Part III – Y Ddraig Goch
As Vortigern, king of the Britons, was sitting upon the bank of the drained pond, the two dragons, one of which was white, the other red, came forth, and approaching one another, began a terrible fight, and cast forth fire with their breath. But the white dragon had the advantage, and made the other fly to the end of the lake. And he, for grief at his flight, renewed the assault upon his pursuer, and forced him to retire.
Historia Regum Britanniae, Geoffrey of Monmouth
There you are, I’ll put the plate here. Ah, I wondered if that would catch your eye. Can you make out the writing on it – “MAREDUDD BRITANNIORUM REX” - and his head, handsome, eh? And on the other side, a dragon. Yes, it's beautiful isn't it? But look, where the silver's rubbed off, that's copper underneath, see? Minted by Maredudd the first, to pay for his wars against the English.
Forty years, they lasted. Too long. Sometimes... when I’m working outside in the morning, if the wind is right, I could swear I can hear the soldiers again, singing as they march up the valley, about how they are going to drive the Saxons back into the sea; or I can smell the smoke of another village burning, or feel the hunger of those winters again. Oh, those were sad days, terrible days. A man doesn’t forget things like that.
And why did we fight, when we had been allies? Look you now, the English hadn’t liked Ieuan’s conquests in Ireland, and they certainly didn’t like the way he took over Dublin, no, not at all. But Ieuan was a man of the world and knew how to rub along with people, and he made sure we stayed mostly friends, you see. Maybe it couldn’t be helped that things would turn bad after he died.
Maredudd I
Here, give me a hand moving the books off this chest, and I’ll show you something that’s worth seeing. There, you take that end, and I’ll unfold it – careful, careful. I found this up in the woods, wrapped around a soldier against the cold. Hadn’t done him a lot of good. I thought I had better keep it here in case it caused more trouble. There, how about that eh? Henry Tudor’s standard, that he raised when he landed at Milford Haven. That's the red dragon of the legions, as flown by Cadwaladr, the last king of old Britannia.
Now the Tudors, they were a marcher family with some Welsh blood in them. Their good fortune had started when Henry’s grandfather Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur ap Goronwy charmed his way into the Queen of England’s bed; and it had ended, everyone thought, when Prince Maredudd completed his father’s work and brought the marches under royal control. He chose his time well; the powerful families were all mixed up in the war in England and had been slowly destroying each other. He carefully forced his remaining enemies into open revolt, then gave some of their land to loyal Welshmen and took the rest for the crown. And he decreed that from then on, one law would govern all Wales.
Now a lot of them just moved to their estates in England, and that did nothing for our good relations with the English. The Tudors, though, had ended up on the losing side in the civil war and they fled to France. But the English royals were killing themselves off left and right you see, and one day Henry Tudor found that his grandfather’s antics had given him a solid claim to the throne. All he needed was an army, to turf out the incumbent, as they say.
His uncle tried to smooth the way for him by commissioning bards to remind people of all the old legends, that a hero would appear to lead Wales back to greatness and take revenge for centuries of English oppression. Perhaps Arthur would return, or Macsen. There was even one story that Owain Glyn Dwr himself was still living in these hills, and would come to his country’s rescue in its hour of greatest need. Hmph. That reminds me though, would you be wanting another cup of tea? Something stronger? No?
Maredudd must have heard some of these stories and wondered whether he was the man for the job. So he wasn’t happy when Henry turned up near the Tudors’ old place in Pembroke with a few mercenaries, raised his standard and claimed he was Cadwaladr’s heir and was going to reconquer England, and would reward whoever helped him with land in England and a place in his court. Maredudd’s reply was that
he was the heir of Cadwaladr, Arthur and Brutus, that as such he would never play second fiddle to an English scoundrel like Henry, and that he would execute any Welshman who took a penny from him.
Well, it was touch and go, but Henry made it out of Wales and soon he was king of England. But he left his banner behind look you, and Maredudd sat and brooded on it, and trained his soldiers, and ordered his scholars to look up the old title of King of the Britons. A few years after that our alliance with England lapsed and before we could arrange another, Henry declared war.
Henry Tudor's standard
Maredudd was in Strathclyde just then and rode out himself, carrying Henry’s own red dragon, to campaign in the north – the English had taken over Scotland by then, see. But the English marched into Wales and slaughtered us here, and soon Maredudd was happy to make peace in exchange for giving them an interest in the west of Ireland. Then he set about finding an ally. He tried the French of course, but they still didn’t trust us, nor us them. Thanks to his father’s diplomacy, though, he had family links with their Catholic Majesties in Spain, so when the truce expired and Henry declared war again we had the comfort of the Spanish on our side.
By now England had recovered from her domestic difficulties, and Henry was able to muster vast armies to send into Wales and Strathclyde. But we beat them off, and chased them back across England. Soon, though, Maredudd bought peace rather than let the harvest rot in the fields.
He was waiting for the right time to attack himself, you see. It came a few years later when Henry got caught up in a long war in defence of England’s trade; there were stories of an army from the Baltic laying waste to Northumberland. Maredudd wanted to regain what he had lost, and may even have had some lunatic dream of reuniting under the red dragon the ancient lands of the Cymry, from the Severn to the Clyde, or of who knows what. For look you now, we had shown that we could defeat the English in a fair fight, and he hoped that we could make hay while they were busy in the Baltic, the Mediterranean, and now, thanks to our alliance, in an expedition to northern Spain.
Now, he made sure that we had enough money to fight, but after a year or two it was clear that we didn’t have enough men. In those days a Welsh soldier could give his English cousin a thrashing and have the energy left over to make free with his women and leave his country in flames. Begging your pardon sir, but there it was. However, after his hundredth Englishman, he grew tired, poor fellow.
So we were forced back step by step, until our armies were driven out of Wales. Then Henry would turn his attention to Strathclyde, and we would retake Wales, and burn a few English towns besides. Then another flood of Englishmen would turn up, and so it would go on. But one day our galleys were going to lose control of the Irish sea, and that would be the end. Eventually Maredudd let them have Munster rather than continue what he knew was hopeless.
He had been badly wounded when he lost both his regiment and his banner chasing a retreating army, three times his size, into Yorkshire. He lay a cripple in his bed in Cardiff, desperately trying to find ways to appease the English. But no, he wasn’t the diplomat his father was. It was all he could do to maintain the alliance with Spain through the twisting and turning of the wars and successions on the continent. So when Henry’s son invaded us everywhere at once, and bottled our fleet up in Dublin, he gave up Leinster as soon as he was asked rather than fight another war. Then he died.
After that the Tudors were finished with us. We had been punished enough for Ieuan’s conquest of Ireland and we were no longer worth a war with Spain. And they were busy again with their own problems, which Maredudd’s successors refused to be drawn into, even when Mary came to power and most of England and Scotland fell to protestant rebels. With both Henry and Maredudd dead there was no reason to continue the feud. Instead we concentrated on rebuilding the country and gave prayers of thanks when the day came that Elizabeth Tudor reluctantly brought England into the Spanish alliance. We had seen the worst, and we were still here.
But oh dear I’ve been rabbiting on haven’t I? Not let you get a word in. You looked like you had some questions a while ago. Wondering what I’m still doing up and about after all these years, I expect. Well go on, ask away, sir. Sir? Ah, resting your eyes is it? You stay there then, I’ll just go and make sure the rain isn’t drowning my seedlings. Maybe think about getting the fire going.
Europe at the death of Maredudd I
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