By the Lord before whom this sanctuary is holy, I will to my Lord be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns, according to the laws of God and the order of the world. Nor will I ever with will or action, through word or deed, do anything which is unpleasing to him, on condition that he will hold to me as I shall deserve it, and that he will perform everything as it was in our agreement when I submitted myself to him and chose his will.
-Saxon Oath of Fealty
Author's Note-This AAR concerns the house of Llywelyn in 867. If you go to that start you won't find this dynasty because it is a custom dynasty i have given Glamorgan at the start. I was deeply inspired by my own welsh lineage so i wanted to do this. This AAR is in a style i loosely call a chronicle. A series of events dealing with the trials and tribulations of this family wherever it takes them. I hope you enjoy
Count Llywelyn of Glamorgan and Dyfed(845-904)
A man of 21 years Llywelyn was granted the county of Glamorgan in the 867th year of our Lord. This county was a gift by King Hywel of Deheubarth in exchange for Llywelyn’s gift of martial arms. While King Hywel drew breath Llywelyn ruled from Glamorgan attending to his people and his king as faithfully as he could. Even leading the armies of Hywel against invading norseman who sought the lands of East Anglia.
Sadly King Hywel was struck down fighting the heathens and never spoke another word in his life; Hywel ruled only in name for close to 10 years. Two years past under the absent king and Llywelyn was wed to a irish princess by the name of Eithne. She was daughter of Áed, the King of Tara and the greatest Lord in Ireland. A happy union was to be theirs and after 5 years of marriage they were blessed with a daughter, Sioned.
In the year 875 Hywel drew his final breath leaving his son and regent Arthfael as King. While he had ruled his father’s kingdom for nearly a decade Arthfael was less than a desirable monarch, neither a great warrior or steward. The king preferred his books and his wine always dreaming of far off things.
Four days after the death of good king Hywel the levies of Glamorgan were raised to march against Lord Rhodri of Dyfed. Llywelyn held little love for Rhodri whom he always viewed as unfaithful to Hywel but Llywelyn would never have broken the peace of his king while he still lived. However Arthfael would have no such loyalty. Two battles raged in Dyfed, the first seeing Llywelyn flee back to Glamorgan, his host of 500 routed to an army half its size. The second battle of Dyfed would prove more agreeable to the Lord of Glamorgan. An exchange of coined ensured every mercenary in Wales knew seeing the end of Rhodri would be to their benefit. Before winter in 875 Arthfael grudgingly accepted the vassalship of Llywelyn, Lord of Glamorgan and Dyfed.
Arthfael the second of his name would die 14 days shy of a full year into his reign on the 14 January, 876. As a man he was poorly regarded and as king, loathed, leading to no shortage of potential suspects in his unfortunate death. Arthfael left a single son, Hywel on the throne. Hywel the second was merely a minor at his ascension, a boy of 3 years. In his name Owain ap Hywel the heir of Deheubarth, ruled as Regent. Owain was a man whom Llywelyn loathed, the hatred was mutual. Disagreements over who should lead the armies of Deheubarth led to a bitter and ongoing feud.
In 877 the Queen Mother Caitlin, fearful for her young son asked Llywelyn to serve as an advisor to the King in all matters of intrigue and deceit. She feared Owain who may well see Deheubarth as his own and a simple thrust of a knife would see that done. Llywelyn loved and served one Hywel, he leapt at the opportunity to do so again.
In August of 877 norse raiders landed in Gwent, and only the timely arrival of the forces of Llywelyn drove off the invaders. Though no battle commenced the fear of battle was enough to drive the invaders back into the sea. Raiders in March of the following year landed in Glamorgan meeting only death.
The 14th of May, 880 proved to be a fortunate day. Lord Llywelyn made a case before the court of King Hywel II, and the lords of the realm agreed that Owain had handled the realm poorly and had too much vested influence in the realm as it was. Llewelyn was now the regent for the boy king. And with that Hywel was also entrusted into the care of Llywelyn who wished to ensure Hywel became every ounce the man that his grandfather was and who is father was not.
Owain who for years had been a bane to both the realm and Llywelyn perished in May of 883. His own dear wife Princess Leodegunda of Asturias herself secured the man who loosened the balcony railing off of their bedroom. On one of the many nights Owain stood on the balcony looking out over Gwent and most likely thinking of the crown he fell to his death. Owain is survived by a brother and two children, all of whom were less than understanding than Hywel as to why his Uncle has to die. Some even whispered the regent had acted to silence the greatest voice of opposition in the kingdom to Llywelyn’s de facto reign.
The summer of 883 despite the triumph in the spring of Owain’s death would prove troublesome. Arthfael, brother of King Hywel I rose up in rebellion calling himself Arthfael III. Llewelyn called forth his banners and rushed his men to the capital to stage a last minute defense of his king. The grief Llewelyn felt when the armies of this pretender descended upon Glamorgan which was now was nearly defenseless must have been great. Though as the siege dragged on the bannerman of this pretender dwindled. April of 884 proved to be a month of mixed blessings as the walls of Cardiff Llywelyn’s home fell to the pretender. Though to Llywelyn and his wife was born their second child, a son who was named Hywel for the King Llywelyn loved and the king he now defended. Finally in October of 884, with the host of the pretender weakened and Glamorgan burning Llywelyn at the head of an army set out to retake his home. Entrusted with the King’s forces the two armies finally clashed in Dinefwr in Dyfed. Llewelyn led the royal forces himself and held off a near encirclement by the pretender’s right flank. When all hope was lost and the right flank of the royalist forces had collapsed the enemy center gave way and King Hywel saw victory. A second Battle at Swansea later that month saw the rest of the pretender’s host give way and reduced to nothing more than bandits. Arthfael was captured by Llewelyn at this battle but even with the pretender in chains the war was not over; Glamorgan was still held by enemies of the crown. The siege of Glamorgan lasted until the following May, the defenders succumb to starvation and surrendered themselves to the king’s justice. For Llewelyn the life that had been built in Cardiff for nearly 19 years had been shattered and now rebuilding, not war took precedence. In July of 886 three years after the realm was set ablaze Hywel and Llewelyn proclaimed the war to have officially concluded. Llewelyn celebrated the occasion by retiring to Cardiff for awhile before his duties in Gwent would cause him to leave home again. There he stared at the pretender which had rotted in the dungeons of Cardiff since the castle was retaken, and that very night his head decorated the now rebuilt bastions of Cardiff Castle.
The year 888 saw the long regency of Hywel II at an end and Lelwelyn was proud to see the boy he had protected and raised formally coronated as the one true King. Though the boy was now a man he had much to learn about ruling. Fond of military matters and reasonable in all his actions he seemed a good fit to rule. Though Hywel the II had a strong sense of personal justice that some might call arbitrary. Hywel II in the 890th year of our lord celebrated marriage to a german noble Gunhilda. A woman whose mastery of intricacies left even Llewelyn with his years of experience astounded. While a foreigner the woman counts a german countess as her sister, whose marriage to the King of Cornwall may yet prove opportune.
For Llywelyn that same year would see his family expand once more with the birth of his third child, Mabyn.
Sioned a woman grown in 893 would finally be wed to the neighboring King, Folki. As lord of much of central Albion and faraway Denmark he was an ideal match for Llywelyn's daughter. Just a generation past Folki’s father had been a heathen barbarian which had laid waster to much of Albion. As a christian though any taint of the father is forgotten.
As Lelwelyn entered his 50th year of life the realm was at peace. Though it was clear in no way due to King Hywel II whom the the peasant’s had come to call the Ill-Ruler. Any misgiving’s Lelwelyn had about his protege he kept to himself thankful at least that the king’s German wife had given the king two strong sons. A daughter or worse, no child, would have allowed Pedr ap Owain too close to the throne he clearly desired.
In the spring of 898 Lelwelyn returned home to his family finally relieved of his duties to the realm. Gunhilda the king’s wife resumed the good lord’s duties. While the appointment was sudden, Llywelyn feeling his age wanted nothing more than to see his son and youngest daughter grow to adulthood. Though just as Llywelyn had grown content to live out his days in Cardiff a missive from the king asked him to return to Gwent once more. This time as head of the King’s armies. Pedr it would seem had irked the king for the last time. With only a simple look of regret Llywelyn bid his family farewell.
On the eve of the 10th century the Danish King Sigurd Snake in the Eye invaded England attacking king Folki, Llywelyn’s son in law. All good catholics answered his call to arms including Llywelyn and King Hywel II. While Llywelyn was off to war tragedy struck at home. Eithne passed into the arms of the Lord. While the war raged Llywelyn was inconsolable. When the war ended Llywelyn spent a solitary night in cardiff at her grave before returning to Gwent and the duties that awaited him. Back at the capital Llywelyn found it curious that Pedr was absent and even more curious when he learned the man died unexpectedly. Llywelyn could at least rest knowing that the crown was safe from another would be pretender.
A wedding brought Lelwelyn back to Cardiff for the last time. Hywel, Llywelyn’s son and heir was a man grown. Influenced by his father’s long role as the King’s spymaster he too was quite capable at plotting. As a Christian Hywel was upstanding, as a man agreeable, but as a lord Llywelyn had his reservations about his ability to rule. It seems that neither of the men he groomed are fit for the task. Llywelyn only hoped his wife Ffion, daughter of the King of Strathclyde would help his son when the time came. Even as a child Ffion has shown more diplomatic sense than even the most seasoned of sycophants.
Beginning in december of 903 Hywel noticed his father on his visits was more and more haggard. This combined with a fever that turned out to be pneumonia claimed Lelwelyn’s life on May 13, 904; he was 59 years old. When Hywel had learned of his death it caught him by surprise, Llywelyn had ordered that no one tell his children lest they come and worry themselves over him. Hywel called for his sister and his nephews to come to Cardiff for the funeral. They buried him next to Eithne though Hywel had joked to his wife, ‘I didn't know which of his two loves to bury him next to.’
‘Two loves?’
‘Eithne the woman he loved, or Gwent the work he loved.’
‘Oh, how did you choose?’
‘I did what mother would have wanted.’
The realm Llywelyn had saw too all his life prospered. His family grew and he was survived by Sioned, Hywel, Mabyl and his grandchildren Haraldr, Frirek and Totil. Glamorgan and Dyfed saw their towns expand as well as their militias. Llywelyn never forgot when Cardiff was sacked. Draped on his funeral stone the crest of the House of Lelwelyn appeared for the first time in public, a golden lion set against a field of black and white. Though given the right to a crest when he first began his reign Llywelyn never used that right until after Hywel I’s death. The lion comes from the shield of Deheubarth itself for he always saw himself as its defender. As for the field of black and white, as Llwelyn says it, he got it from a conversation with Hywel himself saying that Llywelyn no matter the situation, good or bad, he was always the same.
-Saxon Oath of Fealty
Author's Note-This AAR concerns the house of Llywelyn in 867. If you go to that start you won't find this dynasty because it is a custom dynasty i have given Glamorgan at the start. I was deeply inspired by my own welsh lineage so i wanted to do this. This AAR is in a style i loosely call a chronicle. A series of events dealing with the trials and tribulations of this family wherever it takes them. I hope you enjoy
Count Llywelyn of Glamorgan and Dyfed(845-904)
A man of 21 years Llywelyn was granted the county of Glamorgan in the 867th year of our Lord. This county was a gift by King Hywel of Deheubarth in exchange for Llywelyn’s gift of martial arms. While King Hywel drew breath Llywelyn ruled from Glamorgan attending to his people and his king as faithfully as he could. Even leading the armies of Hywel against invading norseman who sought the lands of East Anglia.
Sadly King Hywel was struck down fighting the heathens and never spoke another word in his life; Hywel ruled only in name for close to 10 years. Two years past under the absent king and Llywelyn was wed to a irish princess by the name of Eithne. She was daughter of Áed, the King of Tara and the greatest Lord in Ireland. A happy union was to be theirs and after 5 years of marriage they were blessed with a daughter, Sioned.
In the year 875 Hywel drew his final breath leaving his son and regent Arthfael as King. While he had ruled his father’s kingdom for nearly a decade Arthfael was less than a desirable monarch, neither a great warrior or steward. The king preferred his books and his wine always dreaming of far off things.
Four days after the death of good king Hywel the levies of Glamorgan were raised to march against Lord Rhodri of Dyfed. Llywelyn held little love for Rhodri whom he always viewed as unfaithful to Hywel but Llywelyn would never have broken the peace of his king while he still lived. However Arthfael would have no such loyalty. Two battles raged in Dyfed, the first seeing Llywelyn flee back to Glamorgan, his host of 500 routed to an army half its size. The second battle of Dyfed would prove more agreeable to the Lord of Glamorgan. An exchange of coined ensured every mercenary in Wales knew seeing the end of Rhodri would be to their benefit. Before winter in 875 Arthfael grudgingly accepted the vassalship of Llywelyn, Lord of Glamorgan and Dyfed.
Arthfael the second of his name would die 14 days shy of a full year into his reign on the 14 January, 876. As a man he was poorly regarded and as king, loathed, leading to no shortage of potential suspects in his unfortunate death. Arthfael left a single son, Hywel on the throne. Hywel the second was merely a minor at his ascension, a boy of 3 years. In his name Owain ap Hywel the heir of Deheubarth, ruled as Regent. Owain was a man whom Llywelyn loathed, the hatred was mutual. Disagreements over who should lead the armies of Deheubarth led to a bitter and ongoing feud.
In 877 the Queen Mother Caitlin, fearful for her young son asked Llywelyn to serve as an advisor to the King in all matters of intrigue and deceit. She feared Owain who may well see Deheubarth as his own and a simple thrust of a knife would see that done. Llywelyn loved and served one Hywel, he leapt at the opportunity to do so again.
In August of 877 norse raiders landed in Gwent, and only the timely arrival of the forces of Llywelyn drove off the invaders. Though no battle commenced the fear of battle was enough to drive the invaders back into the sea. Raiders in March of the following year landed in Glamorgan meeting only death.
The 14th of May, 880 proved to be a fortunate day. Lord Llywelyn made a case before the court of King Hywel II, and the lords of the realm agreed that Owain had handled the realm poorly and had too much vested influence in the realm as it was. Llewelyn was now the regent for the boy king. And with that Hywel was also entrusted into the care of Llywelyn who wished to ensure Hywel became every ounce the man that his grandfather was and who is father was not.
Owain who for years had been a bane to both the realm and Llywelyn perished in May of 883. His own dear wife Princess Leodegunda of Asturias herself secured the man who loosened the balcony railing off of their bedroom. On one of the many nights Owain stood on the balcony looking out over Gwent and most likely thinking of the crown he fell to his death. Owain is survived by a brother and two children, all of whom were less than understanding than Hywel as to why his Uncle has to die. Some even whispered the regent had acted to silence the greatest voice of opposition in the kingdom to Llywelyn’s de facto reign.
The summer of 883 despite the triumph in the spring of Owain’s death would prove troublesome. Arthfael, brother of King Hywel I rose up in rebellion calling himself Arthfael III. Llewelyn called forth his banners and rushed his men to the capital to stage a last minute defense of his king. The grief Llewelyn felt when the armies of this pretender descended upon Glamorgan which was now was nearly defenseless must have been great. Though as the siege dragged on the bannerman of this pretender dwindled. April of 884 proved to be a month of mixed blessings as the walls of Cardiff Llywelyn’s home fell to the pretender. Though to Llywelyn and his wife was born their second child, a son who was named Hywel for the King Llywelyn loved and the king he now defended. Finally in October of 884, with the host of the pretender weakened and Glamorgan burning Llywelyn at the head of an army set out to retake his home. Entrusted with the King’s forces the two armies finally clashed in Dinefwr in Dyfed. Llewelyn led the royal forces himself and held off a near encirclement by the pretender’s right flank. When all hope was lost and the right flank of the royalist forces had collapsed the enemy center gave way and King Hywel saw victory. A second Battle at Swansea later that month saw the rest of the pretender’s host give way and reduced to nothing more than bandits. Arthfael was captured by Llewelyn at this battle but even with the pretender in chains the war was not over; Glamorgan was still held by enemies of the crown. The siege of Glamorgan lasted until the following May, the defenders succumb to starvation and surrendered themselves to the king’s justice. For Llewelyn the life that had been built in Cardiff for nearly 19 years had been shattered and now rebuilding, not war took precedence. In July of 886 three years after the realm was set ablaze Hywel and Llewelyn proclaimed the war to have officially concluded. Llewelyn celebrated the occasion by retiring to Cardiff for awhile before his duties in Gwent would cause him to leave home again. There he stared at the pretender which had rotted in the dungeons of Cardiff since the castle was retaken, and that very night his head decorated the now rebuilt bastions of Cardiff Castle.
The year 888 saw the long regency of Hywel II at an end and Lelwelyn was proud to see the boy he had protected and raised formally coronated as the one true King. Though the boy was now a man he had much to learn about ruling. Fond of military matters and reasonable in all his actions he seemed a good fit to rule. Though Hywel the II had a strong sense of personal justice that some might call arbitrary. Hywel II in the 890th year of our lord celebrated marriage to a german noble Gunhilda. A woman whose mastery of intricacies left even Llewelyn with his years of experience astounded. While a foreigner the woman counts a german countess as her sister, whose marriage to the King of Cornwall may yet prove opportune.
For Llywelyn that same year would see his family expand once more with the birth of his third child, Mabyn.
Sioned a woman grown in 893 would finally be wed to the neighboring King, Folki. As lord of much of central Albion and faraway Denmark he was an ideal match for Llywelyn's daughter. Just a generation past Folki’s father had been a heathen barbarian which had laid waster to much of Albion. As a christian though any taint of the father is forgotten.
As Lelwelyn entered his 50th year of life the realm was at peace. Though it was clear in no way due to King Hywel II whom the the peasant’s had come to call the Ill-Ruler. Any misgiving’s Lelwelyn had about his protege he kept to himself thankful at least that the king’s German wife had given the king two strong sons. A daughter or worse, no child, would have allowed Pedr ap Owain too close to the throne he clearly desired.
In the spring of 898 Lelwelyn returned home to his family finally relieved of his duties to the realm. Gunhilda the king’s wife resumed the good lord’s duties. While the appointment was sudden, Llywelyn feeling his age wanted nothing more than to see his son and youngest daughter grow to adulthood. Though just as Llywelyn had grown content to live out his days in Cardiff a missive from the king asked him to return to Gwent once more. This time as head of the King’s armies. Pedr it would seem had irked the king for the last time. With only a simple look of regret Llywelyn bid his family farewell.
On the eve of the 10th century the Danish King Sigurd Snake in the Eye invaded England attacking king Folki, Llywelyn’s son in law. All good catholics answered his call to arms including Llywelyn and King Hywel II. While Llywelyn was off to war tragedy struck at home. Eithne passed into the arms of the Lord. While the war raged Llywelyn was inconsolable. When the war ended Llywelyn spent a solitary night in cardiff at her grave before returning to Gwent and the duties that awaited him. Back at the capital Llywelyn found it curious that Pedr was absent and even more curious when he learned the man died unexpectedly. Llywelyn could at least rest knowing that the crown was safe from another would be pretender.
A wedding brought Lelwelyn back to Cardiff for the last time. Hywel, Llywelyn’s son and heir was a man grown. Influenced by his father’s long role as the King’s spymaster he too was quite capable at plotting. As a Christian Hywel was upstanding, as a man agreeable, but as a lord Llywelyn had his reservations about his ability to rule. It seems that neither of the men he groomed are fit for the task. Llywelyn only hoped his wife Ffion, daughter of the King of Strathclyde would help his son when the time came. Even as a child Ffion has shown more diplomatic sense than even the most seasoned of sycophants.
Beginning in december of 903 Hywel noticed his father on his visits was more and more haggard. This combined with a fever that turned out to be pneumonia claimed Lelwelyn’s life on May 13, 904; he was 59 years old. When Hywel had learned of his death it caught him by surprise, Llywelyn had ordered that no one tell his children lest they come and worry themselves over him. Hywel called for his sister and his nephews to come to Cardiff for the funeral. They buried him next to Eithne though Hywel had joked to his wife, ‘I didn't know which of his two loves to bury him next to.’
‘Two loves?’
‘Eithne the woman he loved, or Gwent the work he loved.’
‘Oh, how did you choose?’
‘I did what mother would have wanted.’
The realm Llywelyn had saw too all his life prospered. His family grew and he was survived by Sioned, Hywel, Mabyl and his grandchildren Haraldr, Frirek and Totil. Glamorgan and Dyfed saw their towns expand as well as their militias. Llywelyn never forgot when Cardiff was sacked. Draped on his funeral stone the crest of the House of Lelwelyn appeared for the first time in public, a golden lion set against a field of black and white. Though given the right to a crest when he first began his reign Llywelyn never used that right until after Hywel I’s death. The lion comes from the shield of Deheubarth itself for he always saw himself as its defender. As for the field of black and white, as Llwelyn says it, he got it from a conversation with Hywel himself saying that Llywelyn no matter the situation, good or bad, he was always the same.
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