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Kingdom of GwyneddTeyrnas Gwynedd

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A kingdom in north-west Wales, built around Snowdonia and the island of Anglesey, where its chief court stood at Aberffraw. Its first rulers appear in the 6th century and claimed descent from Cunedda, a leader from what is now southern Scotland. From the 12th century they called themselves princes, and in the 13th century Llywelyn the Great and his grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffudd made themselves overlords of most of native Wales; in 1267 Henry III of England recognised the younger Llywelyn as Prince of Wales. Edward I of England's armies took Gwynedd's last strongholds in 1282–83.

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Key events

  1. – According to later Welsh tradition, Cunedda and his sons come from Manaw Gododdin, near the Firth of Forth, drive Irish settlers out of north-west Wales and found the kingdomDisputed

    The story comes from the Historia Brittonum, written about 829, which places Cunedda's coming 146 years before Maelgwn's reign. Proposed dates run from the late 370s to the 440s, and some historians treat the whole story as later propaganda for Gwynedd's kings.

  2. Maelgwn Gwynedd, the first ruler of Gwynedd named by a writer of his own time, dies in a great plague

    The date is the Annales Cambriae's entry for a 'great mortality', a few years after the Plague of Justinian began. Tradition puts his court at Deganwy.

  3. Rhodri Mawr ('the Great') succeeds his father Merfyn Frych as king of GwyneddDisputed

    The Dictionary of Welsh Biography says he also became king of Powys in 855 and of Seisyllwg in 872, a first union of three Welsh kingdoms; the historian Thomas Charles-Edwards doubts he ruled beyond Gwynedd. He was killed fighting the Mercians in 877 or 878; sources differ on the year.

  4. Gruffudd ap Cynan, back from exile in Ireland, wins the battle of Mynydd Carn with Rhys ap Tewdwr and takes the throne of Gwynedd

    Soon afterwards the Normans captured him and held him at Chester for years. He was free by 1094, ruled Anglesey from 1099 and the rest of Gwynedd later, and died in 1137.

  5. Henry II of England's army crosses the Berwyn hills into Wales; a coalition of Welsh rulers led by Owain Gwynedd blocks it, and heavy rain forces it back

    On his retreat Henry had Welsh hostages mutilated, among them two of Owain's sons.

  6. At an assembly at Aberdyfi, Llywelyn the Great shares out the lands of Deheubarth among its princes, and the other Welsh rulers do homage to him
  7. In the Treaty of Worcester, the government of the boy king Henry III makes peace with Llywelyn the Great and leaves him holding the royal castles of Carmarthen and Cardigan

    He was to hold the castles only until Henry III came of age; English forces took them back in 1223.

  8. In the Treaty of Montgomery, Henry III of England recognises Llywelyn ap Gruffudd as Prince of Wales and overlord of the other Welsh lords, in return for his homage

    Signed on 29 September 1267. Llywelyn had taken the title Prince of Wales in 1258. It was the only time an English king recognised a ruler of Gwynedd's authority over Wales.

  9. Edward I's forces, among them the men of the Mortimers and of Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn of Powys, kill Llywelyn ap Gruffudd near Cilmeri, by the river Irfon near Builth, on 11 DecemberDisputed

    Accounts conflict. Walter of Guisborough describes a battle at Orewin (Irfon) Bridge in which the Welsh army was routed; the Welsh chronicle Brut y Tywysogyon says Roger Mortimer and Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn came upon Llywelyn with the king's army while he had few men with him. The Roger Mortimer it names was a son of Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, who had died that October; other chronicles name his brother Edmund. The memorial at Cilmeri marks the traditional spot. His head was sent to London and displayed at the Tower. The historian David Stephenson puts the Welsh dead at about 3,000 foot soldiers and 160 horsemen; Llinos Beverley Smith questions the figure.

  10. Dafydd ap Gruffudd, Llywelyn's brother and successor, captured in June, is hanged, drawn and quartered for treason at Shrewsbury on 3 October

    Welsh men handed him over to the English. A parliament at Shrewsbury condemned him; he was the first prominent person known to have been executed this way.

Wars

  1. Conquest of Wales by Edward I
    England under Edward I and its Welsh allies

    Kingdom of England under Edward I, with the marcher lords, Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, lord of southern Powys, and Dafydd ap Gruffudd, Llywelyn's brother, in 1277 (he began the revolt of 1282 against Edward)

    against
    Gwynedd and the Welsh lords who rose with it

    Kingdom of Gwynedd and Welsh lords who joined the revolt in 1282, among them most of the princes of Deheubarth

    Gwynedd's princes lost all their lands; under the Statute of Rhuddlan (1284) Edward organised the principality into shires under the English crown, and from 1283 he built castles at Conwy, Caernarfon and Harlech.