The coat of arms retroactively
assigned to Owain Gwynedd were:
Vert, three eagles displayed in
fess Or
Owain Gwynedd (in English,
"
Owen") (c. 1100–November 28, 1170), alternatively
known by the
patronymic "
Owain ap
Gruffydd". He is occasionally referred to as
Owain
I of Gwynedd, or
Owain I of Wales on
account of his claim to be
King of
Wales. He is considered to be the most successful of all the
north Welsh princes prior to his grandson,
Llywelyn the Great.
He was known as
Owain Gwynedd to distinguish him from another contemporary
Owain ap Gruffydd, ruler of part of Powys
who was
known as Owain
Cyfeiliog. Owain Gwynedd was a member of the House of
Aberffraw
, a descendant of the senior branch from Rhodri Mawr.
Early life
Owain's
father, Gruffydd ap Cynan, was a
strong and long-lived ruler who had made the principality of
Gwynedd
the most influential in Wales
during the
sixty-two years of his reign, using the island of Anglesey
as his power
base. His mother,
Angharad
ferch Owain, was the daughter of
Owain ab Edwin. Owain was the second of three
sons of Gruffydd and Angharad.
Owain is thought to have been born on Anglesey about the year 1100.
By about 1120 Gruffydd had grown too old to lead his forces in
battle and Owain and his brothers
Cadwallon and later
Cadwaladr led the forces of Gwynedd
against the Normans and against other Welsh princes with great
success.
His elder brother Cadwallon was killed in a
battle against the forces of Powys
in 1132,
leaving Owain as his father's heir. Owain and Cadwaladr,
in alliance with Gruffydd ap Rhys
of Deheubarth
, won a major victory over the Normans at Crug Mawr
near Cardigan
in 1136 and annexed Ceredigion to their father's realm.
Accession to the throne and early campaigns
On Gruffydd's death in 1137, therefore, Owain inherited a portion
of a well-established kingdom, but had to share it with Cadwaladr.
In 1143
Cadwaladr was implicated in the murder of Anarawd ap Gruffydd of Deheubarth, and Owain responded by sending his son Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd to strip him
of his lands in the north of Ceredigion. Though Owain was later
reconciled with Cadwaladr, from 1143, Owain ruled alone over most
of north Wales. In 1155 Cadwaladr was driven into exile.
Owain took advantage of the civil war in England between
King Stephen and the
Empress Matilda to push Gwynedd's boundaries
further east than ever before.
In 1146 he captured the castle
of Mold
and about
1150 captured Rhuddlan
and encroached on the borders of Powys. The
prince of Powys,
Madog ap
Maredudd, with assistance from Earl Ranulf of Chester, gave
battle at Coleshill, but Owain was victorious.
War with King Henry II
All went well until the accession of King
Henry II of England in 1154. Henry
invaded Gwynedd in 1157 with the support of Madog ap Maredudd of
Powys and Owain's brother Cadwaladr. The invasion met with mixed
fortunes.
King Henry was nearly killed at the Battle of Ewloe near Basingwerk
and the fleet accompanying the invasion made a
landing on Anglesey where it was
defeated. Owain was however forced to come to terms with
Henry, being obliged to surrender Rhuddlan and other conquests in
the east.
Madog ap Maredudd died in 1160, enabling Owain to regain territory
in the east. In 1163 he formed an alliance with
Rhys ap Gruffydd of Deheubarth to challenge
English rule. King Henry again invaded Gwynedd in 1165, but instead
of taking the usual route along the northern coastal plain, the
king's army invaded from Oswestry and took a route over the Berwyn
hills. The invasion was met by an alliance of all the Welsh
princes, with Owain as the undisputed leader. However, apart from a
small melee at the
Battle of Crogen
there was little fighting, for the Welsh weather came to Owain's
assistance as torrential rain forced Henry to retreat in disorder.
The infuriated Henry mutilated a number of Welsh hostages,
including two of Owain's sons.
Henry did not invade Gwynedd again and Owain was able to regain his
eastern conquests, recapturing Rhuddlan castle in 1167 after a
siege of three months.
Disputes with the church and succession
The last years of Owain's life were spent in disputes with the
Archbishop of Canterbury,
Thomas Becket, over the appointment of
a new
Bishop of Bangor. When the
see became vacant Owain had his nominee, Arthur of Bardsey,
elected.
The archbishop refused to accept this, so
Owain had Arthur consecrated in Ireland
. The
dispute continued, and the see remained officially vacant until
well after Owain's death. He was also put under pressure by the
Archbishop and the Pope to put aside his second wife, Cristin, who
was his first cousin, this relationship making the marriage invalid
under church law. Despite being
excommunicated for his defiance, Owain
steadfastly refused to put Cristin aside.
Owain died in 1170,
and despite having been excommunicated was buried in Bangor
Cathedral
by the local clergy. The annalist writing
Brut y Tywysogion recorded his
death "after innumerable victories, and unconquered from his
youth".
He is believed to have commissioned the propaganda text,
The Life of Gruffydd
ap Cynan, an account of his father's life. Following his
death, civil war broke out between his sons. Owain was married
twice, first to Gwladus ferch Llywarch ap Trahaearn, by whom he had
two sons,
Maelgwn ab Owain
Gwynedd and Iorwerth Drwyndwn, the father of
Llywelyn the Great, then to Cristin, by
whom he had three sons including
Dafydd ab Owain Gwynedd and
Rhodri ab Owain Gwynedd. He also had
a number of illegitimate sons, who by
Welsh
law had an equal claim on the inheritance if acknowledged by
their father.
Heirs and Successors
Owain had originally designated Rhun ab Owain Gwynedd as his
successor. Rhun was Owain's favourite son, and his premature death
in 1147 plunged his father into a deep melancholy, from which he
was only roused by the news that his forces had captured Mold
castle.
Owain then designated Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd
as his successor, but after his death Hywel was first driven to
seek refuge in Ireland by Cristin's sons, Dafydd and Rhodri, then
killed at the battle of Pentraeth
when he returned with an Irish army. Dafydd
and Rhodri split Gwynedd between them, but a generation passed
before Gwynedd was restored to its former glory under Owain's
grandson
Llywelyn the
Great.
According
to legend, one of Owain's sons was Prince Madoc, who is popularly supposed to have fled across
the Atlantic
and colonised America.
Altogether, the prolific Owain Gwynedd is said to have had the
following children from two wives and at least four
mistresses:
Fiction
Owain is a recurring character in the
Brother Cadfael series of novels by
Ellis Peters, often referred to, and appearing
in the novels
Dead Man's Ransom and
The Summer of the
Danes. He acts shrewdly to keep Wales's borders secure, and
sometimes to expand them, during the civil war between King Stephen
and Matilda, and sometimes acts as an ally to Cadfael and his
friend, Sheriff Hugh Beringar. Cadwaladr also appears in both these
novels as a source of grief for his brother.
References
- John Edward Lloyd (1911) A
history of Wales from the earliest times to the Edwardian
conquest (Longmans, Green & Co.)
- Ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to
America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines: 176B-25,
239-6
(illegitimate)
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