and trade networks, drastically underdeveloped in
comparison to England’s, were the focus of much of Llywelyn’s reforming zeal,
and an indicator of the disparity between the two countries can be gauged by
comparing the revenue generated by customs for Llywelyn, estimated at about £17
per annum, against roughly £10,000 for the King of England. The assessment of
one modern historian, that despite its internal difficulties England remained ‘a
thirteenth-century superpower’, particularly in relation to its neighbours, is
fair.

In the
centuries after the Norman conquest, English domination over Wales had
increased greatly. Nowhere was this more obvious than with the Marcher Lords,
English aristocrats who held sway in the disputed borderlands between the two
countries. Llywelyn quarrelled with them often and it was their most recent
spat that provided him with the excuse he needed to decline his invitation to
Edward’s coronation.de Montfort girl was taken
to Windsor where she was kept in close, if comfortable, confinement for the
next three years and Edward informed the Marcher Lords that their antagonism
towards Llywelyn would no longer be checked by the English government.
Realising, too late, what he had done or perhaps simply accepting that he had
been caught, Llywelyn tried desperately to convince the world that he wanted
peace. Letters to the Pope and Robert Kilwardby, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
attest to Llywelyn’s apparently genuine wishes to avoid conflict with his
powerful neighbour. His epistles to Edward cried for peace, but only on
condition of partial homage – Llywelyn still had terms and conditions and Edward
would not accept them. He did not negotiate, he commanded.

About Me

Gareth Russell is the author of four works of non-fiction, including the critically-acclaimed