England's Embarrassing Defeat to a Kingdom 1/50th its Size

[Music] the year is 11 54 the english civil war is over and henry ii is king for almost the past 20 years the kingdoms of wales have benefited from their neighbors being completely distracted by their own internal affairs the apex of welsh power had occurred a century ago when griffith abdelen king of the britons conquered all of wales however repeated attacks on the english had restricted his realm to the north of the country this new distraction would provide ample opportunity for many of the welsh leaders to regain their power including the focus of this video owing f griffith more commonly known as owen gwyneth today we're going to find out how a tiny rural peripheral welsh state defeated the most powerful army in great britain and almost killed the king of england this english civil war known to history as the anarchy asked two important questions one how would the succession of the throne be decided when your only legitimate heir dies in a freak boat accident and two how can you secure the succession when all of the powerful nobles of your country prefer this other french guy to your daughter the answer was by violence and compromise henry of anjou would succeed stephen of black continuing the unusual tradition of the kings of england not just being from france but this one specific area of france there was a third question that had emerged now that the war had come to an end why are there welsh people outside my house great question ran off earl of chester's son hugh owen gwyneth had spent the past 30 years consolidating his hold over his kingdom and now two of his biggest rivals the earldom of chester and the kingdom of poes were preoccupied with their own affairs in the east randolph like most people before they die were still alive and involved in the civil war and madok apmeredith prince of poes had invaded and captured the town of ozastery in shropshire owen seized on this opportunity and constructed a castle on the border of poes near the comet of yao and soon after he and madog would come to blows poeus allied with ranoff who was concerned about the rising power of gwyneth and together they met owen in battle at coles hill the scale of this battle is unfortunately unknown but owen was likely not facing the combined strength of two leaders as ranoff was still heavily distracted by the events occurring in england despite this brute itos agyon a 14th century walsh chronicle seems to imply that the armies of chester did most of the fighting or were at least the first ones to be defeated but this could also have been propaganda against poes describing madoka meredith as cowardly and unable to fight his own battles following this crushing victory owen would take control of the command of yao and the kantrev of ta genial moving his lands right to the border of the city of chester henry ii was unequipped to deal with this emerging power he had far more pressing domestic matters to attend to and despite owing gwyneth's stunning display of military prowess it was obvious to him that he did not pose an existential threat furthermore henry knew the welsh tactics and warfare pitched battles did not happen instead the armies of wales would harass those of the english and retreat into the difficult terrain of their country by 1157 henry had secured his own state and at the council of northampton a royal expedition was finally formalized to deal with these welsh excursions what henry ii did not know however is that owen gwyneth's tactics had changed he would not simply flee and harass the forces of the king he was going to stand and fight owing had some experience in this only a year prior he had led an army a sea into kerrigan the battle of rhysap griffith however this invasion was repulsed by rhesus defenses the strategy was new and uncertain but the historian sean davies offers some insight he states that the prince of gwyneth wanted to do this because he was confident in his ability to maintain his defenses that he wanted to protect his newly conquered toganial and not to simply allow the forces of england to enter and besiege him henry ii positioned his army near chester and in response owen gwyneth would march his army to basing work speaking of armies i think now is a good time to mention that unfortunately we do not know the number of combatants wikipedia cites an old bbc article where a local historian from d-side states that three thousand welsh fought thirty thousand english this is extremely unlikely historian john davies states that edward the first's army that conquered wales was the largest in great britain since 1066 and that that army consisted of 800 knights and 15 000 infantry henry's forces were certainly greater than oins one version of brutal torsogyn states that the english army outnumbered the men of gwyneth tender one but it's hard to trust a source that could easily be trying to exaggerate the prowess of owing however henry ii was operating with a smaller than usual levy he had reduced the number of soldiers so that he could retain them for longer for example he levied one third of the night in england for an extended period of four months rather than the usual 40 days which again demonstrates that he likely did not expect a pitched battle anytime soon and that he was instead preparing for months of skirmishes for the sake of this video i'm going to illustrate henry ii's army like this and owen guinness like this this is just for the sake of demonstration because again we do not know the numbers regardless the two forces were now encamped close to one another and soon henry the second would join forces with maddog up and raiders of prowess and together they will begin their march along the coastal road to the castle of ratherland as i said before owen's forces were positioned at beijing work probably at the ancient stronghold of dynasty which formed the northern border of what styke and overlooked the road to ruslan under the earl of chester this site had previously been a monastery owen wanted henry to make a frontal assault on the stronghold and he had prepared this position by constructing ditches foss and laying out pointed stakes to deter the english cavalry like the ones that would later be used at agent court additionally his flanks were protected to the right by an ocean and a ravine and to the left by dense woodland called either eulerwood or the woods of hawaii upon seeing what i imagined was the medieval equivalent of passchendaele henry ii decided not to charge his army forwards instead he sent the majority of his forces along the road and then proceeded to attempt to outflank owing through the dense and allegedly trackless woods to his left this was to be a terrible mistake it was unknown to henry but owen had fully expected this to happen either through arrogance or recklessness henry ii had just walked himself right into an ambush owen had given command of some of his forces to his three sons hoel kannan and david the latter two of which were lying in weight in the woods the welsh infantry immediately attacked henry's detachment they were likely fighting on foot armed with spears which were perfect for attacking and maneuvering around the mounted english in a flash two of henry's commanding barons were killed and the king himself came dangerously close to losing his own life before the welsh infantry could get to him the earl of hartford pushed forward and saved the king but confusion amongst the knights led some to believe that henry ii was dead causing many including the royal standard bearer to turn and flee brutal sagyan tells us that david and kanan inflicted massive casualties on the plantagenet force but that king henry did manage to barely escape with his life this now mangled contingent was either forced to retreat back to the coast rejoining with the bulk of henry's army or they possibly did manage to break through the ambush and into the fields behind our guinness regardless of this great victory owen could see that he could not withstand this english levy as je lloyd puts it the day had been inglorious and disastrous for the english but it had not been a day of route the prince of gwyneth was forced to abandon his position at dinner's passing instead opting for the time-honored welsh tradition of harassing the english to physical and mental exhaustion henry ii was left battered and exhausted but alive he had failed to defeat the welsh armies but they had also failed to fully defeat him luckily for henry he had a plan number one lose i don't think that was part of it number two send a fleet around wales to outflank owan gwyneth good idea but unfortunately for henry ii his backup army had stopped off against his orders on the isle of anglesey according to the contemporary poet qualch qualchemai who wrote about the coming battle the english force landed at the port of moyelvar on the east coast of anglesey and plundered the churches aslan better sandvire and slender frodog this could have served as a good diversion but this army was poorly organized likely not at full strength and commanded by rash and incompetent leaders and even more unfortunately for them owen had left his third son howell in the command of the defense of anglesey howell was a highly experienced highly competent commander brutal sargon emphasizes his apparently wide-reaching talents in 1146 he was summoned by the leaders of tahabir to assist in the siege of greece castle after they determined that they could not take it by themselves hull was apparently the readiest in conflicts and the wisest in council and under his leadership the castle was destroyed howell knew that if he didn't stop the invaders angus could have been completely destroyed by the time owain's army returned and if the english army did leave they would have been able to outflank the retreating forces of guinea but the army was on the mainland fighting with henry the second howard howell defeat this new invasion force during the night he summoned what has been described as a scratch force or an irregular levy by the historian sean davies howell himself described the soldier's beardless men possibly referring to their inexperience or age but nevertheless resolved to defeat the english army at the battle of tal emothera the two forces clashed henry fitzhenry an illegitimate son of henry father of henry was commanding forces from the front he apparently was too rash and moved forward without the rest of the army he was killed by the first line of welsh infantry polo's irregular forces managed to hold the line against the english knights and brutalization records that almost all of the officers in the plantagenet army were killed and that the english soldiers were treated according to their accustomed manner with many of them drowning while attempting to escape to their ships the authors of brute it osagon would later write that this destruction was brought on by god as vengeance for burning the welsh churches according to the poet guelchmai the menai strait was so filled with blood that the tide would not go out and whole aborigine in his victory wrote his own poem describing how his beardless warriors caused a thousand soldiers to flee into the water henry ii probably received news of this failed invasion soon after the battle of basing work we can't know what he was thinking when he received this news but the defeat of his landing party combined with the death of many of his barons and his own near-death experience likely all contributed to his decision to make peace with owing the prince of gwyneth would cede to daniel to england the kansha that he fought so hard to protect and with it won the castle of rothland which now became a direct possession of the english crown and henry apparently is thanks to god for saving his life at yolo restored the former monks at basing work to their monastery turned fortress [Music] and as a final blow jorwith goh son of king madog led an army to yao and destroyed the castle that owen had built there in 1149 once again restoring this comment to poes owen up griffith prince of gwynez put forward a bold strategy to defend his country his cunning tactics set an ambush that almost killed the king of england and the brilliant actions of his son hole defeated henry's only chance at encircling the welsh leader in the end he was forced to give up this hard fault land but it was not a loss and it would not be in vain owing lost to gainiel but succeeded in keeping his independence and in the next few years he would once again face henry ii in battle and have a new opportunity for victory thank you for watching you

Channel: Cambrian Chronicles

Views: 193,837

Keywords: Welsh history, History of Wales, Wales, Kingdom of Gwynedd, Gwynedd, Medieval History, Welsh, Ancient Britain, Medieval Britain, Ancient Wales, Medieval Wales, Celtic, Celtic history, Owain ap Gruffydd, Owain Gwynedd, Henry II, Henry the Second, Conquest of Wales

Id: 6YpHJvl2A38

Length: 11min 53sec (713 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 16 2022