MORNING SERIAL
TO demonstrate this, the regalia and holy relics of the Gwynedd princes, including a supposed fragment of Jesus’ cross, were moved to the shrine of Edward the Confessor at Westminster, a symbolic gesture to show that English royalty had subsumed Welsh royalty.
Another symbolic act was the naming of the King’s son, born at Caernarfon in 1301, as Prince of Wales. He and his descendants were given control of the land which had been held by the dynasties that had rebelled, thus making the Crown the largest landowner in Wales.
It was perhaps little wonder then that the bards of Wales saw the fall of Gwynedd and its allies as cataclysmic, a kind of judgment day on the Welsh.
One simply asked if it was the end of the world. A chronicler declared, “And then all Wales was cast to the ground”. It is not always the winners who write history.
A Conquered People
THE English saw their victory as some sort of moral justice and felt they were bringing the benefits of civilisation to the remaining Welsh not previously under their rule.
This meant there was no attempt to wring every drop out of Wales and the Welsh for English benefit. Those who had rebelled from the Welsh royal dynasties beyond Gwynedd did lose their lands and in some cases their freedom.
Yet there was no complete destruction of the upper echelons of Welsh society. There must also have been some Welsh who welcomed the end of the conflict since wars always bring death, famine and misery. Moreover, there had actually been a fair few Welsh who had fought on the English side.
Nor was there any attempt to destroy the idea of Wales as a place apart. The March remained untouched, the Principality retained its title and post-conquest it was referred to in English legal documents as a “land”, an acknowledgement that it was different even if it was no longer a distinct political unit.
> Wales: England’s Colony? by Martin Johnes is published by Parthian in the Modern Wales series www.parthianbooks.com