Royal Wales. Deborah Fisher

      The Normans invaded England in 1066, but did not attempt to take Wales at that point. They preferred a piecemeal approach, and within ten years, William the Conqueror had created three new earldoms along the Welsh ‘march’, the border land that kept the Welsh and English apart. Hitherto it had been difficult to tell where England ended and Wales began. The border populations spoke both languages, and England up to now had been, like Wales, less of a nation than a collection of petty kingdoms. The new earls of Hereford, Chester, Shrewsbury and, later, Gloucester, were loyal to the new ruling dynasty of England, and recognized it as their duty to subdue Wales on behalf of the Norman kings.

      Some of the Norman lords began stealthily, lulling the Welsh into a false sense of security through marriage alliances. Others immediately embarked on an expansionist strategy, building castles and raiding Welsh territory. It was not until 1081 that King William himself first entered Wales. William claimed to be on a pilgrimage to St David’s, but he had other motives. Along with the government of England, he had taken on its church, and to emphasize his control of the kingdom’s spiritual life, he had installed his mentor, Lanfranc, former abbot of Caen, as archbishop of Canterbury. While at St David’s, the king took the opportunity to ensure that its bishop knew his place and recognized the authority of Canterbury. (There would not be an archbishop of Wales until 1920, the year in which the Church of England in Wales was finally disestablished, disendowed and replaced with its independent Welsh counterpart.)

      Needless to say, William was as interested in the secular life of his kingdom as in the spiritual. His journey into Wales was an opportunity to make a show of power and to put fear into the hearts of the local population. Rhys ap Tewdwr, ruler of Deheubarth, was prepared to pay William £40 a year protection money in order to keep his own little kingdom. (Significantly, this was the same amount paid to the king by the Norman lord Robert of Rhuddlan to retain his territories in north Wales.) More important than the financial incentive, in symbolic terms, was the ‘homage’ William obtained from the Welsh ruler. The Norman tradition was a ceremony in which the vassal would kneel bareheaded before his lord and pledge his loyalty. As a result, not only did the vassal owe service to his new overlord, but in return he could expect the support of that lord in times of trouble.

      The Marcher lords who were too timorous to venture into Wales sometimes delegated their responsibilities to their own vassals, lesser lords such as Eustace de Cruer, who is credited with the building of the first castle at Mold. Eustace was granted the lordship of Mold by King William II, son of the Conqueror, but the territory was by no means firmly in Norman hands. Some fifty years later, when the original castle had been upgraded by Robert de Montalt, Owain Gwynedd seized it, and in 1149, at Consyllt, he gave the Norman earl of Chester, Ranulf de Gernon, a bloody nose when the latter tried to take back ‘his’ territory. At some stage, the English got their castle back, but kept it only until 1198, when Owain’s grandson Llywelyn Fawr retrieved it and held it. Mold Castle remained a bone of contention in 1245, when Llywelyn’s son, Dafydd (d.1246), was ordered to give it up to the Norman ‘seneschal’ of Chester. Dafydd refused and the dispute continued. In 1263 that hardy prince of Powys, Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn (d.1286), destroyed the castle, symbolic as it was of English dominance. By 1302 it had been rebuilt by the English and was the recognized property of the new ‘prince of Wales’, the future Edward II. In 1322 it was again being besieged by a Welsh rebel, this time Sir Gruffydd Llwyd, the very man who is reputed to have brought Edward I the news of his son’s birth at Caernarfon Castle. Five years later it passed into the hands of Queen Isabella, regent of England and the mother of King Edward III.

      The history of Mold Castle typifies the struggle for supremacy in the Welsh Marches, particularly in the north, where the landscape was more hostile to English armies. In 1114, Henry I invaded Gwynedd and Powys, but he did not stay there. He was more successful in the south, where he made other conquests, apparently including Princess Nest (d.c.1136), the daughter of that same Rhys ap Tewdwr who had been prepared to pay homage to Henry’s father. As a result, Nest is said to have given birth to a son, Henry Fitzroy (1103–58). Both King Henry and Princess Nest developed far-from-spotless reputations in the bedroom department, and it seems safe to assume that she was a willing partner in the liaison (if it really happened).

      It was not only in the Marches that the struggle between the Normans and the natives went on. As the king of England effectively controlled the activities of the church, his influence continued to be felt as far west as Pembrokeshire. Henry I issued a ‘charter of privileges’ to St David’s, conferring the status of a town on the tiny settlement which just happened to have a very important cathedral. He may have believed it would have a civilizing effect. The town became a centre of pilgrimage, and the residents could not pick and choose who should be allowed access to the shrine of St David. Two visits here were the equivalent of one to Rome, and naturally the English were among the most frequent visitors.

      Henry’s policy towards Wales, copied by the more effective English kings and a strategy that eventually worked well for Edward I, was ‘divide and rule’. When he saw an opportunity to interfere between two Welsh princes who were at one another’s throats, Henry would take it. Yet his incursions into Wales were designed to inspire awe and fear in the natives, rather than to take administrative control. He had no use for Wales as another region to govern; he merely wished to ensure its continued subservience.

      In 1138, Henry’s successor Stephen created the earldom of Pembroke for his retainer Gilbert de Clare, making it clear that he regarded Welsh estates as being in the gift of the king of England, regardless of what the locals might have to say about the matter. Stephen, however, was already engulfed in civil war, as Henry’s legitimate daughter, Matilda, tried to regain the kingdom her father had willed to her. The king had no time to spare for the conquest of Wales, and this was one of the keys to Owain Gwynedd’s ability to rule north Wales, virtually unchallenged, for so long, and to expand southwards into Ceredigion, taking control of it back from the Normans. Owain was the most notable of several native rulers who took advantage of ‘the Anarchy’ to strengthen their own positions.

      During this twelve-year period of ‘anarchy’, no one was quite sure who ruled England. This is not to say that the Welsh took no part in the conflict. One knight who had a major role in the civil war was Robert of Gloucester (d.1147), also called Robert of Caen, whom some have identified as the child of Henry I by Nest though it is generally believed that his mother was Sybilla Corbet. As lord of Glamorgan, Robert of Gloucester had his power base in south Wales, and it was to him that the care of the deposed duke of Normandy, Robert Curthose (elder brother of Henry I), had fallen; Curthose was a prisoner in Cardiff Castle from 1126 until his death in 1134. At Cardiff Robert of Gloucester went so far as to mint coins in the name of his half-sister Matilda, whose claim to the throne he loyally supported. Robert had achieved peace in his part of the Marches by making treaties with local Welsh rulers, and was well regarded, for a Norman. He had many Welshmen in his service, as did the earl of Chester, Ranulf, when they jointly defeated King Stephen