by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2023

Wales was divided into a number of separate kingdoms. The largest of these was Gwynedd in northwest Wales and Powys in east Wales. Gwynedd was the most powerful of the Welsh kingdoms. For one man to rule all of Wales during this period was rare. This was because of the inheritance system practiced in Wales. All sons received an equal share of their father’s property, including illegitimate sons, resulting in the division of territories.

The Principality of Wales was created in 1216 at the Council of Aberdyfi when it was agreed by Llywelyn the Great and the other Welsh princes that he was the paramount Welsh ruler and the other Welsh princes would pay homage to him. Although he never used the title, Llywelyn was the de facto Prince of Wales. Llywelyn dominated Wales for 45 years and was one of only two Welsh rulers to be called “the Great”, the other being his ancestor Rhodri the Great. Llywelyn was succeeded by his son Dafydd ap Llywelyn and then by his two grandsons who were the sons of his illegitimate son Gruffydd ap Llywelyn.

The campaign of King Edward I of England in Wales (1276 – 1284) resulted in Wales being completely taken over by England. It ended with the deaths of the last two native Princes of Wales: Llywelyn ap Gruffudd who was ambushed and killed in 1282 and his brother Dafydd ap Gruffydd, who was the first prominent person in recorded history to have been hanged, drawn, and quartered, in 1283. To ensure there would be no further members of the House of Aberffraw, the English imprisoned Dafydd ap Gruffydd’s two young sons for the rest of their lives at Bristol Castle and sent his daughter and the daughter of his brother Llywelyn ap Gruffydd to convents. To further humiliate the Welsh, King Edward I invested his son and heir, the future King Edward II, with the title Prince of Wales. Since then, the title has been granted (with a few exceptions) to the heir apparent of the English or British monarch.

• Unofficial Royalty: Principality of Wales Index

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(Note: In Welsh, “ap” means “son of” and “ferch” means “daughter of”)

Dafydd ap Llywelyn was the first Welsh ruler to claim the title Prince of Wales. He was born circa April 1212, at Castell Hen Blas in Coleshill, Wales, the only son of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, known as Llywelyn the Great, Prince of Gwynedd and Prince of Powys Wenwynwyn, and Joan, Lady of Wales, an illegitimate daughter of King John of England. Dafydd’s paternal grandparents were Iorwerth ab Owain, son of Owain Gwynedd, King of Gwynedd, and Marared ferch Madog, daughter of Madog ap Maredudd, Prince of Powys. His maternal grandfather was King John of England. The identity of Dafydd’s maternal grandmother is uncertain. She could possibly be Clementia d’Arcy, the daughter of Geoffroy d’Arcy, Agatha Ferrers, daughter of William de Ferrers, 3rd Earl of Derby, or Sibylla de Braose, daughter of William de Braose, 3rd Lord of Bramber.

Dafydd’s parents Llywelyn the Great (Credit – Wikipedia) and Joan, Lady of Wales (from a stained glass window at St. Mary’s Church, Trefriw, Conwy County, Wales; Credit – www.findagrave.com)

Dafydd’s parents had three children but probably had more. Dafydd definitely had two sisters:

• Gwladus Ddu (1206 – 1251), married (1) Reginald de Braose, no children (2) Ralph de Mortimer, had three sons
• Elen ferch Llywelyn (1207 – 1253), married (1) John the Scot, 9th Earl of Huntingdon and 7th Earl of Chester, no children (2) Sir Robert de Quincy, had one daughter Hawise whose granddaughter Margaret Wake was the mother of Joan, 4th Countess of Kent, the first English Princess of Wales and the mother of King Richard II of England

Some of Llywelyn’s other recorded children may also have been Joan’s so the following were either Dafydd’s sisters or half-sisters:

• Susanna (? – after 1228), was sent to England as a hostage in 1228
• Elen the Younger ferch Llywelyn (before 1230 – after 1295), married (1) Máel Coluim II, Earl of Fife, had two sons (2) Domhnall I, Earl of Mar, had five children (Elen and Domhall’s daughter Isabella of Mar married Robert the Bruce, King of Scots who had one child Marjorie Bruce, the mother of the first Stewart monarch, Robert II, King of Scots.)
• Angharad ferch Llywelyn (? – 1260) married Maelgwn Fychan of Deheubarth, had four children
• Marared ferch Llywelyn (? – after 1268) married (1) Sir John de Braose, had three sons (2) Sir Walter de Clifford, had one daughter

Dafydd had a half-brother, the son of Tangwystl ferch Llywarch Goch, Llywelyn’s mistress:

• Gruffydd ap Llywelyn (circa 1196 – 1244), married Senena ferch Caradog, had two sons who both reigned as Prince of Gwynedd: Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Gwynedd and Dafydd ap Gruffydd, Prince of Gwynedd (Unofficial Royalty articles coming.)

Llywelyn wanted Dafydd to be his sole heir but with the inheritance system in Wales at that time, all sons received an equal share of their father’s property, including illegitimate sons, resulting in the division of assets. In 1220, Llywelyn managed to convince Dafydd’s maternal uncle King Henry III of England to recognize Dafydd as his sole heir, and in 1226, Pope Honorius III officially declared Llywelyn’s wife Joan to be the legitimate daughter of King John of England, strengthening Dafydd’s position. In 1238, at a council at Ystrad Fflur Abbey, the other Welsh princes recognized Dafydd as Llywelyn’s sole legitimate heir.

In 1228, Daffyd was betrothed to Isabella de Braose, daughter of William de Braose, Lord of Abergavenny and Eva Marshal, the daughter of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke. Also called William the Marshal, Eva’s father served five Kings of England – King Henry II, his sons Henry the Young King, King Richard I, and King John, and John’s son King Henry III. The betrothal came about in an interesting manner. In 1228, William de Braose, Lord of Abergavenny, one of the most powerful barons in the Welsh Marches, a vaguely defined area along the border between England and Wales, was captured in battle by Dafydd’s father Llywelyn the Great, Prince of Gwynedd. To be released, William de Braose had to pay a ransom of £2,000, agree to never take up arms against Llywelyn, and agree to arrange the marriage between his eldest daughter and co-heiress Isabella. With these terms agreed to, William de Braose was released in 1229.

Before the marriage could take place, a scandalous incident occurred. During a friendly visit to Llywelyn’s court during Eastertide, William de Braose was found in the middle of the night in the bedchamber of Llywelyn’s wife Joan. Llywelyn had Joan and William separately imprisoned. Joan was eventually released by her husband, who was genuinely fond of her, but William da Braose was publicly hanged on May 2, 1230. However, Llywelyn did not wish to jeopardize his son’s advantageous proposed marriage. He wrote to William’s widow Eva, explaining that he had been forced to order the hanging due to the insistence by the Welsh lords, and to Eva’s brother William Marshal, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, who was now the guardian of Isabella and her three sisters, expressing his desire for the marriage to continue. Dafydd and Isabella were married in 1230 but their marriage was childless.

In 1237, Dafydd’s mother Joan, Lady of Wales died. Dafydd’s father Llywelyn suffered a stroke that same year, and thereafter Dafydd took an increasing part in the rule of the principality. On April 11, 1240, Llywelyn the Great died and Dafydd succeeded him as Prince of Gwynedd.

Although Dafydd’s maternal uncle King Henry III of England accepted his claim to rule Gwynedd, Henry III was not in favor of allowing Dafydd to keep his father’s conquests outside Gwynedd. In August 1241, King Henry III invaded Gwynedd, and after a short war, under the Treaty of Gwerneigron, Dafydd was forced to give up all his lands outside Gwynedd and hand over his imprisoned half-brother Gruffydd to King Henry III who imprisoned him in the Tower of London. Since Gruffydd was a rival claimant to the Principality of Gwynedd, Henry III put limits on Dafydd by threatening to set up Gruffydd as a rival in Gwynedd. However, on March 1, 1244, Gruffydd fell to his death while trying to escape from the Tower of London by climbing down a knotted bedsheet.

After Gruffydd’s death, Dafydd, along with an alliance of Welsh princes, attacked English possessions in Wales. By March 1245, Dafydd had recovered his former possessions. However, in August 1245, King Henry III again invaded Gwynedd and suffered a defeat. Despite the defeat, Henry III continued in Wales as far as the River Conwy and began building a new castle at Deganwy. The English and Welsh armies continued fighting at Deganwy until the English army ran short of provisions because some of their supplies had been captured by the Welsh. A truce was agreed and the English army withdrew in the autumn.

The truce remained in effect throughout the winter but the death of thirty-three-year-old Dafydd, Prince of Gwynedd on February 25, 1246, at Aber Garth Celyn, the royal palace in Abergwyngregyn, Wales effectively ended the war. Dafydd was buried with his father Llywelyn the Great, Prince of Gwynedd at Aberconwy Abbey in Conwy, Wales which his father had founded. Because Dafydd had no son, he was succeeded by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the son of his half-brother Gruffydd ap Llywelyn.

Dafydd and his family are among the characters in the late Sharon Penman‘s wonderful historical fiction trilogy, The Welsh Trilogy (The Reckoning, Falls the Shadow, and Here Be Dragons). Sharon Penman’s research was impeccable and this writer learned much about Welsh history by reading the three novels.

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Works Cited

• Flantzer, Susan. (2023). Joan, Lady of Wales. Unofficial Royalty. https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/joan-lady-of-wales-wife-of-llywelyn-the-great-prince-of-gwynedd/
• Flantzer, Susan. (2015). Llywelyn Fawr (Llywelyn the Great). Unofficial Royalty. https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/llywelyn-ap-iorwerth-llywelyn-fawrllywelyn-the-great/
• Wikimedia Foundation. (2023). Dafydd ap Llywelyn. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dafydd_ap_Llywelyn
• Wikimedia Foundation. (2021). Dafydd ap Llywelyn. Wikipedia (German). https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dafydd_ap_Llywelyn
• Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, May 31). Dafydd ap Llywelyn. Wikipedia (Welsh). https://cy.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dafydd_ap_Llywelyn