I am so pleased to be welcoming Anna Belfrage to the blog today. Anna is the author of the The Graham Saga series, The Kings Greatest Enemy series, The Wanderer series, and The Castilian Saga series.
Today, Anna is going to be telling us a bit about the historical background to her latest novel, Their Castilian Orphan.
In 1283, the last true Prince of Wales, Dafydd ap Gruffud, was hauled up the gallows in Shrewsbury and subjected to the horrifying ordeal of being hanged, drawn and quartered. His sons were taken to Bristol Castle there to be locked up. Both of them would die there, in the case of the youngest, Owain, after decades as a prisoner. The House of Aberffraw had been crushed, and Edward I was now in full control of Wales.
Turns out, it wasn’t quite that easy to subjugate a nation. There would be several recurring rebellions in the coming years, the largest one being that led by Rhys ap Maredudd in 1287. Edward sent men and siege engines to effectively destroy Rhys’ power base and even if Rhys managed to escape, Edward was not unduly worried. Rightly so, as in 1291 Rhys was captured. He was executed in 1294, and that, Edward might have thought, was that. He had finally rid himself of every irritating potential Welsh rebel.
Except he hadn’t.
Central to the narrative of Their Castilian Orphan is the Welsh rebellion of 1294, a rebellion that was so widespread and so capably led it might have succeeded — at least for a while. It certainly took Edward by surprise, seeing as he was quite convinced he’d tamed the unruly Welsh.
Edward I was a skilled if ruthless conqueror — I’m guessing he had it from William of Normandy. Once in control of Wales, he secured his position by initiating the construction of strong fortresses that loomed over the Welsh landscape, a silent and constant reminder of the English king and his steel-covered fist. Reasonably, only a fool would attempt to rebel in a country encircled by castles garrisoned by English soldiers.
The Welsh were no fools. But they chaffed under the English yoke, and especially under the heavy English taxation. Wales had no tradition of taxing its people, and things were made worse by the fact that the Welsh were taxed harder than the English — at least in relative terms. Back in the 1280s, the Welsh had been sick of wars. They’d lost fathers, brothers, sons to the conflicts, and it was a tired and dispirited nation that watched the English make themselves at home, bringing with them English customs and laws. But being tired and dispirited does not necessarily mean being permanently broken. The Welsh were a proud nation, more than aware of their ancient roots in lands over which now flew the English lions. And when the English kept on pushing and pushing and pushing, the Welsh had enough. And in 1294, the Welsh found a leader again, namely Madog ap Llywelyn.
Madog grew up in England as his father, Llywelyn ap Maredudd, had fallen out with
Llywelyn ap Gruffud, a.k.a. Llywelyn the Last, the Prince of Wales who was betrayed by his brother Dafydd, reconciled with him, was dragged into rebellion by said Dafydd and died in 1282. Some would say Dafydd deserved that awful death in 1283, if nothing else because of how he’d treated his brother.
Llywelyn ap Maredudd fought against his prince in 1256 after which he fled to England. There he was welcomed by the king — who, apparently, had an open door policy when it came to people fleeing the Welsh prince, along the lines of “your enemy is my friend” — and spent several years in exile before reconciling with his prince and returning home to the green, green valleys of Wales in 1262. A year later, and he was dead, this time dying in a skirmish while fighting for his Welsh prince.
When his father returned to Wales, one would think it likely that Madog went with him, but at the time he was a boy and things in Wales were uncertain, and so maybe Madog stayed behind, safe in England. Whether he was raised fully in England or not, we do know that in 1277 Madog was the recipient of a very generous monetary gift from Edward I — money he immediately used to sue Llywelyn ap Gruffud, demanding that his hereditary lands be returned to him. This, dear peeps, makes me suspect that Edward gave Madog the money solely for the purpose of suing Llywelyn. Anything Edward could do to make life difficult for Llywelyn he did — and at the time he was making life very hard for the Welsh prince as Edward I had kidnapped Llywelyn’s bride, Eleanor de Montfort and was holding her hostage. Adding some Madog into the soup likely made things even more interesting according to Edward. I dare say Llywelyn disagreed.
Madog did not get his lands back in 1277. But in 1282, Llywelyn was killed in the uprising instigated by his devious brother Dafydd, and some months later, Wales was crushed under Edward’s mail chausses. One of the beneficiaries of all this was Madog, who was given lands by Edward in return for his fealty.
Our young lord was more English than Welsh — a good thing, according to Edward. But over time, Madog’s loyalties began to waver. After all, he was Welsh by blood and while at first he applauded the English king’s decisions, soon enough he began to have second thoughts. Edward’s men manned Edward’s castles, and most of those men were English nobles who gave a rat’s arse for the Welsh and their rights. Welsh laws were no longer valid. The Welsh language was sneered at. A nation already suffering after years of war was further oppressed by Edward’s heavy taxes — he needed money to build all those castles.
A whisper began spreading among the Welsh. The whisper grew into a murmur, into a subdued roar. This was their land, goddamn it, and it was time they took it back! But to do so, they needed a leader, and out of the shadows stepped...taa-daa...Madog ap Llywelyn, who counted Owain of Wales as his ancestor and was cousin like five times removed with LLywelyn and Dafydd.
It was a well-planned rebellion. Long before that loud proclamation, Madog and his companions had begun planning their campaign. They would only get one chance — they knew that — so there was no room for mistakes.
In 1294, the opportunity arose. Philippe IV snatched Gascony from an enraged Edward, and soon enough, the English king was focussed on planning a major campaign to retake his ancestral lands. Edward’s men assembled in Portsmouth, there to cross the Channel. Edward also decided to arm companies of Welsh men ordered to muster at Shrewsbury. The king intended to send them off to fight for him in Gascony, but instead, he ended up arming the rebels.
Things were further helped along by the rising tensions between the Earl of Gloucester and one Morgan ap Maredudd, who accused Gilbert de Clare of stealing his land. Together, Morgan and Madog could command a sizeable amount of men, and they now focussed on preparations while waiting for the right moment — this being the moment when Edward’s host had departed for Gascony.
Edward had hoped to cross the Channel during the summer, but the weather had not been on his side. In September, the rebels had word that the English were setting sail late September, and in early October, the Welsh rose in rebellion, staging multiple attacks across Wales.
Unfortunately for the Welsh, the weather had yet again been capricious, so Edward’s assembled army remained in Portsmouth. Divine intervention, Edward may have thought — not so the Welsh.
Initially, the Welsh carried the day. Caernarfon Castle, Cstell-y-Bere, as well as the castles of Hawarden, Ruthin and Denbigh were all overrun. Criccieth Castle and Harlech Castle were besieged. The English forces who attempted to reclaim Denbigh were routed. Raymond de Grey managed to hold on to the castles of Flint and Rhuddlan, but overall, things weren’t looking good for the English. And then Edward himself entered the arena, determined to show the Welsh ingrate a lesson. From his headquarters in Conwy Castle, Edward rode out to defeat the Welsh, but was obliged to ride hell for leather back to Conwy after the Welsh ambushed him. The king’s baggage train fell into Welsh hands, and soon enough the victorious Welsh burned the town of Conwy to the ground and dug in for a long siege.
With their king in danger, the English rallied. Boats were dispatched to deliver victuals to the besieged king — Conwy sits on the water. The Earl of Warwick assembled a huge army and marched towards Wales. Slowly, the noose around the Welsh rebels tightened.
In March of 1295, in the battle of Maes Moydog, the Welsh army faced the Earl of Warwick’s host. At first, it seemed the Welsh would be crushed, but they rallied, using schiltrons to face off the English cavalry. Fully aware that losing meant death — and a long, extended death at that — the Welsh fought with everything they had. But when the English archers entered the fray, darkening the skies with their arrows, the Welsh were forced to flee, many of the drowning as they attempted to cross the swollen waters of the river Banwy. Madog himself barely escaped alive and did what many of his predecessors had done in equally dire situations: he fled into the wilds of Snowdonia.
In July of 1295, Madog was captured. I bet he was quite convinced he was destined to meet a similar end to that of Dafydd, but for some reason, Edward decided not to hang, draw and quarter Madog. Instead, he was imprisoned for life in the Tower and is known to have been alive as late as 1312.
Wales paid a heavy price for the rebellion. Edward enforced harsher laws, heavier taxes on his most recent and least willing subjects. But despite this, the dream of independence was kept alive. It would burst forth briefly when Llywelyn Bren led a minor rebellion in 1316, it would flare anew some decades later and then it would burst into spectacular flames with Owain Glyndwr in the last years of the 14th century.
For my fictional characters in Their Castilian Orphan, the Welsh rebellion of 1294 is a truly tragic event. Robert, Noor and their companions emerge emotionally battered and physically scarred from it — but that, they say, is what a good novel needs: tension. I am not so sure Robert and Noor agree — or that they’ve forgiven me.
Anna, thank you so much for being my guest on the blog today with such fascinating content.
(meda and content courtesy of The Coffee Pot Book Club)
(all opinions are my own)
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