The Welsh medieval rulers were noted for their patronage of bards. This was in common with much of Europe. While England was in the grip of the so-called ‘Dark Ages’, the Welsh boasted poets of the stature of Taliesin and Aneirin. The Saxon king Alfred the Great hired a Welsh bishop, Asser, to improve his Latin and act as his official biographer. It has been suggested that Alfred might, in common with many of his fellow-countrymen, have been fluent in Welsh, but it is more likely that he conversed with Asser in Latin, the international language of literature and learning.
Naturally, the main purpose of keeping a household bard was to sing the praises of the man who held court. Another of the bard’s functions was similar to that fulfilled by what we would now call a herald. The bard could recite the full genealogy of his prince, proving his calibre as a ruler by reference to his royal blood. This would become even more important from the fourteenth century onwards, when the Normans had become dominant but noble families still wished to underline their descent from indigenous Welsh rulers. In post-conquest Wales, it was through the oral tradition that the spirit of independence would be not only kept alive but propagated.
It seems clear that learning and culture were more highly sought-after qualities in a ruler of Wales than in the contemporary rulers of countries that had not been under Roman rule or had subsequently been invaded by ‘barbarians’. It was only in the ninth century that the rulers of the English kingdoms seriously began to concern themselves with the arts. As for the Norman kings, they were too concerned with the consolidation of their military gains to pay much attention to cultural matters, and in any case they spoke and wrote a different language from the majority of their subjects.
In 1176, the Lord Rhys held a festival of music and poetry at his court in Cardigan. This is one of the first recorded eisteddfodau. The tradition of the chairing of bards goes back at least this far in the history of Wales, giving the lie to the popular misconception that the eisteddfod is a nineteenth-century invention. Even if the idea originally came from France or Ireland and was adapted to suit the Welsh, the basic shape of the festival is probably a thousand years old.
The lack of any female names in the historic catalogue of Welsh rulers is irrefutable evidence that royal women were seen in a different light from their fathers, brothers and sons. It was not a woman’s rule to lead her people, however royal her birth. The pre-Roman Celts are known to have had queens, such as Cartismandua of the Brigantes and Boudicca of the Iceni, but these were both married women. Boudicca inherited her kingdom from her husband, and we have no idea how Cartismandua came by hers. They are certainly the exception rather than the rule.
Kingship could, however, be inherited through the female line, and many of the early Welsh rulers extended their territories through intermarriage with the female heirs of kings who had no sons of their own. In the early ninth century, Merfyn Frych of Gwynedd married Nest, a princess of Powys, giving their son, Rhodri Mawr, a springboard from which to establish his rule over most of Wales. Nearly a century later, Hywel Dda married a princess named Elen, enabling him to add Dyfed to his own kingdom of Seisyllwg, creating the territory known as Deheubarth.
If the maintenance of law and order was seen as a kingly duty, Hywel Dda was the epitome of the king. Not only did he codify the Welsh laws, he even issued his own coinage, manufactured in a mint at Chester. Hywel was well travelled, having in 928 completed the journey to Rome to which all western Christians aspired. In the Eternal City he was hailed as ‘King of Wales’. Hywel was a skilled diplomat, however, and was prepared to do homage to Athelstan, king of England (d.939), to underline his right to rule. His relationship with his contemporaries over the border was such that his reign was unquestioned. Following his agreement with Athelstan, no battles between the English and the Welsh are recorded, and charters show that Welsh rulers attended the Englishman’s court as ‘subreguli’. Some time between 930 and 945, Hywel called an assembly at Whitland, and put together a document summarizing the laws of Wales as they then stood.
One thing to be said in favour of small kingdoms is that they do not require a great deal of administration. Subjects might receive near-personal attention from their ruler; they could certainly expect to see him from time to time. Is this what so many people resent about the modern monarchy? Does the collective memory of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish alike go back far enough to yearn for the days when their rulers had time for them as individuals? Is this in fact a historical justification for the trend towards devolution?
Hywel Dda’s attempt to bring his kingdom under the rule of law shows that he was concerned about the possibility of such a large territory becoming unwieldy and difficult to govern. In this he was ahead of his contemporaries, even in the larger Saxon kingdoms – except, perhaps, for Athelstan, whom he supported when the latter was challenged by the Scots during the 930s. The poem known as Armes Prydein is thought by some to have been written during Hywel’s reign, and reflects the discontent of the Welsh under the dominance of the Saxons. It speaks of an alliance of the Celtic peoples of Britain and Ireland against Athelstan, and bemoans the latter’s victory. This was a battle in which the Welsh seem to have taken no part, and which probably took place on England’s northern borders, with the threat coming from the north rather than the west.
Following Hywel’s death, his kingdom was broken up and divided between his three sons, whilst the other territories he had amassed returned to their original ruling families. Owain ap Hywel certainly had some awareness of his father’s legacy, and is thought to have been responsible for the compilation of the Annales Cambriae, a chronicle of events in Wales and the wider world. In one manuscript it is immediately followed by a statement of Owain’s pedigree. This may signify a sense of in-adequacy, a need to emphasize Owain’s right to rule by reference to his ancestors. At first he had shared the kingdom of Deheubarth with his brothers Edwin and Rhodri, but even between the three of them they had been unable to retain their hold on Gwynedd. Owain outlived his brothers by thirty years, passing the whole of Deheubarth to his son Maredudd (d.999).
Resilience and longevity were qualities that the Welsh might have valued, on the rare occasions they experienced them. With stability came peace and prosperity, and this was the best that the common people could hope for. Much as they admired a king who could exert his will on others by force, they admired him still more if he could hold on to his gains. Such a king was Gruffydd ap Cynan (c.1055–1137), father of the better-known Owain Gwynedd.
The English chronicler Orderic Vitalis referred to Gruffydd as ‘rex Guallorum’ (‘king of the Welsh’), revealing that the English also recognized him as royal. His biography, written by a near-contemporary in the Welsh language, has survived, and tells a remarkable story. It is the story of a man who was so determined to rule Gwynedd that he conquered it no fewer than four times. The son of a Welsh prince and an Irish Viking princess, Gruffydd was around 20 when he made his first attempt on the throne of Gwynedd. He was joined in his invasion attempt by none other than Robert of Tilleul, a Norman adventurer with a particularly bloodthirsty reputation who saw some advantage in a temporary alliance with the youth. The Norman later became known as Robert of Rhuddlan, after the stronghold he established on licence from William the Conqueror. Although Gruffydd successfully seized much of the territory he wanted, he was unable to hold onto it, and was forced to retreat to Ireland. Five years later, he was back, this time in an alliance with Rhys ap Tewdwr (d.1093), displaced ruler of Deheubarth. At the Battle of Mynydd Carn in 1081, the allies defeated all their enemies and regained their respective kingdoms.
Shortly after this second conquest of Gwynedd, Gruffydd ap Cynan was taken prisoner by the Normans. He remained in captivity for at least twelve years. The story goes that the prisoner was on show, in the marketplace at Chester, in chains, when a local man, Cynwrig Hir (‘Cynwrig the Tall’), carried him off. If Gruffydd owed his freedom to Cynwrig, he nevertheless had already shown his powers of endurance, and his long sojourn in prison seems only to have made him more determined. Yet again, he was unable to hold on to Gwynedd and fled once more to Ireland; but a couple of years later he was back, and this time there was no question of his superiority
