Llywelyn ap Gruffudd

Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (, died 11 December 1282) or Llywelyn the Last was Prince of Gwynedd from 1255 to 1282. After successful campaigns across Wales in 1257, Llywelyn proclaimed himself Prince of Wales in 1258, and was recognised as such by Henry III of England in 1267 as part of the Treaty of Montgomery. He remained in this position until his death in an ambush at Cilmeri in 1282, one of the final events in Edward I’s conquest of Wales.

Genealogy and early life

Llywelyn was the second of the four sons of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, the eldest son of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, and Senana ferch Caradog,

The eldest was Owain Goch ap Gruffudd and there were two younger brothers, Dafydd ap Gruffydd and Rhodri ap Gruffudd.

Llywelyn's father, Gruffudd (who was Llywelyn's eldest son but illegitimate), and his brother, Owain, were initially kept prisoner by Dafydd, then transferred into the custody of King Henry III of England. Gruffudd died in 1244 from a fall while trying to escape from his cell at the top of the Tower of London. The window from which he attempted to escape the Tower was bricked up and can still be seen to this day. As King Henry could no longer use Gruffudd against him, war broke out between Dafydd II and King Henry in 1245. Llywelyn supported his uncle in the savage fighting that followed.

Early reign

Gwynedd

thumb|[[North Wales division 1247. The terms they were forced to accept restricted them to the west of Conwy (Gwynedd Uwch Conwy) around Snowdonia and Anglesey, which was divided between them. The other half of Gwynedd east of Conwy known as the Perfeddwlad was taken over by King Henry.

All of Wales

During 1257, Llywelyn aggressively pursued his interests and gained control of lands in Gwrtheyrnion, driving out his cousin, the Anglo-Norman, Roger Mortimer. Then to Powys, which affected his fellow Welshman, Gwenwynwyn, and Deheubarth in South Wales, helping his kin against Norman control going as far as the Bristol Channel, leaving a trail of destruction during the time of Lent. Despite liberating his fellow Welsh folk, some would return to siding with the English upon his departure. The English retaliated by mobilising a force from Scotland to Deganwy in Wales but did not cross into Conwy, which was officially Llywelyn's Welsh territory. Henry III waited for an Irish naval force to attack on land from the west to corner Llywelyn, however, his force never arrived. The acts of aggression were followed by a peace truce for 1258, of which the Marcher Lords, did not completely abide by.

The leader of Deheubarth, Rhys Fychan now accepted Llywelyn as overlord, but this caused problems for Llywelyn, as Rhys's lands had already been given to Maredudd. Llywelyn restored his lands to Rhys, but the king's envoys approached Maredudd and offered him Rhys's lands if he would change sides. Maredudd paid homage to Henry in late 1257. After the betrayal, in 1259, Llywelyn jailed Maredudd until Christmas in Criccieth Castle. Maredudd was released only for him to surrender a son as hostage, it was then Dinefwr became a vassal kingdom of Gwynedd.

In early 1258, Llywelyn was using the title Prince of Wales, and, in 1263, Llywelyn's brother, Dafydd was hostile against the Prince and submitted himself to King Henry.

Then in January 1260, Llywelyn pursued his interests internally by dislodging Roger Mortimer of Buellt. This would be an act of war which would be followed by an English decree which was summoned in Oxford on 1 August. Armies assembled at Shrewsbury and Chester with the sole purpose of removing Llywelyn from power. However, the English could not come to an agreement in government over the matter, and a truce was enacted again for a further 2 years. After 2 years the English continued castle building which caused a revolt from the Welsh, who in turn requested and were assisted by Llywelyn in defending their lands in Maelienydd. After, Llywelyn continued his expansion into South Wales to the Lordship of Brecon, where he received fealty from the Welsh who too ousted their Anglo-Norman Marcher Lord Mortimer. This success brought him to the attention of the Montfort family, which would start a new era for Gwynedd and Llywelyn. The change in territory forced Edward I to return to Wales for the first time since 1254.

On 12 December 1263, in the commote of Ystumanner, Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn (Mathrafal, Powys Wenwynwyn) did homage and swore fealty to Llywelyn. In return he was made a vassal lord and the lands taken from him by Llywelyn about six years earlier were restored to him.

Supremacy in Wales

thumb|upright=1.1|alt=Coloured map depicting Wales (adjacent to the Kingdom of England, coloured dark orange) following the Treaty of Montgomery of 1267. Gwynedd, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd's principality, is green; the territories conquered by Llywelyn are purple; the territories of Llywelyn's vassals are blue; the lordships of the Marcher barons are shown as light orange; and the lordships of the King of England are shown in yellow.|Wales after the [[Treaty of Montgomery of 1267:

]]

Llywelyn's interests were now not solely excluded to Wales. In England, Simon de Montfort (the Younger) defeated the king's supporters at the Battle of Lewes in 1264 (Second Barons' War), capturing the king and Lord Edward. Llywelyn began negotiations with de Montfort, and in 1265, offered him 25,000 marks in exchange for a permanent peace, 5,000 of which immediately and then 3,000 a year thereafter. The Treaty of Pipton, 22 June 1265, established an alliance between Llywelyn and de Montfort, although Pope Clement IV warned Llywelyn against allying himself with the excommunicated Montfort. As well as the rule of the whole Principality, Llywelyn was offered the castles of Maud, Hawarden, Ellesmere and Montgomery. King Henry sent a bishop to take possession of the castle while the dispute was resolved but when Gilbert regained the castle by trickery, the king was unable to do anything about it.

Following the death of King Henry in late 1272, with the new King Edward I of England away from the kingdom on a crusade,

Last campaign and death

thumb|upright|The death of Llywelyn, from the 'Chronicon Roffense'

thumb|389x389px|The Llywelyn Monument at [[Cilmeri near Builth Wells, erected in 1956]]

By early 1282, many of the lesser princes who had supported Edward against Llywelyn in 1277 were becoming disillusioned with the exactions of the royal officers. On Palm Sunday that year, Dafydd ap Gruffydd attacked the English at Hawarden Castle and then laid siege to Rhuddlan. Meanwhile, the revolt quickly spread to other parts of Wales, with Aberystwyth Castle captured and burnt by Maredudd ap Rhys Gryg (heir of Prince of South Wales/Deheubarth) and rebellion in South Wales,

The Archbishop writes further directly to King Edward himself:

The privy seal of Llywelyn the Last, his wife Eleanor and his brother Dafydd ap Gruffydd are thought to have been melted down by the English after finding them upon their bodies to make a chalice in 1284.

There are legends surrounding the fate of Llywelyn's severed head. It is known that it was sent to Edward at Rhuddlan and after being shown to the English troops based in Anglesey, Edward sent the head on to London. In London, it was set up in the city pillory for a day, and crowned with ivy (i.e. to show he was a "king" of Outlaws and in mockery of the ancient Welsh prophecy, which said that a Welshman would be crowned in London as king of the whole of Britain). Then it was carried by a horseman on the point of his lance to the Tower of London and set up over the gate. It was still on the Tower of London 15 years later.

The poet Gruffudd ab yr Ynad Coch wrote in an elegy on Llywelyn:

<poem>Do you not see the path of the wind and the rain?

Do you not see the oak trees in turmoil?

Cold my heart in a fearful breast

For the king, the oaken door of Aberffraw</poem>

There is an enigmatic reference in the Welsh annals Brut y Tywysogion, "... and then Llywelyn was betrayed in the belfry at Bangor by his own men". No further explanation is given.

Annexation

With the loss of Llywelyn, Welsh morale and the will to resist diminished. Dafydd was Llywelyn's named successor as Prince of Wales. He carried on the struggle for several months until in June 1283, but was captured in the uplands above Abergwyngregyn at Bera Mountain together with his family. He was brought before Edward, then taken to Shrewsbury where a special session of Parliament condemned him to death. He was dragged through the streets, hanged, drawn and quartered.

After the final defeat of 1283, Gwynedd was stripped of all royal insignia, relics and regalia. Edward Longshanks took particular delight in appropriating the royal home of the Gwynedd dynasty. In August 1284, he set up his court at Abergwyngregyn, Gwynedd. With equal deliberateness, he removed all the insignia of majesty from Gwynedd; a coronet was solemnly presented to the shrine of St. Edward at Westminster; the matrices of the seals of Llywelyn, of his wife, and of his brother Dafydd were melted down to make a chalice which was given by the king to Vale Royal Abbey where it remained until the dissolution of that institution in 1538, after which it came into the possession of the family of the final abbot. The most precious religious relic in Gwynedd, the fragment of the True Cross known as Cross of Neith, was paraded through London in May 1285 in a solemn procession on foot led by the king, the queen, the archbishop of Canterbury and fourteen bishops and the magnates of the realm. Edward was thereby appropriating the historical and religious regalia of the house of Gwynedd and placarding to the world the extinction of its dynasty and the annexation of the principality to his Crown. Commenting on this a contemporary chronicler is said to have declared "and then all Wales was cast to the ground".

Most of Llywelyn's relatives ended their lives in captivity with the notable exceptions of his younger brother Rhodri ap Gruffudd, of who little is known of, but he had claimed a pension and an estate in England, and also a distant cousin, Madog ap Llywelyn led a revolt in 1294 and briefly claimed the title Prince of Wales. Llywelyn and Eleanor's baby daughter Gwenllian of Wales was captured by Edward's troops in 1283 and was admitted to Sempringham Priory in 1284 in England for the rest of her life, becoming a nun but dying without issue in 1337, probably knowing little of her heritage and speaking none of her language.

Dafydd's two surviving sons were captured and incarcerated at Bristol Gaol, where they eventually died many years later. Llywelyn's elder brother Owain Goch ap Gruffudd was arrested and imprisoned by Llywelyn II. Llywelyn's surviving brother Rhodri ap Gruffudd (who had been exiled from Wales since 1272) survived and held manors in Gloucestershire, Cheshire, Surrey, and Powys and died around 1315. His grandson, Owain Lawgoch, later claimed the title Prince of Wales.

Ancestry

Arms

Notes

References

Sources

External links

Death of Llywelyn. Cilmeri is another name for Cefn-y-Bedd ("Ridge of the Grave"), a burial mound where Llywelyn is said to have been slain.
Places and artifacts associated with Llywelyn the Last