Entry taken from the book The Plantagenets
The conquest of Wales was an old desire of the English kings, but the orographic difficulties and the guerrilla warfare strategy followed by the Welsh who systematically avoided open field battles, hindered the conquest sought by the English.
One of these invasions was carried out in 1257 by the English king Henry III and was a complete failure; the Welsh, led by Llywelyn of Gwynedd, not only repulsed the English attack, but in the following years took advantage of the internal difficulties of Henry III (see the blog entries dedicated to Simon de Montfort and the Battle of Lewes) to conquer various borderlands and increase the territory in their possession.
In 1267, Henry's internal problems in his kingdom were joined by the decision of his son, Prince Edward, to leave to fight in the Crusades (an expedition we also talked about in the blog); to deal with both issues, Henry needed peace in the troubled Wales and therefore signed the Treaty of Montgomery (1267) with Llywelyn, in which he not only guaranteed the maintenance of the conquests of Gwynned, but for the first and only time in history England officially recognized a Welshman with the title of “Prince of Wales”. In exchange, Llywelyn recognized the King of England as a superior lord to whom he should pay homage and promised to pay an important financial sum in the following years.
However, in the following years various issues made it difficult to maintain Montgomery's treaty:firstly, this agreement had left unresolved border disputes between Llywelyn and various powerful English nobles such as Roger de Clare and Roger Mortimer, which caused more than one clash between them; secondly, Wales was not a rich country, so the payment of financial compensation to which Llywelyn had agreed began to be delayed; Finally, the Prince of Wales was forced to face an internal rebellion led by his brother Dafydd, which ended with the rebels taking refuge on English soil to the anger of Llywelyn. The English magistrates limited themselves to pointing out that the Montgomery treaty prohibited England from supplying arms to the prince's enemies in Wales, but said nothing about receiving these enemies in England and that, therefore, they were not obliged to deliver these fugitives to Llywelyn .
Henry III's death was succeeded to the English throne by his son Edward I Longshanks. His initial attitude towards the Welsh problem was one of tolerance and understanding towards Llywelyn in a more than difficult economic situation, his priority was to collect the compensation agreed in Montgomery, for which he instructed his nobles and authorities to avoid any dispute that could serve as a excuse the Welsh for not making the payments.
However, Eduardo's patience was running out little by little; Several planned meetings between the two leaders (among other purposes, with the aim of having the Prince of Wales pay homage to the King of England) were frustrated, the last of them after Eduardo waited in vain for Llywelyn in Chester for a week and that the Welshman claimed that his safety was not guaranteed on English soil, which Eduardo interpreted as an insult to his offer of hospitality; In addition, he understood, and he was right, that behind it was a challenge from the prince to his situation of vassalage with respect to the English king.
But the event that marked the final break between the two was Llywelyn's decision (single and childless at fifty) to marry; this issue would not have been a problem were it not for the fact that the wife he chose was none other than the daughter of Edward I's old enemy, Simon de Montfort. Making a member of the de Montfort family Princess of Wales when barely ten years had passed since Montfort's death could become a hitch pennant for disaffected Edward's reign. The English boarded Eleanor's ship, and she spent the next three years in the Tower of London.
Edward had been patient with Welsh problems, but when he decided to act he did so forcefully:in November 1276 Parliament declared war on Wales and in less than a year the English armies (led in person by the king in the final part of the attack) recaptured all the lands conquered by Llywelyn in the last thirty years; he was forced to sign the Treaty of Conwy on November 9, 1277, by which the work of a lifetime was nullified and by which he was forced to share his possessions in Gwynedd with his brother of he Dafydd; the English allowed him to keep the title of “Prince of Wales”, but more as a mockery of his new situation than as a show of recognition. Llywelyn had to endure one last humiliation:his oath of homage to the King of England would no longer be taken in Wales or nearby places like Chester; The Prince of Wales had to go to kneel before the King of England in London, where he paid that homage in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1277.
Edward's ambitions for Wales did not end there, and as a consequence the custom of designating the heir to the throne of England with the title of "Prince of Wales" was born... but that's another story.
Whoever wants to know more in detail the facts narrated in this entry and, in general, the fascinating biography of Edward I of England can read the excellent book Edward I, a great and terrible King by Marc Morris.
Image| Statues representing Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and Edward I at Caernarfon Castle (Wales). Photo:author's archive