The sound of grinding axes

My new book on Edward I and Wales is crawling towards completion. No release date yet, but the final round of edits is now with the publishers.

I have tried to approach the subject from a neutral perspective: I am not an apologist, a revisionist, a nationalist or a fantasist, and have no axes to grind, secrets to hide or agendas to push. I am mainly interested in power politics and how people react in high-pressure situations.

As an example, the stakes didn't get much higher than in West Wales in 1277. Twenty years earlier, the lords of the west had united under Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and smashed an English army at Cymerau. This unity did not last. When war broke out again in 1277, the next generation failed to put up the same kind of resistance.

There were many reasons for this. Rhys ap Maredudd, the most powerful of the western lords, inherited an old grudge against Prince Llywelyn. As a youth, Rhys had been held hostage at Criccieth Castle in North Wales as surety for the good behaviour of his father Maredudd. The rivalry between the houses of Gwynedd and Dinefwr went back generations, and Llywelyn could not heal the breach. Rather than accept the authority of Gwynedd, Rhys offered his allegiance to King Edward.

The surrender of Rhys, on 4 April 1277, signalled the collapse of local resistance. Edward had promised Rhys the castle of Dinefwr if he could conquer it from his cousin, Rhys Wyndod. To save himself, Rhys Wyndod offered his surrender five days later. Immediately afterwards his brother, Llywelyn ap Rhys, and uncle Hywel ap Rhys Gryg, abandoned Carreg Cennen and fled north to join Prince Llywelyn inside Gwynedd.

Further ructions followed. Sometime in 1277-8 Prince Llywelyn complained to the king that Llywelyn ap Rhys and Hywel ap Rhys Gryg 'stood as traitors to him because they did not do homage to him'. This petition was sent to Edward at Rhuddlan and probably dates to the summer of 1277.

Thus, it appears that the two fugitives fled to join Llywelyn, only to refuse to pay homage to him. In response Llywelyn branded them traitors and asked Edward for redress. Not for the first or last time, internal politics had undermined the political resolve of the Welsh princes.