ap Maredudd, a descendent of the ancient kings of Morgannwg, would have that territory.

Madog is clearly identified as the most important of the four. His revolt began on Anglesey - Ynys Mon - where he attacked the township of Llanfaes and destroyed the church. His choice of Llanfaes as a target is interesting. It was one of five bond townships (maerdrefi) in Anglesey associated with the royal court of Gwynedd. It was also the commercial centre of Gwynedd under the native princes; there was a port, a ferry across the Menai strait, and a herring fishery. Under the rule of Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, about 70% of of the principality’s trade passed through the port. In 1992 a hoard of over one hundred silver medieval coins were discovered at Anglesey, demonstrating its importance as a trading centre (see link below).

When Madog attacked Llanfaes, the township was home to a community of English merchants. After the revolt, they sent the following desperate petition to Edward I:

THE BURGESSES OF LLANMAES (LLANFAES-ANGLESEY) TO THE KING:

They show that they are English in blood and in nationality, as also their ancestors of ancient times, by occasion of which fact, when the dominance of the Welsh was in its vigour, and especially at the time when Madoc was raging in his fury, they were oppressed by the Welsh and deprived of their property, and because, to tell the simple truth, they reside in Wales and among the Welsh, they are reputed Welsh by the English and in consequence are the less favoured by them so that they have neither the status of Englishmen nor even that of Welshmen, but they experience what is worst in either condition. They therefore pray that for the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, as the King mercifully regards all Wales in common, so it may please him, for the good of his soul and of his parents' souls, to establish them in an assured position before he departs from Wales and to confirm it by his letters so that they may not fall into an indubitable state of beggary or worse'.

A later petition of c.1318 shows that Llanfaes continued to decline as the fairs and markets were relocated to Beaumaris. The population was moved to another maerdref, Rhosyr, about twelve miles away. This was renamed New Borough, and received its charter of incorporation on 24 April 1303.

MEDIEVAL COINS AT LLANFAES, ANGLESEY

Freedom of Elections

This seems appropriate, given events in the Supreme Court today…

The Freedom of Elections Act is the second of two clauses of Statute of Westminster I (1275) still in force in England and Wales. It reads thus:

"There shall be no Disturbance of Free Elections. Elections shall be free. AND because Elections ought to be free, the King commandeth upon great Forfeiture, that no Man by force of Arms, nor by Malice, or Menacing, shall disturb any to make free Election."

The original purpose of this act was to ensure that the election of sheriffs, coroners, bailiffs and so forth were fair and equal, and could not be influenced by intimidation or corruption etc. As time went on the act became a convenient basis for representative government. It has influenced the growth of democratic legislature all over the planet.

Edward’s notions of representation were absorbed in his youth from Simon de Montfort and the baronial reform movement. He eventually destroyed Simon - before Simon could destroy him - but the the principles of reform were enshrined in the great statutes and parliaments of Edward’s reign.

The English Justinian

In the 17th century Sir Edward Coke, an English barrister, judge and politician, dubbed Edward I the ‘English Justinian’. Coke drew a comparison between Edward and the 6th century Roman Emperor, Justinian I, who codified the system of Roman law.

Justinian I

This is one of Edward’s nicknames, such as Longshanks or the Hammer of the Scots, that have dogged his posthumous reputation ever since. His reign witnessed enormous legal reforms, and several of his statutes are still in force in England and Wales. How much Edward was responsible for it, or even whether he had any personal interest in the law at all, is up for debate. 

Other than surface details - his speech impediment, his fondness for hunting, his love for his wives etc - it isn’t easy to gauge the king’s personality. Edward was almost as inscrutable as his cousin, Philip le Bel, the Iron King (le Roi de Fer) whose personality was kept in a locked cage somewhere in the depths of his massive brain.

All we can do is rely on bits and pieces of documentary evidence. In a writ to the justiciar of his lordship of Chester in 1259, Edward expressed the following sentiment:

‘If common justice is denied to any one of our subjects by us or our bailiffs, we lose the favour of God and man, and our lordship is belittled’.

If Edward is to be taken at his word, he seems to have meant that common justice to all was necessary, otherwise his lordship over men had no value. This was a private writ, so there is no reason to accuse him of playing to the gallery.

A few years later, in 1269, Edward gave more solid proof of his interest in common justice. While travelling on the road between Canterbury to Dover, he discovered some corpses lying in the woods. Edward suspected foul play and immediately set up a jury, where he accused several local men, ‘wilful and quarrelsome youths’, of doing the deed. Eventually two other men, not members of the gang, were convicted and hanged after trying to pin the guilt on each other. In this instance Edward’s judgement was at fault, but he was certainly taking an interest.

Raging in his fury: the trials of Madog ap Llywelyn (3)

Between 1278-94, little is known of Madog. He doesn’t appear to have taken any part in the second war between Edward and Llywelyn in 1282-3, though he and his family presumably continued to dwell on Anglesey. They would have witnessed the landing of Edward’s expeditionary force on the isle in August, and Luke de Tany’s disastrous effort to cross the bridge of boats in November.

There is one possible reference to Madog in 1284. In July, at Caernarfon, Edward granted to Gruffudd ap Iorwerth and his nephew, Dafydd ap Llywelyn, and to Elise ap Iorwerth and his nephew, Madog ap Llywelyn, the right to hold all their lands in Wales by barony, as their ancestors had done. Gruffudd and Elise were lords of Edeirnion in the west of northern Powys and descendants of Owain Brogontyn; their ancestors had established themselves in Edeirnion and Dinmael by the early 13th century.

This lineage achieved some prominence in Wales. In 1258 Gruffudd and Elise were among the Welsh magnates who witnessed Prince Llywelyn’s agreement with the lords of Scotland; this was the first document in which Llywelyn styled himself ‘principe Wallie’ or Prince of Wales. Elise afterwards fell out with Llywelyn and was imprisoned, only to be released via the terms of the Treaty of Aberconwy in 1277. Gruffudd and Elise fought for Llywelyn against Edward in 1282, but were pardoned.

The names of their nephews, Madog and Dafydd, are not found in any other pedigrees relating to this lineage. Madog ap Llywelyn was the only contemporary figure of that name whose ancestry justified being granted tenure by barony: his father, Llywelyn ap Maredudd, had promised fealty to Henry III in 1246 on condition that and his heirs should be maintained according to the custom of Welsh barons. The tenure translated by the English as ‘Welsh barony’ was called ‘pennaeth’ in Welsh. In 1308 Llywelyn ab Owain, a lord of Ceredigion, was described as holding:

‘By the Welsh tenure Pennaethium…by fealty and service, that he and all his tenants wherever necessary were bound to come at the summons of the king’s bailiffs for three days at their own cost, and he owed suit at the court of Cardigan called the Welsh county. After his death the king was entitled to 100 shillings ‘ebediw’ and according to Welsh custom the lordship should be divided between his sons. The king cannot claim wardship or marriage’.

Raging in his fury: the trials of Madog ap Llywelyn (2)

When war broke out between Prince Llywelyn and Edward I in 1276, Madog chose to serve the king. This was almost certainly a bid to recover his lost inheritance in Meirionydd, and he seems to have obtained official recognition from the crown of his status: an abbreviated payment of 20 shillings to Madog refers to him as ‘d’no Merioneth’ or lord of Merioneth/Meirionydd.

Madog’s actions during the war are uncertain, though a man of the same name crops up on a payroll for the army of the Middle March, serving with a ‘barded’ horse; barding in this era being a padded leather covering for the horse. This man appears under a payment for men raised at Clun, a long way from Madog’s home on Anglesey. However, his father had died in a battle at Clun, and it is not impossible that he did military service in the same region.

When the war was over, the defeated Prince Llywelyn immediately set about trying to recover his position. He invited certain lords of West Wales, who had fought for King Edward, to his court at Dolwyddelan in Snowdonia. Madog had no interest in reconciliation, and brought a lawsuit against Llywelyn for the land of Meirionydd.

Llywelyn was furious. While the case was in progress at Oswestry, the prince seized one of Madog’s servants, a certain Adam, took him to Meirionydd and hanged him. No charges were levied against Adam, and he appears to have been executed - murdered, to use plain language - to make a point. Llywelyn ruled over Meirionydd and Madog would never get it back.

Dolwyddelan

This was very unusual: unlike many Welsh princes, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd preferred to avoid bloodshed and never indulged in the customary blinding and castration of political rivals. His savagery towards the hapless Adam can only be explained by his fear of the threat posed by Madog.

Raging in his fury: the trials of Madog ap Llywelyn (1)

Madog ap Llywelyn was the eldest son of Llywelyn ap Maredudd, a prince of the House of Aberffraw and direct descendant of Owain Gwynedd via one of the latter’s many sons, Prince Cynan, lord of Meirionydd. He thus inherited yet another long-standing feud between the senior branch of Aberffraw and rival claimants. 

In December 1256 Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, lord of Gwynedd, summoned Llywelyn ap Maredudd to join forces with him. The prince had just conquered the Lord Edward’s lordship in the Perfeddwlad and now wished to extend direct control over Meirionydd. Llywelyn ap Maredudd refused and instead fled into England with his family. He wrote a letter to Henry III, commending himself as one who preferred fidelity to unfaithfulness, and asking for money from the royal exchequer. The king put him on a pension; in this respect Henry’s successor, Edward I, did no more than copy his father’s policy of granting asylum to useful waifs and strays from Wales.

Madog was the eldest of four sons, the others being Dafydd, Maredudd and Llywelyn. On 25 May 1263 their father was killed in a fight at the Clun. His death was mourned by Welsh chroniclers:

"On 25 May at Clun there were killed nearly a hundred men, among whom was Llywelyn ap Maredudd, the flower of the juveniles of Wales. He indeed was strenuous and strong in arms, lavish in gifts and in advice prophetic and he was loved by all.” (Annales Cambriae)

It is unclear whose side Llywelyn was fighting on. The Lord Edward campaigned in North Wales in this year, and a later inquisition of 1308 discovered that Llywelyn re-occupied Meirionydd at the same time. While he rode off to his death at Clun, his four sons were left in possession of the commote of Ystumanner. Immediately after he was killed, Prince Llywelyn invaded Meirionydd and drove Madog and his brothers into exile. This sequence of events would appear to confirm that Llywelyn ap Maredudd was on Edward’s side, and died at Clun fighting alongside the Marchers.

Once Meirionydd was firmly in his grasp, Prince Llywelyn relented a little. He granted the vills of Llanllibio and Lledwigan Llan on Mon (Anglesey) to Madog and Dafydd, but nothing to the two younger brothers. They presumably had to live off the charity of their elder siblings.

Longshanks and the Golden Horde

In mid-October 1271 a mounted column of over ten thousand Mongol lancers and Rumis (Turkish soldiers in the service of the il-khanate) invaded northern Syria. They were led by the warlord Samaghar and dispatched by the il-khan, Abaqa, in response to a plea for aid from the envoys of the Lord Edward.

The Mongols were keen on forging an effective alliance with the Franks, though the latter often disappointed. Mongol envoys had previously journeyed to Tunis to treat with the French king, Saint Louis, only to find him on his deathbed. They may have accompanied and advised Edward during his voyage from Tunis to Acre, which would explain why he was quick to send a team of diplomats to the court of the il-khan. His three envoys - Reginald Rossel, Godfrey Waus and John le Parker - underwent a hazardous journey through Mamluk territory to reach the il-khanate; this was set up to control the southwest section of the Mongol Empire, comprising present-day Iran and neighbouring territories.

At first all went swimmingly. The Mongols stormed past Aleppo, forcing the Mamluk garrison to evacuate the town, and then pushed up the Orontes valley past Hamah in west-central Syria. They appeared to be concentrating for an assault on Damascus, where the governor of the city arrived on 9 November to find the citizens in a state of panic. Eleven years earlier Damascus had been sacked by another Mongol warlord, Kitbogha, and memories were still fresh.

As ever in a crisis, Baibars kept a cool head and concentrated on reinforcing his garrisons in northern Syria. He knew Damascus could not be taken by a force of cavalry with no siege equipment, and left the defence of the city to the provincial garrison. Meanwhile he divided his field army and sent units north and east to Aleppo and towards Edessa, Marasah and the borders of Armenia. This threatened to block the Mongol line of retreat, which caused Samaghar to abandon the siege of Damascus and gallop back to the northeast. By the end of November the Mongols were in full retreat back to the Euphrates.

Baibars - no flies on him.

The wars of Gwenwynwyn (8, and last)

In 1216 Prince Gwenwynwyn chose to desert Llywelyn ab Iorwerth and go back to King John. He had previously fought for John against Llywelyn, before changing sides.

Gwenwynwyn had played the game pretty well for almost thirty years, ever since he and his brother lured Owain Fychan to Carreg Hofa at night and stuck a dagger in him. Now all his chickens came home to dung on his head, as Llywelyn gathered a grand coalition of Welsh princes to invade Powys:

He [Llywelyn] collected an army and called together nearly all the princes of Wales, and advanced against Powys, taking and subjugating all the land and forcing Gwenwynwyn to flight (Annales Cambriae)

Llywelyn’s hold on southern Powys was confirmed in the Worcester agreements with the government of Henry III in 1218. These set out that the northern prince was to keep all the land he had taken from Gwenwynwyn until the latter’s heirs came of age. He was to provide for the heirs out of the revenues of these lands, while maintaining the dower of Margaret, Gwenwynwyn’s wife, and respecting the existing rights of others.

Llywelyn did not fulfil a single one of these of these provisions. Instead he treated Powys as a conquered territory and ignored Gwenwynwyn’s three sons, who were fostered by Earl Ranulf of Chester. The most forceful of the three, Gruffudd, bore a lifelong grudge against the princes of Gwynedd. Often depicted as a traitor to Wales, Gruffudd had no reason to love the northern princes who murdered his ancestors, invaded and conquered his homeland, destroyed his father and drove him and his brothers into exile. He would eventually get his revenge.

Gwenwynwyn himself died in exile in Cheshire, sometime in 1216. Despite his failure at the end, he held a place of honour in the memory of his descendants. His grandson, Owain ap Gruffudd, was lauded by his poet as ‘wŷr Gwenwynwyn’ or a man like Gwenwynwn. In the fourteenth century Dafydd ap Gwilym, in an elegy or marwnad to his fellow poet Gruffudd ab Adda, praised him as ‘Gwanwyn doth Gwenwynwyn dir’ [any translation welcome…]

Here endeth the saga of Prince Gwenwynwyn ab Owain Cyfeiliog of Powys. There is no more. He lies cold and quiet in his grave. Explicit Liber Terminus.

The wars of Gwenwynwyn (7)

In December 1204 King John accused Earl Ranulf of Chester of being in league with Prince Gwenwynwn against the crown. Exactly what the allies were plotting is unclear, but a seed of suspicion was planted in the king’s mind. It may be that John resented Gwenwynwyn’s invasion of the Braose lands in the central March, since Wiliam Braose was the king’s protegé and intended to act as a counter to the power of Earl Ranulf in the north.

King John's tomb

In 1208 John summoned Gwenwynwyn to Shrewsbury, where he was arrested. Llywelyn ab Iorwerth took this opportunity to march down from Gwynedd and seize all the lands and castles in Powys. At the same time he attacked Maelgwn ap Rhys, Gwenwynwyn’s ally, and forced the homage of most of the lords of South Wales.

Two years later, Gwenwynwyn reconquered southern Powys with the assistance of John:

 About the feast of Andrew, Gwenwynwn regained possession of his territory, through the help of King John (Brut)

The Cronica de Wallia records that Gwenwynwyn attacked the castle of ‘Walwernia’ (Tafolwern) and ‘Kereynaun’, which must refer to a castle in Caerenion. At the same time Ranulf of Chester attacked Llywelyn in North Wales and occupied Deganwy, which may have been part of a combined operation against the Venedotians. Maelgwn ap Rhys made peace with the king and raised an army of French and Welsh to drive out Llywelyn’s supporters in the south. He failed, but Gwenwynwyn was left secure (for now) in Powys.

The alliance between Powys and King John was one of convenience. John kept hostages for Gwenwynwyn’s good behaviour, and insisted on keeping the castle of Mathrafal in royal hands.

Meanwhile in Outremer...

In mid-November 1271 the Lord Edward rode out from Acre into the Plain of Sharon at the head of some 7000 men, including the Hospitallers and Templars and a large contingent of Cypriots. Edward’s strategy is fairly clear. In recent years the Mamluks had encircled the remnant of the Kingdom of Jerusalem by strengthening the three fortresses of Safad, Beaufort and Qaqun. While the sultan and his field army were in northern Syria, to deal with Edward’s Mongol allies, there was an opportunity to attack one of these forts. Christian and Islamic sources give very different accounts of what followed.

According to the Chronicle of Melrose Abbey in Scotland, Edward acted on the advice of a local hermit, a member of a sect called the Sulian, who lived in the wilderness and worshipped John the Baptist. The Sulian came to Acre and told Edward that the people of Caconia (Qaqun) had gone out to feed their flocks and herds, and were enjoying themselves in the open air. Edward and his men advanced by night marches, to deceive the infidel, and ambushed the holiday-makers early in the morning. The Saracens were massacred, down to the last woman and child, ‘for they were the enemies of the faith of Christ’.

The Melrose annalist does not express disapproval of the slaughter of defenceless innocents. Instead it is presented as a noble act, since they were all pagans and deserved to die.

A different version is supplied by Al-Makrizi, himself a Sunni Muslim and a Mamluk-era historian. According to him, Edward and his crusaders attacked the fortified town of Qaqun. They did not wipe out a bunch of hippy nomads: rather, the crusaders ambushed an armoured convoy on its way to supply the fort. The Mamluks suffered heavy casualties. Over fifteen hundred Turcopoles, native light cavalry, were slaughtered. One of the sultan’s chief cavalry officers, Hosam-eddin, was killed, and another emir, Rokn-eddin-Djalik, badly wounded. The provincial governor, Bedjka-Alai, was forced to evacuate the town. This implies the crusaders destroyed the convoy and then decided to have a slap at storming Qaqun itself.

Qaqun

Rather than a smash-and-grab raid, the crusaders appear to have occupied the town. A messenger raced to inform Baibars, who was at Damascus. The sultan sent an emir, Akousch-Schemsi, with troops hurriedly raised from Ain-Djalout, to recover Qaqun. Upon seeing their approach, the outnumbered crusaders decided to get out of Dodge and retreat to Acre.

The remains of Qaqun can still be seen, and is used by the locals as a goatshed during the winter.

The wars of Gwenwynwyn (6)

After the massacre of his allies at Painscastle, Prince Gwenwynwyn went from strength to strength. In December 1199, alarmed at the rise of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth in the north, King John confirmed Gwenwynwyn in all his lands in north and south Wales and Powys. This was followed by a grant of the manor of Ashford in Derbyshire, and a visit to Powys by a high-powered royal delegation led by Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Hugh Bardolf, one of John’s intimates. The purpose of the visit was to explain to Gwenwynwyn the king’s reasons for a truce with Llywelyn, and to obtain his approval. Having used the English to wipe out his local rivals, Gwenwynwyn was now the supreme power in south Wales and perceived as a counterweight to Prince Llywelyn.

In the next year Gwenwynwyn married Margaret Corbet of the Corbets of Caus, a powerful family of the central Shropshire March, who held a significant network of castles in the region. At the same time he forged a partnership with Earl Ranulf of Chester, thus extending Powysian influence into the northeast marches. These alliances meant the Marchers would not combine against Gwenwynwyn when he went on the offensive.

Secure on his northern flank, he was now free to attack his principal enemies, Roger Mortimer and William Braose. Gwenwynwyn was almost certainly behind the Welsh attack on the Mortimer castle of Gwrtheyrnion in Maelienydd. Smart as ever, he took steps to avoid blame: on the very day the castle fell, 7 July 1202, Gwenwynwyn was at Strata Marcella confirming the foundation charter of his father, Owain Cyfeiliog. Two regular members of his teulu, Dafydd Goch and Cadwgan ap Griffri, were absent and probably overseeing the siege operations.

The fall of Gwrtherynion allowed the Powysians to attack the Braose lordships of Elfael, Builth, Radnor and Brecon. It isn’t certain which of these were targeted, but the Rotuli Litterarum record that Gwenwynwyn attacked Braose lands in 1204 and 1205. Again, all this vigorous and sustained military action suggests the disaster at Painscastle had little effect on Powys.

‘When we consider his expansion of the bounds of southern Powys, his power and influence in Deheubarth, the March and even parts of Gwynedd, and his apparent alliance with Ranulf of Chester, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that in the years around the turn of the century Gwenwynwyn enjoyed a primacy within Wales that had few parallels in the twelfth century’. - David Stephenson

The wars of Gwenwynwyn (5)

In August 1198 Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury, sent envoys to negotiate with the Welsh army camped outside Painscastle. According to the Brutiau, the Welsh leaders responded thus:

And the Welsh said that they would burn their cities for the Saxons once they had taken the castle, and that they would carry off their spoils and destroy them too (Peniarth).

This attitude is confirmed by Hubert’s letters to Gerald of Wales, in which he wrote of ‘those proud Welshmen who would take no warning’.

Perhaps the Welsh were confident in their numbers or trusted in Prince Gwenwynwyn. He was probably laying siege to Welshpool, and his allies might have hoped Gwenwynwyn would march to their aid. He did not.

Both armies advanced for battle. They were arranged in the standard three lines, one behind the other; this was the typical pattern for set-piece battles in medieval Wales. The Welsh put their foot soldiers in the front line, cavalry and infantry in the second, cavalry only in the third. The English put infantry in the front, knights in the second, and a big mixed reserve in the third.

The location of the battle is uncertain. Painscastle stands at the meeting of several routes in the valley of the Bach Howey, and the river itself runs a twisting course before the hill on which the castle motte stands. The Welsh probably advanced to block any approach from the old Roman road to the south via Hay on Wye. West of Painscastle was the Welsh-held cantref of Buellt, east an impassable marsh.

The rejection of peace terms enraged the English. A lowly sergeant, Walter Ham of Trumpington in Cambridge, stood up and declared he wished to die, since he was unimportant and the Welsh could not gloat over the death of a nobody. He mounted his horse and charged into the first line of Welsh infantry. Walter rode down two men, seized a third and broke his neck. He then turned and shouted “King’s men, king’s men - come with me, strike, strike, we will triumph!”

The first line or ‘battle’ of English infantry threw discipline to the winds and charged. What followed was Crug Mawr in reverse: it seems the Welsh were caught advancing up the sloping ground of the Begwns, south of the river. The unexpected ferocity of the English assault threw them backwards, into the second line, which rapidly disintegrated and plunged back down to the river. The English commander, Geoffrey Fitz Peter, threw his knights forward to complete the rout and drive away the mounted Welsh reserve.

Local tradition speaks of bones and ancient swords discovered in the trout pool discovered in the south side of the brook. If true, this would suggest many of the Welsh drowned as they tried to escape. The chronicles supply a horrific casualty list:

And so this unheard of massacre and unaccustomed killing occurred, with the rest Anarawd ab Einion, Owain Cascob ap Cadwallon, Rhiryd ab Iestyn and Robert ap Hywel were killed and Maredudd ap Cynan was imprisoned (Annales Cambriae)

The slaughter of so many princes suggests they were killed in the first rush of fighting, as they tried to prevent the rout. Welsh and English sources agree that between three to four thousand Welsh soldiers were slain. The Annals of Chester state that many nobles of Gwynedd were killed, and the men of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth. Only one Englishman died, and he was accidentally shot by a comrade. Walter Ham was slightly injured and suffered from a limp for eight days afterwards.

Paincastle was an utter catastrophe, arguably the worst military defeat ever suffered by the Welsh. There is a distinct whiff of conspiracy over Gwenwynwyn’s involvement. He was in English pay, and no Powysians appear on the list of killed or captured. His actions in the following years suggest the Powysian army was intact, while his local rivals rotted in the Bach Howey.

The wars of Gwenwynwyn (4)

In June 1198 Gwenwynwyn gathered most of the princes of Wales under his banner and marched on Painscastle. Inside were the retainers of William Braose, installed there by Maud de St Valery after her victory in 1195.

The plot then thickens, like day-old porridge. The Welsh chronicles do not emphasise Gwenwynwyn’s presence at Painscastle, and it is possible he split his army in two. Pipe Roll evidence suggests John Lestrange still held Welshpool in 1198, and Gwenwynwyn may have taken his Powysian troops to besiege the castle; it was, after all, his ancestral stronghold.

His allies, meanwhile, laid siege to Painscastle. They included Anarawd ab Einion of the house of Elfael and Owain ap Cadwallon of Maelienydd. The house of Elfael had been effectively dispossessed by William Braose in 1195, while Maelienydd was overrun by Roger Mortimer in the same year. Both these princes, therefore, were exiles who may have taken shelter with Gwenwynwyn. The army at Painscastle included a large number of Venedotians, probably sent by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth. The presence of his cousin, Maredudd ap Cynan, would suggest as much. Maredudd was also the younger brother of Prince Gruffydd ap Cynan, the chief lord of Gwynedd at this time.

Gwenwynwyn’s allies sat outside Painscastle for three weeks, unable to bombard the castle since they had no artillery. The Brutiau mention this fact but don’t explain it. Why did they have no siege engines? Were the Powysians supposed to supply them?

The new justiciar, Geoffrey Fitz Peter, gathered an army in England and the Marches and advanced towards Painscastle. One of his first acts was to release Gruffydd ap Rhys, the Lord Rhys’s eldest son, whom Gwenwynwyn had sold to the English the previous year. Gruffydd was granted four marks (£2 14s 4d), which suggests he accompanied the army. Further payments were made to Caswallon, Gwenwynwyn’s brother, and Llywelyn ab Owain Fychan. They, too, were probably serving in the army of Fitz Peter. 

Incredibly, Gwenwynwyn received a payment of £2 1s 8d from the English. Officially this was to compensate him for damages done to him by Caswallon in time of peace. Or was it a backhander? If so, what happened next suggests he came very cheap.

The wars of Gwenwynwyn (3)

In 1197 the Lord Rhys of Deheubarth - ‘the unconquerable leader of all Wales - died and left a brood of quarrelsome sons to fight over their inheritance. One of them, Maelgwn, had fled Deheubarth while his father was still alive and taken refuge with Prince Gwenwynwyn in southern Powys.

Powis Castle

As soon as the old man was dead, Gwenwynwn gave Maelgwn an army and sent him to attack his brother and Rhys’s heir-designate, Gruffudd. Maelgwn blazed through Ceredigion, capturing Aberystwyth and all the other castles in the region. Finally he seized Gruffudd and handed him over to Gwenwynwyn, a fairly clear indication that he regarded the latter as his overlord. Gwenwynwyn sold his prisoner to the English in exchange for the castle of Carreg Hofa.

The lord of Powys was playing a blinder: he had expanded his territory, got rid of an enemy, reduced the English presence without provoking a response, and conquered Ceredigion without lifting a finger. He was now well on his way to challenging the rulers of Gwynedd and Deheubarth for supremacy in Wales.

Some evidence of his aspirations is found in surviving charters. In one he styles himself ‘prince’ and in another three ‘prince of Powys’. In another he uses the style ‘Prince of Powys and Lord of Arwystli’: Arwystli was a cantref and kingdom sometimes associated with Powys, but not integrated with it. In another charter, an agreement between Gwenwynwyn and the monks of Strata Marcella, he is ‘princeps W’. This looks like an abbreviation of Princeps Walliae or Prince of Wales (although, strictly speaking it should be Principem or Principis). If this was an announcement of Gwenwynwyn’s claim to the principality, it was a very muted one. Being a canny sort of chap, perhaps he chose to keep his powder dry until he could properly enforce the claim.