A feature by Dr Sean Davies.
It is well known that the title prince of Wales is the birth-right of the king of England’s eldest son. It is also reasonably well known that English monarchs have seen this office as being within their prerogative to bestow since 1282. In that year, Edward I engineered the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the last native ruler to be recognised as prince of Wales by the English crown.
What is less well known is how and why Wales found itself as a principality rather than a kingdom.
The key date to consider is 1063, and the key man is Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, the last king of Wales and a ruler who came closer than any other to becoming the figure for Wales that Alfred is to the English, Charlemagne is to the French and Kenneth MacAlpin is to the Scots.
Post-Roman Wales had developed along lines that are comparable to the rest of post-Roman western Europe. The area had become territorially defined during the Roman era, the flexible groupings of kin lands that had developed in prehistoric times coalescing under the empire’s administration then emerging as kingdoms after the legions’ withdrawal. The leaders of those petty kingdoms vied with the early Anglo-Saxon warlords for land and power, but the realistic ambitions of ‘Welsh’ rulers for pan-British domination were brought to an end in the seventh century. With horizons narrowed, four major kingdoms emerged as the dominant entities within Wales: Powys, Gwynedd, Dyfed/Deheubarth and Glamorgan. Below these over-kingdoms there remained a large number of smaller entities, whose rulers clung to royal nomenclature with varying degrees of success.
There were many obstacles – both internal and external – to the formation of a single kingdom of Wales. But a distinct Welsh identity emerged at this time, reflected in language, law, religion, culture and mythology. A series of successful kings emerged who were able to project their power over large parts of the country as a whole, men such as Anarawd ap Rhodri Mawr, Hywel Dda, Maredudd ab Owain and Llywelyn ap Seisyll. The native chronicle labelled such men with the grandiloquent term ‘King of the Britons’.
Gruffudd, though, took things to an entirely new level. He united all the territories that comprise modern Wales, conquered land across the border that had been in English hands for centuries, forged alliances with key Anglo-Saxon dynasties and turned the Viking threat to his realm into a powerful weapon in his hands. In 1055, Gruffudd led a great army and fleet against the English border, crushing its defenders, burning Hereford and forcing Edward the Confessor to recognise his status as an under-king within the British Isles, leaving Wales as a united and independent state for the only time in its long history. Having emerged as a war leader, Gruffudd would also prove to be more, a patron of the arts and the church. He had the trappings of a king, including impressive wealth, courts throughout the country, professional ministers, a powerful household and a strong naval presence. At the height of his powers he was described by a native source in imperial terms as ‘King Gruffudd, sole and pre-eminent ruler of the British’.
His power did not sit well with many of the conquered localities of Wales, though, lands formerly ruled by men who still considered themselves kings. Such leaders found a formidable Anglo-Saxon ally in Harold Godwinesson, and their bloody campaign against Gruffudd ended with the king being betrayed and beheaded by his own countrymen. The leaders who had turned against Gruffudd agreed a humiliating submission of Wales to King Edward and Earl Harold. Then things got worse.
As the conquering Normans began to arrive on the Welsh border and Viking raiders returned to the coasts, the surviving ‘kings’ of Wales tore each other apart in a bewildering series of civil wars. The tone taken by English and continental sources in dealing with Welsh nobles became increasingly patronising, a reflection of growing imperial outlooks and of a very real reduction in the power of Welsh leaders. This attitude would not have been lost on the leaders who followed Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, nor on their learned subjects. The last man to be given the title ‘King of the Britons’ by the native chronicler was not a Welshman, but William the Conqueror.
The surviving Welsh dynasties slowly regrouped in the twelfth century, notably in Gwynedd under the descendants of the man responsible for Gruffudd’s death, Cynan ab Iago. Men like Cynan’s grandson, Owain Gwynedd, and his thirteenth-century descendants, Llywelyn ab Iorwerth and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, would revive the ambition seen so clearly under Gruffudd, to rule all of Wales. By their day, though, most of the richest lowlands in the south-east and south-west of the country had been irretrievably lost, while eastern border conquests on the scale that Gruffudd had made were never a realistic possibility.
In these straitened circumstances, and with outside observers ridiculing the status of Welsh kings, ambitious native nobles adopted the novel title of prince (W. tywysog, L. princeps) in order to set them apart from their fellow ‘kings’. When Owain Gwynedd consciously adopted this style in the 1160s, he was at the height of his power and still calling himself king of Gwynedd. Owain added the moniker ‘prince’ in order to reflect his position as leader of the wider Welsh nation. While this may reflect growing Welsh confidence in the later twelfth century, it is impossible not to see the decline in the country’s status and aspirations when compared to the time of Gruffudd.
The constitutional position sought by Owain Gwynedd was developed by his grandson Llywelyn ab Iorwerth at the start of the thirteenth century, the latter seeing all the native lords of Wales as his tenants. Llywelyn, his son Dafydd and his grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffudd would seek to have this position recognised and ratified by treaty with the king of England. Inherent in their plan was the direct feudal lordship of the king of England over the prince of Wales, leaving it clear that the ‘kingship of the Britons’ was to be sought in London, not in the west of the country.
The fact that the thirteenth-century principality of Gwynedd was a part of the kingdom of England and its leader one of the king’s magnates was acknowledged by all; no-one would have passed such a judgement on Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, nor on the kingdom of Wales that he had forged.
Dr Sean Davies has a PhD in Welsh medieval history and is the author of “Welsh Military Institutions, 633-1283“ (University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 2003), plus a number of academic articles. He works as a writer and editor. Sean and his brother, Dr Thomas Michael Davies, are co-authors of “The Last King of Wales: Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, c.1013-63” (The History Press, August 2012)