Divide and rule

Serving two masters (3) Via the Treaty of Aberconwy, 9 November 1277, Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd was required to release his vassal Rhys ap Gruffudd from prison:

“That Llywelyn should free Rhys ap Gruffudd and restore him to the state he occupied when he first came to the lord king and was brought into his peace.”

The clauses of the treaty also required Llywelyn to release Owain ap Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, Dafydd ap Gruffudd ab Owain and his cousin Elise ab Iorwerth, as well as Madog ap Einion. In the next year Rhys ap Gruffudd was serving in the king’s household at a knight’s wage of two shillings a day up until Michaelmas. A month before this, on 18 January 1278, he had been appointed the last member of the judicial branch of three Englishmen and four Welshmen on the Hopton Commission, set up to deal with land claims in Wales. 

The make-up of the commission reveals Edward I’s notions of how Wales would be governed post-Aberconwy. His idea was to build up a ministerial elite of loyalist Welshmen who would work alongside a roughly equal number of English officials to administer Wales on the king’s behalf. He would later attempt to do something very similar in Scotland, with an equal number of Scots and Englishmen appointed as councillors and sheriffs.

In Wales these ministers were drawn from the uchelwyr - the landholding class below the rank of prince - and the Welsh church. This was at the expense of the princes, not least Llywelyn himself. There was an element of divide and rule here: by promoting the uchelwyr over the princes, the king created a base of native support in Wales while ensuring that the two classes were opposed to each other. In a move that would have shocked Prince Llywelyn, on 10 January 1278 Edward ordered him to appear before the new commission:

“The king has ordered Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd of Wales to be before them in those parts to propound the suits of himself and his men and to do and receive jusice”.

The members of this commission were Rhys ap Gruffudd, Archdeacon Maredudd of Cardigan, Hywel ap Maredudd and Goronwy ap Heilyn. All four had once been Llywelyn’s vassals, and now he was required to appear before them as his judges. Perhaps to reconcile Llywelyn, in June the king ordered that the remit of the commission should be widened to cover the English counties of Herefordshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire. Thus a team of Welsh justices were given effective jurisdiction over Wales and a big chunk of western England.

On 20 June 1278 Edward went further, and ordered that the four Welshmen on the team of seven should be given exclusive rights to hear and determine all pleas in Wales and the Marches. The English head of the commission, Walter of Hopton, was required to take their oath in his place. This act shows the extraordinary faith Edward placed in the Welshmen on the commission, two of which had been in rebellion against him within the past year.