Ten Minute English and British History #12 - The Conquest of Wales and the Birth of Parliament

12 31 and the english and welsh are fighting again so wales has been sort of glossed over in this series and there are two main reasons the first is that welsh politics is extremely complicated and difficult to explain the second reason is that welsh words are nigh on impossible to pronounce so prior to 1231 england and its rulers had always had an interest in its western neighbour after the norman conquest several lords the lords of chester hereford and shrewsbury collectively known as the marcher lords were given a free hand to conquer as much as they could importantly these lordships were essentially mini kingdoms whereby the lords were fairly free from royal interference at first these march lords made good progress but the terrain being mostly mountainous in the north made complete conquest costly and so progress stopped if there were any instability in england such as that of the anarchy or the barons ward the welsh would often rise up and retake the lands that they had earlier been deprived of as you can imagine this slowed down conquest by quite a bit and by quite a bit i mean over 200 years so by 1231 the english controlled these lands and the numerous welsh princes and lords controlled this whales throughout its history had always been fragmented to varying degrees and so the idea of welshness was based upon things like language and importantly not being english the three major realms in wares were gwyneth palace and dehoibath all of whom had their puppets and alliance systems in place the balance of power between and the size of these realms very hugely over the decades and wales was often in flux the greatest of the worst princes in 1231 was llewellyn the great who was both a capable general and a skilled negotiator clewellen and his domain of gwyneth had been the dominant power in worlds for over 30 years at this point he was mostly concerned with the succession in keeping gwyneth together with all its vassals intact the culture of wales was also very distinctive from that of its anglo-french neighbours it was a culture which honored the marshal that is the military and the heroic princes and rulers were praised for their warrior virtues and welsh law stated that princes were entitled to a set percentage of the loot they took from those they defeated these welsh princes and domains should not be seen as undeveloped societies since they had very complex systems of government much like the english the welsh could and did build castles which indicates a strong ability to command resources and men of course in comparison to england the amount of resources a man powered the welsh could come on was significantly smaller so in 1240 hiluelan died he left his two sons the half-brothers griffith and aphid as heirs llewelyn had previously appealed to the english king henry iii to have his second son daphith accepted as heir henry said yes so daffith inherited the kingdom and immediately afterwards through his half-brother in prison along with his nephew who was also called llewellyn one of the conditions of his accession was that he wasn't allowed to keep his father's vassals which daffith refused and so wore england having much more in terms of resources won very quickly daffy submitted gave up his vassals and handed his half-brother over to henry who quickly locked him in the tower of london this meant that if staff has played up henry could simply install his brother as the prince of gwyneth griffith did not enjoy being king henry's pawn and so tried to escape the tower in 1244 and fell to his death whilst doing so this was unfortunate for henry but also presumably griffith due to the whole being dead thing daffith used henry's bad luck to forge an alliance with the welsh principalities and raided english-held lands it was also about this time that daathis began to use the title the prince of wales so raiding english held lands was upsetting to the english king and so war again henry invaded gwyneth and the fighting didn't lead to much until daafith died in 1246. daffith had no heirs and so his two nephews the previously locked up llewelyn and another called a wayne inherited gwyneth together both approached king henry for peace and recognition of their domain which he granted in return for them ceding all of this territory which they did very little happened in wales over the next decade barring the usual raiding by both sides so in 1255 another brother came of age and king henry decided to give him some of the land in gwyneth to further weaken it clewellin said no and so civil war broke out between the three brothers clewellin was victorious and became the sole ruler of gwyneth the next year king henry had his son edward placed in control of these lands shockingly the english weren't very kind to the conquered welsh and so some of the native welsh lords appealed to lewellen to invade llewelyn successfully retook most of the lost land and also began to style himself as the prince of wales which king henry did not like one bit the english didn't meaningfully respond to this invasion though that said after henry had secured peace with france in 1259 he was able to turn his full attention to his neighbors well at least he would have were it not for the issues between him and his barons which culminated in the second baron's war breaking out in 1263. during the second barons war the rebel leader simon de montfort cut a deal with llewellyn which saw de montfort recognised llewellyn's place as the prince of wales in return for a sack of cash this meant that as long as de montfort was alive and in charge wales would be secure so the next year de montfort was killed at the battle of eve sherman so clewellin invaded the english-held lands with his vassals to gain as much as possible before henry iii could consolidate his position clewellin wasn't rebelling to make wales an independent domain like scotland he had always accepted the king of england as his lord and understood the fact that he held wales as a vassal over the next two years he gained all of this territory before asking king henry iii to negotiate these negotiations culminated in the 1267 treaty of montgomery these allowed llewelyn to keep his territories and henry iii acknowledged his title as the prince of wales in return for all of this llewellyn was to pay a sack of cash many of the lesser princes of wales had an issue with this since none of them were too happy to swear loyalty to someone they didn't see as their superior in 1272 king henry died and was succeeded by his son edward edward didn't return to england to 1274 since he was on a crusade upon his return he was crowned king edward the first due to the fact that there had been no king edwards before this none whatsoever the reason for this in case you're wondering is that edward traced his lineage back to william the conqueror i.e the victor and not the anglo-saxons i.e the losers in 1275 edward demanded that llewellyn come and pay him homage which he refused edward wasn't going to put up with the resistant vassal and so war in 1277 edward's army crossed into wales interestingly the majority of the soldiers in edward's army were actually welsh clewellin surrendered before any major blood spilling occurred and the english annexed all of this territory the remaining territory was split between clewellin who kept a much smaller gwyneth and his brother daphith who was given these lands daff wasn't happy with the lands he had been given by the king so naturally revolt was the only answer clewellen joined his brother with many other prominent welsh nobles in trying to remove the english this occurred in 1282 and edward's response was not one of pacification but total conquest and subjugation the combined forces of the english crown in the north and the marcher lords in the south meant that the welsh could do little to resist clewell was killed in later 1282 and his brother succeeded him but ultimately edward had crushed the revolt by mid-1283 so in the end daffith was taken prisoner and soon after executed ending definitively the native rule of wales the fate of wales was finalized in the statute of written which gave these areas to edward's lords and these areas to edward personally this statute marks the end of an independent wales and barring a few rebellions over the coming centuries english rule there was fairly secure it changed wales in several other ways as well it carved winits up into counties in the same way that england was furthermore the statute also proclaimed that the laws of england were now the laws of wales soon after the conquest had been finished the english immediately began to displace the native welsh by booting them out of towns and offered the best farmland of course remaining in wales was expensive due to the armies of occupation and the building of many castles which collectively were known as the iron ring the greatest of these castles was at the new northern welsh capital of carnarvon as a result edward had to come up with inventive ways of raising money such as taxing the sale of all and of course taxing the jews so according to english law all jews were the property of the monarch and so he could do with them whatever he saw fit this normally came in the form of taxing them heavily but edward was desperate for money so in 1290 he issued the edict of expulsion they spanned all jews from living in england and wales in practice this meant that the king could seize all of the jewish property in england for himself and importantly all money owed to the jews was now owed to the crown another means of raising money was via taxes in order to raise the taxes necessary edward had to regularly appeal to his lords the king and his lords would talk in french palais at a place called a parliament or in english a parliament thus it can be said that the english parliament found much of its roots in the subjugation of the welsh monarchs had called assemblies of their nobles for many centuries sometimes for advice but mostly to raise money in men for wars edward's parliament was an extension of the earlier gatherings called by simon de montfort but importantly edward was expected to call upon his laws regularly this new parliament was an intricate part of the government of the realm every year edward was expected to call his laws to attend and settle the most pressing affairs of state in 1295 the people invited to these parliaments were broadened beyond the lords to include knights and other representatives otherwise known as the commons edward also reissued magna carta again in 1297 although he had done this a few times before in many respects magna carta was changing from something that monarchs would issue as a compromise to simply being the accepted law of the land in 1301 edward made another change to the ruling of wales when he made his son edward the prince of wales it was from then that the title of prince of wales became synonymous with the heir to the throne six years after this edward the first died and his son was crowned edward ii edward ii had a troubled relationship with his parents mostly because of his close relationship with a man called piers gaviston whom edward made the earl of cornwall upon his accession to the throne edward married the daughter of the king of france isabella and whilst he was away negotiating the terms of the marriage he left gaviston in charge this upset the other nobles who felt that they were being shut out by edward's favourite in the end as a compromise gaviston was exiled in fact several times and after a disagreement with his barons edward recalled him gaviston returned to england but was captured soon after and executed by edward's barons to make matters worse for the king his armies were being pushed out of scotland the most famous event being the 1314 battle of bannockburn things got much better fred would after this and by much better i mean there was a major famine in 1315. back in wales another revolt was started by a man called loelyn brennan 1316 who was rebelling against harsh rule instead of heeding the king's summons llewellyn revolted and captured the castle at care philly ultimately the revolt ended in no change llewellyn was executed and wales would thereafter remain firmly under english rule so what did the conquest mean for england it secured the western border gave england a slightly larger taxable population and also access to welshman for armies importantly welsh bowman whose role in the wars to come would be vitally important i hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching there is a list of books in the description if you'd like to know more you

Channel: History Matters

Views: 1,359,279

Keywords: Ten, Minute, History, 10, English, British, documentary, animated, short, England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Gascony, Plantagenet, Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, Monarchy, Conquest of Wales, Gwynedd, Powys, Llywelyn, the Great, ap Gruffydd, Marcher lords

Id: MyDELVes1-U

Length: 9min 59sec (599 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 10 2018