ANCIENT POWYS
By Darrell Wolcott
There is only a general idea
of which lands may have constituted the sprawling kingdom called Powys following the withdrawal of the Romans in the early
fifth century. Probably extending eastwards to the Severn River and south to the Wye, it's northern part extended to
the Irish Sea from the Dee to the Clwyd. These lands would appear to be the combined territories associated with the Cornovii
and Deceangli tribes of Celts.
The far northern portion included
what were later to be called Tegeingl[1], Ial, Ystrad Alun, Yr Hob, both Maelors, Dyffryn Clwyd east of the Clwyd River, Nanheudwy,
Cynllaith, Cheshire and the part of Shropshire north of the Severn. The lower part included Mochnant, Mechain,
Deuddwr, Gorddwr, Ystrad Marchell, Caereinion, Cyfeiliog, Arwystli, Cedewain, Llanerch Hudol, Ceri, Maelienydd, Gwerthrynion,
Cwmwd Deuddwr, Buellt, Elfael, Llythyfnwg, Shropshire south of the Severn, and the portion of Herefordshire, Worcestershire and
Gloucestershire which lay west of the Severn.
One would suspect the
two originally separate Celt kingdoms were united at some point in the fifth century, possibly by the simultaneous marriages
of a princess of each tribe with a prince of the other. The merger may have been motivated by common threats both faced
from outsiders, whether Picts coming from the north or Saxons from the east. Our timeline for the two Powys families
suggests a date near 470 for such a consolidation:
385 Vortigern 380
Cadell Ddyrnllwg
_________l_____
___________l_______
l
l l
l
415 Cadeyrn 415 Brydw
Pasgen 410 415 Brydw
l
l l
l
440 Casnar 450 Annan===Maun
440 450 Thewer
=
=
l_________________________________________l
With this chart, we conjecture
that Casnar (or Cassanauth) Wledig may have been a son of Caderyn ap Vortigern;
his pedigree claims descent from Beli Mawr but contains no link from the first century BC to the fifth century AD. The
marriage with Thewer ferch Brydw ap Cadell Ddyrnllwg is cited in Jesus College Ms 20, 16 while that of Annan ferch Brydw ap
Vortigern with Maun ap Pasgen ap Cadell is merely inferred from the Pillar of Eliseg.[2]
While very early pedigrees carry
Cadell Ddyrnllwg's ancestry back to Beli Mawr, no extant sources provide the lineage of Vortigern beyond Glowy Gwallt Hir
of c. 280. One logical speculation is shown by this chart:
185 Gwrtheyrn ap Rhydeyrn[3]
l
220 Cadeyrn
l
250 Rhuddfedel Frych
___________l_____________
l
l
280 Gloyw Gwallt Hir
Brydw 285
l
l
315 Guidolyn
Pasgen 315
l
l
350 Gwidol
Cadeyrn 350
l
l
385 Gwrtheyrn (Vortigern) Cadell Ddyrnllwg 380
______l_________________
l
l
l
Cadeyrn Pasgen
Brydw
Such a relationship between
these men is suggested by the use of the male names Cadeyrn, Brydw and Pasgen by both branches while the name Gwrtheyrn
appears nowhere but the two instances in our chart. And one might interpret the Nennius story about Cadell as a mythical
account of the role which St. Germanus may have played in AD 429.
When the Romans left the island
shortly after the year 400, the "cities" of the eastern flatlands are said to have sought a man from Llydaw to head their
central government[4]. We are told the king of that territory sent his younger brother Constantine to fill the role. Geoffrey
of Monmouth claims that man died or was killed, leaving a son named Constans who was training for priesthood[5].
We have previously suggested that cleric was actually Blessed Custinnen, son of Maxen Wledig[6]. The leading men from
the cities elected this former "man of the cloth" as its new "emperor" or high-king but selected a council
of experienced men to advise him. The early historians say one of these advisors was Gwrtheyrn, the man later
called Vortigern. Suppose for a moment that another of these advisors was Cadell Ddrynllwg. The high-king either
died or was killed about 425 and Vortigern succeeded him. About 3 years later, Vortigern invited a small contingent
of Saxons to settle on Thanet, a small island off the coast of Kent. Cadell may have been among those who opposed this. It
was known that the tribes located across the English Channel were being hard-pressed by barbarian hordes coming from
the east; once those people got a foot in the door in Britain, thousands more might follow. Once securely in control, Vortigern
may have invaded Cadell's lands to topple him and end his opposition. The feud may have been still occurring
in 429 when St Germanus visited Britain to combat the heresy being taught by the Pelagius sect. Aware that such internal
strife was folly at a time when the "uncivilized" hordes of Picts and Scots of the far north were attacking the Romanized
and citified inhabitants of Britain, Germanus probably sought to broker a truce between Vortigern and Cadell. No doubt
invoking the fires of hell on Vortigern (just as many contemporary Christian clerics do to keep their flocks obedient), the
latter backed off and left Cadell to rule his own lands in peace. Of course, Nennius related the incident as though
Germanus was a kingmaker and Cadell a man never before even qualified to be a tribal leader. We think that after both
Vortigern and Cadell were dead, the rising threat of the Saxons pushing westward, seeking fertile land, induced the two
kingdoms to merge and present a united defensive front.
Powys survived basically intact until
the seventh century. In 613, the Angles under Aethelbert took the fort at Chester and claimed the land from the
Dee estuary at the Irish Sea down to the Alun River as well as the entire part of Cheshire above Maelor Saesneg. It was
in this battle that Selyf ap Cynan Garwyn, king of Powys, fell with his brother Cadell who had ruled the lands conquered.[7]
About 660, Oswy took most of the fertile Severn valley and killed its local ruler, Cynddylan ap Cyndrwyn, perhaps because
the latter had been a battlefield ally of Penda. The eastern border of Powys was pushed west to near the line where
Offa's Dyke was built some 100 years later.
In 821, Egbert of the West Saxons
took over the midlands kingdom of Mercia and two years later, drove west from Chester to take all of Powys north of the
Dee as well as Gwynedd east of the Conwy. That land, however, was taken back about 863 by the combined might of Powys'
Brochwel ap Aeddan, Caradog Freich Fras of Rhos and Rhodri Mawr of Gwynedd[8]. It was during the years between 823 and
863 that the ruling family of Powys moved their court to Mathrafel and centered their residences around Mechain, Deuddwr,
Ystrad Marchell and Gorddwr...all within a 10 mile radius. Those lands had long been the domain of the southern branch
of the family descended from Casnar Wledig, so it was probably another marriage which brought the area to men of
the northern branch. Land holdings, judged by future inheritances, appear to have been distributed as follows by
the mid-800's:
735 Tegonwy*
_____________l_________
l l
l
750 Cyngen** 765
Bleddud 765 Iorwerth Caenog 765
l
l l
l
785 Aeddan====daughter
795 Idnerth Corf 795
l
(Dueddwr) (Arwystli, Buellt) (not sure)
820
Brochwel
(Deuddwr)
*direct descendant
from Casnar Wledig
** ap Brochwel ap Eliseg,
brother of Cadell who died in 808
Bleddud
ap Tegonwy's son, Llewelyn, chose to train for priesthood so his inheritance passed to his sister's son, Brochwel ap Aeddan.
We have used the term Deuddwr to encompass all the lands immediately surrounding Mathrafel where Brochwel established his
court. Idnerth ap Iorwerth Hirflawdd had two sons: Cynog received Arwystli and was the ancestor of Gwyn ap Collwyn
whose grandsons, Trahaearn ap Caradog and Cynwrig ap Rhiwallon, held that territory in the eleventh century. Gwenwyn
ap Idnerth received Buillt and was the ancestor of Cuhelyn ap Ifor, the father of Elystan Glodrydd. Caenog ap Tegonwy
and his son, Corf, are not known to have held any particular territory but may have received Caereinion. It was
their descendant, Lles Llydog, who earned much of Tegeingl in the 890's by driving out the Danish settlers.[9]
We should pause here to comment
on Llewelyn ap Bleddud who was to become known as St Llewelyn. The ancient Bonedd y Saint pedigrees say he lived in
Welshpool (located in Ystrad Marchell) and had a son called St Gwrnerth. A 17th century manuscript, Llanstephen Ms 187,
makes an anachronistic claim about St. Llewelyn, saying he was the son of Einion ap Bleddud by a daughter of Rhodri Mawr,
and further that he served as penteulu for Rhodri. But even the insertion of an extra generation does not make the claim
chronologically possible, and the part about him being Rhodri's penteulu can be rejected on three counts: he was
not a "near relative" of Rhodri as required by law, he was not a man of Gwynedd who would be at Rhodri's court, and he was
a holy man...not a warrior. A chart shows the chronology problem:
765 Bleddud
l
795 Einion* Merfyn Frych
790
l
l
825 St Llewelyn
Rhodri Mawr 820
l
daughter 850
*Even if such a man existed,
any daughter of Rhodri Mawr would be about 60 years younger than him, scarcely wife material. Additionally,
if a daughter of Rhodri had married any man whose son might have became his penteulu, that son would not occur until
c. 865. Rhodri Mawr was slain in 878 and few would believe the head of his warband was a child under 14 years of age
We reject all the
claims made about St Llewelyn in the 17th century manuscript. It is possible, however, that the penteulu of Rhodri Mawr
was a man of his near family named Llewelyn ap Einion and even that Rhodri had a daughter who was the mother of a
man named Llewelyn ap Einion, but they could not have been the same man and neither could have been St Llewelyn. It
sounds suspiciously like another medieval attempt to associate Rhodri Mawr with Powys.
