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Historic Letters of 1282

Welsh History

For those of you are that are interested in the history of Wales, there is a website which may be of interest to you for which I have provided a link at the bottom of this post.Welsh history was not taught in my schooldays and I think I am correct in stating that this is pretty much the case today. History in Welsh schools is taught from a British perspective and the reasons for this are obvious in that the curriculum is meant to make pupils feel British as opposed to Welsh.The history that I know of my country therefore has been self taught and in various books that I have read over the years I have been aware of a series of letters written in November 1282 as a result of peace negotiations augmented by the Archbishop of Canterbury with Llywelyn the Second .It seems that the treaty negotiations were at first against the wishes of Edward the First of England but a truce was negotiated and the Archbishop travelled to Snowdonia and spent 3 days at Llywelyn`s royal residence at Garth Celyn. I had previously only ever seen brief extracts of these important letters which at least one author of the books I have read described as the Welsh equivalent of the Scottish Declaration of ArbroathHaving recently read the full letters, they give an interesting insight into the Welsh state of mind during the conflict at that particular period and also the intent of the English in destroying Welsh independence.One thing that comes across from the letters of both Llywelyn and his Council is the reference to the English having broken treaties and truces in the past and their reluctance therefore to trust future English treaties. One can understand their mistrust by virtue of the fact that whilst the Archbishop of Canterbury was negotiating a peace at Garth Celyn, the English broke the truce and attempted a crossing of the Menai Straits on November 6th 1282.An account of what happened is provided below :Early in the morning of 6th November, with the truce still in place, and without the authority of Longshanks, Luc de Tany led his men across the bridge of boats.The Welsh army watching and waiting on the hillside above Moel y Don, waited for the right moment then swooped down, forcing the invaders back onto the bridge. The tide had turned; in the confusion of men and horses trying to retreat, the bridge tilted. Luc de Tany, sixteen knights and their squires, Godard, the bridge warden and 300 infantry all drowned.It was an overwhelming victory for the Welsh army.The terms that were offered were rejected by both Llywelyn and his Council and the letters are well worth reading to see what exactly the terms were and also the defiant and bold response of the Welsh.To read the letters in full then go to the link below.Apologies if this matter has already been brought up in a previous post and that members are already aware of same. http://www.llywelyn.co.uk/6.html
updated by @stifyn: 11/11/15 10:37:01PM

British through and through

General Discussions ( Anything Goes )

I have read with interest the exchanges on this subject as I also have had to learn the history of my country as it was not taught in school. I agree with most of what has been posted here and I hope I do not cause offense by submitting some observations on some of the points.In respect to "We are the only original Britons". I have used this myself many times but can we exclude the Cornish, the people of Southern Scotland, and the Bretons? Historically and linguistically we have strong ties with the Bretons with around 60% of Breton vocabulary being the same as Welsh.In respect to the Britons of England (south of Cumbria), I have always wondered as to what their fate was. True, they were Romanised, and after 400 years of occupation they had lost the skills of warfare and thus relied on the Legions for their defence. When the Legions left, they were easy prey to marauding Scots and other tribes from Ireland . Not only did theyravage the defenceless Britons in England , but also present day Wales and a good example is the abduction from Wales of St. Patrick. Also, the establishment of settlements in Wales including the Kingdom of Brycheiniog, and also of course their much more successful enterprises in Scotland where they gave their name to that country. Vortigen (whoever he was) got a load of bad press by paying for Saxon mercenaries to defend the Britons from the marauding Irish. There are varying accounts of what actually happened but the end result was the establishment of various "English" Kingdoms in present day England. I use the term English and by that I mean the various Germanic groups such as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Friesans. Vortigen it seems was a title (such as Caesar), as was Vercingeterix. Gaulish being a Brythonic language obviously had a similar word for High Leader or something similar and Vortigen in old Brythonic would probably have been something like Vortigenirix or Vortigeniros.I assumed that the bulk of the Britons in England were assimilated and that they adopted English customs, language, dress etc etc. Recent archeological evidence and with the advance of science gives us another story. Since the use of DNA in archelogical digs, practically no evidence has been found of the Britons in the numerous burials that have been excavated in present day England post 5th century. Also, various DNA testing done in recent times for programmes such as "The Blood of the Vikings" confirms the lack of the Briton "Y" chromosome in present day England. The evidence now therefore does in fact point to the Britons in England being ethnically cleansed by extermination and by being driven Westward. There is evidence of 2 mass migrations of the Britons to Brittany and hence the Breton language. Sources indicate that these Britons came from present day Cornwall and Wales but could have been due to the influx of Britons into those parts from England. There was an item on the "British" news which covers this subject which you can see on Youtube and is worth having a look at. I dont think the English liked this news item??Check it out:

Gareth has also made comments indicating that we were pretty much left alone and that we did not break our back to help the Britons in England. I have to disagree on this as history indicates otherwise. There were many attempts at driving the English out of England or at least stemming the tide. Besides the Gododdin (one of the Old Kingdoms of the North), there were other albeit ultimatley unsuccessful attempts from present day Wales. Around 500 was the victory at Mount Badon.Two further important battles fought in England resulted in the Britons in Wales being cut off from the Britons in Cornwall and Devon in 577 and in 615 at the Battle of Chester when we were cut off from the Britons of the North. Cadwaladr of Gwynedd allied with the Mercians marched north and defeated the Northumbrians in 633 only to be defeated the following year and driven back to Gwynedd. Pengwern (Shrewsbury) and much of old Powys was lost to the English in the same era when King Cynddylan and his host were slain defending his Kingdom (see poems Marwnad Cynddylan and Canu Heledd ). Besides these and other battles fought in present day England, there were many incursions into Wales by the English. Examples are the Battle of Pencoed (South Wales) in 721 and in 798 King Cardog of Gwynedd was killed by the Saxons. In 817 the Saxons ravaged the mountains of Eryri and took the Kingdom of Rhufoniog .Had the various British Kingdoms been able to put aside their petty differences and unite in a common cause, then I believe the English could have been defeated and driven from England. The prophecy of the Mab Darogan could have been fulfilled a lot sooner than 1485 which turned out to be a pyrrhic victory for the Welsh. Probably our greatest weakness wasour system of Gavelkind when instead of the eldest son inheriting the throne, the various Kingdoms were dismembered between numerous sons who then went about killing each other in numerous civil wars which the English were able to exploit. It did provide us with some strong leaders (survival of the fittest), like Rhodri the Great, Llywelyn the Great andLlywelyn the Second but ultimatley it was our downfall. When Wales or most of it was united under 1 strong leader such as those above and others such as Owain Gwynedd, then Wales was able to match and beat the English and recover lost lands. In many battles the English had Welsh mercenaries in their ranks to fight against fellow Welshmen. Edward the First had many Welshmen in his ranks in his wars against Llywelyn the Second. In 1295 (13 years after the so called conquest), Edward was beseiged in Conwy castle by a large Welsh force under Madoc ap Llywelyn. Edward and the garrison were close to starvation when Madoc`s army were surrounded and annihalated by an Anglo-Welsh army using tactics of placing Welsh longbowmen between mounted cavalry. Edward was so impressed by the South Wales bowmen that he went on to use them against the Scots and they were of course used in later wars against the French at Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt.So, yes, the Welsh are British and the English are not (using the original meaning of the term British, and not the current political geographic term).As for who were or are the Celts, I believe that has been addressed on another post and I have already been a bit long winded with the above response.

Siarad Cymraeg yn y Fyddin. Speaking Welsh in the UK Military

General Discussions ( Anything Goes )

Interesting Post Gareth, particularly about the potential Colonel who is a member of Plaid Cymru.I knew someone who was an officer in the Guards (cannot recall which regiment but not the Welsh, possibly Grenadiers), who resigned his commission and joined Plaid Cymru and learned Welsh. I recall him telling me that he served in Aden killing Adenese people who did not want to be British, in Cyprus killing Cypriots who did not want to be British, but what brought it home to him was when he served in Northern Ireland killing British people who did not want to be British. He related a number of interesting stories about his time in the army including a conversation with Rev Ian Paisley who was a guest of honour at his regiments officers mess one evening.I recall reading about the fact that Lord Kitchener was against a Welsh Division and the formation of the Welsh Guards as the Welsh could not be trusted, which did not go down well with Lloyd George. During World War One there were thousands of monolingual Welsh speakers in the army who were not allowed to write letters home in Welsh !!! A glimpse of how they were treated can be seen from the very good film Hedd Wyn. Also, interesting to see how they like to use it to their advantage as the Americans did with the Navajo in World War Two. So it used to be a case of "Welsh Not", unless it suited their interests.It is good to see that the Welsh flag is allowed in more recent events by Welsh units, such as the Welsh cavalry regiment in recent engagements in the Mid East, and that attitudes have changed at long last.