Peckham's register

The Dragon of Chirk (5)

The printed register of John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, contains all of the complaints submitted by Welsh lords and communities against royal government between 1277-82. It is an invaluable record of events leading up to the war of 1282 and the conquest of Wales. To gain any kind of proper understanding, each complaint needs to be considered on its own merits.

One such is the protest of Llywelyn Fychan of Bromfield. He was engaged in a private war against the men of Oswestry and Ellesmere, and at the same time at loggerheads with fellow Marcher lords. His principal enemies were Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn and the Lestranges of Knockin.

Llywelyn claimed the constable of Oswestry had plundered a third part of the vill of Lledrod, a township of Llansilin, and his father’s court, which lay nearby. They had also stolen his pastureland, along with £70 of Llywelyn’s money. The same constable allegedly hanged two of Llywelyn’s officers and imprisoned sixty others, only releasing them on a payment of 10 shillings per head. He also seized cattle when the beasts were brought to market and detained them at Oswestry castle, refusing to return or pay for them. The same constable stole pack-horses as well as Llywelyn’s own horse.

Worst of all (he claimed), Llywelyn himself, when on the road to Chester carrying letters from the king, had been ambushed and kidnapped by the soldiers of Gwenwynwyn and Roger Lestrange. He and his men were held in prison until they bought themselves out. This protest should be cross-referenced with a separate entry in the Welsh assize roll. The latter reveals that Llywelyn had sent his men to burnt the mill at Coedgoch and houses belonging to Isabella Mortimer and the men of Oswestry, to the value of £100. Or so they alleged. 

The truth of all this is impossible to sift, but it is clear that the situation in Wales was steadily darkening. Once again the Mortimers of Wigmore were at the heart of it.

[The first pic is of Peckham’s effigy]

The Pillar of Eliseg

Castell Dinas Bran, high above the Dee valley near Llangollen. One of the earliest notices of the castle is in December 1270, when the heirs of Gruffudd ap Madog confirmed grants that their father had made to his wife, Emma Audley. The deed is dated at Dinas Bran, which means that enough of a structure must have existed by then; otherwise the family would have gathered on an exposed hilltop, which seems unlikely.

The reasons for building a stone castle on this lofty perch were twofold. It overlooked the dynastic abbey of Valle Crucis and the pillar or cross of Eliseg, suggesting the lords of Powys Fadog regarded this area as the cradle of their dynasty. Second, the castle shows traces of design influences from Gwynedd, and may have been intended as part of a defensive cordon of strongholds devised by Prince Llywelyn. These also included Ewloe, Dolforwyn, Bryn Amlwg and Rhyd y Briw. The D-tower at Dinas Bran is typical of the design of castles of the princes of Gwynedd.

Gruffudd had died in 1269. Hailed as “potens et prudens” - powerful and discreet - by chroniclers, his loss was a severe blow to Prince Llywelyn, who had already lost another valued advisor, Goronwy ab Ednyfed, in the previous year. The death of these men in quick succession may have been key to Llywelyn’s downfall, since his fortunes declined from 1269 onward.

Following the death of Gruffudd, his lordship was divided among four of his sons. Prince Llywelyn gave Maelor Gymraeg and Maelor Saesneg to Madog, and half of Glyndyfrdwy. Llywelyn Fychan, the Dragon of Chirk, got Nanheudwy, part of Cynllaith, part of Mochnant and Carreghofa. Gruffydd Fychan, a direct ancestor of Owain Glyn Dwr, got part of Glyndyfrdwy and Ial, while Owain got Bangor Is Coed and another part of Cynllaith. Madog’s primacy among the brothers is shown in the record of the trial of Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn in 1274, where Madog witnessed the main record of the trial.

The crowned one of Mathrafal

The closeness of the relationship between Gruffudd ap Madog and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd was made apparent in 1258, when Llywelyn proposed to marry his sister Margaret to his new ally. Gruffudd also took the opportunity to seize those lands in Powys that had been held by his brothers, especially those of Hywel. Consequently Hywel ap Madog remained loyal to the English and received cash gifts from Henry III. In October Henry wrote to Hywel condoning his efforts to recover his lost lands, but warned him not to disturb the truce that existed between the king and the Welsh. Quite how Hywel was supposed to take back his lands without disturbing the peace is unclear, but he was doubtless grateful for the money.

The parity or partnership with equals between Llywelyn and Gruffudd could not last long. Llywelyn first assumed the title Prince of Wales in March 1258, in an agreement between Scottish and Welsh lords in which Gruffudd was named third in the list of Welsh rulers, after Llywelyn and his brother Dafydd. A man who would be king (or prince) could have no equals, and Gruffudd found himself slowly relegated to the B-list.

The fragile nature of Gruffudd’s relationship with Llywelyn is implied in the poetry of Llygad Gwr. In 1258, Llygad emphasised Gruffudd’s rightful lordship over Powys:

“Gruffudd…a ddalio Powys” (may Gruffudd hold Powys)

“Ohonawd henyw dadanudd” (the recovery of a patrimony springs from you)

In a slightly later poem, Llygad changes his tune somewhat and praises Llywelyn as supreme in Gwynedd and the war-leader active from Pulford to Cydweli. He is also praised as the “crowned one of Mathrafal”. Mathrafal, at least as far as Gwynedd jurists were concerned, was the chief court of Powys.

Llywelyn’s influence in Powys was also demonstrated by his agreement with Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn in December 1263. Among the lands Llywelyn restored to Gruffudd was Deuddwr, part of Y Tair Swydd. Deuddwr had been a bone of contention between Gwenwynwyn and Gruffudd ap Madog, and Llywelyn chose to award it to the former.

[The grassy bump in the ground is all that remains of Mathrafal castle]

Playing a double game

On 2 June 1257 an English army under the leadership of Stephen Bauzan was destroyed at Cymerau in southwest Wales. The potential role of Gruffudd ap Madog, lord of Bromfield, in achieving this victory is often ignored.

Up until very recently Gruffudd had been a crown loyalist. He appears to have despised Llywelyn the Great and his successor, Dafydd ap Llywelyn, on account of their ill-treatment of Llywelyn’s eldest son Gruffudd. After Gruffudd’s fatal plunge from the Tower or London, Gruffudd ap Madog’s attitude slowly changed.

In the early summer of 1257 Gruffudd apparently remained on active on behalf of Henry III. Along with Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, lord of southern Powys, he was ordered by the king to assist John de Grey in the defence of the marchlands. Gruffudd ap Madog took charge of the border lordship of Kinnerley from his brother-in-law James Audley. He was only able to hold it for a month before being driven out by the invasion of Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. In June, very shortly before the English defeat at Cymerau, Gruffudd was still receiving grants of English territory in the midlands as compensation for his losses.

Matthew Paris wrote that the victory of Cymerau was achieved ‘by the advice and instruction’ of Gruffudd ap Madog. Paris cannot be trusted, but had clearly heard a story of Gruffudd playing a double game. Some suggestive evidence can be found in Henry III’s correspondence. On 8 August the king made arrangements to receive Dafydd ap Gruffudd, Llywelyn’s brother, whom Henry believed was about to defect to his side. One of the witnesses on this letter is Gruffudd ap Madog. He was clearly party to this plan. Another letter to this effect was issued on 25 August.

Gruffudd’s name does not appear on this second letter. On 20 September his chaplain was ordered to tear up both letters, since Dafydd had not come to the king. Just over a week later, according to the Annals of Chester, Gruffudd defected to Prince Llywelyn.

Homage and fealty

In 1238, at Strata Florida, the princes of Wales swore fealty or ‘fidelity’ to Dafydd, second son and heir to Llywelyn the Great. Llywellyn had summoned them all in an effort to secure Dafydd’s succession before his father died.

Strata Florida

The nature of the oath is important, and reveals the mindset of the princes. There were two forms of oath-taking: homage and fealty. Homage was a binding oath between a lord and his vassal. Fealty was less binding, and could be taken to more than one lord.

Llywelyn wanted the princes of Wales to swear homage and fealty to his son. They did not. This failure to secure a binding agreement made it virtually inevitable that Llywelyn’s supremacy would start to fall apart after his death.

The arms of Powys Fadog

Why did the princes refuse to swear homage? Every individual had his reasons. The princes had their own interests to safeguard, and the records of the chancery show their anxiety to swear homage to Henry III in the summer of 1240. This was after they had sworn the lesser oath to Prince Dafydd. Among the first to swear homage to the king was Gruffudd ap Madog of Powys Fadog, who hated Dafydd anyway and had waged war on him in the last years of Llywelyn’s reign. He also wished to see off the threat of his brothers and preserve a united Powys Fadog, which could only be done with royal support.

In the south, Maredudd ap Rhys Gryg had only inherited a portion of Ystrad Tywi from his father. The death of Prince Llywelyn gave him the opportunity to secure a broader dominion, which again could only be achieved with the king’s consent and support.

Henry III

Dafydd, for his part, was keen to swear homage to Henry III as quickly as possible, so he could return to Gwynedd to deal with his brother, Gruffudd ap Llywelyn. He came before the king at Gloucester, did homage for his right to North Wales, was knighted, and “wore the talaith or coronet which was the special symbol of his rank”. Dafydd also agreed with Henry to submit to arbitration the rights to land claimed by the lords of Powys Wenwynwyn, ‘as barons of the lord king’. Not for the last time, the House of Mathrafal chose to identify as English-style barons instead of Welsh princes in order to gain a legal advantage.

By the terms of the peace at Gloucester, Dafydd surrendered ‘all the homages of the barons of Wales’ to the king and his heirs without question. This concession, freely given by the prince, would have dire consequences for the future.

True lord of the land

The late summer of 1238 witnessed all kinds of maneuvering and power play in Wales. Unfortunately not all the documents have survived, but some reasonable assumptions can be made. On 9 August Henry III wrote to Llywelyn the Great, informing the prince that he would be at Shrewsbury on 22 September to discuss royal power in Wales. The language is blunt: this was all about power - potestatem - and nobody was pretending otherwise.

Criccieth

Within the month, on 19 October, all the princes of Wales swore homage to Dafydd son of Prince Llywelyn at Strata Florida. Earlier in the year Henry had protested that this was an abuse of his majesty, but this second oath-taking provoked no hostile response from the king. Many of the rolls are lost for this period, but it appears the homage must have been taken with Henry’s consent. This in turn implies that Henry and Llywelyn had come to a mutually amicable arrangement.

The disabled Llywelyn had done all he could. Two years later, on 11 April 1240, he was laid to rest at Aberconwy after taking the habit of a monk. Soon after his death, Einion Wan composed an elegy for Llywelyn (translated by Sir John Lloyd):

“True lord of the land - how strange that today
He rules not o’er Gwynedd;
Lord of nought but the piled up stones of his tomb,
Of the seven-foot grave in which he lies.”

Prince Dafydd, Llywelyn’s heir, had already taken steps to deal with his elder brother Gruffydd. The Bruts record that a few months before their father died:

“Dafydd ap Llywelyn seized Gruffydd, his brother, breaking faith with him and imprisoned him and his son at Criccieth.”

Once again Gruffydd was the fall guy (no pun intended).

Homage and dissidence

On 16 June 1237 Henry III wrote to Llywelyn the Great, confirming a truce to last until 25 July 1238. The king also expressed his thanks that Llywelyn thought fit to send his second son, Dafydd, to continue peace talks at Worcester. This meeting was postponed and in the end never happened, possibly due to the refusal of the men of Powys Fadog to agree to any deal proposed by Llywelyn and Dafydd.

The Powysian dissidents were led by their lord, Gruffydd ap Madog, and Llywelyn’s eldest son Gruffydd ap Llywelyn. Together the two Gruffydds, probably supported by other Welsh lords and Marchers, formed an opposition party to the disabled Llywelyn and his son Dafydd. To add to Llywelyn’s woes, 1237 also witnessed the death of his wife, Princess Joan Plantagenet, and his son-in-law Earl John of Chester.

It appears King Henry trusted no-one. On 4 July he issued an order for the archbishop of Canterbury to escort Dafydd to him at Westminster; the very next day it was agreed that Dafydd would prolong the truce with ‘our faithful Prince Llywelyn and his adherents’, described as the king’s ‘open enemies’.

In early 1238 Dafydd launched a campaign against his elder brother. Over the next few months he took from Gruffydd the lands of Arwystli, Ceri, Cyfeiliog, Mochnant, Caereinon and Mawddy. All of Gruffydd’s territorial gains over the past three years were reversed, leaving him with just Llyn.

With Dafydd in the ascendant, the ageing Llywelyn permitted his second son to take the homage of some of the magnates of Wales. When Henry heard of this, he wrote to Morgan of Caerleon, Rhys ap Gruffudd, Rhys Mechyll, Hywel ap Maredudd, Maredudd ap Rhys, Cynan ap Hywel, Maelgwn ap Maelgwn, Gruffydd ab Owain, Richard ap Hywel, Rhys ap Trahaearn, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (the future prince of Wales), Maredudd ap Maelgwn, Owain ap Hywel and his brother, Owain ap Maredudd and all the tenants of honour of Brecon and Buellt and all the tenants of Richard Clare and all the tenants of the English earls and barons in Wales. This mighty assembly was warned not to pay homage to Dafydd, since:

"the aforesaid magnates hold their lands from us and they owe homage to us and because the aforesaid Dafydd should pay homage to us and has not yet done homage to us.”

Henry III

Henry’s complaint was not that Dafydd had taken the homage of the lords of Wales; rather, he had done so before swearing homage to the king. Further letters went back and forth, in which Henry protested at attacks and trespasses committed in the lands of Powys by Dafydd’s men. Thus, the king intervened on behalf of his step-nephew Gruffydd against his blood-nephew Dafydd.

His father's heel

Brenhinedd y Saesson [1233-1234]:

“In that year Gruffydd ap Llywelyn was released from prison, after he had been there six years.” Gruffydd’s father, Llywelyn the Great, had thrown his eldest son in prison in 1228. This was apparently done for no other reason than to get him out of the way for a while, so Llywelyn’s second son Dafydd could secure his grip on the patrimony.

After his release, Gruffudd was able to expand his powerbase from Llyn to include Arwystli, Ceri, Cyfeiliog, Mawddy, Mochnant and Caereinion. These lands were probably granted to him by Llywelyn, or at least acquired with his father’s consent. Llywelyn seems to have revived his earlier plan of giving Gruffydd a large share of Powys to compensate for Dafydd inheriting Gwynedd.

Gruffydd had suffered too much to let bygones be bygones. In the words of Matthew Paris, he had ‘endured his father’s heel’ for long enough. Possibly he was also driven by a desire to avenge his mother, cast aside and treated like a prostitute for the sake of dynastic gain. In 1237, when Llywelyn suffered a stroke that left him partially paralysed, Gruffydd rose in arms against him.

In desperation, Llywelyn pleaded with his old enemy, Henry III of England, for aid. According to Paris, he promised to:

 “place himself and all his men under the power and guardianship of the king of the Engilsh to settle the dispute, and of him he would hold his lands in faith and friendship, entering into an indissolvable treaty. And if the king might go on an expedition, to campaign by foot and horse, and with his treasury, attended by his forces, that with his faithful men, he himself [Llywelyn] faithfully would move forward in support.”

Paris added a rhetorical flourish. Of the nobles of Wales, he remarked:

“I fear Danaans, even when bringing gifts.” Danaans were the besiegers of Troy, usually claimed to have been Greeks.

The chronicler also added a quip from Seneca:

“You are never safe when making a treaty with the enemy.”

Slave girls

Today is the (probable) anniversary of the death of Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in December 1282. Rather than go through the murky deed all over again, it might be worth rewinding a couple of generations.

In 1222 Llywelyn ab Iorwerth - Llywelyn the Great - asked Pope Honorius III to abolish the custom in Wales that illegitimate children could inherit just as if they were legitimate. Further, the prince asked that the pope would confirm Llywelyn’s statute that his son Dafydd, ‘by his legitimate wife Joan, daughter of the late king of England’, would succeed him in all his possessions.

Llywelyn’s original petition is lost, but several responses from the pope survive. The archives at Vatican City contain the pope’s final judgement:

“To the nobleman Lord Llywelyn of North Wales. Bringing about from us the attached petition. Certainly your petition showed that since some detestable custom or rather corruption has developed in the land subject to your authority - as evidently the son of the slave girl could be the heir together with the son of the free woman and illegitimate sons could obtain the inheritance just as the legitimate - you [Llywelyn] and your Lord Henry, illustrious king of the English, beloved sons of Christ, have agreed in harmony and also further with the intervening authority of our beloved sons, our venerable brother Archbishop Stephen of Canterbury…that Dafydd your son, who from Joan the daughter of Clementia and the king of England, your legal wife, should succeed in receiving your inheritance by right in all your possessions.”

Llywelyn’s elder son, Gruffudd, was thus condemned as ‘the son of the slave girl’ and barred from inheritance. Far from being a slave, his mother was in fact the daughter of King Reginald of Man. This was all swept aside by Llywelyn the Great, in his desire to get rid of his first wife and marry into the Plantagenets: one might draw comparisons with the behaviour of his eighth great-grandson, Henry VIII.

Gruffudd’s son was the aforesaid Prince Llywelyn, killed near Builth in 1282 by his kinsmen, the Mortimers. The decision of his grandfather Llywelyn the Great to change the inheritance laws in Wales meant that Llywelyn ap Gruffudd was the son of a legally declared bastard and the grandson of a woman condemned as a slave by the Holy See. The Mortimers, on the other hand, were legitimate heirs via the female line of Llywelyn the Great’s son, Dafydd, who died without issue in 1246.

Whether or not the rules of succession influenced the rules of engagement near Builth in December 1282 is speculation, but it’s something else to throw in the mix.

Broken promises

In the summer of 1241, a year after the death of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, the Welsh lords of the middle March were at war with Ralf Mortimer of Wigmore. They were assisted by the seneschals of Dafydd ap Llywelyn, lord of Gwynedd and self-proclaimed Prince of Wales.

Mortimer sought to protect himself by sowing dissension in Gwynedd. On 12 August he stood surety for a fine promised to Henry III by Senana, wife of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, for which the king undertook to free Gruffydd and his son Owain from Dafydd’s prison. Gruffydd and Dafydd were half-brothers and the royal policy was to dangle Gruffydd as a potential threat to Dafydd’s hegemony in North Wales.

At about the same time Mortimer came to an agreement with his wife’s nephew, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. Two copies of a deed exist, in which Llywelyn quit all his rights in the lands of Gwrtherynion and Maelienydd to Ralf Mortimer and his heirs. One of the copies of the deed contains a saving clause in which Llywelyn swore to support the Mortimers against all men, saving the King of England. In the deed Llywelyn styles himself ‘filius Griffith filii Leulini quondam principis Norwallie’. This reflects English chancery practice with respect to his uncle Prince Dafydd, who was designated ‘filius Lewelini quondam principies Norwallie’. In King Henry’s agreement of 12 August with Senana, he stipulated that two of her sons, Dafydd and Rhodri, should handed over as hostages. Her husband Gruffydd and the eldest son, Owain Goch, were also taken into royal custody. Llywelyn was exempt.

Among the witnesses to the Mortimer deed is Einion ap Caradog, who had recently fled Prince Dafydd’s court after informing Dafydd to his face that he was “too weak to be a prince”. Another member of Llywelyn’s entourage at this time was Richard, Bishop of Bangor, who abandoned Dafydd and publicly declared his fealty to Henry III.

At this time, therefore, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd appears to have been a royal partisan against his uncle Dafydd, and in alliance with the Mortimers. His attitude changed when his father, Gruffydd, died attempting to escape from the Tower in 1244. After this Llywelyn became a supporter of Prince Dafydd, possibly in the hope that Dafydd would make him his successor. In the event he and his brother Owain seized power after Dafydd’s death in 1246.

Even so, Llywelyn could not escape his oath to the Mortimers. In 1257, sixteen years after he quit all his rights in Maelienydd and Gwrtherynion, Llywellyn broke the agreement and invaded those lands. This possibly sowed the seeds of his eventual destruction at Mortimer hands in 1282.

Murky Mortimers

A charter dated 1 May 1281, in which the abbot of Tal-y-Llychau pledged the abbey’s lands of Brechfa in Gothi and and the land of Brechfa except for Llanegwad to Rhys ap Maredudd for eighteen years.

The first name on the witness list to the charter is Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, the only ‘Englishman’ among the otherwise Welsh names. The Anglicised form of Mortimer’s name is deceptive: he was a grandson of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth and a nephew of Dafydd ap Llywelyn, as well as third cousin to Rhys ap Maredudd and first cousin to Llywelyn ap Gruffudd.

Mortimer involved himself deeply in the affairs of Pura Wallia at this time. A few months later, on 9 October, he met Prince Llywelyn at Mortimer’s castle at Radnor and entered into a ‘peace treaty and unbreakable agreement’ with his kinsman and old rival. This was probably on Llywelyn’s instigation and meant to secure Mortimer’s support against Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn. Or was there more to it?

Llywelyn was the son of Gruffydd, whom Prince Llywelyn ab Iorwerth had barred from the succession to Gwynedd on the grounds that he was the son of a ‘slave girl’; this was so Prince Llywelyn could put aside his first wife and marry Joan Plantagenet, daughter of King John. Roger Mortimer, on the other hand, was the grandson of the illegitimate but legitimised Princess Joan, which meant he had the blood of the English and Welsh royal families in his veins.

 Roger was also the eldest surviving direct heir of his uncle, Prince Dafydd ap Llywelyn. Llywelyn ab Iorwerth had deliberately excluded Grufydd and his brothers from the succession while Prince Dafydd and his bodily heirs lived. Dafydd had died in 1246 without an heir, but he left six uterine sisters. All but one of these had male heirs, of which Mortimer was the eldest. Under Welsh law it was technically impossible for a female to inherit land, but it was not impossible for a member of a royal family to stake a claim through the female line.

There is also the question of how Llywelyn ap Gruffudd rose to power in Gwynedd in the first place. There was no ‘coronation ceremony’ in 1246: instead Llywelyn and his brother Owain Goch seized power after the death of Prince Dafydd. Since they were both sons of a man who had been declared a bastard by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, neither had any automatic right to inherit.

This may explain why Llywelyn had no male heirs of his body, and made efforts to mend fences with Mortimer in 1281. Did Llywelyn intend to hand the crown of Wales over to his cousin Mortimer? His brother Dafydd was an outcast at this point, while Owain was in prison and Rhodri had sold off his rights to the principality.

Prince Rosser ap Ralf ap Llywelyn of Wales?

Legal fictions

Serving two masters (6, and last)

The death of the brothers Rhys and Hywel ap Gruffudd in the war of 1282, fighting on opposite sides, left their heirs vulnerable to rival claimants. In about 1307 Rhys’s son, Gruffudd Llwyd, moved to secure his inheritance from Thomas Bek, the predatory Bishop of St David’s. Gruffydd wrote to the council in London and reminded them that:

“His uncle, Hywel ap Gruffudd, knight…died in the service of the king, the father of our king, at the bridge of Anglesey, in the company of Sir Otto Grandison in the war of Llywelyn and Dafydd.”

This was true enough, but Gruffudd went further and claimed that: “After the conquest, the said Rhys ap Gruffydd, his brother and father of this Gruffudd [meaning himself], was assigned by the king as guardian of the county of Caernarfon and sworn to his council and in this state he died, as the earl of Lincoln, the said Sir Otto and other great lords of the king’s council can testify.”

Thus Gruffudd claimed that his father was not killed with Prince Llywelyn at Cilmeri, as the Peterborough chronicler claimed, but survived and was taken back into royal service. Gruffudd’s statement is flatly contradicted by the records. On 20 April 1284 the king allowed Margaret, the wife of Rhys ap Gruffudd, her lordship of Tregarnedd in Anglesey for life. Edward was not happy about the grant, which he regarded as neither “stable or firm”, but it was made over anyway. A few days later, on 4 May, the earl of Lincoln was ordered to deliver Rhys’s lands in the cantref of Rhos over to his son, Gruffudd.

If Rhys was still alive, than neither of the above grants make any sense. He was dead by 20 May 1284 at the latest and almost certainly died at Cilmeri in December 1282. Gruffudd’s claim that his father was made ‘guardian of the county of Caernarfon’ is also bogus, for the shire was not even formed until 3 March 1284, fourteen months after the last possible date his father may have been alive. The only other possibility is that Edward I made Rhys guardian for Caernarfonshire and then forgot to tell anyone, which doesn’t seem likely. 

Therefore Gruffudd Llwyd - later Sir Gruffudd Llwyd - tried to persuade Edward II that his father, Rhys, was loyal to Edward I until the end. This legal subterfuge was probably employed to protect Gruffudd’s standing in the edgy conditions of postconquest Wales. With regard to the actual petition, Gruffudd sold his advowson to the church of Llanrhystyd to the Bishop of St David’s in 1309, but held onto the rest of his lands. These were inherited by his son, Ieuan, Justice of South Wales, on 28 August 1335.

Paying suit

Serving two masters (4) In 1279 the brothers Rhys and Hywel ap Gruffudd lost their lands in Wales. On 8 November the king ordered Hywel ap Maredudd (one of Rhys’s colleagues on the commission to govern Wales) and John Perres to inquire into the rights of the brothers in Caeo, a commote of Cantref Mawr, which they had been unjustly ‘diseissed’ (deprived) of by Rhys ap Maredudd.

This case gives an idea of the chaotic rivalry that existed between the descendants of the Lord Rhys of Deheubarth. Rhys and Hywel were both descended from Lord Rhys via their grandfather’s marriage to his daughter, Gwenllian. Caeo itself was held by Rhys Wyndod, lord of Dinefwr and another descendant. The commote was claimed by Rhys ap Maredudd, lord of Dryslwyn and yet another descendant. Presumably this means that the brothers held their part of Caeo from Rhys Wyndod as chief lord.

Rhys ap Maredudd’s specific complaint was that Hywel ap Maredudd refused to pay suit at Rhys’s court of Llansadwrn. To owe suit required a man to attend a specific court and pay a fee to have his cases heard; Rhys was thus concerned with the loss of prestige and revenue if Hywel was allowed to detach himself from the lord of Dryslwyn’s jurisdiction.

To pay suit was a part of English common law, and Rhys asked the king to have a writ to the royal bailiffs at Dinefwr to distrain Hywel and force him to pay suit, ‘as he was accustomed to do in the time of the father of Rhys’. This all gave rise to an awkward situation in which one of the team of four Welsh justices appointed to govern Wales and the Marches was himself a sub-tenant of a regional lord of Cantref Mawr. This man and his brother also apparently owed legal services to a neighbouring lord of Cantref Mawr, who refused to acknowledge his cousin’s authority in Caeo and did his best to muscle in on the territory. Unfortunately the outcome of the case is unknown.

Caeo itself was a fairly important trading centre. A survey of 1303-4 discovered that the hamlet of Cynwil inside Caeo was home to eight ‘chensers’ or censarii, who paid for the privilege of buying and selling freely within the town in weekly markets and annual fairs. The presence of a market at Cynwil is indicated by the collection of petty tolls from people passing through the hamlet. A percentage of these fees and tolls would have been creamed off by the local bigwigs, which might explain why they were all squabbling over possession of the commote.