The Welsh Kings: Warriors, Warlords, and Princes by Kari Maund

Author:Kari Maund [Maund, Kari]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Leaders, Battles & Campaigns, Strategy & Tactics, Medieval
ISBN: 9780752429731
Amazon: 0752429736
Goodreads: 621489
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2000-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

5

From Owain Gwynedd to

Rhys ap Gruffudd

1137–1197

THE LAST YEARS OF GRUFFUDD AP CYNAN AND THE

REVIVAL OF GWYNEDD

While Cadwgan ab Bleddyn and Owain ap Cadwgan prosecuted their policy of resistance to the Normans in mid-Wales, their northern neighbour, Gruffudd ap Cynan, was playing a more temperate game. He had been politically active since 1075 and was probably in his middle years when he became ruler of Anglesey in 1099. His route to power had been shaky, and the men of Gwynedd, on whose support he depended, had shown themselves uncertain subjects during his years of freedom before 1081. He had spent most of the 1080s and 1090s as a Norman captive, cut off from his patrimony, and had escaped into a context of rebellion and conflict centred on Cadwgan of Powys, and in which the more powerful nobles of Gwynedd, like the brothers Uchdryd and Owain, sons of Edwin, had grown increasingly independent. It is likely that in his early years as king, Gruffudd’s position was insecure. He took some steps to improve it, forming one alliance by marrying Owain ab Edwin’s daughter, Angharad, and another by giving his own daughter, Gwenllian, to Cadwgan. The kings of Powys seem largely to have left him alone: apart from his brief alliance with Owain ap Cadwgan against Henry I in 1114, Gruffudd is absent from the Welsh Chronicles in the first decade-and-a-half of the twelfth century. HGK is equally vague as to his career after he became king, describing his reign in general terms: ‘for many years, [he] ruled with deliberation and peace, and with customary neighbourliness with the kings nearest to him… and he was renowned and famous both in kingdoms far away from him and in those close to him’.1 It seems likely that he slowly expanded his power out from Anglesey at least into Arfon, but no details survive. The sons of Edwin, especially Uchdryd, were a power to be reckoned with both in the north-east and in Meirionydd. Owain died in 1105, but in 1114 his son, Goronwy, is spoken of as Gruffudd’s equal, suggesting that Gruffudd did not yet dominate all – or even most – of Gwynedd. Meirionydd to the immediate south lay in the hands of Goronwy’s uncle, Uchdryd ab Edwin, the ally and perhaps vassal of Cadwgan ab Bleddyn. Down to the early 1120s, Gruffudd kept his head down, concentrating on his own small land, playing no part in the wider political scene. He was anxious, understandably, to avoid incurring Norman attention, coming rapidly to terms with Henry I in 1114. In 1115, he had an opportunity to court royal favour. Gruffudd ap Rhys ap Tewdwr had returned to Wales in 1113 and begun a campaign to install himself as king in the south. He found little support: the Brutiau speak scathingly of his supporters as ‘young hotheads’,2 suggesting that the established lords of Deheubarth refused him aid, leaving him reliant on the help of younger men – brave, but probably landless and poor.3 He did

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