Brothers in death

Serving two masters (5)

On 8 December 1281, at Aberffraw, Rhys ap Gruffudd was fined £100 by Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd as a punishment for his ‘disobedience and contempt’. No further details are supplied, so we are left to speculate as to the nature of Rhys’s offence.

On 30 December, at Beddgelert, a new arrangement was made between Prince Llywelyn and Rhys. This would suggest tempers had cooled, and the two men settled their disagreement. Rhys, once Llywelyn’s bailiff, had been in English service since 1276. Now he went back to his former master.

The next winter, 6 November 1282, Rhys’s brother Hywel was drowned at the Battle of the Bridge of Boats on the Menai strait. Hywel had remained a crown loyalist and was put in command of the English fleet on Anglesey:

“And King Edward of England sent a fleet of ships to Anglesey, with Hywel ap Gruffudd ab Ednyfed as leader at their head; and they gained possession of Anglesey. And they desired to gain possession of Arfon. And then was made the bridge over the Menai; but the bridge broke under an excessive load, and countless numbers of the English were drowned, and others were slain”. 

- Brut y Tywysogion

Rhys’s feelings, on hearing this news, can only be imagined. Over a month later he joined his brother in death. On 10/11 December, near Cilmeri, Rhys fell beside Prince Llywelyn:

“Furthermore, not one of the prince’s cavalry escaped death, but they were killed with 3000 of the foot and also the three magnates of his land who died with him; namely ‘Almafan’ who was lord of Llanbadarn Fawr, Rhys ap Gruffydd, who was seneschal of all the land of the prince, and thirdly, it is thought, Llywelyn Fychan, who was lord of Bromfield.”

 - Chronicle of Peterborough

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.

Divide and rule

Serving two masters (3) Via the Treaty of Aberconwy, 9 November 1277, Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd was required to release his vassal Rhys ap Gruffudd from prison:

“That Llywelyn should free Rhys ap Gruffudd and restore him to the state he occupied when he first came to the lord king and was brought into his peace.”

The clauses of the treaty also required Llywelyn to release Owain ap Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, Dafydd ap Gruffudd ab Owain and his cousin Elise ab Iorwerth, as well as Madog ap Einion. In the next year Rhys ap Gruffudd was serving in the king’s household at a knight’s wage of two shillings a day up until Michaelmas. A month before this, on 18 January 1278, he had been appointed the last member of the judicial branch of three Englishmen and four Welshmen on the Hopton Commission, set up to deal with land claims in Wales. 

The make-up of the commission reveals Edward I’s notions of how Wales would be governed post-Aberconwy. His idea was to build up a ministerial elite of loyalist Welshmen who would work alongside a roughly equal number of English officials to administer Wales on the king’s behalf. He would later attempt to do something very similar in Scotland, with an equal number of Scots and Englishmen appointed as councillors and sheriffs.

In Wales these ministers were drawn from the uchelwyr - the landholding class below the rank of prince - and the Welsh church. This was at the expense of the princes, not least Llywelyn himself. There was an element of divide and rule here: by promoting the uchelwyr over the princes, the king created a base of native support in Wales while ensuring that the two classes were opposed to each other. In a move that would have shocked Prince Llywelyn, on 10 January 1278 Edward ordered him to appear before the new commission:

“The king has ordered Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd of Wales to be before them in those parts to propound the suits of himself and his men and to do and receive jusice”.

The members of this commission were Rhys ap Gruffudd, Archdeacon Maredudd of Cardigan, Hywel ap Maredudd and Goronwy ap Heilyn. All four had once been Llywelyn’s vassals, and now he was required to appear before them as his judges. Perhaps to reconcile Llywelyn, in June the king ordered that the remit of the commission should be widened to cover the English counties of Herefordshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire. Thus a team of Welsh justices were given effective jurisdiction over Wales and a big chunk of western England.

On 20 June 1278 Edward went further, and ordered that the four Welshmen on the team of seven should be given exclusive rights to hear and determine all pleas in Wales and the Marches. The English head of the commission, Walter of Hopton, was required to take their oath in his place. This act shows the extraordinary faith Edward placed in the Welshmen on the commission, two of which had been in rebellion against him within the past year.

Preachers and plots

Serving two masters (2) In the summer of 1277 a plot was hatched against Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd by the Dominican brothers of the Order of Preachers. The evidence of this plot is contained in a document (attached) witnessed at Chester on 21 July, in which Friar Llywelyn testifies to his mediation between Edward I on the one part, and on the other, the friar’s uterine brother Rhys ap Gruffudd and his kinsmen, Hywel ap Goronwy and Gruffudd ap Iorwerth.

Rhys, Hywel and Goronwy had earlier received the king’s permission to negotiate terms with any royal officer of their choice. This instruction was issued on 22 May, two months before Friar Llywelyn interceded on their behalf. In the document dated 21 July, the friar advises Rhys and his kinsmen to make their peace with the king and do homage. He assures them that the king would grant them their lands and rights and that, pending the recovery of their lands, they would be provided for.

The Welsh Dominicans were instrumental in the negotiations between the king and Prince Llywelyn at this time. Friar Llywelyn can most likely be identified with the Friar Llywelyn of Bangor who, along with Prior Ifor of Rhuddlan, received oaths for the observance of the Treaty of Aberconwy after Prince Llywelyn’s surrender in November. Rhys ap Gruffudd, as noted in my previous post, was one of Llywelyn’s chief counsellors. In May-July 1277 he was evidently seeking favourable terms from the king, and to disassociate himself from Llywelyn. He was too slow to act, and Llywelyn seized and imprisoned him before Rhys could escape into England. By the terms of Aberconwy, dated 9 November, Llywelyn was obliged to release Rhys and restore him to the status he had held when he first negotiated with the king.

Another of the men named on the document, Gruffudd ap Iorwerth, can probably be identified with Gruffudd ap Iorwerth ap Maredudd of Anglesey. In a letter written between the wars of 1277-82, Prince Dafydd ap Gruffudd asked the king to restore Gruffudd to his lands in Anglesey, since he had committed no trespass. An elegy was later composed in Gruffudd’s honour by the Welsh bard, Bleddyn Fardd.

The four sons of Gruffudd remained crown loyalists. After the deposition of Edward II, they were named among the uchelwyr of Gwynedd who swore to restore the king to his throne. One of them - confusingly named Llywelyn ap Gruffudd - described himself to Edward II as ‘pencenedl’ or head of his kindred. Thus, the head of the lineage of Gruffudd ap Iorwerth was apparently named after the man their father had chosen to abandon.

Slanders and old poets

Serving two masters (1) Rhys ap Gruffydd was one of the many grandsons of Ednyfed Fychan, seneschal or distain to Llywelyn ab Iorwerth. His father, Gruffydd, is traditionally supposed to have fled to Ireland as a result of a slander concerning Llywelyn’s wife, Joan Plantagenet. The alleged slander is contained in a book of pedigrees by John Tudor of the parish of St Asaph, described as an ‘old poet’. He died in 1602.

If true, it would appear Joan was the focus of a second scandal in Gwynedd after the more famous incident involving William de Braose. Gruffydd’s precise role in the ‘slander’ is not described, but he was obliged to stay in Ireland until Llywelyn died. This would imply he had done something the prince could not forgive.

His son, Rhys, was untainted by all this and became a long-term servant of Prince Llywelyn ap Guffudd. In 1272 he witnessed a document on his master’s behalf at Caernarfon and was later appointed as one of Llywelyn’s bailiffs of the Middle Marches. He was also present at the interrogation of Gruffudd ap Gwenwnwyn in 1274, after the latter’s alleged role in the notorious plot against Llywelyn’s life.

During the time of Llywelyn’s supremacy (1256-76) Rhys married Margaret, a daughter of the Marcher baron John Lestrange IV. Before 1276 John mortgaged his vill of Moreton in Shropshire to his son-in-law for 120 marks (£80). John repaid most of this sum in the form of a destrier worth eighty marks and a palfrey worth twenty.

In January 1277 the manor of Moreton was seized into the king’s hands after an inquisition found that it had been in the possession of Rhys; this can only mean that at first Rhys adhered to Prince Llywelyn in the war of 1276-77, and was disinherited as a result.

The king's right eye

In early 1302 French agents were supposed to arrive in Scotland, to take custody of all the lands Edward I had conquered in the southwest since the previous summer. The deadline for their arrival was “the fortnight after Candlemas” or 16 February.

Philip le Bel

The 16th of February passed without a Frenchman in sight. Edward, who had stopped at Roxburgh on his way south, was left secure in all the lands and castles in question. He quickly pressed his advantage and ordered Master James of St George, who had worked on the great chain of castles in Wales, to set out for Scotland.

Philip le Bel’s failure to send any men to Scotland exposed the emptiness of the Franco-Scots alliance. It had terrible consequences for the patriotic cause. Robert de Bruce had already defected to the English, convinced that Philip was about to send an army to restore John Balliol on the Scottish throne. Other Scottish knights, namely Simon Fraser and Herbert Morham, had left English service in the expectation of a permanent French alliance and final victory over Edward. Now they were left to face the wrath of the Plantagenet alone.

Why Philip made this decision is uncertain. Either he never meant to honour the agreement in the first place - which begs the question of why he bothered to implement it - or his circumstances had changed.

The answer probably lies in the talks that took place at Asnières in France between the English and French envoys. The English envoys were led by Walter Langton, a supremely able diplomat labelled “the king’s right eye in all matters” by Edward’s queen, Margaret of France. His counterpart on the French side was the no less able Pierre Flote, a brilliant lawyer and fanatical advocate of French expansionism.

Between them these two massive brains probably cooked up a cynical arrangement, whereby Philip agreed to dump the Scots if Edward dumped the Flemish. They could come to no agreement on the status of John Balliol, who was elegantly shoved aside. If Philip had gone ahead with his threat and sent Balliol back to Scotland, it is quite feasible a pitched battle would have taken place between Balliol and his supporter William Wallace on the one side, and Edward and Bruce on the other.

That could have been interesting.

Pigs might soar

Sometime over the winter of 1301-2, probably over Christmas, Robert de Bruce submitted to the English. He did so for two reasons. Edward I had agreed to a truce with Philip le Bel, whereby all the castles and land conquered by the English in southwest Scotland would be handed over to French agents. This included Bruce’s castle at Turnberry, and he was not prepared to lose it to the French; technically Philip’s men were supposed to hand everything back when the truce expired, which was about as likely as pigs developing powers of aviation.

There was also the threat of John Balliol. Bruce wanted to be King of Scots, which he couldn’t be if Philip put Balliol back on the Scottish throne. What nobody realised - except possibly Edward’s spymaster, Walter Langton - is that Philip was bluffing. What he really wanted was to remove the threat of Edward sending any more troops to Flanders, and used Balliol and the Scots to that end.

Bruce first made contact with John de St John, Edward’s keeper of Galloway. St John was a relatively decent character for the era, and Bruce may have trusted the man not to play him false. After some cautious initial talks Bruce met with St John at Lochmaben, in the presence of ‘many good people’.

This stuff was too important to be conducted via a mediator, so Bruce probably went to meet Edward in person. They hadn’t seen each other for five years, and there were certain safeguards: the king had to guarantee that Bruce would not be harmed or lose his lands. In exchange Bruce made a show of contrition, though the reality was that both men needed something from each other. The terms they negotiated are vague on the most vital point. If Balliol returned to Scotland, and Edward’s ‘right’ (le droit) to rule the country was reversed - presumably by the pope - Edward would allow Bruce to pursue his ‘right’ in the English court. If the ‘right’ was pursued in some other court, Edward would provide assistance.

Whatever the hell this means has been disputed by historians. Possibly ‘le droit’ referred to the Bruce claim to the throne, which meant Edward promised to set Bruce up as a rival King of Scots to Balliol, with himself as Lord Paramount. Alternatively, the ‘right’ may have amounted to no more than Bruce’s family estates and the earldom of Carrick.

In any case, Bruce’s submission seems to have lifted the old king’s spirits. On 20 January 1302 Edward staged an Arthurian-themed ‘Round Table’ tournament at Falkirk, on the site of his defeat of William Wallace four years earlier. Possibly this was to celebrate Bruce’s return to the fold. Whether or not Bruce competed in the tourney, dressed up as one of King Arthur’s knights, is unknown.