The terror of Gwynedd (3)

 The battle of Maes Moydog was fought in Powys, North Wales, in March 1295. In some ways it was similar to the battle of Falkirk, fought three years later. An Anglo-Welsh army used missile troops to defeat an army of Welsh spearmen, after the latter had repulsed a cavalry charge. 

The Welsh army was led by Prince Madog ap Llywelyn, a great-great-grandson of Owain Gwynedd (died 1170), the first Welsh ruler to adopt the title Princeps Wallie/Walenses, or overlord of the Welsh. After taking Edward I’s castles of Caernarfon, Denbigh, Ruthin and Hawarden, Madog marched down into Powys. Quote: 

 “Know that the army of Montgomery went to Oswestry to take a prey. And then the prince [Madog] came down to Powis with all the elite Welshmen.” - chronicle of Hagnaby The phrase “to take a prey” is a biblical expression from Ezekiel Chapter XXXVIII, 11-13: “Verse 12: To take a spoil and to take a prey; to turn thy hand upon desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.” 

The army of Montgomery was led by the Earl of Warwick. Just like Wallace at Falkirk, the location of Madog’s army was revealed to him by spies. This crucial local intelligence enabled Warwick to steal a march on the Welsh prince and attack his army on the morning of 5th March. There, on a flat open field, Madog was routed with the loss of six hundred men. 

Now, amongst Warwick’s army were our friends, Madog ap Meilyr and Madog ap Eynon. As local men, with an intimate knowledge of the district, they would have had local informants able to track Prince Madog’s forces and report on his movements to the earl. More than anyone, they were response for the prince’s defeat. 

While the battle raged, Madog’s baggage train was attacked by another detachment of the king’s men, who came from ‘Thessewait’. This is a garbled English spelling of Y Tair Swydd, a district of the Lower Severn Valley centred on Welshpool. It was noticed as a source of Powysian soldiers: during the previous war of 1282-3 over seven hundred had been raised from Y Tair Swydd alone. These men were Welsh. 

The battle of Maes Moydog is usually defined as a straight England v Wales affair. Once again, at the risk of making myself tedious, that is simply not true. To judge from their actions, the men of Powys saw Madog’s invasion as just that: a continuation of the ancient wars of Gwynedd and Powys. They had rejected his predecessor, Llywelyn the Last, and they weren’t having him either.

Sources: The Montgomeryshire Collections/Casgliadau Malden, Volume 106; the battle of Maes Moydog by Dr Peter Barton

Heirs to the Princes: The Welsh Ministerial Elite by David Stephenson

Edward I (Yale Monarchs) by Michael Prestwich

Welsh Soldiers in the Later Middle Ages by Adam Chapman

Medieval Powys: Kingdom, Principality & Lordships by David Stephenson