The last prince of Wales

I usually do these notes in chronological order, but I am making an exception today and beginning with the execution in Shrewsbury on October 3, 1283, of Davydd ap Gruffydd. Davydd was charged with treason, although he argued—just as William Wallace would later do—that he was a Welsh prince, not an English baron, and could not be tried in an English court. Edward had determined to make an example of Davydd and so after a sham trial, he was sentenced to be drawn and quartered. This entailed being dragged behind a horse through the streets of Shrewsbury and then hanged, but cut down while he still lived. He was then disem-boweled and his entrails burned before his eyes. He was then beheaded and his body hacked into four quarters, which were put on display in English cities. It is sometimes said that Davydd was the first man to suffer this gruesome death, but that is not strictly so. There are a few documented cases of this brutal penalty being imposed prior to Davydd’s execution, although the chroniclers much marveled at it. As I said in my Author’s Note for The Reckoning, the true significance of the charges brought against Dayvdd—and the savage punishment inflicted—lay in the fact that this was the origins of the state trial. From this time on, those found guilty of treason would be drawn, quartered, and disemboweled—Edward’s legacy.
I admit I did not want to write this scene and I felt sure my readers did not want to read it; in fact, my mother said she’d never forgive me if I put her through that. But I had always faced the ugly underside of medieval life without flinching. I resolved this dilemma by drama-tizing Davydd’s last night, locked in his gaol cell with his memories and his regrets and his fears, awaiting death on the morrow. In a sense, this was no less painful than writing of the actual execution, for Davydd had many sins to atone for, and grievously did he answer for them.
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The Reckoning, page 563.
“He’d never doubted his courage, not ever. Until today, it had not even crossed his mind that his nerve might fail him. But how could flesh and blood and bone not shrink from such deliberately drawn-out suffering? How could he be sure that he’d be able to face it without flinching?
He was not accustomed to asking hard questions; that had never been his way. But he’d had three months and more of solitary confinement, time in which he’d been forced to confront the consequences of his actions, after a lifetime of evading them. There was no room to run in a prison cell.”
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Page 565-566
“Elizabeth, I’m so sorry, lass, so sorry…His eyes were stinging, his breathing grown ragged and hurtful. Where was she? What would happen to her now? Would Edward convent-cage her like Gwenllian and Gwladys? Or would he think it safer to shackle her with another wedding band? Marry her off to a man of his choosing, lock her away in some remote English keep until the world forgot about her, and she alone remembered that she’d once been the wife of a Welsh prince.”
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A bit of background on this next passage. Davydd’s sons were only three and five, and he’d not expected Edward to take vengeance upon them. The worst he’d feared was that they might be held as hostages, reared at the English court as he himself had been. But they had been torn from their mother’s arms and sent off to captivity at Bristol Castle, where another royal prisoner, Eleanor, the Pearl of Brittany, had been confined for forty years.
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Page 568
“Edward would never let them go. They would grow to manhood behind the walls of Bristol Castle. They would not know the joys and dangers and temptations that life could offer a man. They would learn naught of friendship or the urgency and sweetness of bedding a woman. They’d never have sons of their own. They would never see Wales again, and as their memories faded, they’d forget the world they’d known before Bristol Castle. They would forget him, forget Elizabeth, and not even know why they were doomed to live out their lives as prisoners of the English king.”
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Davydd met his savage fate on that October morning with the courage of a man who had nothing left to lose. He was denied burial, a serious matter in medieval Christendom, and today his only monument is a small plaque on Barclay’s Bank in Shrewsbury, telling passers-by that on this site in 1283, the last Welsh-born Prince of Wales was executed. His wife’s fate is unknown, his daughters lived out their lives in English convents, and his sons? The elder died after five years of captivity, at age ten. The younger one, Owain, was still alive in 1325, still a prisoner of the English Crown, forty-two years after he’d been shut away from the world at age three.
Also on October 3rd in 1226, my own favorite saint died, St Francis of Assisi. Requiescat in pace, Francis.
I had planned to write, too, of two famous Roman battles in 52 BC and 46 BC, but this Note is way too long, so I will save that for another day.