But Edward was a man of different metal from his father, and he
declared war against Llewelyn, and in 1277 invaded Wales.
Three formidable armies poured in, and Llewelyn was driven to
take refuge among the wilds of Snowdon, where he was starved into
submission. All might have gone smoothly thenceforth had Edward been
just. But he was ungenerous and harsh. He suffered his officials
to treat the Welsh with such brutality that their condition became
intolerable. Appeals for redress that were made to him were
contemptuously set aside, and the Welsh princes and people felt that it
would be better to die with honour than to be treated as slaves.
A general revolt broke out. In 1282 Llewelyn took the castles of Flint,
Rhuddlan, and Hawarden in the north, and Prince Gruffydd rose against
the English in the south.
Edward I. resolved on completely and irretrievably crushing Wales under
his heel. He entered it with a large army, and again drove Llewelyn
into the fastnesses of Snowdon. Llewelyn thence moved south to join
forces with the Welsh of Dyved, leaving his brother David to hold the
king back in North Wales.
The place appointed for the junction was near Builth, in Brecknock, but
he was betrayed into a trap and was surrounded and slain, and his head
sent to Edward, who was at Conway.
Edward ordered that his gallant adversary’s body should be denied a
Christian burial, and forwarded the head to London, where, crowned
in mockery with ivy leaves, it was set in the pillory in Cheapside.
Nor was that all: he succeeded in securing the person of David, had
him tried for high treason, hanged, drawn, and quartered. Llewelyn’s
daughter was forced to assume the veil. Thus ended the line of Cunedda,
and Llewelyn is regarded as the last of the kings of Wales.
Edward was at Carnarvon when his second son Edward was born, 1301, and
soon after he proclaimed him Prince of Wales.
It has been fondly supposed that this was a tactful and gracious act of
the king to reconcile the Welsh to the English Crown. It was nothing of
the kind. His object was to assure the Crown lands of Gwynedd to his
son.
“Edward’s brutal treatment of the remains of Llewelyn, who, though
a rebel according to the laws of the king’s nation, was slain in
honourable war, and his utter want of magnanimity in dealing with
David were long remembered among the Cymry, and helped to keep
alive the hatred with which the Welsh-speaking people for several
generations more regarded the English.”[1]
The principality of Wales indeed remained, but in a new and alien form,
and all was over for ever with the royal Cymric line.
PEDIGREE OF THE PRINCES OF GWYNEDD AND OF POWYS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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