General Notes

[Direct Linage1.FTW]

Reign: 1039 - 1063
Ruled Deheubarth from 1055; recognized as sovereign ruler of all Wales; Murdered.

Grufudd, son of Llywelyn ap Seisyll and Angharad, the daughter of Meredudd ap Owain, was a hard and ruthless man in a hard and ruthless time. Wales not only was involved in the traditional internicine strife
and battles against the Saxons, but also was being constantly raided and plundered by Viking and Hiberno-Norse pirates. In England, Cnute the Great was holding the throne as part of a sweeping Scandinavian empire which included not only England but Denmark, Norway, Iceland and the
Scottish Isles.

1037: And then...the Pagans captured Meurug, son of Hywel. And Iago, king of Gwynedd was slain (by Gruffudd); and Gruffudd, son of Llywelyn, son of Seisyll, governed in his stead: and he, from beginning to end, pursued the Saxons, and the other nations, and killed and destroyed them, and overcame them in a multitude of battles. The first battle he fought at Rhyd y Groes on the Severn, where he was victorious. That year he depopulated Llandabarn, and obtained the government of South Wales, and dispossesed Hywel, son of Edwin, of his territory.

The battle mentioned above was the defeat of Leofric, Earl of Mercia near Welshpool. This victory did not secure Deheubarth for Gruffudd, though it did establish him as the leading man in the Welsh battles for supremacy.

Powys had already come under Gruffudd's sway through his mother's blood lines, and the next step for Gruffudd was the rule of Dehuebarth. Gruffudd ap Rhydderch stood in his way. Here are the entries in the Brutfor this series of events:

1039: And then...the action of Pen Cadeir took place, and Gruffudd overcame Hywel, and captured his wife, and took her to be his own wife.

1042: And then...Hywel, son of Edwin, meditated the devastation of Deheubarth accompanied by a fleet of the people of Ireland, and against him was opposed Gruffudd, son of Llywelyn. And after a cruel battle, and a vast slaughter of the army of Hywel and of the irish at Aber Tywi, Hywel fell and was slain, and Gruffudd was victorious.

1043: And exceeding treachory was practised by Gruffudd and Rhys, sons of Rhydderch, son of Iestin, against Gruffudd, son of llywelyn.

1045: And then...about seven score men of the family of Gruffudd (ap Llywelyn) fell, through the treachory of the men of Ystrad Tywi, and to avenge them, Gruffudd devastated Ystrad Tywi and Dyfed.

1047: All Deheubarth lay in waste.

1054: Gruffudd ap Llywelyn killed Gruffudd ap Rhydderch.. And after that Gruffudd ap Llywelyn raised an army against the Saxons, and arrayed his forces at Hereford; and against him the Saxons rose with a very great host, Reinolf being commander over them; and they met together, arranged their armies, and prepared to fight. gruffudd attacked them immediately with well-ordered troops, and after a severely hard fought battle, the Saxons, unable to bear the assault of the Britons, took to flight, and fell with a very great slaughter. Gruffudd closely pursued them to the fortress, which he entered, and depopulated and demolished the fortress, and burned the town; and from thence, with very great booty, he returned
happily and victoriously to his own country.

The deaths of Hywel ap Edwin and Gruffudd ap Rhydderch allowed Gruffudd to become master over all of Deheubarth. He secured Glamorgan and Gwent a few years later, thus for the first and only time in Welsh history was the whole of Wales united under a Welsh leader (the Brut terms him "vrenhin y
Brytanyeit").

Gruffudd has been treated differently by different historians. Giraldus considered him a tyrant, even though he was descended through Gruffudd's daughter, Nest. Walter Map, a 12th C author (and friend of Giraldus) passed along the following anecdote: when asked why he was so reasdy to kill his Welsh opponents, Gruffudd replied: "Talk not of killing. I only blun the horns of the progeny of Wales lest they should wound their dam."
JE Lloyd, writing in 1911 showed some distaste for Gruffudd, and perhaps made a bigger deal out of the resistance of Gruffudd ap Rhydderch than was true.

Gruffudd's activities also caused great concern in England, for he was the first Welsh ruler since Cadwallon who could influece events in England. The actions described above secured for him areas which had formerly been Welsh, but had long since been taken over by the English. After the battle of Hereford, Gruffudd had retaken Whitford and Hope, Bangor Is-coed and Chirk, Presteigne and Radnor. In England, Edward the Confessor, a weak and ineffective king, sat on the throne. Due to his weakness, the
various earls of the kingdom had more power and were given free rein to do what they would. It was against one of these earls that Gruffudd had won the victory at Hereford.

Here are the last few entries in the Brut for Gruffudd:

1056: And then, Magnus, son of Harold, king of Germany, came to England, and ravaged the dominions of the Saxons, Gruffudd king of the Britons, being conductor and auxiliary to him.

(Magnus Haroldsson was king of Norway and lead an army into England. He was later defeated by the English.)

1057: And then...Owain, son of Gruffudd, died.

1061 One year and one thousand was the year of Christ, when Gruffudd, son of Llywelyn, the head and shield, and defender of the Britons, fell through the treachory of his onw men. The man who had hitherto been invincible, was now left in the glens of desolation, after taking immense spoils, and innumerable victoies, and countless treasures of gold and silver, and jewels and purple vestures.

The story needs some cleaning up. The Brut is off by two years for its recording of the dates and the above should be for 1063. What happened was that Harold Godwinson, earl of Wessex, led a forces over both land and sea against Gruffudd. He pursued Gruffudd from place to place, never able to get ahold of Gruffudd in battle. Gruffudd was taken by surprise at this expedition and was unable to muster a force large enough to defeat Harold. What seems to have happened, though is that Gruffudd was in the
mountain fastnesses of Snowdonia, when he was murdered on 5 August 1063. The Ulster Chronicle states that he was killed by Cynan ap Iago, the son of Iago ap Idwal, whom Gruffudd had killed in 1039.

The greatest victory of Gruffudd's reign was the recovery of lands long thought lost to the English. However, in antagonizing the English, he brought about his own end. This is a pattern which is true in the history of the English and Welsh: when the English kings were weak, the Welsh were able to take advantage of the situation, when the English kings were strong, the Welsh were on the defensive.

However, perhaps the greatest failure of Gruffudd is the untimeliness of his death, for had he survived until 1066, the history of Wales might have been very different.

Gruffudd ap Llywelyn was killed in 1063. Perhaps hte greatest failure of his reign was in not overcoming
the Welsh propensity for spinning into smaller kingdoms, and not uniting. Wales had been united in some form for every other generation after Rhodri Mawr, which might be an indication of some evolution towards a united kingdom. Unfortunately, the struglle which ensued upon Gruffudd's death was the worst of its kind in the history of Wales.

http://home.worldonline.dk/kmariboe/fgspwelsh.htmlNote: Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, the only Welsh king ever to rule over the entire territory of Wales, was the son of Llywelyn ap Seisyll, the man who seized the throne of Gwynedd in 1018, and of Angharad, the daughter of Maredudd ab Owain. In 1039, Gwynedd and Powys came into his possession after he had killed Iago ab Idwal, the great-grandson of Idwal ab Anarawd. He then sought to seize Deheubarth but his ambition was thwarted by another Gruffudd, the son of Rhydderch ap Iestyn, who had been king of Deheubarth between 1023 and 1033. Deheubarth did not come firmly into his possession until 1055, when he encompassed the death of Gruffudd ap Rhydderch. A year or two later Gruffudd ap Llywelyn seized Glamorgan, driving out its ruler, Cadwgan ap Meurig of the line of Hywel ap Rhys. Thus, from about 1057 until his death in 1063, the whole of Wales recognized the kingship of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn. For about seven brief years, Wales was one, under one ruler, a feat with neither precedent nor successor.

Name Suffix:<NSFX> King of Powys
Cause of Death:<CAUS> Slain 5 Aug 1063
REFN:HWS5357
Ancestral File Number:<AFN> 9NR3-RF
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