Aberystwyth Castle
Aberystwyth Castle is located on the west coast of Wales, and is the only castle of King Edward’s iron Ring of castles that he built in Ceredigion. The castle guards the coastline, as well as entry into the mountains to the east. The first fortification at Aberystwyth was an iron age hill fort, which was occupied for about 300 years, into the first century BC. Other fortifications followed, although the first true castle, known today as Tan-y-castell, wasn’t built until the 12th century. Traces of that castle, which was constructed in earth and wood, are still visible above the River Ystwyth to the south of the current castle. Tan- y -castell was burned by Gruffydd ap Rhys, King of Deheubarth and then rebuilt by Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd of Gwynedd, King Owain Gwynedd’s wayward brother, when he took over Ceredigion after Read more…
Dunstaffnage
Dunstaffnage is a medieval castle located in Western Scotland near Oban above the Firth of Loin. It was built some time before 1240 by the MacDougall clan. The height upon which Dunstaffnage is located has been occupied since as early as the 7th century, but only became the seat of the MacDougalls in the 13th. The current stone castle was begun by Duncan MacDougall and then enlarged by his son, Ewen, who styled himself “King of the Isles”. He built the three round towers and enlarged the hall that are among the features of the castle still visible today. Also still standing are the walls, including some restored parapet walks, the round towers, the gatehouse, the internal range, and a free-standing chapel that also dates to the 13th century. In the 14th century, the MacDougall’s made the mistake of backing Read more…
December 11, 1282
Today is the 739th anniversary of 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 Read more…
Christchurch Cathedral
Christchurch Cathedral is located in the heart of what was once medieval Dublin, originally the center of Danish controlled Ireland. The cathedral precincts as they exist today were established by the Danes, but they were built over the top of a native Irish monastery that the Danes raided one too many times before taking over the area completely. The cathedral was begun around 1028 at the behest of Sitric Silkbeard, the King of Dublin, and has been rebuilt over the centuries. After the Norman conquest of Ireland, King Henry II celebrated Christmas here in 1171. The leader of that first Norman expedition to Ireland in 1169, Richard de Clare, known otherwise as Strongbow, is buried in the church’s nave. The crypt below the cathedral dates to the 12th century and contains many relics from the medieval period. In my books, Read more…
Carlisle Castle
Carlisle Castle is located on the western end of Hadrian’s Wall at an old border between Scotland and England. Currently a Norman Castle dating to the 12th and 13th centuries, Carlisle was a palace and seat of the British Kingdom of Rheged until it was conquered by William Rufus in 1092. For hundreds of years, even before the arrival of the Roman legions, a British kingdom was centered on Carlisle. Once the Romans conquered Britian, they made where the castle stands today the nucleus of the fort of Luguvalium, which by the middle of the second century was one of the most important military bases in Roman Britain. The British returned after they left and then in turn were conquered by the Normans. Carlisle was besieged both by Robert the Bruce in the Scottish wars for independence and during the Read more…
Denbigh Castle
Denbigh Castle is located in Gwynedd, south of Rhuddlan and St. Asaph. The castle was built by Henry de Lacy after King Edward’s conquest of Wales in 1282. Like many castles built by the Normans, Denbigh is sited over the top of an ancient settlement and palace of the Kings of Gwynedd. The most recent castle before the Conquest by Edward was held by Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the usually treacherous brother of Llywelyn, who made Denbigh his seat. He built a substantial castle, though all of it was destroyed after 1282. The Welsh referred to it as Dinbych, an abbreviation of Dinas Fechan, meaning “little fortress”. Lacy’s castle was finished by 1294. It was besieged in rebellions by the Welsh led by Madog ap Llywelyn and Owain Glyndwr, and finally ruined by forces of Oliver Cromwell. Still visible today are Read more…
Edward I and the Crown of France
King Edward as a historical figure looms large over my books, both the After Cilmeri series and my new book, Crouchback. Because in the middle ages, the King of England was also the Duke of Aquitaine, not to mention Norman, Edward had ties to France even before he became king. “France”, however, didn’t exist as we know it today, in that Aquitaine was a separate kingdom and the people there were not “French.” Aquitaine had come under the auspices of the kings of England after the marriage of King Henry II to Eleanor of Aquitaine in the late 12th century, as an addition to Henry’s already extensive “French” estates, which included Brittany and Normandy. Over the next century, the Kingdom of France wrested all but Aquitaine away from the Kings of England. Thus, when Edward left for Crusade from Aigues Read more…
Medieval Welsh Armor
Whether or not Welsh wore armor into battle has come up today because a reader of my books reported an ‘error’ in Daughter of Time saying that her ‘reading of history says that the Welsh didn’t wear armor in the Middle Ages’. That simply isn’t true. They did. After I cooled down about the inherent prejudice that comment reflects, I decided a blog post was in order to address the matter. Basically, history is written by the victors, and the English were particularly good at propaganda at a very early point. King Edward I knew very well what he was doing when he plundered Welsh records, took Welsh iconography as his own, and put himself in the lineage of King Arthur (who was, without a doubt, Welsh). Depictions of Welsh people in the Middle Ages are few and far between, Read more…
An Iron Ring of Castles
An Iron Ring of Castles is in many ways just like it sounds: a series of castles built around Wales to control the populace after the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last Prince of Wales. In the 1270s and 1280s primarily, Edward I began the construction of this ring. The castles were focused in the north, in Gwynedd, since that region had always been a hotbed of Welsh resistance and resentment of English authority, and it was there that he built some of the most impressive monuments to his victory. http://www.castlewales.com/edward1.html He began in the northeast with three castles: Hawarden, Flint, and Rhuddlan, all built before the 1282 war. Hawarden was the first castle attacked by Dafydd ap Gruffydd on Palm Sunday, 1282, when he started what became the final war with England. Edward began Flint in 1277, bringing Read more…
King Edward I of England
King Edward is often viewed by historians as a strong king–one of the strongest, in fact. The people he conquered might not argue with that–only in equating ‘strong’ with ‘good’. He had many accomplishments during his reign that are viewed as beneficial to England–which from a certain perspective is true. One could argue (and I do) that conquering other peoples, while bringing in wealth in the short term, does long-term damage not only to the oppressed but the oppressor. 1239: born 17 June 1254: married Eleanor of Castille (he was 15, she 9) 1265: Defeated Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham 1270: Joined the 9th crusade to the Holy Land 1274: Returned to England to take up the throne (Henry III, his father, had died in 1272) 1275-1290: Codified existing statues into a more cohesive system of law, Read more…
Carew Castle
Carew Castle, located on the Caeriw River in Pembrokeshire, southwest Wales, is one of the few castles that displays architecture from the Norman period through the Elizabethan, with archaeological evidence showing indications of settlement dating back 2000 years. The name ‘Carew’, Caeriw in Welsh, is an anglicized combination of, “caer” meaning fortress, and “rhiw” meaning hill–not that the area on which it stands is hilly: “Its position is low-lying, but still prominent in the flat land around the tidal reaches of the Carew river. The castle stands at the end of a ridge at a strategically excellent site commanding a crossing point of the then-still navigable river.” http://www.castlewales.com/carew.html The name also might come from ‘Caerau’, simply the plural, ‘forts’. Tradition states that the original castle was built by Gerald de Windsor, a Norman who came with Arnulph de Montgomery, the first Norman Earl Read more…
The Battle of Moel y Don
“And he sent a fleet of ships to Anglesey, and they gained possession of Arfon. And then was made the bridge over the Menai; but the bridge broke and countless numbers of the English were drowned and others slain.” –Brut y Twysogion, Peniarth Manuscript 20 (Chronicle of the Princes). On November 6th, 1282, the Welsh achieved an historic victory at the Battle of Moel y Don. The English had thought to surprise them by crossing the Menai Strait and driving down the coast to Aber (Garth Ceylyn), Prince Llywelyn’s seat on the Welsh north coast. The Menai Strait is the narrow body of water that separates Anglesey from Gwynedd proper. The river-like flow changes course according to the tide. The rising tide approaches from the south-west, causing the water in the Strait to flow north-eastwards as the level rises. It Read more…
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