reign of 44 years was enabled to give a considerable amount of peace and prosperity to his country, which he persistently sought to rule as an independent sovereign, although acknowledging a personal vassalage to the king of England.
The close of the 12th century saw the final and complete subjection of the ancient Cambro-British Church to the supremacy of Canterbury. As part of the Roman Upper Province of Britain, Wales would naturally have fallen under the primacy of York, but the Welsh sees had continued practically independent of outside control during Saxon times. The bishops of St Davids had from time to time claimed metropolitan rights over the remaining sees, but in 1115 St Anselme's appointment of the monk Bernard (d. 1147) to St Davids, in spite of the opposition of the native clergy, definitely marked the end of former Welsh ecclesiastical independence. In 1188 Archbishop Baldwin with a distinguished train, whilst preaching the Third Crusade, made an itinerary of the Welsh sees and visited the four cathedral churches, thereby formally asserting the supremacy of Canterbury throughout all Wales. But in 1199 the celebrated Gerald de Barri (Giraldus Cambrensis), archdeacon of Brecon and a member of the famous Norman baronial house of de Barri, and also through his grandmother Nesta a great-grandson of Prince Rhys ap Tudor of Dcheubarth, was elected bishop by the chapter of St Davids. This enthusiastic priest at once began to re-assert the ancient metropolitan claims of the historic Welsh see, and between the years 1199-1203 paid three visits to Rome in order to obtain the support of Pope Innocent III. against John and Archbishop Hubert, who firmly refused to recognize Gerald's late election. Innocent was inclined to temporize, whilst the Welsh chieftains, and especially Gwenwynwyn of Powys, loudly applauded Gerald's action, but Llewelyn ap Iorwerth himself prudently held aloof from the controversy. Finally, in 1203, Gerald was compelled to make complete submission to the king and archbishop at Westminster, and henceforth Canterbury remained in undisputed possession of the Welsh sees, a circumstance that undoubtedly tended towards the later union of the two countries.
In 1238 Llewelyn, growing aged and infirm, summoned all his vassals to a conference at the famous Cistercian abbey of Strata Florida, whereat David, his son by the Princess Joan of England, was acknowledged his heir by all present. Two years later Llewelyn, the ablest and most successful of all the Welsh princes, expired and was buried in the monastery of his own foundation at Aberconway. He was succeeded by David II., at whose death without children in 1246 the sovereignty of Gwynedd, and consequently of Wales, reverted to his three nephews, sons of his half-brother Griffith, who had perished in 1244 whilst trying to escape from the Tower of London, where Henry III. was holding him as hostage for the good behaviour of Prince David. Of Griffith's three sons, Owen, Llewelyn and David, the most popular and influential was undoubtedly Llewelyn, whose deeds and qualities were celebrated in extravagant terms by the bards of his own day, and whose evil fate has ever been a favourite theme of Welsh poets. Though to this, the last prince of Wales, political sagacity and a firm desire for peace have often been ascribed, it must be admitted that he showed himself both turbulent and rash at a time when the most cautious diplomacy on his part was essential for his country's existence. For Edward, Henry III.'s son and heir, who had been created earl of Chester by his father and put in possession of all the royal claims in Wales, was generally credited with a strong determination to crush for ever Welsh independence, should a fitting opportunity to do so present itself. Nevertheless, the hostile policy of Llewelyn, who had closely associated himself with the cause of Simon de Montfort and the barons, was at first successful. For after the battle of Evesham a treaty was concluded between the English king and the Welsh prince at Montgomery, whereby the latter was confirmed in his principality of Gwynedd and was permitted to receive the homage of all the Welsh barons, save that of the head of the house of Dynevor, which the king reserved to himself; whilst the four fertile cantrefs of Perfeddwlad, lying between Gwynedd and the earldom of Chester, were granted to the prince. Llewelyn was, however, foolish enough to lose the results of this very favourable treaty by intriguing with the de Montfort family, and in 1273 he became betrothed to Eleanor de Montfort, the old Earl's only daughter, a piece of political folly which may possibly in some degree account for Edward's harsh treatment of the Welsh prince. In 1274 Llewelyn refused to attend at Edward's coronation, although the Scottish king was present. In 1276 Edward entered Wales from Chester, and after a short campaign brought his obstinate vassal to submit to the ignominious treaty of Conway, whereby Llewelyn lost almost all the benefits conferred on him by the compact of Montgomery ten years before. Llewelyn, utterly humbled, now behaved with such prudence that Edward at last sanctioned his marriage with Eleanor de Montfort (although such an alliance must originally have been highly distasteful to the English king), and the ceremony was performed with much pomp in Worcester Cathedral in 1278. In 1281 discontent with the king and his system of justice had again become rife in Wales, and at this point the treacherous Prince David, who had hitherto supported the king against his own brother, was the first to proclaim a national revolt. On Palm Sunday 1282, in a time of peace, David suddenly attacked and burnt Hawarden Castle, whereupon all Wales was up in arms. Edward, greatly angered and now bent on putting an end for ever to the independence of the Principality, hastened into Wales; but whilst the king was campaigning in Gwynedd, Prince Llewelyn himself was slain in an obscure skirmish on the 11th of December 1282 at Cefn-ybedd, near Builth on the Wye, whither he had gone to rouse the people of Brycheiniog. Llewelyn's head was brought to Edward at Conway Castle, who ordered it to be exhibited in the capital, surrounded by a wreath of ivy, in mocking allusion to an ancient Cymric prophecy concerning a Welsh prince being crowned in London. His body is said, on doubtful authority, to have been buried honourably by the monks of Abbey Cwm Hir, near Rhayader. Llewelyn's brother, now David III., designated by the English “the last survivor of that race of traitors,” for a few months defied the English forces amongst the fastnesses of Snowdon, but ere long he was captured, tried as a disloyal English baron by a parliament at Shrewsbury, and finally executed under circumstances of great barbarity on the 3rd of October 1283. With David's capture practically all serious Welsh resistance to the English arms ceased, if we except the unsuccessful attempt made to rouse the crushed nation in 1293 by Llewelyn's natural son, Madoc, who ended his days as a prisoner in the Tower of London.
Having suppressed the independence of Wales, Edward now took steps to keep Gwynedd itself in permanent subjection by building the castles of Conway, Carnarvon, Criccieth and Harlech within the ancient patrimony of the princes of North Wales, whose legitimate race was now extinct save for Llewelyn's daughter Gwenllian, who had entered the convent of Sempringham. In April 1284 Queen Eleanor, who had meanwhile joined her husband in Wales, gave birth to a son in the newly built castle of Carnarvon, and this infant the victorious king, half in earnest and half in jest, presented to the Welsh people for a prince who could speak no word of English. On the 7th of February 1301, Edward of Carnarvon was formally created “prince of Wales” by his father, and henceforward the title and honours of Prince of Wales became associated with the recognized heir of the English crown.
By the Statute, or rather Ordinance of Rhuddlan, promulgated in 1284, many important changes were effected in the civil administration of Wales. Glamorgan and the county palatine of Pembroke had hitherto been the only portions of the country subject to English shire law, but now Edward parcelled out the ancient territory of the princes of Gwynedd and of Deheubarth into six new counties, with sheriffs, coroners and bailiffs. Thus Anglesea, Carnarvon, Merioneth and Flint were erected in North Wales; whilst out of the districts of Ystrad Tywi and Ceredigion in South Wales, the old dominions of the house of Dynevor, the counties of Carmarthen and Cardigan were formed. The old Welsh land tenure by gavelkind was, however, still permitted
