violent Wales
Some violent events in the violent history of Wales, i need more, can anyone help me?
Like it or not, you can't deny it, Wales is a conquered nation. what is often ignored is how brutal this conquest was.
people were booted off their lands, English towns were built and populated with English people, the Welsh people were excluded from these places and forced into famine and death, It is these ENGLISH towns that were atacked by Owain Glyndwr, some people twist it and say he attacked Welsh towns, they wasnt Welsh towns at the time.
Below are the words written by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in a letter to the English 2 months before he was killed in 1282. You can't get a more primary source than this; it gives you an idea of how Welsh people were treated. It is time the Welsh people of today were made aware of these things because, after all, those treated like this were Welsh people, too, and some of you are descended from them.
what evils have been wrought upon us by the English, how the peace formerly made has been violated in all the clauses of the treaty, how churches have been fired and devastated, and ecclesiastical persons, priests, monks and nuns slaughtered, women slain with children at their breast, hospitals and other houses of religion burned, Welsh people murdered in cemeteries, churches, yes at the very altar, with other sacrilegious offences horrible to hear.
We fight because we are forced to fight, for we, and all Wales, are oppressed, subjugated, despoiled, reduced to servitude by the royal officers and bailiffs, in defiance of the form of the peace and of all justice, more maliciously than if we were Saracens or Jews, so that we feel, and have often so protested to the king, that we are left without any remedy.
Laws against the Welsh
We all know of these laws but what many dont know is that many were already in place from the times of conquest, when Longshanks created brutal laws against the Welsh
In the 1295 ordinance, the Welsh "were not to reside in the English boroughs of Wales, or to bear arms in them, or to conduct trade outside them, these are the lands where the Welsh were booted of and replaced by English settlers, for example, one area saw 10,000 acres confenscated where a castle and town was built next to the most fertile land for many miles, the Welsh were forced to farm in hills and rocks, excluded from these new towns.
The Penal Laws against Wales
They were a set of laws, passed by the English Parliament in 1402 during the Glyndwr rebellion. The laws included prohibiting any Welshman from buying land in England,
It was illegal for Welshmen to hold any senior public office in Wales,
They were banned for bearing arms,
It was illegal for Welshmen to hold any castle or defend any house,
No Welsh child was to be educated or apprenticed to any trade,
No Englishman could be convicted in any suit brought by a Welshman,
Welshmen were to be severely penalised when marrying an Englishwoman,
Any Englishman marrying a Welshwoman was disenfranchised
And all public assembly was forbidden.
Three hundred prisoners were beheaded in front of Usk Castle
Early Genocide??
Harold Godwinson was a Saxon Earl (later became king), who invaded Wales under the king's orders, and committed in modern terms 'genocide' against the Welsh male population, and implemented Penal Laws against Wales.
From- The statesman's book of John Of Salisbury (Anglo Saxon scholar/ author)And so he reached Snowdon, the Hill of Snows itself, and wasted the whole country, and prolonging the campaign to two years, captured their chiefs and presented their heads to the king who had sent him; and slaying every male who could be found, even down to the pitiful little boys, he thus pacified the province at the mouth of the sword.
He established a law that any Briton who was found with a weapon beyond a certain limit which he set for them, to wit the Foss of Offa, was to have his right hand cut off by the officials of the king.
And thus by the valor of this leader the power of the Britons was so broken that almost the entire race seemed to disappear and by the indulgence of the aforesaid king, their women were married to Englishmen.
22 Welsh prisoners blinded
Another invasion of Wales and another failure by Henry II , defeated by constant attacks from the Welsh and the weather, The English retreated and then returned to Shrewsbury.
King Henry was furious and had taken his anger out on 22 Welsh prisoners, including two sons of Owain Gwynedd who he had blinded.
King John kills 28 sons of Welsh noble families
In 1212 King John held 28 sons of Welsh noble families hostage.Some as young as 12, lived at the castle for some time and then one day, King John ordered all the hostages executed."A chronicler states that the boy's pitiful cries rang around the castle as one after the other they were taken up on the ramparts and hanged in a row."
rowland lee
was said to be disappointed and incensed when the first Act of Union was enacted in 1536, as he believed the Welsh could not be trusted as part of England" "As the lord president, on the direction of Thomas Cromwell, he set out to bring law and order to the Welsh regions.
What ensued was a reign of terror, in which Lee decided the best way to deal with the 'lawless' Welsh was to convict and hang with impunity.
Lee claimed to have hanged 5000 Welshmen in his five years; possibly an exaggeration, but in any event, it indicates the character of the man described as a "great despiser of Welshmen" by Dafydd Jenkins."
Abergavenny Christmas 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 Abergavenny 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 to bring peace to the land, but William de Braose had other intentions. Reconciliation was the last thing on his mind.
With weapons stacked outside and the ale flowing, the doors to the great hall were suddenly locked and a massacre began.
Sytsylt and all his allies, his son and his followers, were callously cut down in an act of vengeance for the death of Henry – Aware that Seisyll’s youngest son and wife had not attended the gathering and such was his thirst for revenge, William gathered his men, located their whereabouts and killed the boy as his mother tried to protect him in her arms. The night had been bloody and brutal and it earned William the nickname of The Ogre of Abergavenny.
Amazingly his actions were forgiven as he was favoured by King John of England and he later took up post of Sheriff of Herefordshire.
As they say karma always comes around to bite you and in 1175 The Lord of Caerleon took Abergavenny castle and burnt it to the ground. William was said to have fled to Ireland and was later seen in France where he lived out the remainder of his life dying in exile there. His wife and son were taken to Corfe Castle and are said to have starved to death in the dungeons.
Glyndwrs wars
In 1400, Henry IV, on his way back from invading Scotland, heard of an uprising in Wales, he soon turned his army towards Wales.
Henry led his army around North Wales. He was harassed constantly by bad weather and the attacks of Welsh guerrillas. When he arrived on Anglesey, he harried the island, killing anyone they come across, burning villages and monasteries, including the Llanfaes Friary. Rhys ap Tudur led an ambush of the king's forces at Rhos Fawr. After they were engaged, the Englishmen fled back to the safety of Beaumaris Castle.
In 1401 Henry IV marched across Wales again but this time it was through south Wales to Strata Florida Abbey.
Here his troops camped in the abbey, robbing its relics, mocking and killing monks and stabling their horses at the high altar. Monks along with hundreds of Welsh children were taken back to England as slaves.
Another part of the English force had marched through South Wales to Brecon, and then joined up with Henry’s army at Llandovery. It was here that Llywelyn ap Gruffudd Fychan was executed for delaying Henry in his search for Glyndŵr.
The army then looted and raped its way back to England, burning crops, executing captives and confiscating lands as they went.
The army marched via Bangor to Anglesey, where he attacked lands held by Owain’s cousins, the Tudurs. He also sacked nearby Llanfaes Abbey and forced the abbots of Bardsey, Maenan and Cymer Abbeys to pledge allegiance to him.
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