The Welsh Kings

Warriors, Warlords and Princes

Kari Maund

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9780752473925
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

When Edward I's troops forced the destruction of Dafydd ap Gruffudd in 1283 they brought to an end the line of truly independent native rulers in Wales that had endured throughout recorded history. In the early middle ages Wales was composed of a variety of independent kingdoms with varying degrees of power, influence and stability, each ruled by proud and obdurate lineages. In this period a 'Kingdom of Wales' never existed, but the more powerful leaders, like Rhodri Mawr (the Great), Gruffudd ap Llywelyn and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, sought to extend their rule over the entire country. The author produces revealing pictures of the leading Welsh kings and princes of the day and explores both their contribution to Welsh history and their impact on the wider world. They were, of necessity, warriors, living in a violent political world and requiring ruthless skills to even begin to rule in Wales. Yet they showed wider vision, political acumen and statesmanship, and were patrons of the arts and the church. The history of their contact with their neighbours, allies and rivals is examined - Anglo-Saxons, Irish, Vikings, and Anglo-Normans - thereby setting Welsh institutions within their wider historical context. This work revives the memory of the native leaders of the country from a time before the title 'Prince of Wales' became an honorary trinket in the gift of a foreign ruler. These men are restored to their rightful place amongst the past rulers of the island of Britain.

1

From Vortigern to Merfyn Frych
The fifth century to c.825

Roman Wales is an artificial definition. The area now known as Wales did not exist in that form under Roman rule: it was simply part of Britain. The Romans first invaded western Britain in around AD 47 when the general Ostorius fought there against the Deceangli. Shortly afterwards, he fought another western people, the Silures, who were the allies of the powerful British leader, Caractacus. This war spread into the hill territory of north-east Wales, inhabited by the Ordovices, only ending with the defeat of Caractacus in AD 51. There were to be further conflicts in this area, especially against the Silures, until they were finally subdued in the 70s. By this time, the peoples of the south-west, the Deceangli and the Demetae, had submitted to Rome: the Ordovices rebelled in AD 79, but were soon brought into submission, and from this point all of modern Wales seems to have been under Roman rule.

The area fell into two zones, upland and lowland. The upland was controlled through a system of roads and forts at strategic locations. The lowland, and in particular south-east Wales, was governed from a local capital at Uenta Silurum, Caerwent, from whence taxes were collected, laws enforced, and public works undertaken. Roman villa-type sites have been found in south-east Wales, and the area may have been more extensively and lastingly influenced by the Romans than the rest of Wales.¹ Although other parts of Wales were less thoroughly integrated into the Roman way of life, Rome was nevertheless to have a lasting legacy for Wales. In later centuries, late and sub-Roman leaders were remembered in Welsh tales, histories and genealogies. Welsh royal houses claimed descent from the Emperor Constantine III (and, through confusion of names, from his predecessor, Constantine the Great, who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire) and from the usurping emperor of the west, Magnus Maximus, known in Welsh as Macsen Wledig. Latin words were borrowed into Welsh.² Perhaps the most significant long-term effect was the introduction of Christianity. No details survive as to the conversion of Wales, but by the fifth and sixth centuries it seems to have been a largely – perhaps completely – Christian society, and thus it would remain.

Roman rule in Wales declined from the fourth or even the later third century. Written sources depict a growing threat from Irish raiders, and in certain places, like Cardiff and Holyhead Island, coastal forts were built or strengthened. Around the same time, there is evidence of an increase of activity at Welsh hill forts – the centres of native tribal culture and politics.³ This might indicate that Roman dominance was weakening, and native power-structures were beginning to reassert themselves. The Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus recorded raids by Irish and by Picts (from what is now Scotland) in Britain in AD 360. By the later fourth century, the Roman Empire was under increasing pressure politically and militarily, and had decreasing resources to spend on its more remote provinces. Magnus Maximus, a Roman soldier of Spanish origin stationed in Britain, took advantage of the growing chaos, and, with the backing of much of the army in Britain, made himself emperor over Britain, Gaul and Spain between AD 383 and 388.⁴ To support his campaigns in Gaul and Spain, Magnus withdrew the soldiery from Britain. Britain remained in contact with the rest of the western Empire after the defeat and death of Magnus, but it seems likely that despite continued communication, many parts of Britain were by the end of the fourth century effectively self-governing. In some places, a Roman-style way of life centred on villas and towns may have continued; in others, the old structures of tribal chiefdoms centred on hill-forts and dependent on military prowess may have reasserted itself.

The traditional date for the end of Roman rule in Britain is AD 410. For much of the next two centuries, the history of Britain as a whole, let alone Wales, is uncertain, and based on later, mainly foreign, sources. It is possible to outline a chronology of events, although this outline is incomplete and uncertain. Writing in the sixth century, the Byzantine historian Procopius believed Britain to be inhabited by three peoples: Angles, Frisians and Britons, each subject to their own rulers and independent from each other. He wrote of ongoing migrations from Britain of native Britons into neighbouring Gaul, and particularly into Armorica (modern Brittany). Other writers also recorded barbarian invasions of Britain in this time, and political disruption.⁵ The first decade of the fifth century saw considerable upheavals, with a succession of emperors elected in Britain and subsequently overthrown. The most successful and famous of these was Constantine, who was elected in 407, and gathered together most of the army which remained in Britain, taking it with him into Gaul, where he enjoyed considerable success until 409. Zosimus, writing during the sixth century, using earlier records, recorded that c.408 Constantine’s general, Gerontius, allied with barbarian invaders and rebelled against the usurping emperor. At around the same time, Britain and part of Gaul rose against the surviving Roman officials and expelled them, subsequently establishing their own authorities.⁶ The sources are difficult to interpret, but it seems likely that in the early part of the fifth century, facing pressure from foreign invaders, the Britons increasingly took their own government and defence into their own hands. Constantine died in 411, and no subsequent Roman emperor made any attempt to regain Britain. The British writer Gildas, writing during the sixth century, paints a very bleak picture of this period. He did not set out to write history: his work, On the Ruin of Britain, is a sermon designed to educate and remonstrate with his contemporaries. He included no dates, and his few references to historical figures are difficult to interpret. We do not know exactly when he wrote, nor where, and it seems likely that he was selective in his use and interpretation of material.⁷ However, he is the sole native writer whose account survives from this early period, and his book had a lasting influence. Later Welsh writers, such as the author of the early ninth-century Historia Britonnum (HB) and the compilers of the Welsh Chronicles, as well as English writers such as Bede and the compilers of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, drew on Gildas to construct a history of Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries.

VORTIGERN, AMBROSIUS AND ARTHUR

Gildas described how, faced with increasingly dangerous raids from Picts and Scots, a certain proud tyrant and his council invited three ship-loads of Saxons to Britain, to become protectors of the Britons against the raiders. These mercenaries were given land in eastern Britain. After some time, complaining of ill-treatment and inadequate resources, the mercenaries turned on their employers and began to plunder and ravage on their own behalf.⁸ The major settlements were destroyed, and the invaders rapidly overran most of the island. Many Britons were killed, others fled overseas. Finally, some of the remainder united under the leadership of Ambrosius Aurelianus and inflicted a series of defeats upon the Saxons, culminating in a decisive siege at Badon Hill. After that victory, peace was restored for around half a century, enduring into Gildas’s own time, although, he cautions, already the Britons have returned to their old sinful ways, and are courting punishment.⁹ His account is couched in Biblical terms, so that the Saxons become the agents of a wrathful God, sent as a punishment upon the sinful Britons: it cannot be taken as accurate history.¹⁰ Yet his narrative would form the basis for the orthodox historiography of the Anglo-Saxon settlement eras in both early Wales and Anglo-Saxon England, and has continued to exercise an influence on perceptions of the settlement era down to this day.

Gildas did not name the proud tyrant, but by the time that the Anglo-Saxon monk, Bede, wrote his History of the English Church and People in the early part of the eighth century, the tyrant was said to have been Vortigern.¹¹ It is not clear how Bede came by this name. It has been suggested that Gildas’s Latin phrase superbus tyrannus, proud tyrant, may reflect a translation of a British name or title, mor tigern, great king.¹² Gildas’s story is unlikely to reflect an accurate historical tradition, but Vortigern has come to occupy a considerable role in the legendary history of early Britain. It cannot be stated with any certainty whether he existed or not: if he did exist, it certainly cannot be discovered whether there is any amount of truth in any of the stories which accrued to his name. The leaders of the Saxon mercenaries whom he supposedly invited into Britain acquired names, Hengist and Horsa.¹³ According to HB, Hengist tricked Vortigern into marrying Hengist’s daughter, and then used this tie to persuade Vortigern to make substantial grants of land to the Saxons, and permit greater numbers of them to enter Britain. Vortigern’s son Vortimer resisted this policy, and fought valiantly against the Saxons. But he died before he was able to achieve his goal, and his father’s pro-Saxon policy held sway. Hengist then persuaded Vortigern to summon a peace conference, and, once the British leaders were assembled, Hengist and his men fell on them and slew all of them apart from Vortigern himself, who was imprisoned, and only released after ceding large tracts of land.¹⁴ The weak judgement and sinful ways of Vortigern were not restricted to his dealings with the Saxons, according to HB. He conducted an incestuous relationship with his own daughter, incurring the wrath of St Germanus, a reforming bishop from Gaul.¹⁵ He listened to the advice of wizards and contemplated human sacrifice when planning a new fortress.¹⁶ After the treachery of Hengist, Vortigern fled first to Gwrtheyrnion and then to a fort on the River Teifi, whence he was followed by St Germanus, who sought to reform him. Vortigern did not listen, and was destroyed in a divine fire along with all his wives.¹⁷ This tale is not the sole account of the death of Vortigern: HB gives two more. According to one, he became a landless outcast, despised by all, and died alone. According to the other, he was swallowed up by the earth in punishment for his sins.¹⁸

The surviving tales about Vortigern are little more than legend, but he remains an important figure in early Welsh history.¹⁹ In later centuries, native Welsh royal dynasties – and in particular one major ruling house, the First Dynasty of Powys – claimed him as an ancestor, and one early kingdom, Gwrtheyrnion, has him as its eponym. At some point in the mid-ninth century, Cyngen, king of Powys, erected a monument in honour of his ancestors, and in particular of his grandfather Elise. It was inscribed with a description of Elise’s activities along with a genealogy of his line.²⁰ At the time that the monument was erected, the ruling family of Powys faced aggression not only from the Anglo-Saxons on their eastern borders, but from their northern and western neighbours, the kings of Gwynedd. Cyngen would die an exile in Rome. The monument thus represents a statement of the ancestry and antiquity of this ruling house in its last years of dominance: Vortigern occupies a key position in the doctrine of their legitimacy which the pillar embodies, presented as the father and friend of saints, the honourable descendant of the Romans, and the successful master of a wide territory. This picture is at odds with the stories recounted in the HB. The latter text was written in Gwynedd, under the influence of the aggressive royal dynasty of that kingdom. Its negative portrayal of Vortigern reflects the ambitions and desires of the royal house of Gwynedd in the ninth century.²¹ Alongside its negative portrait of Vortigern, HB gives an unflattering account of another figure who featured as the ancestor of a ruling house of Powys, Cadell Ddrynllug (Cadell of the gleaming hilt).²² Cadell is depicted as a good and honest man, but of servile, rather than noble birth, and owing his promotion to the ranks of kingship to piety, and to the intercession of St Germanus, rather than to inheritance or military prowess (the approved routes to legitimate kingship in early Wales). This image of Cadell is less negative than that of Vortigern, but it too raises questions over the status of his descendan...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 From Vortigern to Merfyn Frych
• 2 From Rhodri Mawr to Hywel Dda
• 3 From Owain ap Hywel to Gruffudd ap Llywelyn
• 4 From Bleddyn ap Cynfyn to Owain ap Cadwgan
• 5 From Owain Gwynedd to Rhys ap Gruffudd
• 6 Llywelyn ap Iorwerth
• 7 Llywelyn ap Gruffudd
• Notes
• Bibliography
• List of Illustrations
• Plate Section
• About the Author
• Copyright