When the Roman legions attacked Glamorgan from Kent, their main target was the Druids who maintained
cultural traditions and controlled everyday life of the people.
55 BC-410 AD: THE ROMAN CONQUEST:
The first Roman invasion was ordered by Julius Caesar in
55 BC, but the small army patrolled afar and looked around a lot, but made no
attempt to occupy the country.
A hundred years later Emperor Claudius ordered a second invasion. Rome by accounts did not extensively colonize the land,
which begs the question, what did they want? They were here over four hundred
years and what did they get out of that occupation?
From the area of Kent the Romans began systematic attacks against the Celtic
tribes to the west and to the north towards Scotland. They lost and won many battles, but in the end, the organization and
discipline of the Romans won the day.
History suggests it took Rome 30 years to conquer most of the Wales,
then it took two thirds of the Roman army just to keep peace in Wales.
A witness of the day made observations, later written about, of Roman soldiers at work
felling trees, building temporary forts, and building straight rock surfaced
roads.
The unknown author was impressed by
their tight formations and the efficiency of their teamwork.
One curious comment was repeated many times as the author referred to the
Romans as little men. This suggests of course the Welshmen were of larger stature than the Romans.
In 383 to 410 AD Magnus Maximus, commander of the Roman army, took most of
his army back to fight the Goths whom had come down from the Black Sea to
attack and sack Rome. It took 150 years to do it, but over that period in
time Rome nearly exterminated the Goths.
After the Romans left, their mercenaries also went
home and the Brits were left to fend for themselves.
410 - 1066: THE GERMANIC
INVASIONS
Rome employed mercenary soldiers to help keep peace in Britain, among
which were Anglos, Saxons, Jutes and Fresiens. In 440 AD, an unknown writer stated "Britain, abandoned by Rome, passed into the power of the Saxons."
History suggests that the first Saxon invasion was defeated by the Romans. The
second invasion came after the Roman Legions left. Though there
were lots of warriors in Britain, they held different alliances and
different cultures, each led by a chief or petty king. The label "King"
in those days was not a simple matter of heredity. Kings were supposed to fight all
their lives and add as much land to their kingdom as they could. So the king had to be a great
military leader.The "Annales
Cambriae" written around 1100 AD, but based earlier
sources, states that the Battle of Mount Badon took place in
516 and that the Britons were victorious under Arthur, "who bore
the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ on his shoulders for three
days and three nights." The battle may have been the decisive
one that made the existence of Wales possible by halting further
westward expansion by the Saxons.
Romanized Britain quickly
fell under the tide of an ever increasing influx of Germanic tribes.
After 300 years of fighting
ever-increasing numbers of Germanic peoples, Britain sorted out into three distinct areas: the Britonic West, the Teutonic East and the Gaelic North.
600: THE
WELSH LANGUAGE CONTINUES:
According to historian John Davies, around 600 AD the Welsh language
was put into text and the older Brythonic tongue gradually gave way to Welsh.
615: BRYTHONIC KINGDOMS:
Germanic peoples gradually
conquered much of
the south. The defeat of the Welsh at Dyrham in 577 cut them off from their fellow
Welsh in the
Southwest and the Battle of Chester in 615 further severed contact
with the Welsh of the North. The Welsh of the Western
peninsular could then develop as a separate
cultural and linguistic unit from the rest of Britain.
664 AD was marked by the death of
Cadwaladr ended hopes
to unite the country. The people of Wales would have to wait for the Tudors to
re-establish any claim to the throne of Britain. In 720 AD Contact between the Welsh Church and
Brittany was the
last link between the two Celtic countries.
784-1129 AD King Offa of Mercia
built Offa's Dyke as a permanent boundary between the Welsh and the
English people.
844 Rhodri ap Merfyn became king Gwynedd, but by his death in 877, he
had united all of Wales under his rule. In 856,
Rhodri killed the Viking leader the "black
pagan" Horme, thus restricting Danish occupation of
Wales to a few scattered ports and trading posts
at Swansea and small
islands in the Bristol Channel.
960 a collection of documents, pedigrees
and annals dealing with the early history of
the Welsh kingdoms was written.
1039-1066 spanned the rule of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, the only
Welsh ruler to unite the ancient kingdoms of the
whole of Wales under one authority. His alliances with English rulers
finally brought
peace to Wales.
1066-77: THE NORMAN CONQUEST:
In 1066 at Hastings William of Normandy landed with his army and big
war horses and defeated the English King Harold. Then he established Marcher
Lordships on the border with Wales. But at that time he thought there was
more value in developing close
ties with the Welsh rulers to help to secure
their boundaries. The Marcher Lords built many
castles in Wales on land not suitable for farming.
1137-1282 AD spanned the rules of Owain Gwynedd and Madog ap
Maredudd. The two kindoms of
Powys and Gwynedd were gradually
freed from Norman influence and
became
political units under Welsh
rulers, and Welsh law, and
where the Welsh language
flourished.
Owain defeated an
army led by Henry II at
Coleshill in
1157 and inflicting another
humiliating defeat on the English forces at Ceiriog Valley. Now in full
control of Wales, Owain
took the title "Prince of
Wales".
Llywelyn's long reign of 46 years brought an era of relative peace and
economic prosperity to Wales.
After Llywelyn died quarrelling erupted between his
two sons Dafydd and Gruffudd and
undid most of what their father
had accomplished. In 1254, Henry
II of England gave the young
Prince Edward control of all the
Crown lands in Wales.
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd was forced
to give up his lands outside of Gwynedd, west
of the River Conwy. Harsh
measures undertaken against his
people by King Edward, who began
building English castles
garrisoned by English
mercenaries and settlers, led to
a massive revolt led by Llywelyn.
In 1282 he was killed by an English knight.
1294 THE WELSH REBEL UNDER OWAIN GLYNDWR:
After the death of Llywelyn other Welsh
leaders rebelled
against the English. Their leaders were Madog ap Llywelyn, Llywelyn Bren,
and Owain Lawgoch (Owen of the Red Hand from County Tyrone, Ireland).
This
rebellion began
in 1400 and for
first four
years everything
went well.
Even the comet
of 1402 was seen
as a herald of
Welsh successes
against the
English, whom Owain
"almost
destroyed by
magic."
In 1485 The final battle of The Wars of the Roses was fought at Market Bosworth in the English Midlands. Henry Tudor, the only surviving claimant to the English throne, was of Welsh descent. Owain Tudor of Penmynedd in Anglesey, had married Catherine,
relic of Henry V. Of their five children, one was Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond who fathered Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII of England. As a result of the battle at Bosworth, and the defeat of Richard III, Henry Tudor
became the English King.
In 1521 Lawyer and Author William Owen of Pembrokeshire, published his "Bregement de Toutes les Estats", the very first book by a Welshman to be printed in
the Welsh language in England in 1585.
In 1536 Henry VIII started grabbing all of the land in Wales that he
could, so England and Wales had another go around ending with the Act of
Union which gave Welsh citizens the rights to have and enjoy and inherit all
Freedoms, Liberties, Rights, Privileges and Laws . . . as other Kings'
subjects have, enjoy or inherit."
The Preamble to that Act gave notice that the intent of the Act was "to extirpate all and singular the sinister usages and customs differing from the same [the Kings' realm]" and to ensure that" the said country or dominion of Wales shall stand and continue for ever from henceforth incorporated, united and annexed to and with his Realm of England."
In 1547 William Salesbury wrote the first English-Welsh dictionary.
In 1551 Kynniver Llyth translated the English Prayer
Book into the Welsh language.
In 1563 the bible was translated into Welsh.
In 1573 Humphrey Lluyd drew what he claimed to be the first map of
Wales. Apparently he never heard of an old Greek guy named Ptolemy who
mapped Wales a hundred years before the Romans came to Britain.
A copy of his map.
In 1603 an historical event passed with little notice by the Welsh,
British King James I crowned himself as King of England and Scotland. The
gentry of Wales seeing no strong leader in Wales, thronged to London to lend
support and receive royal favors including new titles and additional lands.
From 1645 Wales over time had many disagreements with the Kings
of England, and suffered many small military actions in Wales,
especially Glamorgan of South Wales, where many English Lords and
other Loyalists had property and lived.Oliver Cromwell
came from a lower class family, but through ability and other
connections eventually became a member of Parliament, then leader of
the Parliamentary army, and finally instigated the trial and hanging
of the King, and earned for himself the title of Lord Protector.
Cromwell is noted more for his actions in Scotland and
Ireland, but the second English Civil War in 1648 brought him to
South Wales where his troops put down a revolt by Loyalists in the
Glamorgan area.
When war broke out In 1648, Cromwell marched to crush Colonel
Poyer's Royalist uprising in
South Wales while Fairfax dealt with the Royalists in Kent and
Essex.
© by
Don Kelly 1996
™ DAI
Systems Ltd., Anchorage, Alaska
Stone
age peoples lived in Glamorgan for thousands of years before the
last ice age. Their teeth and
tools 36,000 years old are found in caves.
