Caradog ap Gruffydd

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Caradog ap Gruffydd (died 1081) was a Prince of Gwent in south-east Wales in the time of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn and the Norman conquest, who reunified his family's inheritance of Morgannwg and made repeated attempts to reunite southern Wales by claiming the inheritance of the Kingdom of Deheubarth.

Contents

Background & Lineage

The family's stronghold was the Kingdom of Glywysing and the Kingdom of Gwent, and Caradog was the grandson of the King of Glywysing, Rhydderch ab Iestyn who had been able to take over the throne of Deheubarth from 1023 until his death in 1033. Caradog's father Gruffydd ap Rhydderch, after receiving the Lordshop of Caerleon in 1031, also inherited Glywysing, and became King of Deheubarth in 1045, in the same year as Gruffydd's second cousin, Cadwgan ap Meurig, inherited the Kingdom of Gwent from his father Meurig ap Hywel. [1] Both of them were co-descendants of Owain, son of Morgan Hen "the Old", the last ruler of a unified Kingdom of Morgannwg.

Gruffydd ap Rhydderch was said to be a powerful king who stoutly resisted raids by the Danes and attacks by Gruffydd ap Llywelyn. However in 1055 Gruffydd ap Llywelyn killed him in battle and took Deheubarth, campaigning through upper Gwent with an army of Welsh, Saxons and Danes to defeat Ralph, Earl of Hereford. [2]

Early career

After Gruffydd ap Llywelyn's victory in battle near Glasbury in 1056, by 1057 Gruffydd was recognized as King of Wales [3] and Caradog received Caerleon. [4] From the family's stronghold in Gwent, Caradog appears to have been able to add his Morgannwg inheritance during his early career. After the defeat of Gruffyd ap Llylewyn by Harold Godwinson in 1063, old lineages in the south were restored, with Caradog becoming ruler of Glywysing at about the same time as Maredudd ab Owain ab Edwin, the male-line heir of Hywel Dda, became ruler of Deheubarth.

Contest over Gwent

Harold Godwinson subsequently began to build a hunting lodge in Portskewet. In 1065 Caradog attacked and destroyed Harold's hunting lodge, going on to ravage the district with his forces. Then, after Harold's defeat at the Battle of Hastings, the Normans sacked south-east Wales and parts of Gwent in response to Eadric's Herefordshire rebellion in alliance with the Welsh prince of Gwynedd (and Powys), Bleddyn ap Cynfyn. [5] King Maredudd of Deheubarth decided not to resist the Norman encroachment on Gwent and was rewarded with lands in England in 1070, at the same time as the chronicler Orderic Vitalis noted in his Historia Ecclesiastica that a Welsh king named "Caducan" (Cadwgan ap Meurig) suffered defeat in battle at the hands of William FitzOsbern, 1st Earl of Hereford. [6]

Contest for Deheubarth

Caradog thereafter set out to emulate his father and grandfather by adding Deheubarth to his realm. In 1072 he defeated and killed King Maredudd of Deheubarth in a battle by the Rhymney River. In 1074 Caradog took over control over what was left of the war-ravaged Kingdom of Gwent from Cadwgan ap Meurig. [6]

In 1078 Caradog won another victory over Rhys ab Owain, who had succeeded Maredudd as prince of Deheubarth, killing him too. By 1081 he had forced the new prince of Deheubarth, Rhys ap Tewdwr to flee to St David's Cathedral.

However the situation was changed by the arrival from Ireland of Gruffudd ap Cynan, who was aiming to seize the throne of Gwynedd from Trahaearn ap Caradog. Rhys ap Tewdwr and Gruffudd ap Cynan met at St David's Cathedral and made an alliance with the blessing of the Bishop of St Davids.

Killed at the Battle of Mynydd Carn

Caradog countered this by himself making an alliance with the King of Gwynedd, Trahaearn ap Caradog. The two factions met in battle at Mynydd Carn, about a day's march north of St David's. Caradog and his ally Trahaearn were both killed.

Succession

Caradog left a son, Owain ap Caradog, who contented himself with the rule of Gwynllwg and was the founder of the line of the Lords of Caerleon, while Iestyn ap Gwrgant became King of Morgannwg.

Regnal titles
Preceded by
Gruffydd ap Rhydderch
Lord of Gwynllwg-Caerleon
1055/1057-1081
Succeeded by
Owain ap Caradog
Preceded by
Gruffydd ap Llywelyn (as part of the Kingdom of Morgannwg)
King of Glywysing (as part of the Kingdom of Morgannwg)
10631074
Succeeded by
merged into the King of Morgannwg
Preceded by
Cadwgan ap Meurig
King of Gwent (as part of the Kingdom of Morgannwg)
c. 1074
Succeeded by
merged into the King of Morgannwg
Preceded by
Maredudd ab Owain ab Edwin
Pretender King of Deheubarth
10721081
Succeeded by
Rhys ap Tewdwr
Preceded by
Cadwgan ap Meurig
King of Morgannwg
10751081
Succeeded by
Iestyn ap Gwrgant

Related Research Articles

Gruffydd ap Llywelyn was king of Wales from 1055 to 1063, and united the whole of Wales in 1057. He was the son of King Llywelyn ap Seisyll and Angharad, daughter of Maredudd ab Owain. He was the great-great-grandson of Hywel Dda. Gruffydd ap Llywelyn is considered to be the first and last king of Wales.

Gruffudd ap Cynan King of Gwynedd

Gruffudd ap Cynan, sometimes written as Gruffydd ap Cynan, was King of Gwynedd from 1081 until his death in 1137. In the course of a long and eventful life, he became a key figure in Welsh resistance to Norman rule, and was remembered as King of all Wales. As a descendant of Rhodri Mawr, Gruffudd ap Cynan was a senior member of the princely House of Aberffraw.

Deheubarth

Deheubarth was a regional name for the realms of south Wales, particularly as opposed to Gwynedd. It is now used as a shorthand for the various realms united under the House of Dinefwr, but that Deheubarth itself was not considered a proper kingdom on the model of Gwynedd, Powys, or Dyfed is shown by its rendering in Latin as dextralis pars or as Britonnes dexterales and not as a named land. In the oldest British writers, Deheubarth was used for all of modern Wales to distinguish it from Hen Ogledd, the northern lands whence Cunedda and the Cymry originated.

Kingdom of Powys Medieval kingdom in Wales

The Kingdom of Powys was a Welsh successor state, petty kingdom and principality that emerged during the Middle Ages following the end of Roman rule in Britain. It very roughly covered the northern two-thirds of the modern county of Powys and part of today's English West Midlands. More precisely, and based on the Romano-British tribal lands of the Ordovices in the west and the Cornovii in the east, its boundaries originally extended from the Cambrian Mountains in the west to include the modern West Midlands region of England in the east. The fertile river valleys of the Severn and Tern are found here, and this region is referred to in later Welsh literature as "the Paradise of Powys".

Rhys ap Tewdwr

Rhys ap Tewdwr was a king of Deheubarth in Wales and member of the Dinefwr dynasty, a branch descended from Rhodri the Great. He was born in the area which is now Carmarthenshire and died at the battle of Brecon in April 1093.

Trahaearn ap Caradog was a King of Gwynedd. Trahaearn was a son of Caradog ap Gwyn, ruler of Arwystli, a small state, on the south-western border between Gwynedd and Powys. He was born in 1044 in Arwystli, and died in 1081 in Mynydd Carn in Pembrokeshire, at the Battle of Mynydd Carn.

Bleddyn ap Cynfyn, sometimes spelled Blethyn, was an 11th-century Welsh king. Harold Godwinson and Tostig Godwinson installed him and his brother, Rhiwallon, as the co-rulers of Gwynedd on his father's death in 1063, during their destruction of the kingdom of Bleddyn's half-brother, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn. He became king of Powys and co-ruler of the Kingdom of Powys with his brother Rhiwallon from 1063 to 1075. His descendants continued to rule Powys as the House of Mathrafal.

The Battle of Mynydd Carn took place in 1081, as part of a dynastic struggle for control of the Welsh kingdoms of Gwynedd and Deheubarth. The result of the battle had a radical effect on the history of Wales.

Rhys ab Owain was a king of Deheubarth in southern Wales.

Maredudd ab Owain ab Edwin was a prince of the kingdom of Deheubarth in south west Wales.

Gruffydd ap Rhydderch was a king of Gwent and part of the kingdom of Morgannwg in south Wales and later king of Deheubarth.

Owain ap Cadwgan was a prince of Powys in eastern Wales. He is best known for his abduction of Nest, wife of Gerald of Windsor.

Rhydderch ap Iestyn was king of Gwent and Morgannwg in south Wales and later took over the kingdom of Deheubarth and controlled Powys.

Kingdom of Gwent kingdom in South Wales

Gwent was a medieval Welsh kingdom, lying between the Rivers Wye and Usk. It existed from the end of Roman rule in Britain in about the 5th century until the Norman conquest of England in the 11th century. Along with its neighbour Glywyssing, it seems to have had a great deal of cultural continuity with the earlier Silures, keeping their own courts and diocese separate from the rest of Wales until their conquest by Gruffydd ap Llywelyn. Although it recovered its independence after his death in 1063, Gwent was the first of the Welsh kingdoms to be overrun following the Norman conquest.

This article is about the particular significance of the century 1101–1200 to Wales and its people.

This article is about the particular significance of the century 1001–1100 to Wales and its people.

History of Gwynedd during the High Middle Ages

The history of Gwynedd in the High Middle Ages is a period in the History of Wales spanning the 11th through the 13th centuries. Gwynedd, located in the north of Wales, eventually became the most dominant of Welsh principalities during this period. Distinctive achievements in Gwynedd include further development of Medieval Welsh literature, particularly poets known as the Beirdd y Tywysogion associated with the court of Gwynedd; the reformation of bardic schools; and the continued development of Cyfraith Hywel. All three of these further contributed to the development of a Welsh national identity in the face of Anglo-Norman encroachment of Wales.

References

  1. Ashley, Mike (1998) The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens (Carol & Graf)
  2. A Brief History of the Town of Monmouth Archived 5 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine . Accessed 11 January 2012
  3. Davies, John (1993). A History of Wales. London: Penguin. p. 100. ISBN   0-14-014581-8.
  4. Jermyn, Anthony. "4: Caerleon Through the Centuries to the Year 2000 Archived 2013-06-20 at the Wayback Machine ". 2010 Accessed 13 Feb 2013.
  5. Douglas, D. C., William the Conqueror, 1964: Eyre Methuen, London
  6. 1 2 Orderic Vitalis (12th Century) Historia Ecclesiastica