The First Prince of Wales?

Sean Davies

Description

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.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Great Britain
• History
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Wales Press
• Date de parution: 20 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783169382
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES?
THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES?
Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, 1063–75
Sean Davies
© Sean Davies, 2016
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. Applications for the copyright owner’s written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the University of Wales Press, 10 Columbus Walk, Brigantine Place, Cardiff, CF10 4UP.
www.uwp.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78316-936-8
e-ISBN 978-1-78316-938-2
The right of Sean Davies to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Cover image: Sergey856 / Dreamstime.com
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1   The Kingdoms Unite
2   Bleddyn’s Rise to Power
3   The New Kings
4   Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans
5   Opportunity and Disaster
6   The Principalities Divide
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
My first debt of gratitude goes to all the staff at the University of Wales Press. Finding support for any sort of research and writing on medieval Wales is obviously a huge challenge, and the Press’s willingness and ability to get behind this sort of project helps to keep alive this neglected period of the country’s history. The Press’s care and attention to detail in the production process has been greatly appreciated. I also owe a huge thanks to Professor Huw Pryce of Bangor University; his response to an unheralded email requesting help with the section on Bleddyn’s influence on Welsh law went above and beyond any expectation. Professor Pryce’s detailed feedback deepened and transformed my own understanding of this area, although – of course – any mistakes remain mine. Finally, this work would not have been possible without the love and support of my mother, Monica, of my brother, Mike, his wife, Marie, and their son, Llywelyn; they will understand that this book is dedicated to my father, David James Davies, who we lost in 2014 but who lives with us every day.
List of Illustrations
  1. Kingdoms of medieval Wales
  2. Key locations mentioned in the text
  3. The descendants of Angharad ferch Maredudd ab Owain
  4. Llanbadarn Fawr
  5. Beachley
  6. Image of Bleddyn and Rhiwallon
  7. Image of a Welsh king on his throne
  8. Bleddyn’s wives and children
  9. Hereford
10. St Davids
11. The Menai Straits
List of Abbreviations
AC
Annales Cambriae , ed. J. Williams ab Ithel (London, 1860)
ANS
Anglo Norman Studies
Arch. Camb.
Archaeologia Cambrensis
ASC
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , ed. and trans. D. Whitelock (London, 1961). All given dates follow this edition
BBCS
Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies
Bren.
Brenhinedd y Saeson or The Kings of the Saxons , ed. and trans. T. Jones (Cardiff, 1971). All year references are to the amended dates given by Jones
Brut (Pen. 20)
Brut y Tywysogyon or The Chronicle of the Princes, Peniarth MS. 20 Version , ed. and trans. T. Jones (Cardiff, 1952). All year references are to the amended dates given by Jones
Brut (RBH)
Brut y Tywysogyon or The Chronicle of the Princes, Red Book of Hergest Version , ed. and trans. T. Jones (Cardiff, 1955). All year references are to the amended dates given by Jones
EHR
English History Review
Gruffudd ap Cynan
Vita Griffini Filii Conani: The Medieval Life of Gruffudd ap Cynan , ed. and trans. P. Russell (Cardiff, 2005)
Life of King Edward
The Life of King Edward (who rests at Westminster, attributed to a monk of Saint Bertin) , ed. and trans.
F. Barlow (2nd edn, Oxford, 1992)
Map
Walter Map, De Nugis Curialium / Courtiers ’ Trifles , ed. and trans. M. R. James, C. N. L. Brooke and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford, 1983)
NLWJ
National Library of Wales Journal
OV
Orderic Vitalis, Historia Ecclesiastica , ed. and trans. M. Chibnall, 6 vols (Oxford, 1969–80)
PBA
Proceedings of the British Academy
TCHS
Transactions of the Caernarfonshire Historical Society
THSC
Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion
TRHS
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
TWNFC
Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club
Vita
A. W. Wade-Evans (ed. and trans.), Vitae Sanctorum Britanniae et Genealogiae (Cardiff, 1944)
WHR
Welsh History Review
Introduction
Bleddyn ap Cynfyn’s place in Welsh history is a somewhat curious one. Despite being one of the mightiest and most influential of native rulers his own deeds are largely unknown and he is mostly remembered for his place in the genealogies as the founder of the second dynasty of Powys. But to consider Bleddyn as a regional ruler restricted to a specific portion of mid Wales is to do a great disservice to his story and legacy. Bleddyn was a leader at the heart of the tumultuous events that forged Britain in the cauldron of Norman aggression in the mid-eleventh century. Having succeeded his half-brother Gruffudd ap Llywelyn in 1063, he always strived to reconstruct the fledgling kingdom of Wales that had been created by that remarkable ruler. To attempt to achieve this aim, Bleddyn built and maintained a key alliance with the Anglo-Saxon earls Edwin and Morcar, first against the Godwines and then in the bitter war of attrition against William the Conqueror and the Normans.
Such exploits on a grand scale were the backdrop to Bleddyn’s ambitious plans for a kingdom of Wales. Secure in his heartlands of Gwynedd and Powys, he sought to impose his power on the rest of the country. While military might and strategic alliances were always central to such plans, Bleddyn was much more than a warlord. He is one of the few men acknowledged as a reformer of the laws of Hywel Dda and he was remembered in a version of the Welsh chronicle as ‘a defender of orphans, the weak and widows, the strength of the learned and the churches, the comfort of the lands, generous towards all, terrible in war and lovable in peace, a defence for all’.
Despite such qualities, Bleddyn’s reign was hamstrung by the problems that would bedevil Welsh rulers in the twelfth and thirteenth century; the competing ambitions of their own countrymen and the need for a strong ally across the English border. For all his wide-ranging ambitions, the nature of his rise to power and the events of his reign effectively ended the possibility of Wales ever becoming an independent, united realm under one native leader again. Instead, the groundwork was laid for the familiar, fragmented and bewildering network of petty Welsh ‘kingdoms’ and marcher lordships that characterised the country in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. His reign began the age of the princes, which means that – in fact if not in title – he can be regarded as the first prince of Wales.
A note on dating
At the outset of this book it is important to acknowledge a problem with regard to the start date given in the title, 1063; the issue is that we cannot say with certainty whether or not the date – which signifies the start of the reign of Bleddyn and the death of his predecessor, Gruffudd ap Llywelyn – should in fact be 1064. The confusion is linked to the unknown date of the death of Earl Ælfgar of Mercia and to Harold Godwinesson’s subsequent Christmas attack on Gruffudd in Rhuddlan. These events were traditionally thought to have occurred in late 1062, but Benjamin Hudson has put forward a strong case suggesting that they happened in late 1063. 1 If his argument is accepted, it would mean that Gruffudd’s death – and the start of Bleddyn’s reign – should be dated to 1064, not 1063.
The chronology involved in a study of the relevant source material – Welsh, English, Irish and Norman – is tortuous and contradictory; deciding to favour one source means choosing to disregard another. The various Welsh annals and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle have 1063 as the year of Gruffudd’s death, although the Annales Cambriae chronology is very confused for this period. Contemporary Irish chronicles and John of Worcester date Gruffudd’s death to 1064 and, as Hudson notes, their precise chronological references to the Paschal cycle seem to offer more authority. One version of the later Brutiau explicitly refers to the Paschal cycle as giving the date as 1063; but this is in the unreliable Bren. text and it may have been an attempt by the author to ‘correct’ contradictory sources he had in front of him. Hudson’s 1064 date for Gruffudd’s death has recently found favour with Thomas Charles-Edwards in his magisterial Wales and the Britons 350–1064 , but the vast majority of English and Welsh historians have favoured the traditional 1063 date; that list of historians includes Rees Davies, whose The Age of Conquest: Wales, 1063–1415 comes from the same Oxford University Press History of Wales series as the Charles-Edwards book (although it was written before the Hudson article).
There does not seem to be a way to settle this debate definitively, but I favour 1063, which would fit with the generally accepted date of Ælfgar’s death in 1062. It also fits more convincingly with other known chronology, notably the career of Harold. If we accept that Harold made a trip to Normandy in this period (some suggest that this was just Norman propaganda) it would most probably have been in 1064, a date that would mean his Welsh campaign must have been in 1062–3. The alternative date for the Norman excursion is early 1065, but this would have given Harold little opportunity to get back to England and order the building work at Portskewett th