and St Davids are amongst the most celebrated in early Welsh ecclesiastical annals. With the withdrawal of the Roman legions, the recognized powers of the Dux Britanniarum, the Roman official who governed the upper province of Britain, were in the 5th century assumed by the Celtic prince Cunedda under the title of Gwledig (the Supreme), who fixed his court and residence at Deganwy, near the modern Llandudno. During the 6th century the battle of Deorham gained by the West Saxons in 577 cut off communication with Cornwall, and in 613 the great battle of Chester, won by King Ethelfrith, prevented the descendants of Cunedda from ever again asserting their sovereignty over Strathclyde; the joint effect, therefore, of these two important Saxon victories was to isolate Wales and at the same time to put an end to all pretensions of its rulers as the inheritors of the ancient political claims of the Roman governors of the northern province of Britain. The 8th century saw a further curtailment of the Welsh territories under Offa, king of Mercia, who annexed Shrewsbury (Amwythig) and Hereford (Henfordd) with their surrounding districts, and constructed the artificial boundary known as Offa’s Dyke running due N. and S. from the mouth of the Dee to that of the Wye. It was during these disastrous Mercian wars that there first appeared on the Welsh coasts the Norse and Danish pirates, who harried and burnt the small towns and flourishing monasteries on the shores of Cardigan Bay and the Bristol Channel. In the 9th century, however, the Welsh, attacked by land and sea, by Saxons and by Danes, at length obtained a prince capable of bringing the turbulent chieftains of his country into obedience, and of opposing the two sets of invaders of his realm. This was Rhodri Mawr, or Roderick the Great, a name always cherished in Cymric annals. Like Alfred of Wessex, Rhodri also built a fleet in order to protect Anglesea, “the mother of Wales,” so called on account of its extensive cornfields which supplied barren Gwynedd with provisions. In 877 Rhodri, after many vicissitudes, was slain in battle, and his dominions of Gwynedd (North Wales), Deheubarth (South Wales) and Powys (Mid Wales) were divided amongst his three sons, Anarawd, Cadell and Mervyn. Consolidation of Cambro-British territory was found impossible; there was no settled capital; and the three princes fixed their courts respectively at Aberffraw in Anglesea, at Dynevor (Dinefawr) near Llandilo in Deheubarth, and at Mathrafal in Powys. Howel, son of Cadell, commonly known as Howel Dda the Good, is ever celebrated in Welsh history as the framer, or rather the codifier, of the ancient laws of his country, which were promulgated to the people at his hunting lodge, Ty Gwyn ar Tâf, near the modern Whitland. In Howel’s code the prince of Gwynedd with his court at Aberffraw is recognized as the leading monarch in Wales; next to him ranks the prince of Deheubarth, and third in estimation is the prince of Powys. The laws of Howel Dda throw a flood of interesting light upon the ancient customs and ideas of early medieval Wales, but as their standard of justice is founded on a tribal and not a territorial system of society, it is easy to understand the antipathy with which the Normans subsequently came to regard this famous code. The dissensions of the turbulent princes of Gwynedd, Powys and Deheubarth, and of their no less quarrelsome chieftains, now rent the country, which was continually also a prey to Saxon incursions by land and to Scandinavian attacks by sea. Some degree of peace was, however, given to the distracted country during the reign of Llewelyn ap Seissyllt, the husband of Angharad, heiress of Gwynedd, who at length secured the overlordship or sovereignty of all Wales, and reigned till 1022. His son, Griffith ap Llewelyn, who, after having been driven into exile, recovered his father’s realm in the battle of Pencader, Carmarthenshire, in 1041, for many years waged a war of varying success against Harold, earl of Wessex, but in 1062 he was treacherously slain, and Harold placed Wales under the old king’s half-brothers, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon.
With the advent of the Normans, William the Conqueror, with the object of placing a firm feudal barrier between Wales and the earldom of Mercia, erected three palatine counties along the Cymric frontier. Thus Hugh the Wolf was placed in Chester (Caer), Roger de Montgomery at Shrewsbury and William Fitz-Osbern at Hereford. In 1081 William himself visited the Principality, and even penetrated as far west as St Davids. But the most important result of this first Norman invasion was to be found in the marvellous and rapid success of Robert Fitz-Hamon, earl of Gloucester, who, accompanied by a number of knightly adventurers, quickly overran South Wales, and erected a chain of castles stretching from the Wye to Milford Haven. The rich low-lying lands of Morganwg and Gwent were thus firmly occupied, nor were they ever permanently recovered by the Welsh princes; and such natives as remained were kept in subjection by the almost impregnable fortresses of stone erected at Caerphilly, Cardiff, Cowbridge, Neath, Kidwelly and other places. The important castles of Carmarthen and Pembroke were likewise built at this period. At the accession of William Rufus the domain of Gwynedd had been reduced to Anglesea and the Snowdonian district, and that of South Wales, or Deheubarth, to the lands contained in the basins of the rivers Towy and Teifi, known as Ystrad Tywi and Ceredigion. Griffith ap Cynan, of the royal house of Gwynedd, who had been first an exile in Ireland, and later a prisoner at Chester, once more returned to his native land, and defied the Norman barons with success, whilst Henry I. vainly endeavoured to make his liege and follower, Owen of Powys, ruling prince in Wales. Meanwhile the house of Dynevor once more rose to some degree of power under Griffith ap Rhys, whose father, Rhys ap Tudor, had been slain in 1093. The confused reign of Stephen was naturally favourable to the development of Cymric liberty, and with such strong princes as Owen, son of Griffith ap Cynan, heir to the throne of Gwynedd, and with Griffith ap Rhys ruling at Dynevor, the prospects of the Cymry grew brighter. In 1136 the army of Griffith ap Rhys met with a large English force near Cardigan, composed of the denizens of the South Wales castles and of the hated Flemish colonists, who had been lately planted by Henry I. in Dyfed. A fierce engagement took place wherein the Norman and Flemish troops were utterly routed, and the victorious Cymry slew thousands of their fugitives at the fords of the Teifi close to the town of Cardigan. The following year (1137) saw the deaths of the two powerful princes, Griffith ap Cynan, “the sovereign and protector and peacemaker of all Wales,” and Griffith ap Rhys, “the light and the strength and the gentleness of the men of the south.” With the accession of Henry II. peace was made with Owen of Gwynedd, the successor of Griffith ap Cynan, and with Rhys ap Griffith of South Wales. In 1169 Owen Gwynedd died and was buried in Bangor cathedral after a reign of 33 years, wherein he had successfully defended his own realm and had done much to bring about that union of all Wales which his grandson was destined to complete. On the other hand, “The Lord Rhys,” as he is usually termed, did homage to Henry II. at Pembroke in 1171, and was appointed the royal justiciar of all South Wales. At the castle of Cardigan in 1176, Prince Rhys held a historic bardic entertainment, or eisteddfod, wherein the poets and harpists of Gwynedd and Deheubarth contended in amicable rivalry. This enlightened prince died in 1196, and as at his death the house of Dynevor ceased to be of any further political importance, the overlordship of all Wales became vested indisputably in the house of Gwynedd, which from this point onwards may be considered as representing in itself alone the independent principality of Wales. The prince of Gwynedd henceforth considered himself as a sovereign, independent, but owing a personal allegiance to the king of England, and it was to obtain a recognition of his rights as such that Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, “the Great,” consistently strove under three English kings, and though his resources were small, it seemed for a time as though he might be able by uniting his countrymen to place the recognized autonomy of Gwynedd on a firm and enduring basis. By first connecting himself with John through his marriage with the English king’s daughter Joan, by straining every nerve to repress dissensions and enforce obedience amongst the Welsh chieftains, and later by allying himself with the English barons against his suzerain, this prince during a
