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It is October, the month of Halloween and fading light and the dying of the year. My favourite season, being the miserable sod that I am. I jest, of course: I’m only miserable 98% of the time. We are also entering the season of ghost stories, one of my obsessions. Here, then, is a short tale from the monk of Byland Abbey, written down in 1400: “Concerning another ghost that followed William of…
#OTD in 1307, Philip the Fair had every Knight Templar in France arrested on charges of heresy. The specific charges ran thus: "...when professing, the brothers were required to deny Christ, to spit on the Cross, and to place three 'obscene kisses' on the lower spine, the navel and the mouth; they were obliged to indulge in carnal relations with other members of the order, if requested; and…
#OTD in 1283 Prince Dafydd of Wales was executed at Shrewsbury. He was the first nobleman (but not the first man) to be hanged, drawn and quartered in the British Isles. It is often said that he was executed for ‘high treason’. That is incorrect, because such a penalty did not yet exist on the statute book. He was killed for several capital crimes, described by the annals of Dunstable. Quote:…
#OTD in 1473 John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, descended on St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall. He was accompanied by his three brothers, Viscount Beaumont, and a force of some eighty men. After his escape from the Lancastrian defeat at Barnet, Oxford had fled to Scotland, and then to France. After receiving promises of support from King Louis, he took to piracy off the Isle of Thanet in Kent, and…
On 19 June 1312 Piers Gaveston, Edward II’s notorious favourite, was taken onto Blacklow Hill in Warwickshire. There, watched from afar by Thomas of Lancaster and several others, he was butchered by two Welshmen. One ran him through with a sword, then the other cut off his head. Over a year later, October 1313, Edward pardoned all those who were implicated in Gaveston’s death. Apart from Lancaster…
#OTD in 1267 the Treaty of Montgomery was ratified between Henry III and Prince Llywelyn the Last of Wales. The treaty was Llywelyn’s greatest achievement: he became the first and only ‘native’ Prince of Wales/Princeps Wallie to be formally recognised by a King of England. However, contrary to popular belief, it did not make him the ruler of an independent state. There are sixteen clauses to the…
The battle of Maes Moydog was fought in Powys, North Wales, in March 1295. In some ways it was similar to the battle of Falkirk, fought three years later. An Anglo-Welsh army used missile troops to defeat an army of Welsh spearmen, after the latter had repulsed a cavalry charge. The Welsh army was led by Prince Madog ap Llywelyn, a great-great-grandson of Owain Gwynedd (died 1170), the first Welsh…
To continue the tale of the two Madogs. In 1287, five years after the killing of Llywelyn the Last, Rhys ap Maredudd went into revolt. He was a direct descendent of ‘The Lord Rhys’, one of the most famous rulers of medieval Wales, but his motives were complicated. Rhys had fought for Edward I in the wars against Llywelyn, and his eventual revolt was driven more by personal rivalry with the…
Leaping back to Wales, because I have just received a new journal and want to chatter on about it. Dr David Stephenson’s excellent new book, Heirs to the Princes, contains a handy breakdown of those Welshmen who held office after the Edwardian Conquest: the new aristocracy or ‘Welsh ministerial elite’, as Stephenson calls them. To an extent the ‘conquest of Wales’ is an illusion: what Edward I…
1258. The Comyn alliance with Llywelyn lasted just three months, before the Welsh prince made peace with Henry III. It came to nothing because the Comyn faction soon lost control of events in Scotland. Outside of their own affinity, there was little support for the Comyns. Earl Walter, the head of the family, was strong enough to retain power for a short while, but he couldn’t hold the King of…
