Owain Gwynedd

Warlike beginnings under the reign of his/her father

The father of Owain, Gruffydd ap Cynan was a strong monarch who profited from a particularly long reign, although reversed on several occasions. He made of Gwynedd the most important kingdom of the Wales at the time of his sixty two years of reign and faced more or less happiness with the invasions of the Norman ones. Owain was born on the island from Anglesey towards 1100. When Gruffydd was too old to carry out its battles as people, he probably delegated them to his sons, Owain, Cadwallon and Cadwaladr. Those carried out victorious forwardings against the Norman ones and other Welsh kings. Cadwallon died in 1132, but Owain and Cadwaladr, combined with Gruffyd ap Rhys of Deheubarth crushed the Norman ones with Crug Mawr close to Cardigan in 1136 and annexed the Ceredigion.

A reign shared with Cadwaladr

With died Gruffydd in 1137, Owain thus inherited with the crown a kingdom at the bases sat particularly well, but it had to divide it with Cadwaladr. In 1143, Cadwaladr was implied in the murder of Anarawd ap Gruffydd of Deheubarth and Owain counteracted by sending his/her son, Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd to take to him its grounds in the north of Ceredigion. Although Owain was reconciled thereafter with Cadwaladr, starting from 1143 it only reigned on the major part of the north of Wales. In 1155, it forced Cadwaladr with the exile.

War with Powys

Owain benefitted from the civil war in England which opposed the king Etienne to the Impératrice Mathilde to further extend the borders of Gwynedd towards the east than ever. In 1146 it took the castle of Mold, then towards 1150 captured Rhuddlan and attacked the borders of Powys. Prince de Powys, Madog ap Maredudd, helped by the baron Ranulf of Chester faced it with Coleshill but was overcome.

War with Henri II

All went for best until the advent of Henri II of England in 1154. This last invades Gwynedd in 1157 with the support of Madog ap Maredudd de Powys and the brother of Owain, Cadwaladr. This invasion was not a big hit. Henri II failed to be made kill in a skirmish with Basingwerk and when its fleet unloaded on the island of Anglesey, it was overcome. However, Owain had to negotiate with Henri and to give up Rhuddlan and others of its Eastern conquests.

Madog ap Maredudd died in 1160 and Powys was divided into two entities: the kingdom of Powys Wenwynwyn in the south, which went to Owain Cyfeiliog and that of Powys Fadog to the north which fell to the hands from Gruffydd Maelor. Owain benefitted from this bursting to take again territories in the east.

In 1163 it made an alliance with Rhys ap Gruffydd of Deheubarth and defied the English authority. Henri II again tried to invade Gwynedd but instead of taking the usual roads of the plains of north it attacked starting from Oswestry and crosses the hills. Unfortunately for him the climate of Wales played for Owain because the torrential rains of the area forced Henri II to beat a retreat. Henri II tried never again to invade Gwynedd and Owain could keep its Eastern conquests. This last could take again the castle of Rhuddlan in 1167 after a seat of three of month.

Religious quarrels and succession

The last years of the reign of Owain were occupied by a quarrel with the Archevêque of Canterbury about the bishop nomination new of Bangor. Moreover, it undergoes pressures on behalf of the archbishop and the Pope so that it gives up his second wife, Cristin, who was her German cousin, such a matrimonial relation being prohibited by the Church. Although it was thereafter excommunicated, Owain obstinately refused to repudiate Cristin. This situation is not without pointing out that which knew Henri VIII of England, although it did not lead to a schism and that in fact Henri VIII tried to divorce. Owain died in 1170, and in spite of its excommunication was buried out of ground devoted in the cathedral of Bangor by the local clergy.

It is thought that Owain made write the text of propaganda the life of Gruffydd ap Cynan which tells the life of his/her father. After its death, the civil war burst between its sons and it was necessary to await the following generation so that Gwynedd finds its last glory. According to the legend, one of wire of Owain was the prince Madoc who would have crossed the Atlantique to colonize the America.

Fiction

Owain Gwynedd is one of the main characters of the novel the summer of the Danes of Ellis Peters. It appears in other works of the writer in his cycle of “Frère Cadfael”.

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