The First Prince of Wales?

Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, 1063-75

Sean Davies

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781783169382
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de la Grande-Bretagne

This is the first book on one of Wales's greatest leaders, arguably 'first prince of Wales', Bleddyn ap Cynfyn. Bleddyn was at the heart of the tumultuous events that forged Britain in the cauldron of Norman aggression, and his reign offers an important new perspective on the events of 1066 and beyond. He was a leader who used alliances on the wider British scale as he strove to recreate the fledgling kingdom of Wales that had been built and ruled by his brother, though outside pressures and internal intrigues meant his successors would compete ultimately for a principality.

1

The Kingdoms Unite

One of the major reasons for the lack of acknowledgement that has been given to Bleddyn’s true place in history is the version of Welsh history that was promoted by the princes of Gwynedd in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The resurgence of the dynasty of these princes can be attributed to the influential late-eleventh and early twelfth-century ruler Gruffudd ap Cynan. He was born an exile in Dublin, the son of a Welsh noble from a dynastic branch that had once enjoyed rule, but that was dangerously close to obscurity and extinction. The heartland of power for Gruffudd’s forebears was Gwynedd, and when he and his descendants returned to prominence in the twelfth century they would use Gwynedd as the base to try to extend their dominion across native Wales. This has led many to suggest that Welsh kings such as Bleddyn, who ruled in the intervening period, were usurpers, regarded as somehow illegitimate.¹ There is little evidence of this in contemporary sources. Gruffudd ap Cynan’s dynastic line had not enjoyed any sort of rule in Wales since 1039, and the earliest possible date at which Gruffudd could be considered to have a serious claim to Welsh kingship is 1081 (a date closer to 1100 is probably more realistic). The most significant rulers of north Wales in the intervening period were related quite closely to each other, but only distantly to Grufffudd’s dynastic line. They also wielded far more power than Gruffudd ever did, and there is no suggestion in contemporary sources that they were regarded as anything other than legitimate rulers.

Whilst Bleddyn may be regarded as an usurping ruler if we accept the historical tradition that emerged from twelfth- and thirteenth-century Gwynedd, he is treated with respect in other traditions as he was the founder of the second dynasty of Powys. He is prominent in Welsh genealogies and to be able to trace descent to him was regarded as a great boon. The key to interpreting the disconnect between these two traditions and to understanding the true position of Bleddyn in the mid-eleventh century is to consider what had happened to Gwynedd and Powys in the centuries before his rule, and the years immediately following his demise.

The Merfyn Frych dynasty of Gwynedd

Gwynedd and Powys had, in fact, ceased to be separate kingdoms in the ninth century when the first dynasty of Powys had come to an end. After 854 there are no source references to Powys until the later eleventh century; Thomas Charles-Edwards says that the former kingdom was ‘probably subsumed into Gwynedd for much of that period’ and that it must be must be doubted whether anyone in eleventh- and twelfth-century Powys knew exactly what ninth-century Powys was composed of.² Evidence from the Pillar of Eliseg – a stone cross outside Llangollen with inscriptions celebrating the first dynasty of Powys – suggests that the kings of the region had enjoyed a resurgence of power in the early to mid ninth century, when threats from the leaders of Mercia on their eastern borders had diminished. However, they soon faced a fresh challenge from the west. A vigorous new dynasty, that of Merfyn Frych, had come to power in Gwynedd, quite probably with Hiberno-Scandinavian support from the Irish Sea region. The last known king of the first dynasty of Powys, Cyngen ap Cadell, died in Rome in 854 and Charles-Edwards places the date of the final subjection of Powys to Gwynedd in the period 881–6.³ After 854, the next mention of Powys in the Welsh chronicle comes in 1069 and even then it is only mentioned in one version (Brut RBH), where the region is treated as an appendage of Gwynedd. It is not until 1102 that all versions of the Welsh chronicle name Powys as an independent entity, separate from Gwynedd.⁴ Gwynedd and Powys had effectively become a single kingdom of north Wales in the later ninth century, the development being part of a trend seen throughout Wales – and, indeed, throughout post-Roman western Europe – for small kingdoms to coalesce into larger ones. In other parts of post-Roman western Europe, some of these entities would later form nation states.

Llywelyn ap Seisyll and the resurgence of Powys

For most of the period in which Powys and Gwynedd were united, the latter was the dominant partner. The most likely scenario would seem to be that the Merfyn Frych dynasty of Gwynedd had forced its power on Powys in the ninth century, although in order to rule they would have had to rely on powerful local families which would seek to strengthen their own position. One such family was probably that of Llywelyn ap Seisyll, the head of a dynasty that would burst into the historical light in the early eleventh century, at the same time as we see a power shift from Gwynedd to Powys. The forebears of Llywelyn are lost in the shadows of time, but his origins and power base lay east of the river Conwy, and probably in Powys. The rise of his dynasty may have been facilitated by successful war against the Mercians and his family is closely associated with a stronghold at the former Anglo-Saxon burh of Rhuddlan. Although we lack reliable evidence, it is possible that Llywelyn himself had a base there by 1015.

The rise of Llywelyn coincided with a period of chaos and, most probably, civil war in Gwynedd. One of the few definitive pieces of information in the Welsh chronicle records that Cynan ap Hywel – a direct descendant of the Merfyn Frych dynasty – was ‘slain’ in 1003, and domestic strife seems to be the most likely explanation. A period of silence follows through to 1018, when it is recorded that Llywelyn killed a certain Aeddan ap Blegywryd and his four sons. Within four years the chronicle describes Llywelyn ranging widely across south as well as north Wales and he is accorded the title ‘King of the Britons’, an appellation that was reserved for the greatest rulers with the widest ambitions.

One important but disputed piece of evidence is available to shed further light on the rise of Llywelyn. The poem Echrys Ynys (‘desolate the island’) mourns the death of a ruler named Aeddan from Anglesey who led an army from Arfon (the region on the southern shore of the Menai Strait) to his final battle at Caer Seon. The battle site is on the west side of the Conwy, opposite Degannwy and close to the mouth of the river. Despite the fact that Ifor Williams favoured an eleventh-century date for the poem, both he and Kari Maund were reluctant to accept that the Aeddan in whose honour it was written could be connected with the Aeddan ap Blegywryd killed by Llywelyn. Charles-Edwards, however, disagrees, pointing out that no other known name fits the bill and that the poet treads a difficult path, being obliged to praise his former lord while having to take care not to upset the new regime under the control of Aeddan’s conqueror.⁵

If we accept that Echrys Ynys was dedicated to Aeddan ap Blegywryd – and I see little reason to doubt this – it reinforces the idea that the power base of Aeddan’s conqueror, Llywelyn, lay east of the Conwy. By contrast, Aeddan’s court in Anglesey would connect him with the heartland of Gwynedd and the Irish Sea region, the core power base of what had become the northern branch of the Merfyn Frych dynasty. Aeddan is not named in the genealogies of the Merfyn Frych line, perhaps suggesting that civil strife had loosened its grip on power. Such upheaval may have opened the way for the leading dynasties of Powys to claim dominance over north Wales, a change that would ultimately help facilitate the rise of Bleddyn ap Cynfyn.

Rivalries following the death of Llywelyn ap Seisyll

Llywelyn died in 1023 and the sources for the years that follow remain sparse and unreliable. The little evidence we do have indicates that his death allowed the Merfyn Frych dynasty back on to the scene, although their rule was by no means uncontested. The dynasty had been split into two branches – northern and southern – since the time of Merfyn’s grandsons in the early tenth century. The heartland of the northern branch was in Gwynedd, while that of the southern branch was in Deheubarth, in south-west Wales. At some point after Llywelyn’s death, Iago ab Idwal of the northern branch was prominent on the political scene in Wales, while the brothers Maredudd and Hywel ab Edwin led the southern branch in Deheubarth.

There is no direct evidence that these two branches of Merfyn Frych’s line worked together, but they do seem to have had common enemies in the other two dynasties prominent in Wales, whose leaders were Llywelyn’s brother, Cynan ap Seisyll, and a former ally of Llywelyn, Rhydderch ab Iestyn, who was the dominant ruler of south-east Wales. Some of our most extensive evidence comes from the south-east in the form of the Book of Llandaff, a source that is notoriously difficult to interpret but is not necessarily unreliable. It states that, after the death of Llywelyn, Rhydderch was ‘ruling over all Wales’ except the island of ‘Euonia’, which is thought to be a reference to Anglesey.⁶ This could mean that Iago ab Idwal was in control of the island and it may be speculated that Cynan was contending with him for power throughout the rest of north Wales.

Whilst little can be said with certainty about this bloody period, we know that Cynan was ‘slain’ in 1027. This may have been as part of a battle for control of the northern kingdom, but the Tudor historian David Powel claimed that the sons of Edwin from Deheubarth were responsible for Cynan’s death. As with much other evidence on Wales that is unique to antiquarian sources, it is impossible to tell whether Powel had access to original material that is now lost to us, or whether he was simply making an educated guess to fill in blanks in his story. Rhydderch was killed in 1033 and again the perpetrators are unnamed, but the sons of Edwin are likely candidates. In 1034 Rhydderch’s sons and the sons of Edwin fought each other at the battle of Hiraethwy, the location and result of which is unknown. In 1035, Maredudd ab Edwin was killed by the ‘sons of Cynan’. This is thought to refer to the offspring of Cynan ap Seisyll, and their action could, perhaps, be seen as revenge for the killing of their father.

Gruffudd ap Llywelyn and the kingdom of Wales

If this version of events is far from being the only possible interpretation of the limited evidence, it at least ties in with the fact that the various texts of the Welsh chronicles only claim that Iago began to rule in the north – and the sons of Edwin in the south – in 1033, after the deaths of both Cynan and Rhydderch. Later historiography would see this as the return of the ‘legitimate’ Merfyn Frych dynasty to Gwynedd, but contemporary sources seem to have had no issue with the legitimacy of the rule of the likes of Rhydderch ab Iestyn and Llywelyn ap Seisyll, nor with that of their sons, who would dominate Wales in the middle decades of the eleventh century. Nothing more is known of the rule of Iago until its bloody ending in 1039 was recorded (without lament): ‘Iago, king of Gwynedd was slain. And in his place ruled Gruffudd ap Llywelyn ap Seisyll; and he, from his beginning to the end, pursued the Saxons and the other Gentiles and slaughtered and destroyed them, and defeated them in a great number of battles. He fought his first battle at Rhyd-y-groes on the Severn, and there he prevailed. In that year he pillaged Llanbadarn and held rule over Deheubarth and he expelled Hywel ab Edwin from his territory.’⁷

We do not know who was responsible for the death of Iago, although the bloodied sword inevitably tends to be placed in the hands of the man who had the most obvious motive. This was, of course, his successor Gruffudd, the son of Llywelyn ap Seisyll. Having been born c.1013, Gruffudd would have been a minor on the death of his father in 1023 and the only information we have on his early years comes from folklore. This suggests that an indolent youth turned into a restless, rampant, blood-drenched adolescent who became a feared presence on the Welsh political scene.⁸ His cousins, the sons of Cynan, receive no mention after the reference to their killing of Maredudd ab Edwin in 1035 and – as no other male descendant of Llywelyn’s father Seisyll is known – Gruffudd seems to have been the sole inheritor of the dynasty’s claims to rule. This would have given him a formidable power base in Powys and after Iago’s death – in whatever manner that came about – Gruffudd was soon recognised as king of north Wales. He was immediately strong enough to wage aggressive war and his power in Gwynedd and Powys did not waver until he found himself under overwhelming external pressure in the final months of his 24-year reign. This indicates that these two regions were essentially united and that his rule was considered legitimate.

Gruffudd used the strength and security offered by the backing of the northern realm to extend his dominion further. In the year of his accession he won a major engagement against his Mercian neighbours in the battle of Rhyd-y-groes, fought on Gruffudd’s eastern border in the vicinity of Forden in the plain below Montgomery.⁹ The relieving of pressure on this front enabled Gruffudd to turn west and south for an assault on the kingdom of Deheubarth, which was under the rule of Hywel ab Edwin. Gruffudd enjoyed immediate success and was soon ruling at least a portion of Deheubarth, but Hywel and the men of the south proved stubborn opponents who enjoyed significant support from Hiberno-Scandinavian fleets. Gruffudd eventually killed Hywel in 1044 in a battle fought at the mouth of the Tywi, a victory that left south-east Wales as the only part of the country outside the northern king’s direct rule.

The dominant ruler in the south-east was Gruffudd’s namesake, Gruffudd ap Rhydderch. His father, Rhydderch ab Iestyn, had been an ally of Llywelyn ap Seisyll and there is no hint of discord between the two families until 1045. In that year, chronicle records state that: ‘There was great deceit between Gruffudd and Rhys, the sons of Rhydderch, and Gruffudd ap Llywelyn.’¹⁰ The wording of this entry may suggest that the treachery was instigated by the sons of Rhydderch, and if this was the case they were to pay dearly for ending their alliance with Gruffudd ap Llywelyn. Having secured his position in south-west Wales, the northern king began looking east and south – the change in focus signalled by a raid on northern Herefordshire in 1052 – and the key to furthering his ambitions would prove to be an alliance with Earl Ælfgar of the house of Mercia. When the earl was exiled from England in 1055 he gathered a Hiberno-Scandinavian fleet which sailed to a rendezvous with Gruffudd ap Llywelyn at the mouth of the Wye. In the course of these events the northern king killed his southern namesake Gruffudd ap Rhydderch and conquered south-east Wales, before the allied force embarked on an expedition up the Wye valley that ended with the destruction of Hereford. Ælfgar was restored to his earldom and, after a protracted series of border skirmishes, Gruffudd secured acknowledgement of his kingship and territories in a peace treaty he concluded with Edward the Confessor in 1056.

Gruffudd had become the only native king to reign over all the lands that comprise modern Wales.¹¹ He had also extended the country, making significant conquests along the length of his eastern border to reclaim ‘Welsh’ lands that had been in Anglo-Saxon hands for centuries. Gruffudd was the outstanding leader of Wales in the middle ages and alongside him in his years of glory would have been his half-brother, Bleddyn ap Cynfyn.

2

Bleddyn’s Rise to Power

The genealogies of Wales abound with references to Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, but he is the first of his line about whom anything definite can be said and – apart from the identity of his father – everything about his heritage is open to question. A genealogy in Mostyn MS 117, which was written in the last quarter of the thirteenth century, traces Bleddyn’s lineage back to the legendary pre-Roman king of Britain, Beli Mawr.¹ In this source, Cynfyn’s father is named as Gwerystan, his father as Gwyn, and Gwyn’s father as Gwaithfoed. Most later genealogies omit the name of Gwyn from the family tree and make Gwerystan the son of Gwaithfoed. Yet even the name of Bleddyn’s grandfather Gwerystan is somewhat uncertain; this is the form given in Mostyn MS 117, but Brut (RBH) has Gwerstan and the more common spelling in other genealogies is ‘Gweystan’.² The name is thought to be a derivative of the English Werestan, suggesting that the origins and/or alliances of the family may have been connected with the Anglo-Saxon border and increasing the likelihood that the distinguished Welsh heritage that is claimed may be spurious. In contrast to the grand lists in the genealogies, the various versions of the Welsh chronicle only identify Bleddyn’s father Cynfyn as the ‘son of Gwerystan’ and Kari Maund describes Bleddyn’s forebears as ‘little more than names in pedigrees’; we can learn no more about them.³

The pedigree compilers had good reason to record a glorious heritage for Bleddyn, whether it was real or fabricated. Gwerystan is thought to have had three children, Cynfyn, Ithel and Nest, but it was Cynfyn who would become the crucial piece in the genealogical jigsaw; he would be remembered as the ancestor of one of the five ‘royal tribes of Wales’ that were to become so important to the minor Welsh nobility of the succeeding centuries as they tried to insist upon their increasingly forlorn claims to glory, honour and respect.

If the early origins of Cynfyn’s family are obscure, everything we learn of them in later years would suggest that their power base was in Powys. As suggested, the name Gwerystan could point to an English heritage, but other speculations are equally valid. It is ...