Wales before Llywelyn
Medieval Wales was not a single state. It was a set of kingdoms and lordships, mostly Gwynedd in the north-west, Powys in the center and east, and Deheubarth in the south-west, with others emerging and disappearing over time. Welsh law, associated in tradition with the 10th-century king Hywel Dda, divided land among heirs and treated kin groups as important legal actors. A strong ruler could dominate others, but his gains often divided again among his sons.
After the Norman Conquest of England, Norman lords advanced into Wales, especially in the south and along the border. They built castles, many of them of the motte and bailey type at first, and created lordships known as the March, run by marcher lords who had considerable legal independence. By the late 12th century, the native Welsh rulers held mainly the uplands, with Gwynedd in the north as the strongest remaining power.
Llywelyn ap Iorwerth
Llywelyn ap Iorwerth was born around 1173 into the ruling dynasty of Gwynedd. His early life was one of family rivalry, because the rulers of Gwynedd had been fighting among themselves. By around 1200 he had emerged as the leading figure, defeating his uncles and gaining control of much of the region. Welsh writers later gave him the epithet “Fawr,” meaning “the Great,” although this label was applied in later generations.
His strength came from a combination of military ability, careful diplomacy and marriage. In 1205 he married Joan, an illegitimate daughter of King John of England. The marriage was a political arrangement that helped him gain recognition and ties to the English crown, and Joan herself played a role as an intermediary in later disputes between her husband and her father.
The conflict with John
Relations with John were not smooth. The two went to war more than once, and in 1211 John launched a major campaign against Gwynedd, forcing Llywelyn to make concessions. The setback was short-lived. John’s English barons were growing hostile, and many Welsh princes turned to Llywelyn as their protector. In 1212 and the years that followed, Llywelyn took advantage of John’s troubles and recaptured territory.
When the barons rose against John in 1215, Llywelyn joined the opposition. The resulting charter, Magna Carta, included clauses concerning Wales that promised to settle disputes with Welsh leaders according to Welsh law in Wales and to return certain hostages. These provisions show that Llywelyn’s position was taken seriously by English political leaders, even if the clauses themselves were short-lived.
A principality takes shape
During the minority of John’s son Henry III, Llywelyn increased his influence. A treaty at Worcester in 1218 recognized much of what he had gained, and Welsh princes in the center and south came to acknowledge him as an overlord. His title shifted to reflect this, and he is associated with styles such as “prince of Aberffraw and lord of Snowdon,” drawing on the old prestige of Aberffraw on Anglesey.
He did not abolish the other Welsh rulers. Instead he built a hierarchy in which they swore homage to him, and he in turn held his position from the English king in a manner that left Welsh internal affairs largely to him. Historians often describe this as the creation of a Welsh principality, but one still bound into the English feudal world. He also fought marcher lords such as the Marshal family, while at other times cooperating with them.
The wool trade also mattered to the Welsh uplands and to the Cistercian abbeys, which kept large flocks. Llywelyn supported religious houses, notably the Cistercian abbeys, and his court was a center of Welsh poetry. His closing years included an effort to secure the succession for his legitimate son Dafydd, rather than allow the traditional Welsh division of inheritance between all sons. In 1238, a gathering of Welsh leaders reportedly swore homage to Dafydd, and Llywelyn died in 1240.
After Llywelyn
His achievement proved fragile. Dafydd faced English pressure and his own half-brother’s claims, and he died in 1246 without an heir. The next major leader was Llywelyn’s grandson, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, who by the 1260s was strong enough to gain recognition from Henry III as Prince of Wales in the Treaty of Montgomery in 1267. This was the high point of native Welsh power.
It did not last. Under Henry’s son Edward I, relations deteriorated. The Edward I reign is usually remembered for the Welsh and Scottish wars, and Wales came first. Edward’s first war in 1277 reduced Llywelyn’s lands, and a second conflict that began in 1282 ended with Llywelyn ap Gruffudd’s death in battle that December. His brother Dafydd was captured and executed the next year. The native principality was over, and Edward’s ring of new castles, with strong castle defenses and fortified towns, made the conquest permanent.
How to judge Llywelyn
Llywelyn the Great is often remembered as a heroic national figure. A more careful view sees him as a skilled ruler working within the possibilities of his time. He used military force, marriages and treaties, took advantage of weakness in England, and kept the loyalty of a hierarchy of other princes. He did not create a modern state and could not prevent the kind of fragmentation that Welsh inheritance customs encouraged.
Much of what we know comes from Welsh chronicles such as the Brut y Tywysogyon, from royal letters preserved in English records, and from court poetry that praised the prince. Each of these has its own perspective. The principality he built was a real, if short-lived, political structure, and it formed the base on which his grandson’s later claim to be Prince of Wales rested.