General Notes

Name Suffix:<NSFX> King Of Wales
Rhodri Mawr who, by inheritance and marriage re-uniting the states of North Wales, South Wales, and Powys, became King of All Wales, A.D. 843, 5th in lineal succession to his memorable progenitor, St. Cadwallader Bendigelig (the Blessed), "as well saint as monarch," crowned King of the Britains, A.D. 676, whose standard displayed the "red dragon" transmitted as the distinctive cognizance of his royal race. [Sir Bernard Burke, Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages, Burke's Peerage, Ltd., London, 1883, p. 113, Cherlton, Barons Cherlton of Powys]
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The existence of Offa's Dyke may well have deepened the self-awareness of the Welsh people, for, in the generation following its construction, kingdom was linked with kingdom with the result that the greater part of the inhabitants of Wales became the subjects of a single ruler. If the genealogies, almost the sole evidence for these developments, are reliable, it appears that it was through marriage rather than through conquest that the kingdoms of Wales were united. The heir of one kingdom married the heiress of another, although it is probable that there would have been fewer heiresses had there not been considerable slaughter among their male relations. A chain of marriages begins around 800 when Gwriad, of the lineage of the Men of the North, married Esyllt of the line of Maelgwn Fawr; their son, Merfyn, became king of Gwynedd in 825 on the death of Esyltt's uncle, Hywel ap Rhodri. Merfyn married Nest of the house of Powys, and their son, Rhodri, married Angharad of the house of Seisyllwg (Ceredigion and Ystrad Tywi). Rhodri became ruler of Gwynedd in 844 on the death of his father, of Powys in 855 on the death of his uncle, Cyngen, and of Seisyllwg in 871 on the death of his brother-in-law, Gwgon; he died in 877, king of a realm extending from Anglesey to Gower. (A History of Wales, John Davies, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, London, 1993]