Welsh Foundations of The American Revolution
Wales and the Welsh people had a huge impact on the founding of the United States and the American Revolution. Wales was England’s first colony, and the Welsh have been oppressed by the English since the Saxons first arrived in the 400s AD. It should thus be no surprise that the Welsh were among the original immigrants to the Americas, my own family included, and fought in the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson writes in his autobiography that “The tradition in my father’s family was that their ancestor came to this country from Wales, and from near the mountain of Snowdon, the highest in Gr. Br.” Other founders with Welsh ancestry (some only rumored) include Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island and its religious freedom, William Penn, Sam and John Adams, James Madison, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Franklin, and Benedict Arnold and Read more…
The Holy Grail and Dinas Bran
That King Arthur got mixed up with the Holy Grail and Jesus Christ can’t be too surprising, given the myth-making that went into the King Arthur story. Rumor has it that Bran, for whom the castle, Dinas Bran, was named, was Joseph of Arimithea’s son-in-law. Legend has it that after Jesus’ death, Joseph brought the Cup of Christ from Israel to Britain. It does seem unlikely, doesn’t it? But that is what the ‘Holy Grail’ is, that King Arthur’s knights go in search of: “The Holy Grail of Christian legend is the vessel given by Christ to his disciples to sup from at the Last Supper. Later, it is said to have been given to his grand-uncle, St. Joseph of Arimathea, who used to collect Christ’s blood and sweat whilst he hung upon the Cross.” http://www.arthurianadventure.com/holy_grail.htm Dinas Bran, in turn, is the Read more…
Iron Age Hill Forts in Wales
Hill forts were a significant part of the Iron Age in Wales, which occurred during the 500 years leading up to the Roman conquest of Britain. “The earliest iron artefact in Wales is a sword dating to about 600 BCE, but by 400 BCE iron was being smelted and crafted into tools all over the British Isles. The tribes of Wales developed regional styles of working iron, gold, and other metals, following the exquisite western European style known as La Tene (after the village of La Tene in Switzerland). At the same time as iron was introduced to Britain a new crop of settlers arrived from northern Europe.” http://www.britainexpress.com/wales/history/iron-age.htm This new group were the Celts. They overran the whole of Britain, whether by conquering the then-native peoples, or gradually settling the country over a period of time. According to the Read more…
Dinas Bran (Castle)
Dinas Bran is a medieval castle begun in 1260 and destroyed in 1277 during the Welsh wars with King Edward I of England. The first settlement that we know of was an iron age hill fort, from which it gets its name. “Dinas Bran” is variously translated as “Crow Castle,” “Crow City,” “Hill of the Crow,” or “Bran’s Stronghold.” The castle first appears in 12th century historical documents as part of a medieval piece entitled “Fouke le Fitz Waryn,”or “The Romance of Fulk Fitzwarine.” While this work claimed that the castle, known as “Chastiel Bran,” was in ruin as early as 1073, the remains we see today date to the occupation of the princes of Powys Fadog in the mid 13th century. Possibly, the Chastiel Bran mentioned in the romance was a Norman timber castle, but nothing of substance Read more…
William de Valence
In my After Cilmeri series, William de Valence is an long time supporter of Edward I, who resents David’s rule and ends up rebelling against him. I wrote him that way, because I believe it to be in keeping with who the man really was. William de Valence was the fourth son of Isabella of Angouleme, the widow of King John of England, by her second marriage to Hugh X of Lusignan. Thus, he was half-brother to John’s son by Isabella, Henry, who became King of England on his father’s death, and uncle to Edward I. When Henry invited William to England, as things had grown difficult for him in Poitou, thanks to the French conquest of the region, William landed on his feet, marrying an heiress to the William Marshal estates. Thus, through her, William became the Earl of Pembroke and the Read more…
Tintagel Castle
Was Arthur conceived at Tintagel Castle? That Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed he was is reason enough to doubt the veracity of the legend, but that’s not to say that the castle doesn’t have a fascinating history. Geoffrey writes: “They then went their way toward Tintagel, and at dusk hour arrived, swiftly unmade the doors, and the three were admitted. For what other than Gorlois if Gorlois himself were there? So the king lay that night with Igrene, for as he had beguiled her by the false likeness he had taken upon him, so he beguiled her also by the feigned discourse wherewith he had issued forth of the besieged city for naught save to see the safety of her dear self and the castle wherein she lay, in such a sort that she believed him every word, and had no Read more…
The Fictional King Arthur (rant!)
Yes, I have some issues with King Arthur as a fictional character. Please pardon the rant! King Arthur, as usually written, comes off as either as a flat character, someone whom the author employs as a backdrop to explore the personalities of other characters (Merlin, Guinevere, Lancelot), or as unheroic and human, tripped up in the end by the overwhelming burden of his imperfections. Arthur is either a pawn, buffeted by the winds of fate, or so flawed, one has to ask how he was remembered as a hero in the first place. One recent example of this is Starz’s aborted Camelot series, at least the bit I watched, where it is inexplicable that Merlin would come to him as the hero (in a totally deserted castle) and expect anything good to happen. A second is the odd King Arthur: Read more…
King Arthur 2004 movie review
The King Arthur 2004 movie is … uh … bad. I watched the whole thing and was entertained, but don’t think a single thing about it is historically accurate. King Arthur has been fodder for a hundred movies and will undoubtedly continue to be so. I truly wish that someone would come up with one where the history isn’t appalling. Ridley Scott is famous for acting as if there are no actual historical facts (see my review of Robin Hood), but the absurdity of the history Jerry Bruckheimer puts in this movie made me glad that my workout was only 30 minutes so I didn’t have to watch the whole thing at once. The Good: Is there anything good about this movie? Actually, the visuals are spectacular, and they obviously put a lot of money into making it. The acting is good, Read more…
Robin Hood (2010) movie review
Since I’m a sap for anything medieval, I knew I would probably enjoy Ridley Scott’s, Robin Hood, even if his movies are generally too violent for my taste. I have to say that I liked the movie more than I thought I would. He refrained from his usual slo-mo blood spray as the hero kills another man (or dies himself), for which I was grateful. In summary, the movie follows Robin from France, where he was in King Richard’s army on the way home from the Holy Land, to England, where he falls into an impersonation of the dead heir to the Locksley lands. To be fair, Robin did impersonate the poor dead Sir Locksley initially, but he approached the dead man’s family on the up-and-up. Meanwhile, John, now King John as Richard died in a final siege in France on Read more…
What is Mead?
Although the nobility of Wales imported wine from the Roman period, and perhaps before, mead was the primary drink served throughout the country for thousands of years. Because of the climate, grapes, many fruits, and even grains at times do not grow well in Wales, though wine production did (and does still) exist: “Wine has been made in England and Wales since Roman times. By the time of the Norman Conquest vines were grown in a number of vineyards, many of which were attached to monasteries. In fact the Domesday Book (1085-1086) records vineyards in 42 places. The main areas of production at this time were the coastal areas of the southeast, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire. From the Middle Ages to the 20th century there was a decline in vineyards and the reasons cited for this have varied. They range from the Read more…
The Roman Conquest of Britain
When the Romans invaded Britain in 43 AD, they crossed in three divisions, under the command of Aulus Plautius. The ships are thought to have traveled from Boulogne to what is now Richborough, on the east coast of Kent. The Romans operated on a shock and awe type of warfare and eleven tribes of southeast Britain surrendered to Claudius. The Romans moved west and north from there, establishing their new capital at Camulodunum. It wasn’t until late in 47 AD that the new governor of Britain, Ostorius Scapula, began a campaign against the tribes of modern day Wales. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_conquest_of_Britain “The ever-pugnacious Caratacus – the Caradog of Welsh legend – moved north to carry on the fight in the territory of the Ordovices in Anglesey and Caernarfon. There, in 51AD, he was defeated and his family captured.” Later, the Silures defeated Read more…
Medieval Poisons
King Henry I died of eating a surfeit of lampreys … but was it poison instead? King Henry I died in Normandy in 1135 of food poisoning “according to legend from eating a ‘surfeit of Lampreys’ (an eel type fish).” http://www.britroyals.com/kings.asp?id=henry1 In the new mini-series on Starz “Pillars of the Earth” based on the book by Ken Follett, he was deliberately poisoned by King Stephen (who succeeded him) or someone working for him. For those watching the show, in point of fact, King Henry did not die within moments of the birth of Maud’s son, Henry (born 5 March 1133), who ultimately succeeded Stephen as King of England, but two years later. King Henry died of food poisoning despite the high likelihood of having some kind of ‘food taster’. Admittedly, such a person could be circumvented by a slow-acting poison. Read more…
^