One or the other

'Nor did they wish to obey Lord Edward, the son of the king, but they laughed boisterously and heaped scorn upon him. And so consequently Edward put forward the idea that he should give up these Welshmen as unconquerable.”

- Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora

This is from Paris's account of Henry III's expedition to North Wales in summer 1257, whereby the king tried to shore up his position after a year of military disasters. ​

I'm usually sceptical of Paris, but his assessment of Edward's attitude has the ring of truth. At this stage Edward showed little interest in Wales, and was much more focused on Gascony and Chester. These formed part of the massive grant or appanage given to him by his father in 1254.

The prince may well have taken the attitude that Wales was a quagmire. In 1247, after two years of grinding warfare and colossal effort and expense, his father had imposed the Treaty of Woodstock on the young rulers of Gwynedd, Owain Goch and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. This settlement lasted barely a decade before it all went up in smoke again.

The invasion of 1257 was abortive, and the royal position in Wales continued to deteriorate. Edward's ally, Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, was routed in a battle at Montgomery. An army sent into West Wales on Edward's behalf was wiped out to a man at Cymerau. And so forth. It seemed nothing could stop the whirlwind advance of Llywelyn and his allies.

Edward himself was distracted and short of money. In 1261-2 his funds were spent on Gascony, where he conquered the viscountcy of Soule (a mountainous region similar to Gwynedd) and set up a chain of castles to guard the duchy from invasion. Some Anglocentric historians have accused him of acting like a playboy and wantonly blowing cash that should have been pumped into Wales. In reality the available finance was limited; it could be spent on one or the other, not both. He chose Gascony.

In 1263 Edward had to be practically dragged home by his father to deal with the permanent crisis in Wales. He led an army into Gwynedd, but gave up after two months of being dragged about in circles by Welsh guerilla fighters. Again, his lackadaisical attitude contrasts strongly with the energy displayed elsewhere.

In 1265 Edward sold off his interests in the royal boroughs of Cardigan and Carmarthen to his brother, Edmund. This was two years before the Treaty of Montgomery, in which the remainder of Edward's holdings in Wales were granted to Llywelyn.

Afterwards the prince couldn't wash his hands of Wales fast enough. He pressured his father, the king, into granting the homage of Welsh lords to Llywelyn. These included Maredudd ap Rhyd Gryg, one of the commanders of the Welsh army that had wiped out Edward's men at Cymerau, ten years earlier.

Maredudd, head of the House of Dinefwr, was the only Welsh ruler to reserve his homage to the king. A clause in the treaty allowed for that homage to be sold to the Prince of Wales for 5000 marks, if the king chose. At Edward's insistence, Henry triggered the clause and Maredudd was sold to the man he hated above all others. Llywelyn failed to stump up the cash, which was still outstanding ten years later.

I have often argued on Facebook – a great way of wasting one's time – with those who insist Edward always had a plan for the conquest of Wales. That is to read history backwards. If such a plan existed, it was an extremely convoluted one, in which Edward dragged his feet, sold off his Welsh interests and pushed the opposite of a divide-and-rule policy.

So, the reasons for the conquest don't lie in the fermenting bosoms of Nedward Badshanks. It's very very complicated, and facts don't care about anyone's feelings.