Why is the Heir to the British Throne Called the Prince of Wales?

on september 9th 2015 queen elizabeth became the longest reigning monarch in british history surpassing the record set by her great-great-grandmother queen victoria and of course it follows that her eldest son charles is the longest serving heir apparent and prince of wales in british history but wait why is the crown prince of england called the prince of wales first a quick civics primer the united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland is made up of four co-equal countries england the large powerful and popular older brother scotland the second eldest with a rebellious streak northern ireland the quiet stepchild that everybody kind of forgets sorry northern ireland i hear belfast is lovely and lastly wales the cool and confident younger brother who hangs out a bit too much with his sheep it's this fourth country of the united kingdom where the prince gets his name but why is that to find out we have to travel back several hundred years to the european middle ages during the medieval period wales was not a unified nation it was made up of a number of small kingdoms that sometimes fought with one another and sometimes banded together to fight off their big scary neighbor to the east the most powerful kingdom was gwyneth in north wales which was controlled by the house of aberfra the first princes of wales came from this royal family who the first prince of wales was depends on who you ask according to later welsh chroniclers the first prince was a wayne gwyneth though english sources would say otherwise and will later get to y he was the king of gwyneth in the mid-12th century and through a mix of diplomacy and war became the most powerful king in wales that being said he never used the term prince of wales during his lifetime jumping forward two generations we have llewellyn the great owain's kingdom had been divided amongst his two sons who by and large seemed not to have done a great job administering it after his uncle's deaths llewellyn came to power and consolidated the divided kingdoms into one over his reign he like his grandfather before him became the most powerful king in wales and in 1216 the council of abradovi was held it established llewellyn as the overlord of wales with the other welsh kings swearing fealty to him a few years later the king of england at this point a young henry iii signed the treaty of worcestershire creating the principality of wales with llewellyn as its leader the principality of wales theoretically included all of the welsh lands but the other welsh rulers as well as the english marcher lords were not required to give up their lands or autonomy they were required however to swear fealty to llewellen and in turn llewellyn swore fealty to the king of england so while llewellyn was the first ruler of the principality he was not actually called the prince of wales in his lifetime according to english records this was because in the treaty it was agreed that llewellyn's heirs would hold the title of prince of wales but not lowell and himself speaking of heirs in 1240 llewellyn died and his son davith succeeded him becoming the first official no one doubts it prince of wales he died without any children so his nephew llewellyn ap griffith took the throne he has come to be known as llewellyn the last and i think you can see where this is going well lewellen had an eventually amicable relationship with henry iii when henry died his son edward took the throne of england and things changed after a number of political disagreements prince llewellyn refused to pay fealty to king edward not liking this show of disrespect edward declared war on llewellyn in 1277 and so started the conquest of wales the war was in two stages first in 1277 edward and his forces were able to take most of the land of wales the minor kingdoms in the south surrendered immediately and llewellyn was left with just the western part of gwyneth after such a defeat the prince agreed to a peace treaty in which england would keep all of its conquered lands but llewellyn would keep his title as prince a few years later however in 1282 llewellyn and his brother david started a revolt in wales and many of the conquered welsh lords having grown discontented with english rule joined in the fight in response edward launched a three-pronged assault at north wales and after a year of fighting conquered it at the battle of orowin bridge llewellyn was separated from his men cornered and killed his head was put on a pike in front of the tower of london harsh his brother tried to keep the fight going but only a couple months later he too was captured and killed so end the line of abber fra princes of wales in 1301 edward who had personally kept the principality in his direct control gave the lands as well as the title prince of wales to his son and heir edward of canarfin later called edward ii and so started the tradition of english sovereigns granting their heir the title of prince of wales and this is why the english start their count of princes at david app llewellyn instead of owen or llewellyn the great because in their minds the title was always one that the english crown had authority over as outlined in the treaty of worcestershire the local welsh population has had different reactions to this arrangement throughout history there were a number of uprisings the most famous being in 1400 led by wayne glen dower who claimed the title prince of wales but after wales was incorporated into the kingdom of england in 1536 the welsh seemed to accept the new princes of wales and some even took pride that the title was part of the english royal family with the rise of welsh nationalism in the 19th century however the title became a sore spot once again prince charles in an effort to calm the tide of welsh nationalism in the 1960s spent a year studying in wales and gave his speech at his investiture in welsh he has also made an effort to stay connected to the welsh public ever since thank you so 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Channel: The Generalist Papers

Views: 1,509,954

Keywords: queen elizabeth ii, prince charles, prince of wales, prince of wales explained, welsh history, british history, royal history, british royal family, owain gwynedd, owain gwynedd family tree, llywelyn the great, gwynedd, medieval history, medieval welsh history, edward i, henry iii, royal succession british throne, european history, principality of wales, aberffraw dynasty, conquest of wales, welsh medieval history, prince of england, prince william

Id: uw2T-Nq58JU

Length: 7min 41sec (461 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 03 2021