Wales and its History

  This small vignette from the St. Alban’s Chronicle (MS 6, f. 167v) purports to show the death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, last native Prince of Wales, on 11 December 1282.  Although the image shows a formal execution scene with a priest in attendance, the text of the Chronicle relates that Llywelyn was killed in an ambush or scuffle:  And when  Ƿ e prince Lewellin his bro Ƿ er  Ƿ at wist he was sore abashed for he had no power to may[n]teyn werre  And  Ƿ en he fled & wend wele to haue scapid but Thomas mortymer in a morning w t  v. knightes met hym alone & hym clipped round about & toke hym and smote of his hed and it presented to  Ƿ e king. And  Ƿ us was Lewellyn hedid & he & his heires disherit for eu[er]more be rightfull Jugement. (f.169).

  Abergavenny massacre Sometime in the 1160s Henry Fitzmiles, son of  Hameline de Balun,  the Norman  Lord of Abergavenny, was killed fighting against the forces of Sytsylt ap Dyferwald, Sytsylt was a native Welsh ruler of the area, 1172 The same Welshman besieged and captured the formidable Norman castle at Abergaveny but was soon returned to the Normans. With Henry dead there was no male heir to take over the de Balun lands and these consequently passed to the evil Norman lord  William de Braose. Abergavenny Castle was now in the hands of a man who, the most vicious of all the Norman Barons At Christmas 1175 de Braose invited Sytsylt, his son Geoffrey and all of the leading chieftains from Powys to a feast at Abergavenny Castle. The intention, he declared, was to meet and spend the Christmas period in each other's company. They would feast and celebrate and make a lasting reconciliation following the death of Henry Fitzmiles. Unsuspecting, Sytsylt accepted the invitation, happy