On 6th December 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Jacobite army retreated from Derby, not knowing that the Welsh Jacobites has risen in support, that London was in panic and that George II was ready flee to the Continent.  Their retreat ultimately resulted with the quashing of the rebellion to restore  the line of James II to the throne of England, at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

WELSH JACOBITES

* Prior to an earlier rebellion in 1715, there had been evidence of strong support for the Jacobite cause in the Wrexham area, with riots probably organised by the local landowner, Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, who was a member of the Cycle of the White Rose, a secret political club that supported the Jacobites.  

*There were also secret Jacobite groups in Montgomeryshire, Talgarth and Pembrokeshire.

* Initially the Welsh Jacobites held the position, during the 1745 rebellion, that they would only rise up, on the intervention of the French.

* David Morgan from Penygraig near Quakers Yard obtained a captain's commission in the army of Bonnie Prince Charlie, but he was captured and executed, with  his head displayed on Temple Bar in London.   

Born on this day 1848 in Landore, Swansea

Thomas Edwards -  Independent minister and Archdruid of the U.S.A

Edwards emigrated to Pensylvania in 1870, where he established a church society called the Cynonfardd Literary Society, designed to teach English to Welsh, through the literary disciplines of the Welsh Eisteddfod, such as music, singing and poetry.  This proved so successful that it led to the first Cynonfardd Eisteddfod being held on March 17 1889.  The Eisteddfod is still held annually and it is believed to be the oldest outside of Wales.  Edwards was was invested as Archdruid of the U.S.A in 1913.  

In December 1215, Llywelyn the Great captured Shrewsbury Castle in a campaign that also saw him take those at Carmarthen, Cardigan Kidwelly, Cilgerran and Llanstephan.

It is thought that the town of Shrewsbury was founded by the Saxons of Mercia in the 8th century to control the Severn river-crossing on the road between the Hereford and Chester.

The earliest written mention of Shrewsbury is in 901, after which, it grew in stature and by 1066 had become the county town of Shropshire consisting of more than 250 houses and four churches. However in 1069, an alliance of Welshmen and the men of Chester burned the town.  Then  Roger de Montgomery, a relative of William the Conqueror, was created the first Earl of Shrewsbury and built a castle in 1074, where the present Shrewsbury Castle is now situated. 

The town fell to Welsh forces led by Llywelyn the Great in 1215 and again in 1234 and in 1283 Edward I held a Parliament at Shrewsbury to decide the fate of Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the last prince of an independant Wales. Dafydd was subsequently hanged, drawn and quartered for high treason in Shrewsbury. 

In the Middle Ages, Shrewsbury was as a centre of the woollen trade and a place where Welsh cloth was finished.  Shrewsbury merchants would buy the cloth, which had been woven and fulled but not finished, in Oswestry market and after finishing it, much of it was sent to London markets for sale.   

Ruperra Castle, which was built in 1626, is a Grade II Listed Building, situated in Lower Machen, near Caerphilly. 

*  Following the Battle of Naseby, King Charles I spent two nights at Ruperra Castle in 1645.

*  Godfrey Charles Morgan, who was a captain during the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaklava in the Crimean War, was born at Ruperra.

*  It has been destroyed by fire in 1785, 1895 and most recently on 6th December 1941, after which, the castle has been left as a decaying ruin and the entire estate sold as farm land.   

WATERFALLS OF WALES

Pistyll Rhaeadr is located a few miles from the village of Llanrhaedr-ym-Mochnant, twelve miles west of Oswestry.

Pistyll Rhaeadr is formed by the Afon Disgynfa falling, in three stages, over a 240-foot Silurian cliff-face, below which the river is known as the Afon Rhaedr.  It is counted as one of the Seven Wonders of Wales and is a Site of Specific Scientific Interest.

The 19th century author George Borrow, in his book Wild Wales, remarked of the waterfall: "What shall I liken it to? I scarcely know, unless it is to an immense skein of silk agitated and disturbed by tempestuous blasts, or to the long tail of a grey courser at furious speed. I have never seen a water falling so gracefully, so much like thin, beautiful threads as here."