Welsh kings at the English court, 928-956

WELSH KINGS AT THE ENGLISH COURT, 928–956 The appearance of various Welsh kings at the English court on a number of occasions during the second quarter of the tenth century has been well known since John Edward Lloyd provided a list of the different meetings in 1911.1 In 1981, H. R. Loyn produced a more detailed schedule and also suggested the meetings were representative of a wider context for Anglo-Welsh relations in the period, namely that they were in large part a mutual response to the Viking threat.2 In this respect he echoed D. P. Kirby’s earlier proposition that ‘the rulers of Wales in the tenth century had two diplomatic and military alternatives. They could ally either with the West Saxons (and west Mercians) against the Scandinavians (both Danes and Norse), or with the Scandinavians against the Saxons.’3 These attempts at setting the meetings in a political and diplomatic context notwithstanding, little consideration has been given to the purpose behind them beyond a general assumption that they represented an acknowledgement of Welsh subordination to the West Saxon kings following their submission to Athelstan at Hereford in 927. It is true that from around 928 Athelstan’s styling in charters changed from the Angulsaxonum rex, ‘king of the Anglo-Saxons’, adopted by his father and grandfather to rex Anglorum, ‘king of the English’,4 and developed 1 John Edward Lloyd, A History of Wales From the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest, I (London, 1911), p. 353. Lloyd’s schedule omitted two charters, S 418a and S 552a, which were only discovered in the 1960s: David E. Thornton, ‘The death of Hywel Dda’, ante, 20 (2000–1), 743–9, at 748 and n. 23. All references to charters in this article are to those in Sean Miller (ed.), Regesta Regum Anglorum: A searchable edition of the corpus of Anglo-Saxon diplomas 670–1066, http://www.anglosaxons.net/hwaet/?do=show&page=Charters, consulted 3–5 September 2010. 2 H. R. Loyn, ‘Wales and England in the tenth century: the context of the Athelstan charters’, ante, 10 (1980–1), 283–301, at 283 and 292–300. 3 D. P. Kirby, ‘Hywel Dda: Anglophil?’, ante, 8 (1976–7), 1–9, at 2. 4 Alex Woolf, From Pictland to Alba 789–1070 (Edinburgh, 2007), p. 158. It is not possible to be more precise as to the date of the change due to the paucity of 298 WELSH KINGS thereafter into ‘some distinctly grandiose, quasi-imperial language adopted to better reflect the nature of (his) new realm’.5 Rex totius Brittaniae appeared from around 933 and was used interchangeably or in conjunction with basileos Anglorum until the end of the reign and Sarah Foot argued persuasively that this was evidence of ‘an ideology about Britain and rulership over the whole island of Britain current at the court of Athelstan’.6 This is the context in which the attendance of the Welsh is usually considered. Alex Woolf suggested that their presence may have been linked to Athelstan’s claims to kingship over all Britain and noted that their appearance only in that king’s charters and a handful from the late 940s and 950s had ‘caused much debate about whether the Welsh were only securely under English domination in these periods’.7 J. R. Davies made the observation that ‘From the year after the meeting at Eamont Bridge, down to 956, West Saxon royal charters were regularly witnessed by Welsh rulers styled as subreguli, “little under-kings”’,8 and Wendy Davies likewise suggested that ‘Between 928 and 956 . . . Hywel of Dyfed, Idwal and Iago of Gwynedd, Tewdwr of Brycheiniog, and Morgan, Owain and Cadwgan of Gwent/Glywysing all witnessed English charters, where they are described as subreguli, “sub-kings”: the implication is one of dependence.’9 This analysis oversimplifies the situation during Athelstan’s reign and is completely inappropriate for the period 939 to 956 when, as will be argued below, the subreguli system was abandoned altogether. In reality the relationship was more complex and dynamic, reflecting both changes in wider political circumstances and in the political and military fortunes of the various kingdoms. Different Welsh kings attended at different times for different reasons and their attendance was neither random nor authentic charters for 927. The old form was certainly in use up to 926 (see charters S 396 and S 397) and had been superseded by Easter 928 (see charters S 399 and S 403). 5 Sarah Foot, ‘When English becomes British: rethinking contexts for Brunanburh’, in Julia Barrow and Andrew Wareham (eds), Myth, Rulership, Church and Charters: Essays in Honour of Nicholas Brooks (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 127–44, at p. 140. 6 Ibid., p. 141. 7 Woolf, From Pictland, p. 158. 8 J. R. Davies, ‘Wales and west Britain’, in Pauline Stafford (ed.), A Companion to the Early Middle Ages: Britain and Ireland c.500–1100 (Oxford, 2009), p. 343. 9 Wendy Davies, Wales in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester, 1982), p. 114. AT THE ENGLISH COURT, 928–956 299 merely symbolic. Before examining some of these meetings in detail there are two general points to consider. The first is the question of who instigated them. It is only an assumption that in each case a meeting was held at the behest of the West Saxon king. There are occasions when the matter at issue appears to be primarily of Welsh concern and where the outcome of the meeting seems to have served the interests of one or more Welsh kings. Secondly there is the question of styling: during Athelstan’s reign Welsh kings were styled using the title subregulus and this has been variously translated as ‘sub-king’, ‘under-king’ or the rather more demeaning ‘little under-king’. Certainly, as both Foot and Woolf argued, the period saw a developing idea of kingship at the English court that promoted Athelstan as the divinely appointed ‘king of all Britain’. Such an ideology was incompatible with a recognition of any other ruler in Britain as rex and we would not expect the West Saxon scribes to adopt such a styling for the Welsh rulers. But why not regulus: surely the use of the sub prefix was intentionally demeaning? Yet such an interpretation is at odds with other aspects of the treatment of the Welsh at the English court, most obviously the ranking accorded to them in witness lists where they were sometimes listed immediately after the king and before the archbishops or, more usually, after the archbishops but ahead of all the other clerical and secular nobility and king’s thegns – a ranking which was otherwise accorded only to members of the king’s immediate family. We have to be careful about making assumptions as to motive here because we are not familiar with West Saxon conventions in respect of styling in the period. As will be seen, on occasion Welsh kings were in fact styled regulus but only ever a single king at any one time. Moreover, when regulus was adopted in respect of a Welsh king it was never used in conjunction with subregulus for others who instead were left untitled. It may be that the West Saxon use of subregulus in this period was at least in part a reflection of the fragmented nature of power in Wales and when that reality changed the styling was also changed. At Exeter, on Easter Day, 16 April 928, three Welsh kings appear as witnesses to a royal charter. They are, in order of rank, Howel (Hywel Dda, king of Dyfed), Juthwal (Idwal Foel, king of Gwynedd) and Wurgeat.10 The charter is considered authentic and the witness list is comprehensive: the Welsh kings are placed immediately after Athelstan and ahead of two archbishops, twelve bishops, three individuals bearing 10 Charter S 400. 300 WELSH KINGS the title dux (meaning ealdorman) and seventeen bearing the title minister (meaning thegn). As a preliminary to considering the reason for the presence of the Welsh kings it is clearly important to attempt to identify the third, Wurgeat. David Thornton identified ‘Wurgeat’ as ‘a Gwriad whose genealogical affiliations are unknown’ but considered he may have been a rival to Hywel Dda in south Wales.11 Loyn suggested Guriat and in a note expanded this to ‘Guriat, son of Rhodri’ but gave no explanation for this association.12 Both Wendy Davies and the Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE) identified Wurgeat as Gwriad and also made a tentative association with Gwent: ‘presumably “Gwriad”; this might possibly refer to the Gwriad who was the father of Nowy, active in Gwent c.950’;13 ‘perhaps Gwriad of Gwent’.14 Gwriad may indeed have been Nowy’s father but it is most unlikely that he had any connection to Gwent: the known kings of Glywysing, Gwent and Brycheiniog are missing from the meeting and it seems highly improbable that Athelstan would have an obscure sub-king as the sole representative of south-east Wales along with Hywel and Idwal.15 It is much more likely that there was some issue that affected these three kings but not the kings of the south-east, and it seems reasonable to suppose that the three kingdoms would have been in some geographical proximity. One such issue is likely to have been Hywel’s imminent departure on pilgrimage to Rome and this may suggest that the king of Dyfed was seeking assurances from Athelstan and the rulers of two neighbouring kingdoms.16 11 David E. Thornton, ‘Hywel Dda’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, XXIX (Oxford, 2004), p. 175. 12 Loyn, ‘Wales and England’, 292 and n. 20. 13 Wendy Davies, Wales in the Early Middle Ages, p. 234, n. 110. At p. 103 Davies noted: ‘Round about 950 one Nowy ap Gwriad, of unknown origin appeared in Gwent calling himself king, and he was followed in kingship by his son Arthfael and grandsons Rhodri and Gruffud ab Elisedd.’ 14 The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE), King’s College, London and the University of Cambridge: http://www.pase.ac.uk/pase/apps/persons/ index.html, consulted on 4 September 2010. 15 Morgan ab Owain of Glywysing and his father, Owain of Gwent, both appear as witnesses at Worthy, 21 June 931 (Charter S 413), the last recorded appearance of the latter. Tewdwr of Brycheiniog appears with Hywel, Idwal and Morgan at Winchester, 28 May 934 (Charter S 425). 16 David N. Dumville (ed. and trans.), A[nnales] C[ambriae], AD. 682–954: Texts A–C in Parallel (Cambridge, 2002), text A, p. 16: ‘Higuel rex perrexit ad Romam’; AT THE ENGLISH COURT, 928–956 301 My own view, though the evidence is far from conclusive, is that Gwriad was king of Ceredigion and probably also a member of the Venedotian dynasty of Rhodri Mawr. Nora Chadwick suggested that the name Gwriad was prominent in the pedigree of Merfyn Frych ap Gwriad, Rhodri’s father, but uncommon elsewhere in Wales17 and the Annales Cambriae record that Rhodri was killed in 878 together with a son or brother of that name.18 The last extant record of Wurgeat/Gwriad alive is his appearance at Athelstan’s court at Milton, Kent, on 30 August 932.19 However, there are subsequent posthumous references to a Gwriad in Welsh sources that are consistent with his identification as the Wurgeat of the English charters and which suggest he must have been a figure of some prominence and more likely associated with west Wales than the south-east. They also provide the names of three sons and two of the names may suggest a link to the Venedotian dynasty and to Ceredigion. Under the year 955 the Annales Cambriae, texts B and C, record that ‘Anarawd ap Gwriad was killed’.20 For the year 952=4 the Peniarth MS 20 version of Brut y Tywysogyon and Brenhinedd y Saeson read: ‘And Anarawd ap Gwri was killed.’ The annal in the Red Book of Hergest version of Brut y Tywysogyon is longer: ‘And Hirfawr and Anarawd were killed by Heathens: those were sons of Gwriad.’ The next entry under that year is almost identical in all three chronicles: ‘And after that Ceredigion was ravaged by the sons of Idwal.’ (Brenhinedd y Saeson omits ‘after that’.) For 955=7 all three chronicles make reference to a Gwgon ap Gwriad, the Peniarth MS 20 and Brenhinedd y Saeson noting that he was killed.21 Anarawd was the name of the son of Rhodri who in 895 text B, p. 17: ‘Hoelus Da filius Catel Romam iuit’; text C, p. 17: ‘Howel rex, filius Cadell, Romam perrexit’. 17 Nora K. Chadwick, Celtic Britain (New York, 1963), p. 72. 18 AC, AD. 682–954, text A, p. 12: ‘Rotri – et filius eius Guriat – a Saxonibus iugulatur’; text B, p. 13: ‘Rodri et Guiriat frater eius a Saxonibus iugulantur’. 19 Charter S 417. 20 David N. Dumville (ed. and trans.), A[nnales] C[ambriae], AD. 955–1097: Texts B and C in Parallel (Cambridge, 2004); text B, p. 3: ‘Anaurat filius Guiriat occisus est’; text C, p. 3: ‘Anaraud filius Guriat occiditur’. 21 David N. Dumville (ed. and trans.), Brenhinoedd y Saeson, ‘The Kings of the English’, AD. 955–1097: Texts P, R, S in Parallel (Aberdeen, 2005). The title is applied by Dumville to all three chronicles with the three recensions indicated by the sigla P, R and S. P and R are more commonly known as the Peniarth MS 20 and Red Book of Hergest versions of Brut y Tywysogyon. Text P, p. 1, 952 (2): ‘Ac y Ilas Anarawd 302 WELSH KINGS attacked Ceredigion and Ystrad Tywi with English help22 and Gwgon was the last known king of the pre-Venedotian dynasty in Ceredigion, drowned in 872, and this naming might imply that Gwriad had married into the old royal family.23 It will be noted that this meeting was held at Exeter and it may be indicative of Athelstan’s conciliatory attitude towards the Welsh kings that of the five early period (928–32) meetings involving the Welsh for which we have authentic charters and comprehensive witness lists another was held at Exeter – on 9 November 932, where Athelstan met with Hywel, Idwal and Morgan – and a third at Lifton, Devon, close to the Cornish border on the road between Exeter and Launceston, where uab Gwry’; 955 (1): ‘Blwydyn wedy hynny y llas Gwgawn uab Gwryad’; text R, p. 2, 952 (2): ‘Ac y llas Hir Mawr ac Anarawt y gan y Pobloed: meibon oed y rei hyny i Wryat. A gwedy hyny y diffeithwyt Keredigyawn y gan ueibon Idwal’; 955 (1): ‘A Gwgawn uab Gwryat’; text S, p. 2, 952 (2): ‘Ac y llas uab Gwry’; 952 (3): ‘Ac y diffeithwyt Keredigiaun y gan ueibion Idwal’; 955 (3): ‘Ac y llas Gugaun uab Guryat’. See also Thomas Jones (trans.), Brut y Tywysogyon, or, The Chronicle of the Princes, Peniarth MS. 20 Version (Cardiff, 1952), p. 7, and Thomas Jones (ed.), Brut y Tywysogyon, Peniarth MS. 20 (Cardiff, 1941), p. 9, col. 1. Jones additionally provides text and translations for three later manuscript copies of the Peniarth MS 20 version that in respect of the death of Anarawd state he was the son of ‘gwiriad ap Rodri’ and of Gwgon that he was the son of ‘gwryad ap Rodri’. Text B = NLW, Mostyn MS 143, text C = NLW, Mostyn MS 159 and text D = NLW, Peniarth MS 213, all three dating from the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. The statements that Gwriad was Rhodri Mawr’s son appear unique to these versions of Brut y Tywysogyon and on the face of it conflict with the evidence of other sources, notably the AC, 682–954, texts A and C (though not B) for 878, pp. 12–13, and the pedigree-text Achau Brenhinoedd a Thywysogion Cymru. David Dumville, ‘The “six” sons of Rhodri Mawr: a problem in Asser’s Life of King Alfred’, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, 4 (1982), 5–18, at 8, considered the authority of the various texts on this question. Wurgeat/Gwriad was alive in the early 930s and his sons were active in the 950s and therefore if he was a son of Rhodri he must have been born late and have been much younger than his more illustrious brothers. Is it possible that he was in fact born after Rhodri’s death and the confusion in the sources arose because the family named him for his recently deceased brother, killed with his father in 878? He would then have been perhaps seventeen at the time of Anarawd’s attack on Ceredigion and Ystrad Tywi in 895. 22 AC, 682–954; text A, p. 14: ‘Anaraut cum Anglis uenit uastare Cereticiaun et Strat T<i>ui’; text B, p. 15: ‘Anaraut cum Anglis uenit uastare Ceredig’ et Stratewy’; text C, p. 15: ‘Anaraud cum Saxonibus uastauit Keredigaun’. Dumville, ‘The “six” sons’, 15–17, considered this event in detail. 23 AC, 682–954; text A, p. 12: ‘Guoccaun mersus est, rex Ce<r>e<t>iciaun’; text B, p. 13: ‘Gugan, rex Ceredigean, mersus est’; text C, p. 13: ‘Gogaun, rex Keredigaun, mergitur’. AT THE ENGLISH COURT, 928–956 303 only Hywel and Idwal attended on 12 November 931.24 The other two meetings, to which reference has previously been made, were at Worthy, Hampshire, on 20 June 931 and Milton, Kent, on 30 August 932. In both cases there is some indication to suggest that the meetings were perhaps of some urgency and may have been held at the request of the Welsh in order to resolve questions of royal succession. At both meetings the three leading Welsh kings, Hywel, Idwal and Morgan, were present and in each case another Welsh king made his final appearance before vanishing from the historical record. At Worthy it was Owain of Gwent and at Milton it was Gwriad of (it is argued here) Ceredigion. The outcome of these presumed discussions appears to have been that Morgan united Gwent and Glywysing under his own rule and that the sons of Gwriad continued to rule in some capacity in Ceredigion but under the authority of Hywel Dda. These dispositions are naturally speculative but some support is offered by later events and by the nonappearance of any successors to Owain and Gwriad in the witness lists of later charters from Athelstan’s reign. Welsh kings attended the English court on several occasions in 934 and 935 but the Welsh dimension of the earlier meetings was replaced by a pan-British one as the meetings were concerned primarily with preparations for, and the fall-out from, Athelstan’s invasion of Scotland in the summer of 934. Two charters may however throw some light on developments in Wales at the time. At Winchester, on 28 May 934, Tewdwr of Brycheiniog is listed together with Hywel, Idwal and Morgan as Athelstan began to muster his army for the move north. The charter is considered authentic and survives in the original and the witness list is clearly comprehensive. The army then moved to Nottingham where the witness list to a charter dated 7 June 934 – the charter is considered probably authentic and the witness list certainly so – showed the same names with a few additional individuals bearing the title dux.25 But Tewdwr is now missing from the list. The status of Brycheiniog thereafter is uncertain. J. R. Davies suggested that around the early 940s it ‘lost its distinct political identity and was subsumed into the southern Welsh political entity known as Deheubarth’.26 However, there is some 24 Charters S 418a and S 416. Athelstan only rarely moved his court outside of Wessex and the port of Exeter may have been the most convenient meeting place for the various Welsh kings. 25 Charters S 425 and S 407. 26 J. R. Davies, ‘Wales and west Britain’, p. 343. 304 WELSH KINGS evidence to suggest that in 934 the immediate beneficiary was Morgan. In charters from 931, 932 and at Winchester in 934, Idwal Foel of Gwynedd followed Hywel Dda in precedence among the Welsh kings with Morgan third. Yet, with Tewdwr’s disappearance, the positions of Idwal and Morgan are reversed on the Nottingham witness list.27 The most likely answer given the timing is that this was an acknowledgement of Morgan’s increased standing due to gaining some degree of control over the neighbouring kingdom. The deaths of three established kings in south Wales in a short period – Owain of Gwent, shortly after 21 June 931, Gwriad of Ceredigion, sometime after 30 August 932, and Tewdwr of Brycheiniog, between 28 May and 7 June 934 – may have provided the impetus for the emergence of Deheubarth and Morgannwg, but far from hindering the process the English connection appears to have facilitated it. Yet, if Hywel and Morgan were beneficiaries, Idwal Foel was not: he made no territorial gains and his status in the eyes of the West Saxons apparently diminished. It may be that it was this, and most particularly the treatment of Ceredigion, that marks the beginning of Idwal’s alienation from the West Saxons and the antipathy between him and Hywel. It seems reasonable to suppose that in the changed political circumstances following Hywel’s death Idwal’s sons took advantage of a Viking raid and the death of some of Gwriad’s sons to attack Ceredigion, which may have been in the gift of their grandfather, Anarawd, in the first place. The Welsh kings, with a single exception, ceased to appear as witnesses to Athelstan’s charters after December 93528 and did not return to the English court until the reign of Eadred. It is possible that their absence from witness lists was due to some clerical omission but such an explanation is highly improbable. Around the same time the leading 27 Charters S 407, 413, 416, 417, 418a and 425. Morgan’s elevation may have brought him to something like parity with Idwal and caused something of a problem for the West Saxons. In four charters for 935 – three from the Christmas meeting at Dorchester, S 434, 435 and 436, plus the Cirencester fragment, S 1792 – Idwal has precedence in two and Morgan in two. Ranking in charter witness lists was remarkably consistent and this apparent juggling of rank appears unique to 935. The Dorchester charters are not authentic in their existing form but the witness lists appear genuine for 935, though the date has been altered to 937 to support the forger’s inclusion of two cousins of Athelstan said to have been killed at Brunanburh: see Susan E. Kelly (ed.), Charters of Malmesbury Abbey. Anglo-Saxon Charters, XI (Oxford, 2005), p. 60. 28 Woolf, From Pictland, p. 174. AT THE ENGLISH COURT, 928–956 305 representative of the Northumbrians, Wulfstan, archbishop of York, and all the Scandinavian earls of the southern Danelaw also disappeared from witness lists that remained otherwise comprehensive of members of the clergy, ealdormen and king’s thegns. The Welsh and, perhaps, the Scandinavians too – who together had constituted a large part of Athelstan’s army during the invasion of Scotland in 934, described by Simeon of Durham as an ‘army of the whole of Britain’29 – also appear to have taken no active part in the war of 937 and its climactic battle at Brunanburh. The only troops mentioned in the extant sources on the campaign and battle, including the Old English poem preserved in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 937, are West Saxons and Mercians and the historical context provided towards the end of the poem is entirely ‘English’: Never yet in this island was there a greater slaughter of people felled by the sword’s edges, before this, as books tell us, old authorities, since Angles and Saxons came here from the east, sought out Britain over the broad ocean, warriors eager for fame, proud war-smiths, overcame the Welsh, seized the country (lines 65b–73b).30 29 David W. Rollason (ed. and trans.), Symeon of Durham: Libellus de Exordio atque Procurso istius, hoc est Dunhelmensis, Ecclesie: Tract on the origins and progress of this the Church of Durham (Oxford, 2000), pp. 136–7: ‘cum totius Brittannie exercitu’. The witness lists for the meetings at Winchester and Nottingham in 934, as well as showing the presence of the Welsh indicate that half of Athelstan’s duces were Scandinavians from the southern Danelaw. 30 D. Dumville and S. Keynes (gen. eds), The A[nglo-] S[axon] C[hronicle]. A Collaborative Edition; MS A, ed. Janet M. Bately (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 70–2; Michael Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles (London, 1996), pp. 109–10. Alastair Campbell, The Battle of Brunanburh (London, 1938), provided a comprehensive analysis of the poem’s text and also reproduced all the other extant accounts of the battle. The ‘Englishness’ of the poem’s account was specifically considered in Renee R. Trilling, The Aesthetics of Nostalgia: Historical representation in Old English Verse (Toronto, 2009), at pp. 175–213; Sarah Foot, ‘The making of Angelcynn: English identity before the Norman Conquest’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, 6 (1996), 25–49; eadem, ‘Where English becomes British’, p. 128; Jayne Carroll, ‘Words and weapons: the battle of Brunanburh’, Nottingham Linguistic Circular, 15 (2000), 35–53. 306 WELSH KINGS Loyn remarked that ‘No Welsh prince took part in the battle, as far as we can judge, on either side. The alliance and accord with Athelstan held firm.’31 But the logic here ought surely to suggest that the Welsh would have fought on the side of the English? This apparent conundrum is revisited later in the article. What might have led to such a fracture in the fabric of Athelstan’s empire in the year or so before Brunanburh? It may be that it was at least in part a consequence of the invasion of Scotland in 934. This initially appeared a success for the English king: Causantin mac Aeda, king of Alba, and Owain, king of Strathclyde, were it seems brought to submit and even for a period integrated into the subreguli system at Athelstan’s court.32 The English vision of lordship in Britain appeared to have been fulfilled. In reality the West Saxon state lacked the political strength and the financial and military resources to impose a lasting hegemony. By 936 the political landscape had darkened and the northern kings were set once again to challenge Athelstan’s authority. Perhaps this acted as an encouragement to others to reject his overlordship or possibly the financial and military burdens imposed on the Welsh and others had become intolerable. Whatever the reason, the political settlement that had emerged after 927 was shattered and Britain was set on the road to war. The following decade witnessed dramatic developments in Wales and England and a radical change in West Saxon policy towards the other rulers in Britain. The impetus behind this rethink in approach appears to have been rooted in the experience of Brunanburh. As already suggested, for whatever reason the subreguli system that had worked to mobilize Welsh troops in 934 failed in 937 and the defence of Athelstan’s imperium had apparently devolved upon the southern English heartlands imposing a military burden that the West Saxon state could not shoulder alone for any prolonged period. Woolf noted that there were heavy casualties on both sides in the battle and further, in considering Edmund’s Strathclyde campaign of 945, that ‘None of Eadmund’s advisers can have wanted to fight another Brunanburh’.33 Although Woolf showed a slight preference for Bromborough as the site of Brunanburh his perceptive analysis of the impact of the battle on English strategic thinking makes more sense with 31 32 33 Loyn, ‘Wales and England’, 290. Woolf, From Pictland, pp. 166–8. Ibid., p. 174 and pp. 183–4. AT THE ENGLISH COURT, 928–956 307 a location much further north than the Wirral, as does his suggestion that it had contributed to ‘an English recognition of the limits of their power and the potential of Mael Coluim’s . . . a territory so far from their West Saxon heartland that they can have had no realistic hope of controlling it’. The logic would apply more generally to the whole of that great swathe of Anglian possessions extending through Bernicia, Lothian and the Cumbric west that was the focus of the political ambitions of the kings of Alba and Strathclyde from the late ninth century down to the battle of Carham in 1018.34 The causes, aims and geographical extent of the 945 campaign are far from clear, the last not helped by the frequent confusion in contemporary sources of the terms ‘Cumbria’ and ‘Strathclyde’.35 In the three years before 945 Edmund had recovered first the southern Danelaw and then Northumbria having been obliged to surrender them to Anlaf Guthfrithson at Leicester in 940. The Strathclyde Britons may have taken advantage of English weakness to push into English Cumbria, perhaps with Viking help: Edmund may have recovered these territories in 945 and subsequently ceded to the king of the Scots a nominal English lordship over Strathclyde claimed by Athelstan after his victory at Brunanburh.36 So far as the Welsh were concerned the English also seem to have concluded that where a system of several sub-kings had failed, the creation of a single, powerful but reliable ally might prove more successful. Edmund’s reign thus witnessed the development of new relationships with both the king of the Scots culminating in the agreement of 945 and with Hywel Dda. Edmund’s reorientation of West Saxon policy towards the Welsh and its effects are illustrated in two dramatic events, the first in Wales, the 34 Kevin Halloran, ‘The Brunanburh campaign: a reappraisal’, The Scottish Historical Review, 84, 2 (October 2005), 133–48, at 135 and n. 16. 35 P. A. Wilson, ‘On the use of the terms “Strathclyde” and “Cumbria”’, Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society, 66 (1966), 57–92. 36 ASC, MS A, p. 74; Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, p. 110: ‘Here King Edmund raided across all the land of Cumbria and ceded it to Malcolm, king of the Scots, on the condition that he would be his co-operator both on sea and on land’. For interpretations of the campaign and subsequent political settlement, see A. A. M. Duncan, The Kingship of the Scots 842–1292: Succession and Independence (Edinburgh, 2002), p. 24 and Woolf, From Pictland, p. 184. Tim Clarkson, The Men of the North:The Britons of Southern Scotland (Edinburgh, 2010), pp. 180–1, provides a comprehensive account of all aspects of the campaign and its implications for Anglo-Scottish relations. 308 WELSH KINGS second in Strathclyde. J. R. Davies noted: ‘In 942, the same year that King Edmund re-conquered Mercia, the king of Gwynedd, Idwal Foel, was slain by King Edmund’s forces. The result was that Hywel . . . annexed the kingdom of Gwynedd and so achieved control of most of Wales.’37 David Dumville suggested that ‘Edmund’s restoration of Anglo-Saxon power in Mercia in 942 was coincident, it seems, with the killing of Idwal by the English’ and of the circumstances of Idwal’s death, ‘It is . . . merely a deduction that he was in rebellion against King Edmund . . . That he joined the anti-English coalition as late as 942 itself, as Smyth suggests, seems incredible as a hypothesis . . . 940 was the time for decision.’38 Idwal’s killing was sufficiently significant that, unusually for Welsh affairs in this period, it was recorded in an Irish annal: ‘Idval m’Anoroit prince of Brittons, was killed by the Saxons.’39 In 942 the interests of Hywel and Edmund may have coalesced in a single imperative: the removal of Idwal and the unification of Gwynedd with Dyfed. English hopes for their new Welsh policy do not appear to have been unfounded. The Annales Cambriae for the year 945 record that ‘Strathclyde was wasted by the Saxons.’40 In his Flores Historiarum the thirteenth-century chronicler, Roger of Wendover, gives a more detailed account: ‘King Edmund, relying on the help of Leolin, king of Dyfed, despoiled the whole of Cumbria of all its property . . . [and] gave the kingdom to Malcolm, king of the Scots, to hold of him, that he might defend the northern parts of England from incursions of enemy raiders by land and sea.’41 Both Andrew Breeze and Alex Woolf argued persuasively for the identification of ‘Leolin’ with Hywel Dda and the 37 J. R. Davies, ‘Wales and west Britain’, p. 343. David N. Dumville, ‘Brittany and “Armes Prydein Vawr”’, Etudes Celtiques, 20 (1983), 145–59, at 149–50. 39 D. Murphy (ed.), The Annals of Clonmacnoise (Dublin, 1896), p. 152. The annals are extant only in copies of a seventeenth-century translation and Murphy’s edition is based on copies of the MS held at the Library of Trinity College, Dublin. 40 AC, 682–954; texts A, B, C, p. 16: ‘Strat Clut vastata est a Saxonibus’. 41 Henry Richards Luard (ed.), Flores Historiarum (Rolls Series, 95 in three parts; London, 1890), I, p. 500: ‘adjutorio Loelini regis Demetiae fretus’, ‘relying on the support of Loelin, king of Dyfed’. Dorothy Whitelock (ed. and trans.), English Historical Documents, I, AD. 500–1042 (London, 1955), p. 257, presented a translation of the passage. The chronicle is both late and in parts unreliable, comprising extracts from a variety of earlier sources plus some original composition and surviving in some twenty MSS. Its account of this event does, however, accord in important particulars with the testimony of the ASC (see n. 36 above). 38 AT THE ENGLISH COURT, 928–956 309 former made the further point that ‘an (English) attack on Strathclyde necessitated military help from a Welsh ally’.42 By removing Idwal and acquiescing in Hywel’s annexation of his kingdom, Edmund was abandoning the previous English policy towards the Welsh of maintaining a balance of rival polities. The West Saxon king was both accepting the creation of a powerful Welsh kingdom and at the same time creating an ally that might do for the English what the alliance with Strathclyde had done for the Scots. Hywel Dda’s military and political support may have been the bedrock on which Edmund and Eadred engineered a revival in English fortunes. The absence of the Welsh from the English court during this crucial period is particularly frustrating. The appearance or non-appearance of individual kings and the style and ranking afforded them might have helped to resolve a number of important questions. What stance did the Welsh adopt towards the war of 937? What was their attitude to Anlaf Guthfrithson’s election as king of Northumbria in 939 and the subsequent settlement at Leicester in 940 where Edmund was obliged to cede part of the southern Danelaw to the Viking ruler? How did the developments in Anglo-Welsh relations at this time relate to the antiEnglish sentiments expressed in the poem Armes Prydein?43 Did any Welsh king side with the coalition against the West Saxons and, if so, from what date? Answers to these questions can at best be only partial and speculative. Yet, the disappearance of the Welsh from Athelstan’s court, their apparent non-participation in the war of 937, Anlaf’s success and English failure in 939–40, and subsequent events in Wales culminating in the death of Idwal and the annexation of his kingdom by Hywel – events contemporaneous with the English recovery following Anlaf’s death in 941 – taken together are suggestive of a possibility: that around 936 or early 937 some of the Welsh kings withdrew their allegiance to Athelstan and perhaps even joined the coalition against 42 Andrew Breeze, ‘Armes Prydein, Hywel Dda, and the reign of Edmund of Wessex’, Etudes Celtiques, 33 (1997), 209–22, at 219–20, where he examined various spellings of the name presented in different MSS; Woolf, From Pictland, p. 183. 43 G. R. Isaac, ‘Armes Prydain Fawr and St David’, in J. Wyn Evans and Jonathan M. Wooding (eds), St David of Wales: Cult, Church and Nation (Studies in Celtic History, 24; Woodbridge, 2007), pp. 161–8, at p. 161, dated the poem to the tenth century; Dumville, ‘Brittany’, 150, to 935–50; Breeze, ‘Armes Prydein’, 217, to 940; Nikolai Tolstoy, ‘When and where was Armes Prydein composed?’, Studia Celtica, 42 (2008), 145–9, at 149, n. 30, to ‘about the middle of the tenth century rather than earlier’. 310 WELSH KINGS him. Dumville argued that it was likely that ‘in the winter of 939/40 . . . Idwal Foel of Gwynedd did indeed desert the English’,44 and Kirby, commenting on the alliance between the northern kings and the Vikings in the period before Brunanburh, suggested that ‘Idwal may well have been drawn to such an alliance’.45 Breeze, analysing a reference to ‘the line of Anarawd’ and a possible association with the Dublin Vikings at Brunanburh in a poem of political prophesy, Glaswawd Taliesin, ‘Taliesin’s Song of Praise’, suggested that the poet may have had in mind an alliance – real or wished for – between Idwal and Anlaf Guthfrithson.46 There is a document that might throw some light on these developments, the ‘Topsham charter’, S 433. The charter is undoubtedly a forgery produced in the eleventh century but, as Loyn suggested, there are aspects of it that ‘may represent genuine tradition or knowledge of a genuine copy of the Topsham original deed’.47 The names and ranking of the secular and ecclesiastical witnesses are authentic for 939, the first year that the three ealdormen (each bearing the title dux) listed – Wulgar, Ælfhere and Æðelstan – attested together. There are other pointers to the list being based on a genuine original as they seem unlikely inventions for a forger. Athelstan’s half-brother, Edmund, is, unusually, present while, correct for the period, Wulfstan, archbishop of York, is missing. But the most unusual feature is that Hywel Dda is, uniquely, shown as the only Welsh king present and, moreover, he is styled not subregulus but regulus. If we assume for argument’s sake that the document represents an accurate copy of an authentic list what might it tell us? The absence of other Welsh kings and, more particularly, the adoption of the style regulus (which as will be seen was only used for a single Welsh king at any one time) before Hywel’s annexation of Gwynedd and de facto status as king of the Welsh implies that some of the other kings may have broken with the West Saxons. If so this could only plausibly have occurred with the encouragement and support of the northern kings and Vikings before Athelstan’s victory at Brunanburh. Idwal may have been in opposition to the English for some years before his death and it must be highly probable that he gave at least tacit support to Anlaf in the period 939–41 while Hywel appears to have remained loyal to the English throughout. 44 Dumville, ‘Brittany’, 149. Kirby, ‘Hywel Dda’, 5. 46 Andrew Breeze, ‘The battle of Brunanburh and Welsh tradition’, Neophilologus, 83 (1999), 479–82, at 482. 47 Loyn, ‘Wales and England’, 297. 45 AT THE ENGLISH COURT, 928–956 311 Idwal may even have sought refuge in Ireland in the period between Brunanburh and Anlaf ’s return in 939. After Anlaf ’s death and the recovery in Edmund’s fortunes Idwal paid with both his life and the forfeiture of his kingdom. When Hywel Dda returned to Eadred’s court his appearances coincided with moments of crisis for the West Saxon state: in 946 soon after Edmund’s murder and Eadred’s accession, and twice in 949, months after the destruction of part of the English army at Castleford and the year that the Northumbrians chose Anlaf Cuaran (Anlaf Sihtricson) as their king.48 Moreover, even though he was accompanied by other Welsh kings the system formerly adopted in charter witness lists of simply ranking Hywel as first among the Welsh subreguli was clearly no longer appropriate either to his enhanced status or to the very different political situation in Wales.49 At Kingston-on-Thames in 946 Hywel is no longer styled subregulus but regulus while two other Welsh rulers, Morgan and ‘Cadmon’, are untitled. This was repeated at another meeting in 949 but later in that year Hywel’s styling changed yet again, this time to rex, while Morgan inherited Hywel’s former title of regulus. The adoption of rex by the English is significant as it both recognized Hywel’s status as a king in his own right and is also incompatible with the claim of the West Saxon kings to be rex totius Brittaniae and that style is not used in respect of Eadred in this charter where he is variously described as rex Anglorum, imperator Brittonum and rex regimina, this last phrase suggesting a meaning of ‘guiding’ or ‘controlling’ king. The styling adopted for the Welsh kings in these charters is also consistent with the view that Morgan may have ruled under Hywel’s overlordship, a point 48 Woolf, From Pictland, p. 186; G. P. Cubbin (ed.), ASC MS D (Cambridge, 1996), p. 44; Swanton, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, p. 112: ‘Here King Eadred raided across all the land of Northumbria, because they had taken Eric [i.e. Eric Bloodaxe] for their king; and on the raid then the famous minster at Ripon, which St Wilfrid built, was burned. And then when the king was on his way home, the raiding army [which] was within York overtook the king’s army from behind at Castleford, and a great slaughter was made there. Then the king became so angry that he wanted to invade again and completely do for the country. Then when the council of the Northumbrians heard that, they abandoned Eric and compensated King Eadred for the act.’ Apparently the Northumbrians quickly reneged on their pledges as Susan Irvine (ed.), ASC MS E (Cambridge, 2002), s.a. 949, p. 55 recorded: ‘Her com Anlaf Cwiran on Nordhymbra land’, ‘Here Anlaf Cuaran came to the land of Northumbria’. 49 Thornton, ‘The death’, 749, n. 24. 312 WELSH KINGS considered by Dumville and supported by the description of the two in an Abingdon charter: ‘Howel regulus cum Morcante’.50 We might reasonably ask what the reason for this sudden apparent elevation in status of the two Welsh kings might have been and whether there was a quid pro quo? Woolf suggested that Eadred ‘aspired to the same imperium which his brothers had enjoyed’51 and yet it was to be 954 before he regained control of Northumbria. It has been suggested that Eadred may have accepted Anlaf Sihtricson’s rule at York but there is little to support such a view.52 Eadred’s response may be more understandable if the policy towards Northumbria is considered in a wider context: the West Saxon king had his Welsh allies at court in 949 and 95053 and may have planned action that had to be aborted on Hywel’s death and the uncertainties that brought to the political situation in Wales. Deprived of his chief ally Eadred may have lacked the military resources to intervene in Northumbria. If, as suggested, the Welsh alliance was fundamentally important to both kingdoms in the decade and a half after Brunanburh, then we cannot consider the vicissitudes of either in isolation. The dynastic conflict in Wales in the years after Hywel’s death may have delayed the English recovery of Northumbria but Eadred’s problems there may in turn have prevented him intervening decisively in support of Dyfed. The Welsh returned to the English court only after Eadred had won back Northumbria when Morgan, bearing the title regulus and accompanied by Hywel’s son, Owain, and Idwal’s sons, Ieuaf and Iago, attended in 955.54 The charter entry reads: ‘Morcant regl. 7 Owen. Syferd 7 Iacob.’ The styling and punctuation suggest that 50 Charters S 520, 544, 550 and 552a; Dumville, ‘Brittany’, at 148 and n. 19. ‘Cadmon’ was, presumably, Morgan’s brother and co-ruler, Cadwgan, who was ‘killed by the Saxons’ in 951 according to entries in the AC 682–954; texts A and B, pp. 16–17, for that year: ‘Et Catguocaun filius Ouein a Saxonibus iugulatur’ and ‘Cadugan filius Oweyn a Saxonibus iugulatus’. Morgan’s role in the affair can only be speculation but his relationship with the English does not appear to have been damaged. 51 Woolf, From Pictland, p. 186. 52 P. H. Sawyer, ‘The last Scandinavian kings of York’, Northern History, 31 (1995), 39–44; Woolf, From Pictland, p. 187. 53 There has been some confusion over the dating of charter S 552a but Thornton, ‘The death’, 749 and n. 23, argued persuasively for 950. The Welsh kings therefore either visited on several occasions or stayed for a prolonged period suggesting something of significance was under consideration. 54 Charter S 566. AT THE ENGLISH COURT, 928–956 313 Morgan was now perceived by the English as the dominant power in Wales and that he was in association with Owain. If the other identifications are correct it implies that following the battle of Llanrwst in 955, which ended the war between the sons of Hywel and the sons of Idwal, Morgan and Eadred may have brokered a peace at this meeting. Welsh kings visited the English court again in the following year under Eadwy but the death of Hywel Dda55 and the subsequent division of Wales into three power blocs effectively ended the period of close political and military cooperation enjoyed in the 940s. KEVIN HALLORAN Warton 55 Two other pieces of evidence point to Hywel having a special status in English eyes. Thornton, ‘Hywel Dda’, p. 175, referred to the penny produced in the English mint at Chester bearing the legend ‘Howæl Rex’ and suggested it might be a ceremonial gift. The twelfth-century Historia Regum also recorded Hywel’s death as ‘Ouuel rex Brittonum obiit’; Thomas Arnold (ed.), Symeonis Monachi Opera Omnia, Rolls Series, 2 vols (London, 1882–5), II, p. 94.