END OF THE POWYS DYNASTY
By Darrell Wolcott
Following the death of Brochwel ap Aeddan,
the succession to the kingship of Powys is clouded by a gap in the family pedigrees where three generations appear to
be omitted. Sufficient information can be gleaned from HLG 2 and 12 to closely date the men of the eleventh century[1],
exposing an obvious hole in the chronological sequence:
655 Gwylog
685 Eliseg
715 Brochwel [2]
750 Cyngen
785 Aeddan
820 Brochwel
850 Selyf
880
- (Aeddan ?)
910
- (Brochwel ?)
Tudor Trevor
945
- (Selyf ?)
Llyddoca
980 Beli Gwerystyn
Llywarch Gam
1015 Gruffudd
Cynfyn Ednyfed
l
l l
1050 Gwyn
Gwrgi Ithel==Nest Rhys Sais
l l
l
l
1080 Tangwre====Seisyllt Ednowain=====Generys
l
l
1095
Gwledyr==========Gwrgeneu
Seisyllt ap Gwrgi was born c. 1065 and
Cynfyn ap Gwerystan was born c. 985. [3] Cynfyn's daughter Nest would occur c. 1020 and her son Ednowain perhaps
1040. Thus Gwrgeneu ap Ednowain of c. 1080 is the age we should expect for a husband of Gwledyr. In the other family
shown, Tudor Trevor was born c. 900 [3], Llyddoca his son c. 935 and Llywarch Gam was born c. 965. Ednyfed follows
at c. 995, Rhys Sais at c. 1025 and his daughter Generys about 1055. This matches her with husband Ednowain of 1040,
yielding the son Gwrgeneu at 1080. Our search for the names of the men who fill the blank generations of our chart proceeds
thusly:
By staying as close as possible to
the data which is disclosed in a chronologically deficient pedigree, we first look to the actual names cited as the father
of each man, beginning at the bottom. The Beli in Gwyn ap Gruffudd ap Beli is said to be the son of a Selyf ap Brochwel
ap Aeddan. If we insert those names into our chart at the indicated spot, we are left with an emended pedigree
which repeats that three-name block one after the other. Although it will be the subject of later studies of this family as
it wends it way down to the 15th century, I will only pause at present to say that the 3 name sequence of Selyf ap Brochwel ap Aeddan is repeated
3 more times in the family. And each of those Selyf's named a son Beli who named a son Gruffudd who named a son Gwyn. Each
of the Selyf's (save the last) also named a son Aeddan, and it was that son who continued the repeating sequence. We
have seen many pedigrees which, like this one, omit sequences of names which seem to be duplicates.
While it was necessary for dating
purposes to portray the branch of the family found in the cited pedigrees, the men at the bottom were not in the senior
(kingly) line. An expanded chart will reflect the probable branches:
850 Selyf
880 Aeddan
910 Brochwel
____________________l________________
l
l
l
940 Cadell 943
Seisyllt [4] 945 Selyf
l
l
l
970 Nest
979 Llewelyn
975 Aeddan
l
l
l
985 Cynfyn
1011 Gruffudd
1005 Brochwel
____l__________ ____l________
l
l l
l
Rhiwallon
Bleddyn Ithel Maredudd
(Note: the Selyf born c. 945 had a second son
named Beli, whose son Gruffudd named a son Gwyn;it is that line of the family shown in our first chart.)
It would appear
that the Cadell ap Brochwel of this chart is the king of Powys whose daughter Nest was the mother of Cynfyn ap Gwerystan.
It was the brothers Rhiwallon and Bleddyn who took Powys from the sons of Gruffudd ap Llewelyn; we strongly suspect she was
appropriated by the medieval genealogists and inserted as the Nest ferch Cadell ap Brochwel they cite as the mother
of Rhodri Mawr.[5] Since the present King Cadell had no sons, succession probably fell to the next eldest son of Brochwel.
There is no record that a Seisyllt ap Brochwel[4] ever was a king and he may have predeceased Cadell, making Llewelyn
(eldest son of Seisyllt) the next Powys king.
When Llewelyn was slain in 1023, his
son Gruffudd was barely a teenager.[6] Celtic kings were expected to be warriors and they never had a tradition of child-kings. If
we speculate that Llewelyn's cousin Aeddan also died prior to 1023 (he may even have fought alongside Llewelyn and fell with
him), the leading men of Powys were faced with a problem of succession. Surely Gruffudd, in time, would be their king
but one was required for the interim. Cynfyn ap Gwerystan was the maternal grandson of former king Cadell and seemed
a good choice. One might also speculate that he was told his approval would be assured if he took to wife the widow
of Llewelyn ap Seisyllt and became step-father to the edling[7], Gruffudd ap Llewelyn. Cynfyn did, in fact,
marry the widowed Angharad ferch Maredudd ap Owain and probably did serve as the interim king of Powys. This likely
was the basis of the claim laid by his sons in 1063; neither was yet old enough[8] to make such a claim when Gruffudd
ap Llewelyn finally became king in 1039. However, it is known that Llewelyn had a brother named Cynan[9] who may
have succeeded him, but he was killed in 1027 while young Gruffudd was still a teenager. Thus the tenure of Cynfyn may
have begun fours years later than we first said; in that case his marriage had already occurred since Bleddyn was born
of that union about 1025.
Gruffudd ap Llewelyn became
the king of Powys in 1039 and that year may mark the death of Cynfyn[10]. He immediately launched a campaign against
Iago ap Idwal of Gwynedd, killing that king and annexing Gwynedd to Powys. Whether this was retaliation for a role Iago
had in the death of Llewelyn 16 years earlier, as some claim, or for Iago's role in a possible attack against Powys which
killed Cynfyn, is a matter of conjecture. But over the next 24 years, Gruffudd managed to forcibly take control
of every kingdom in Wales and inflict much damage against the now-unified English nation to his east. In 1063, King Edward
the Confessor authorized Harold Godwinson to take a large army into Wales to bring Gruffudd to heel. With a unified
ground assult from the east and a naval blockade at his north, Gruffudd was trapped in his palace at Rhuddlan[11]. As
Harold set about to scourge the lands of any who dared support Gruffudd, a contingent of his own men killed the King of all
Wales and brought his head to Harold to sue for peace.
Some reports indicate
the brothers Bleddyn and Rhiwallon stood down to allow Harold's army to approach Rhuddlan, for which they were rewarded thusly:
Rhiwallon, the oldest[9], was given rule over Powys and Bleddyn received Gwynedd. The two surviving sons of Gruffudd,
then barely 20 years old, bided their time for another 6 years then sought their birthright on the battlefield in
Mechain[12]. Both died either during, or as a direct result of, this clash with the sons of Cynfyn but not before they
had killed Rhiwallon. Thus Bleddyn assumed the kingships of both Gwynedd and Powys and the rule by the lineage of Brochwel
Ysgithrog at last was ended. We find no recorded attempts to regain the kingship by the descendants of the junior
branch of the family shown in our chart; thereafter it became the senior line of the now non-royal family.
NOTES:
[1] Hen Lwythau Gwynedd a'r Mars, a medieval manuscript containing pedigrees
of the chief non-royal families of north Wales, edited by P.C. Bartrum in the National Library of Wales Journal, vol xii,
part 3
[2] Brochwel is omitted in the HLG 2 pedigree. See Note 9 in our paper entitled
"Powys Succession After 823" at the link below:
[3] Birthdate estimates of Cynfyn ap Gwerystan and Tudor Trevor are those of
Bartrum from the above source in Note 1, and concur with our own estimates. See our paper "Gwrgi of Castell Caereinion"
for our dating of Seisyll ap Gwrgi, at the link below:
[4] The ancestry of Seisyllt is nowhere recorded; we believe sufficient evidence
exists to place him in the Powys Royal Family and his conjectural assignment as a younger brother of Cadell ap Brochwel fits
what is known of his place in history.
[5] Refer to the discussion of that Nest in our paper entitled "Nest ferch Cadell
ap Brochwel" at the link below:
[6] Brut y Tywysogyon cites the death of Llewelyn in 1023; Gruffudd was born
about 1010/12 according to most estimates.
[7] The edling was the heir-apparent, the person entitled to reign after the
King. According to the Laws of Hywel Dda, "it is right for him to be a son or nephew of the King."
[8] Cynfyn married the mother of Rhiwallon and Bleddyn after she was widowed
in 1023; we believe Rhiwallon was the older since he was given Powys after the death of Gruffudd ap Llewelyn, which was the
only kingdom his father claimed a paternal right to possess. Our estimate for the brother's birthdates is 1024 and 1025,
respectively.
[9] ABT 7f cites Cynan ap Seisyll as a uterine brother of Llewelyn, while his
obit is given by ByT in 1027
[10] No obit for Cynfyn is recorded. The Brut cites 1039 as the year Gruffudd
came to power and that would presumably occur at the death of the previous king. He would have been 28/29 years old, so 1039
was not the year he became an adult but see our paper "Minimum Age for Welsh Kingship in the 11th Century" at the link below
[11] Rhuddlan lies at the mouth of the River Clwyd at the Irish Sea; an earlier
attempt by Harold Godwinson to capture or kill him had failed when Gruffudd made his escape by sea.
[12] Mechain is a cantref in central Powys on the north edge of the present Montgomeryshire.
