During the reign of King Henry II, the Sixth Earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort organised a rebellion against the King. During his rebellion Llewelyn the Great and his grandson, Llewelyn ap Gruffud of Wales, allied themselves with de Montfort. The rebellion would fail, but a lot of Welsh land was retaken by Llewelyn. By the time Henry III came to the throne, having no appetite for war, he handed Wales over to Llewelyn and proclaimed Wales a principality and handed the title of Prince of Wales to Llewelyn ap Gruffud.
Edward I came to power in 1272 and by this time Llewelyn had become ambitious. Eleanor de Montfort, the daughter of Simon de Montfort was the woman Llewelyn planned on marrying. Llewelyn invaded territory on the Anglo-Welsh boarder and refused to do homage to Edward I. Edward saw this as not only an attack on his kingship but also an opportunity to reconquer Wales.
The invasion of Wales started In 1276. Edward marched from Chester along the northern coastline of Wales into Daganwy. With him he had 16,000 men made up of crossbowmen and 9,000 Welsh mercenaries.
Edward came up with a plan that would not only target Llewlyn’s men, but also their supplies. Attacking from land and sea and launching a fleet of ships to land in Anglesey, Edward and his army destroyed Lelwlyn’s harvest, removing crucial supplies for Llewelyn’s army.
Outnumbered and with little supplies, Llewelyn could see he had no choice. He conceded defeat. But this would not be the end of Edwards conquest of Wales.
In 1282, war would brake out again in Wales. This time started by Llewelyn’s brother, Dafydd. Disgruntled by how much land and wealth he had lost in the 1270’s, he attacked the English held, Hawarden Castle. Determined to solve the problem of Wales once and for all. Edward threw his might at the problem. He called on Ireland for troops and took men from Gascony.
In 1282, just months after war in Wales broke out again, Llewelyn was ambushed and killed in battle at Irfon Bridge. His brother Dafydd, and his men retreated to a mountain fortress in Snowdonia, where they came up with a plan to keep up the the fight. Dafydd succeeded his brother as Prince of Wales .
Determined more than ever to cripple the Welsh, Edward I called on soldiers from Gascony known as ‘montagnards’ or ‘mountain people’. Many were from the Pyrenees, along the border of France and Spain.
Like the Welsh, these soldiers were experts guerrilla warfare. They were able to fight in difficult conditions and were able to traverse mountain terrain fairly quickly.
One of the Montagnards greatest strengths, was a kind of solider unknown to Britain at this time, mounted crossbowmen. Heavily armed and riding on horses dressed in padded leather, these soldiers could apparently shoot a crossbow from horseback.
These soldiers would only fight in Edward’s conquest for a couple of weeks. Before returning to their homeland. This may have been because the Gascon solider’s were paid twice as much as any other solider in Edward’s army.
Eventually, Dafydd would be handed over by his own men and executed for treason at Shrewsbury. This ended the ap Gruffud dynasty and all other Wesh princely families were stripped of land and authority.
Edward now had full settlement in Wales, establishing new counties such as Flint, Anglesey and Caernarfon. All of which had a system of administration and governance with sheriffs and county courts and the most ambitions castle building project in Plantagenet history, known as the Ring of Iron. These were a network of bastions, Conwy, Caernarfon, Harlech and Beaumaris, that were designed to be sea facing to fortify the North Wales coastline. From experience with Hawarden Castle being besieged and burned down, Edward could see that landlocked castles were more difficult to secure. A coastal defence allowed Edward to strengthen to the coastline and place a smaller garrison in command.
Edwards Conquest of Wales was an important part of his self image. It was all about self image for him and there was one King he saw to emulate. King Arthur. Many stories were shared about the Legend of King Arthur, but the most popular one comes from a Welsh historian known as Geoffrey of Monmouth and it is from his writings that the imagine of Arthur we have today come from.
Edward I had the supposedly remains of King Arthur re-tombed in a black marble tomb with gold with 2 lions. Tournaments known as Round Tables took place across the realm and at Winchester there is the top of a round table that still survives today, although the paintwork dates back to the 16th century in the reign of Henry VIII, there is evidence that the original contributions dates back to the 1280s. The reign of Edward I. From all accounts from Arthurian legend, King Arthur was Welsh and Edward claimed to be a descendant of Arthur and casted himself as the rightful King of Wales.
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