kin than any who had gone before him, being known in history as Rhodri the Great. It is important to remember at this juncture that we are now in the century which saw Charlemagne reigning as Emperor of the West.
There was a legend current in later times that Rhodri the Great, erroneously regarded as king of all Wales, damaged the Welsh cause irretrievably by sharing his kingdom among his three sons, giving, according to one version, Gwynedd to Mervyn, Powys to Anarawd, and Deheubarth to Cadell.[1] Nothing can be further from the truth than the impression left by this tale. For as we have seen, Rhodri's aim was to consolidate Wales by substituting the rule of his own family for that of many families. Princes of the blood of Rhodri alone were to govern the land directly from one end to the other. The legend of course echoes the ideas and possibilities of later times when men had come to see that, conducive as was the rule of one family instead of several families to keeping folk of the same kin together, yet the rule of one man was still more conducive to that desirable result. Consequently they wondered how it was that Rhodri could have divided his kingdom, forgetting that, unsatisfactory as the policy of Rhodri would have been in their day, yet in his own time it was a new thing in Wales, a fresh development, which had then become practicable, being an immense improvement on what had preceded it. The obstacles in the way of the unity of Wales were stupendous, such as no bare coercion could overcome. We have seen their like on a modern and larger scale in the story
- ↑ Such is the tradition of the tripartite division as given by Gerald in his Descriptio Kambriae I. 2 (Girald. Camb. Opera VI. 166).
