Tag Archives: Buellt

12/11/12

11 December 1282

Today is the 730th anniversary the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last native Welsh Prince of Wales.  He was ambushed and cut down by Englishmen, somewhere in the vicinity of Builth Wells (Buellt in Welsh), Wales, late on the afternoon on 11 December 1282.  It was a Friday.

And then Llywelyn ap Gruffudd left Dafydd, his brother, guarding Gwynedd; and he himself and his host went to gain possession of Powys and Buellt. And he gained possession as far as Llanganten. And thereupon he sent his men and his steward to receive the homage of the men of Brycheiniog, and the prince was left with but a few men with him. And then Edmund Mortimer and Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, and with them the king’s host, came upon them without warning; and then Llywelyn and his foremost men were slain on the day of Damasus the Pope, a fortnight to the day from Christmas day; and that was a Friday.
—-Brut y Tywysogyon, Peniarth manuscript 20  (The Chronicle of the Princes)

His head was carried to King Edward I, who ordered that it be displayed on a pike, in London.  Apparently, it stayed on display for over 20 years.  The rest of his body is purportedly buried at Abbey Cwmhir, northeast of Rhayader in Powys.

I wrote Footsteps in Time because there seemed to me to be few events in history where the fate of a nation hinged so profoundly upon the death of one man and I couldn’t stand that it ended the way it did. So I changed it :) . At the time, historians said that if Llywelyn had lived only a few more weeks, all of Wales would have flocked to his banner. We’ll never know the truth of that, but his star was in the ascendancy and King Edward was within weeks of running out of both patience and money.

Llywelyn’s brother, Dafydd, was eventually captured and hanged, drawn, and quartered, the first man of significance to experience that particular death.  His death was practice for what Edward did to William Wallace, two dozen years later.  Gwenlllian, Llywelyn’s daughter and only child, was kidnapped from Aber and sent to a convent in England, where she remained a prisoner her entire life.

At Llywelyn’s death, Wales fell under English rule, and Edward declared his own son, Edward II, the new Prince of Wales.

That this happened, and that it is little remarked in historial records, should not come as a surprise.  History is written by the victors, as this comment from an English travel writer, William Camden, dating to 1610, makes clear:  “following rather his owne and his brothers stubberne wilfulnesse than any good hope to prevaile, would needes put all once againe to the hazard of warre, he was slaine, and so both ended his owne life, and withall the British [meaning, not English] government in Wales.”

I visited the site in May at Cilmeri where Llywelyn’s death is commemorated by a lone stone marker.

For more on Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, see:

Arwystli

The Battle of the Menai Straits

Betrayal in the Belfry of Bangor

Biography of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd

The Brothers Gwynedd

Cymerau

Dafydd ap Gruffydd

Dafydd ap Llywelyn, Prince of Wales (d. 1246)

The Death of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd

Eleanor (Elinor) de Montfort

Family Tree of the Royal House of Wales

Gwynedd after 1282

Historiography of the Welsh Conquest

King Edward I of England

Medieval Planned Communities

Memo to Llywelyn ap Gruffydd’s Staff

The Rising of 1256

Senana, Mother of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd

Simon de Montfort

The Statute of Wales (Rhuddlan)

Surprise Holy Day Attack!

Things Fall Apart

Welsh Heraldry

Welsh Independence

Welsh Independence (again)

06/3/12

Buellt Castle

Buellt Castle (Builth Wells for the English) was the seat from which the Mortimers lured Llywelyn ap Gruffydd to his death near Cilmeri on 11 December 1282.  It was a major Edwardian Castle of its time, but all of the stone work as disappeared.

“Builth is nothing more than a series of earthworks – nothing visible remains to give testimony to the structure which once stood at the site. By 1183, documents record a clash here between the Welsh and Normans, and much of what we see reflects this original motte and bailey fortification. During the next 90 years, the castle saw repeated conflict and changed hands between the Welsh and English on several occasions. By the 1240′s masonry structures were established at Builth; however, it was as the result of Edward I’s initial campaign against the Welsh in 1277 that Builth’s modest stronghold was refortified and transformed into a formidable fortress.

…The final product of Edward’s remodelling effort at Builth was a castle centered atop a motte which supported a great round keep (the traces of which are barely visible today) and was enclosed by a small “chemise”, a masonry wall defended by 6 towers. The two Norman baileys remained, encompassed by a curtain wall and accessed through a twin-towered gatehouse which may have been similar to the gatehouse that still guards Rhuddlan Castle. Other structures included a kitchen block and the great hall, a chapel, and residential quarters. Apparently, construction was stopped at Builth in 1282 although the work on the gatehouse may not have been complete.”  http://www.castlewales.com/builth.html

06/1/12

An Iron Ring of Castles

During the late 1270′s and early 1280′s, particularly after the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Edward I began construction of a string of castles in Wales that circled the country.  The north, in Gwynedd, had always been a hotbed of Welsh resistance and resentment of English authority and it was there he built some of the most impressive of his monuments.  http://www.castlewales.com/edward1.html

The three castles of north east Wales, from east to west, are Hawarden, Flint, and Rhuddlan.

http://www.castlewales.com/wales_ne.html

Hawarden was built before the conquest of Wales, and was the first castle attacked by Dafydd ap Gruffydd in 1282 when he began the final war with England.  Edward began Flint in 1277, bringing in up to 2300 English workers to build it.  Llywelyn ap Gruffydd submitted to Edward I at the old timber Rhuddlan Castle, towards the end of 1277 after the construction at Flint was well underway.  Immediately thereafter, Edward pulled down the old structure and began work on the present, massive, stone castle, built at the first usable ford of the Clwyd River, south of the sea.

Following along the north coast, come Conwy, Beaumaris, and Caernarfon, bringing the string of powerful castles across the coast of north Wales to six, within a stretch that was fewer than 60 miles as the crow flies.  Source for the map:  http://www.timeref.com/castedwd.htm

http://www.castlewales.com/edwrdcas.html

Conwy was begun in March of 1283, before the death of Dafydd ap Gruffydd and is located on the west bank of the Conwy river, which is of more than symbolic significance.  It was the Conwy River that was the barrier between east and west Gwynedd, and the difficulty in forcing it that delaying Edward’s conquest of Wales.  With a massive castle on the west bank of the river, he gained a permanent foothold in Snowdonia and the patrimony of the Princes of Gwynedd.

Beaumaris was built on Anglesey, near the ruins of Llanfaes Abbey (which the English destroyed), which had been patronized by the Welsh Princes.   At one point, the sarcophogus of Joanna, Llywelyn Fawr’s wife, was used as a horse trough, but is now on display at the castle.  The castle wasn’t built until 1295, as a result of the rebellion in late 1294 by Madog ap Llywelyn.  The entire population of Llanfaes was moved in order to build it.

Edward built Caernarfon (or Caernarvon, the English spelling, since the Welsh town was destroyed to build it and English settlers brought in, much like at Rhuddlan and Conwy), beginning in May, 1283.  It became his primary seat in Wales, and it was here that his son, Edward II was born–intentionally–to give credence to Edward I’s later naming of him the Prince of Wales.

The final two castles in Edward’s building program are Aberystwyth and Builth/Buellt.  Edward began Aberystwyth on the west coast of Wales in 1277 as a concentric castle (near/on the foundations of much older castles), but conspirators of Dafydd ap Gruffydd attacked it on Palm Sunday, 1282, damaging it badly.  Thus, it wasn’t until the Welsh defeat at the end of 1283 that construction began again, finishing in 1289.  Today, it is one of the more crumbled of Edward’s castles, although not as damaged as Builth in Powys, of which only grassy mounds remain.

Like Aberystwyth, Edward began building Builth Castle in 1277, in response to the defeat of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd.  It was near this castle, in fact, that Llywelyn was set upon and murdered in December of 1282.

http://www.castlewales.com/maps.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/artsandculture/3211046/Wales-Edward-Is-seven-magnificent-castles.html

http://www.castles.me.uk/history-king-edward-i-welsh-medieval-castles.htm