Notes for Mrs. (Cadwallon Ap) (Cadfan)
Notes:
Bartrum's "Welsh Genealogies".
Catgollaun [Modern Welsh Cadwallon], d. 634, king of Gwynedd. (In my [Stewart Baldwin's] opinion, the vary late statement of Geoffrey of Monmouth that he married a sister of King Penda of Mercia can probably be dismissed as one of Geoffrey's numerous fabrications.) Also known as Catguollaun. In 632 he killed King Edwin of Wessex at the battle of Meigen. In 633 he killed Edwin's sucessors Osric of Deira and Eanfrith of Bernicia. Bede declaed that Cadwallon's intent was to exterminate the English race. In 634, Cadwallon was killed by Oswald, Eanfrith's brother. This, for all practical purposes, ended any hope for the Britains of gaining supremacy over the English on the Island.
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Cadwallon ap Cadfan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cadwallon ap Cadfan (died 634
was the King of
Gwynedd from around 625 until his death in battle. The son and successor of
Cadfan ap Iago, he is best remembered as the
King of the Britons who invaded and conquered
Northumbria, defeating and killing its king,
Edwin, prior to his own death in battle against
Oswald of Bernicia. His conquest of Northumbria, which he held for a year or two after Edwin died, made him the last
Briton to hold substantial territory in eastern Britain until the rise of the
Tudor dynasty.
He was thereafter remembered as a national hero by the Britons and as a tyrant by the Anglo-Saxons of Northumbria.
History
As with other figures of the era little is certainly known of Cadwallon's early life or reign. The primary source of information about him is the
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum of the Anglo-Saxon writer
Bede, who is strongly critical of him. Cadwallon consistently appears in the genealogies of the
Kings of Gwynedd as the son of
Cadfan ap Iago and a descendant of
Maelgwn Gwynedd and
Cunedda.
Historian
Alex Woolf, however, presents the case that the genealogists have erroneously inserted Bede's Cadwallon into the pedigree of the unrelated Kings of Gwynedd as son of Cadfan. Instead, Woolf suggests that Bede's Cadwallon was the Catguallaun liu found in genealogies as son of Guitcun and grandson of
Sawyl Penuchel, rulers in the
Hen Ogledd or Brythonic-speaking area of northern Britain.
Whatever the case may be, Cadwallon was certainly affected by the ambitions of
Edwin,
King of Northumbria. Bede, writing about a century after Cadwallon's death, describes Edwin, the most powerful king in Britain, conquering the Brythonic kingdom of
Elmet (what is now western
Yorkshire) and ejecting its king,
Cerdic. This opened the door to the
Irish Sea, and Edwin successfully extended his rule to the "Mevanian Islands" – the
Isle of Man and
Anglesey.
The
Annales Cambriae says that Cadwallon was besieged at Glannauc (Priestholm, or
Puffin Island), a small island off eastern Anglesey, and dates this to 629.
Surviving Welsh poetry and the
Welsh Triads portray Cadwallon as a heroic leader against Edwin. They refer to a battle at Digoll (Long Mountain) and mention that Cadwallon spent time in
Ireland before returning to Britain to defeat Edwin.
According to
Geoffrey of Monmouth's
History of the Kings of Britain (which includes a fairly extensive account of Cadwallon's life but is largely legendary—for example, Geoffrey has Cadwallon surviving until after the
Battle of the Winwaed in 654 or 655), Cadwallon went to Ireland and then to the island of
Guernsey. From there, according to Geoffrey, Cadwallon led an army into
Dumnonia, where he encountered and defeated the
Mercians besieging
Exeter, and forced their king,
Penda, into an alliance. Geoffrey also reports that Cadwallon married a half-sister of Penda.
However, his history is, on this as well as all matters, suspect, and it should be treated with caution.
His son was Cadwaladr "Fendigaid" ap Cadwallon.
In any case, Penda and Cadwallon together made war against the Northumbrians. A battle was fought at
Hatfield Chase on October 12, 633
which ended in the defeat and death of Edwin and his son Osfrith.
After this, the Kingdom of Northumbria fell into disarray, divided between its sub-kingdoms of
Deira and
Bernicia,
but the war continued: according to the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, "Cadwallon and Penda went and did for the whole land of Northumbria".
Bede says that Cadwallon was besieged by the new king of Deira,
Osric, "in a strong town"; Cadwallon, however, "sallied out on a sudden with all his forces, by surprise, and destroyed him [Osric] and all his army."
After this, according to Bede, Cadwallon ruled over the "provinces of the Northumbrians" for a year, "not like a victorious king, but like a rapacious and bloody tyrant."
Furthermore, Bede tells us that Cadwallon, "though he bore the name and professed himself a Christian, was so barbarous in his disposition and behaviour, that he neither spared the female sex, nor the innocent age of children, but with savage cruelty put them to tormenting deaths, ravaging all their country for a long time, and resolving to cut off all the race of the English within the borders of Britain."
Bede's extremely negative portrayal of Cadwallon as a genocidal tyrant cannot be taken at face value. Cadwallon's alliance with the Saxon Penda undermines Bede's assertion that Cadwallon had attempted to exterminate the Saxons. Additionally, the fact that
Cædwalla, king of
Wessex a generation after Cadwallon's death, bore a name derived directly from the British Cadwallon suggests that Cadwallon's reputation could not have been so poor among the Saxons of Wessex as it was in Northumbria.
Still it is unlikely that Bede, a careful historian, made up the story entirely. He may have been influenced by Welsh prophetic poetry such as the
Armes Prydain in which the Brytons are predicted to finally succeed in forcing the Saxons from Britain for good.
The new king of Bernicia,
Eanfrith, was also killed by Cadwallon when the former went to him in an attempt to negotiate peace. However, Cadwallon was defeated by an army under Eanfrith's brother,
Oswald, at the
Battle of Heavenfield, "though he had most numerous forces, which he boasted nothing could withstand". Cadwallon was killed at a place called "Denis's-brook".