Power Struggles The Story of Wales

It is 700 AD.

This rugged western peninsula of Britain

is home to tribes and warlords.

Any idea of Wales as we know it doesn't exist.

But over the next centuries, a nation emerges.

This is a story of tribal warfare,

of princes and power struggles

and foreign invaders.

So how does all that create one country

with its own distinct culture and identity?

In this Story Of Wales,

we cover seven centuries

from the building of a great frontier

to Owain Glyndwr and his bitter struggle for independence.

We'll see how battles against invaders

bring a flourishing of Welsh culture.

And the emergence of our first parliament.

We'll meet the medieval kings who shaped the destiny of Wales.

And discover how a nation emerges from their hunger for power

and their lust for land.

The struggle for Wales begins here on the modern border with England.

Britain in the eighth century is a patchwork

of independent kingdoms run by warlords,

all of them scrambling

and jostling for power and for land.

Wales doesn't exist.

But the land we call Wales today is also a group of kingdoms.

And the Britons who live in them are under pressure,

under threat from the east, from the Anglo-Saxons.

Anglo-Saxon warriors are busy expanding the Kingdom of Mercia.

Their settlements encroach on the farmland of the Welsh tribes.

In 750 AD, this is Wales.

Gwynedd in the north is protected by

the impenetrable mountains of Snowdonia.

But the lowlands of Powys and South East Wales are exposed to Mercia.

It is the warriors of Powys that retaliate most violently.

They mount brutal raids to reclaim what used to be theirs.

They're destroying crops and settlements.

The locals are fleeing in terror and what is left isn't resettled.

It just lies empty and barren.

Because in the middle of the eighth century,

this place is full of danger.

The border between the Welsh tribes and Mercia is no man's land.

The situation is out of control.

It is so bad that the King of Mercia decides to take drastic action.

He commissions the biggest engineering project of the age.

And this is it.

He decides to build a massive defensive wall

to keep those troublesome neighbours under control.

We know it as Offa's Dyke.

An earthwork over 80 miles long,

it runs along much of the modern English-Welsh border.

Because it was added to over time by other rulers,

it now extends from near Wrexham in the north

all the way down to Chepstow in the south.

It is Britain's longest ancient monument.

Nothing of this size was built for a thousand years

until the canals of the 18th century.

It's the sheer scale of this work that's difficult to take in.

When you think of the manpower involved,

the money involved and all the effort,

it does tell you that King Offa must have been a very determined man.

And just think about the equivalent today, in the 21st century,

a colossal work like this.

Well, you're talking tens of billions of pounds.

But the essence of the dyke is its aspect.

It faces west and it gives the Mercians

the perfect vantage point to keep an eye on the Welsh.

In the eighth century, Wales has never known a boundary on this scale.

The marking out of large territorial borders is a whole new concept.

For the many kingdoms of Wales,

Offa's Dyke will influence the way they see themselves.

There's a psychological impact.

And from the early middle ages onwards, the people over there,

the Mercians, future invaders...

Well, they're the people beyond the dyke.

And on this side, the Welsh see themselves

as the people behind the dyke.

And I suppose this could give us our first possible notion of Welsh unity.

But who are the people behind the dyke?

In 800 AD, Wales is home to fewer than a 100,000 souls.

This small population shares a common language, they speak Old Welsh,

and call themselves Cymry, or fellow countrymen.

Most families are poor, living with their livestock in isolated farms.

There are no stone buildings and no towns.

The Cymry are defenceless against the ravages of war,

disease and the whims of their wealthier masters -

the warlords or local kings, who will shape the future of Wales.

They'll do it by betrayal,

or bribery

or by the sword.

But what do we know about these kings and how they lived?

This is Llangorse Lake, near the Brecon Beacons in South Wales.

These days, this lake is all about leisure,

campsites and boats for hire.

Well, 1,100 years ago, this is the heart of a small kingdom,

the Kingdom of Brycheiniog.

This small island here is home to the Royal family.

And the treasures they leave behind lie hidden

until they're discovered just 20 years ago.

What archaeologists find in the 1990s gives us a surprising insight

into this early Welsh kingdom.

It reveals a Royal Palace with international connections.

The first clues were investigated by Dr Alan Lane.

The timbers are visible in the water around the island

and people have noticed them for centuries.

And when we visited the site initially

it was quite clear

that they were artificial.

They had been deliberately constructed.

And so, we realised that what we were looking at

was what's called a crannog,

that's an artificial island.

Alan and his team discovered that the crannog

was built of brushwood and rubble piled up to reach above water level.

On top, they found the remains of a medieval settlement.

It was once home to the Royal family.

Reconstructed, this is what it may have looked like.

A wooden fortification encloses a village,

a village for the king, his family and their entourage.

This is where he administers his kingdom

and entertains his guests.

But most remarkable is the fact that

this is the only crannog ever found in Wales or England.

Now, these are very well-known in both Scotland and Ireland,

where there are hundreds of examples.

But the likelihood is this is an Irish master builder

who's been brought in by the local king to construct the site.

By building a crannog, the king is showing off his Irish ancestry

and his connections beyond his borders.

The crannog is a status symbol.

But there's one particular treasure at Llangorse

that reveals the Royal family have links

even further afield than Ireland.

The archaeologists discovered a fragment of linen

embroidered in silk,

believed to have been part of the Queen's tunic.

It's the design that's intriguing.

This is a reconstruction of part of the pattern,

computer enhanced, and the colours obviously are partly speculative.

We know they're lions, because we can compare them

with much clearer examples found in Eastern Mediterranean,

and from Persia and Central Asia.

This is an extremely fine textile, high-class workmanship.

And the decorative pattern, the embroidery is in silk,

which has to be imported from Eastern Mediterranean at closest,

and possibly from somewhere on the silk route back to China.

We tend to think of this early medieval time

as a dark age,

when life isn't civilised at all.

Well, forget all of that.

Because what Llangorse tells us

is that these Welsh aristocrats are sophisticated people.

They hire Irish architects,

they import luxury goods from the other side of the world!

These rulers behind the dyke are living in a connected world,

that's the important thing.

They have power, they have wealth,

and let's face it - some rather nice real estate too.

Despite the protection that the lake provides,

royal life at Llangorse is cut short.

Within 20 years of being built,

Anglo-Saxons attack and the settlement is destroyed.

By 916 AD, this Royal Palace is no more.

The discoveries at Llangorse are a tantalising glimpse

into a Welsh kingdom from an almost lost medieval world.

Life in medieval Wales can be very dangerous and brutally short.

It's a constant battle for survival.

A battle against foreign enemies and an endless round of internal warfare,

bitter feuding and broken alliances.

The land behind the dyke is very fragmented,

but it's a very attractive prospect to any determined opportunist.

The first opportunist to emerge

from the wild frontiers of early medieval Wales

is the king of Gwynedd -

Rhodri ap Merfyn.

What little we know of him

comes from a few sentences written by an Irish scholar.

In the ninth century, Rhodri becomes

the biggest figure behind the dyke.

But not without a bit of scheming.

First his uncle, the ruler of Powys,

goes on a pilgrimage to Rome and drops dead on the way.

So in 855, Rhodri takes Powys for himself.

And then 20 years later, the ruler of Seisyllwg,

that's the region of Ceredigion,

suffers an accidental death by drowning.

So what does Rhodri do?

He swiftly marries into that family

and expands his kingdom once again.

Plotting and playing dirty make him ruler of most of Wales.

For the first time, lands from north to south are united under one leader.

And this makes Rhodri a new breed of king.

He gets a new title.

He is known as Rhodri Mawr - Rhodri the Great.

All thanks to his military prowess

in his dealings with a brutal new enemy.

The Vikings.

From their base in Dublin, they arrive from across the Irish Sea.

They terrorise the locals and plunder the coastline.

In 856, Rhodri stands up to them in battle.

When he encounters Ormr,

the leader of a band of Viking raiders in Anglesey,

he kills him.

Rhodri is keeping the Vikings at bay.

But the story of the Vikings in Wales isn't only one of raids and battles.

On the Anglesey Coast, near the village of Llanbedrgoch,

archaeological remains reveal a more complex relationship

between the Welsh and these settlers from Scandinavia.

What Doctor Mark Redknap and his team discovered

lies beneath this field.

We're standing on the perimeter

of a remarkable early medieval settlement.

The archaeology conducted here has really changed

our perception of early medieval Wales in the Viking age.

You can imagine it starts off

as a farm with an enclosure ditch around it.

What is significant though is that

in the second half of tenth century,

this earth defensive work is replaced with a massive stone wall.

Mark and his team unearthed an impenetrable wall,

two metres thick and over three metres high.

It's all designed to defend the farm inside.

This medieval settlement had something valuable to protect.

When the archaeologists excavated inside the walls,

they uncovered coins,

and weights

and pieces of silver.

Llanbedrgoch is more than just a farm.

It is medieval market full of wheeling and dealing.

The fact that we found these fragments of silver on the site

indicates that some of the trading was taking place

within the defended enclosure.

And one can imagine various commodities being haggled over,

it may have been hides, it may have been oxen.

We don't quite know what was being traded.

But who exactly was trading here over a thousand years ago?

Silver arm bands found nearby have Viking designs,

like those found all around the Viking world.

All together, the discoveries at Llanbedrgoch

are proof that Wales and people from Scandinavia

are trading with each other.

For many years, it was assumed that Scandinavians

or, at least, raiding Vikings

were unsuccessful at establishing a foothold in Wales.

But with Llanbedrgoch, this has transformed our knowledge,

cos we can now link it culturally to this trading social network

operating around the Irish Sea in a much broader sense.

In the tenth century, Anglesey is part of a vibrant trading network

linked to Viking settlements around the Irish Sea.

But there is one grisly discovery at Llanbedrgoch

that still puzzles archaeologists.

Mark's team uncovered five skeletons - three adults and two children.

All seem to have been dumped into a pit outside the perimeter wall.

Were they the victims of a raid?

Were they friend or foe?

How did they die?

What we do know is that analysis of their bones

indicates that they are not native to Wales.

Four of them grew up in Scandinavia.

Whatever the reason they died here in Anglesey,

it's clear that tenth-century Wales is connected to the Viking world,

both in combat AND in business.

But the lesson in this world is that if you want to survive,

you will strike a deal with the enemy.

Politics is ruled by economics.

And in the chaos of survival, what we see is the Welsh kings

changing loyalties from time to time.

And one of those kings does that to great effect.

His name is Hywel Dda -

Hywel the Good.

Like his grandfather, Rhodri Mawr,

he is both lucky and ambitious during his reign.

First, he marries the daughter of the King of Dyfed.

And when the king dies,

he inherits his land.

With the demise of other Welsh kings, Hywel seizes the moment

and takes Powys and Gwynedd too.

By 942 AD, Hywel rules three-quarters of Wales.

But Hywel's kingdom is under threat.

There are Vikings to the west and Anglo-Saxons to the east.

So to stay in power, he does a deal with the enemy.

What Hywel does is certainly clever and strategic,

but in some eyes,

it is also a betrayal of his fellow Cymry or Welshmen.

Because he forms an alliance with an enemy -

the King of Wessex, Aethelstan.

And he wants all the kings of Briton to pay homage to him

and to pay taxes to him.

And that is what Hywel agrees to do.

20 pounds of gold,

300 pounds of silver,

25,000 cattle.

It's a huge gamble by Hywel.

And he's hoping that this will help to protect his status.

And he gambles further.

When the Vikings, Scots and Celts join forces

to drive out the Anglo-Saxons from Britain once and for all,

Hywel is the only leader who stands aside.

The gamble pays off.

The Anglo-Saxons win, so Hywel and his kingdom are secure.

So what do we make of Hywel's actions?

Is he motivated purely by blatant self interest

and nothing more redeeming?

It's not clear. What is clear is that this is a significant moment

for those people who live behind the dyke,

and they find themselves increasingly cut off from their Celtic cousins

in the rest of Britain, especially the north.

So Hywel's reputation is still open to question,

but that's about to change.

It isn't for military prowess that he is known as Hywel the Good.

He earns that title for giving Wales its first written laws.

Devised more than a thousand years ago,

they are kept here at the National Library in Aberystwyth.

Historian Sara Elin Roberts has spent her career

studying 13th century copies of the laws,

written in Latin and in medieval Welsh.

The Welsh law is preserved in around 40 manuscripts.

They're dealing with every aspect that the law wants to cover,

so they're dealing with the king,

they are dealing with peasants

and their rights, peoples rights,

injury, compensation for injury,

homicide, theft,

arson, you name it.

If there's a law for it,

the aim was to include it in the book,

which is why the books are quite lengthy.

It's thought that before Hywel's law,

each kingdom had its own customs.

But Hywel's is the first official set of laws for all of Wales.

The problem is we can't even be sure

that the story of how these laws came to be is true.

What the Welsh law books tell us is that Hywel gathers a group of experts

from all over Wales and brings them to his palace at Whitland,

where they spend all of Lent constructing this new body of law.

Trouble is, there is no official record of this legal summit

in any of the chronicles.

But of all the early Welsh kings,

Hywel is the one with the stature

and the benefit of a peaceful reign

to put Welsh law in order.

These first Welsh laws are comprehensive

and full of common sense.

Most remarkable is the emphasis on reconciliation

when it comes to matters of crime.

The Welsh laws are very modern

in their attitude to crime and punishment.

You often these days hear the term compensation culture.

Well, this is what you have in medieval Wales.

Rather than physical punishments,

whipping, hanging, eye for an eye and all of that,

what you have is compensation.

Instead of suffering capital punishment,

a murderer and his family for the next seven generations

have to pay a murder price to the kin of the deceased.

A sense of fairness runs through much of Hywel's law,

including how it deals with the rights of women.

Women did appear to have more independence

than they would in other countries.

In medieval Wales, marriage was split into two periods.

The first seven years was a sort of trial period,

and after seven years if the couple wanted to separate,

they could do so quite freely

and the goods would be split half and half.

And there are lists in the law books saying who gets what,

which gives women some independence.

They wouldn't be left destitute,

they would get something if the marriage didn't work out.

Even today, these first laws of Wales seem advanced

and different to other European laws of that time.

They are a sign of a distinct culture.

These laws are central to the story of Wales.

They show that, from a very early period,

Wales wasn't a primitive society, it was a sophisticated society.

They're also very important as a unifying factor in Wales,

because what you have is a collection of kingdoms,

each with their own king doing their own thing,

but it seems that they were all subject to one law,

the Law Of Hywel.

And it could be argued that the laws were the one unifying factor

in early medieval Wales.

For centuries to come, living under the Law Of Hywel

would be one of the defining features of the Welsh people.

But, despite sharing the same law,

the tenth-century kingdoms of Wales are still at odds with each other,

and at war with their Anglo-Saxon neighbours.

But a new European Wales will emerge from its next great struggle.

Anglo-Saxons and their way of life are swiftly and coldly

being swept aside by the Normans.

William the Conqueror, from France,

and his unstoppable military machine have arrived.

And he has Wales in his sights.

Building castles is the Norman way of taking control.

Within 24 years of arriving in the British Isles,

they've completed the Great Tower of Chepstow Castle

overlooking the River Wye.

They have taken command of the gateway to South Wales.

The Norman world that descends on the doorstep of the Welsh

is alien and threatening.

We know what it's like to be crushed by Norman power,

because we have accounts from that time.

The writer Rhygyfarch talks about free necks

submitting to the yoke,

righteous hands branded with hot iron,

men and women being mutilated.

We've not known anything like this

since the days of the Roman invasion.

But Wales proves difficult to invade and tricky to control.

It's a very different prospect from the Anglo-Saxon lands

the Normans have just conquered.

It's wild and it's mountainous.

It doesn't have one leader to overthrow but many.

This time, the Welsh lack of unity is an advantage.

So the Norman attempt to conquer is rather piecemeal.

It will take 200 years.

The strongholds the Normans set up in Wales

are known as the Welsh marches

or Marchia Wallia.

Run by Norman lords, these are bastions for raiding land

and for suppressing the locals.

While territory in the west is considered Wales Proper

or Pura Wallia.

After the Normans came, Wales is divided into two different areas.

There was the areas

of the Marcher Lordships, where Welsh people would have lost

all their rights and privileges

and some of their lands.

The laws of Hywel Dda would have been superseded by Norman laws,

they'd have had to pay taxes and respect different authority.

Much of Wales remained in the possession of the Welsh princes

and the systems would have remained the same there.

But they would have constantly been under threat

from Norman expansion trying to take their lands away from them.

So life changed significantly in both parts of Wales.

But the Welsh retained their identity in some areas

and had their identity taken away in others.

These are very hard times,

no doubt about that,

but it's not all negative.

A big world has come to Wales with new ideas,

new ways of building, new ways of creating wealth.

And here we have a key theme in our story.

The big influence from outside is crucial to us.

The population grows as the Welsh marches are colonised

by the Normans and their English subjects.

And the Normans encourage other foreigners to settle in the south.

Wales is becoming cosmopolitan.

I think before the Normans came,

Wales was still part of a Celtic world focused around the Irish Sea

in terms of its religion, its family connections,

its economy.

But after the Normans came and started to settle Wales,

those horizons changed.

They were looking much further afield.

And Welsh princes started to wish to be European princes.

And in the 12th century, that is exactly what they become.

There is one young leader in the Kingdom of Deheubarth,

here in South West Wales in 12th century,

who knows full well that

the only way to survive in the battle with the Normans is to be cunning,

to adopt new ways.

The Lord Rhys is a young nobleman.

A teenager who wants to play the Normans

at their own game by using armour...

..and cavalry

and building seven stone castles right across South Wales.

Dinefwr Castle will become the nerve centre for his powerful dynasty.

The Lord Rhys starts young.

Orphaned at 14,

he creates havoc for the Anglo Norman king, Henry II.

Henry is a busy king.

He has his hands full, wresting back control from barons

who threaten his position in Ireland.

In Wales, over a period of 26 years,

Lord Rhys stirs up rebellions, raids land, burns enemy castles

and claws back power from the Marcher lords.

Hostages are continually taken on both sides.

I suppose we can say that here's a leader who makes Henry II

and the Norman barons sit up and take notice of Wales.

Lord Rhys' years of onslaught prove too much for Henry,

who's busy dealing with Ireland.

He hasn't time to deal with this troublesome Welsh leader.

So he decides to give ground.

Henry decides to let Rhys keep some of those conquered lands

and he frees his hostage son.

In return, this is the crucial part,

Rhys acknowledges Henry as his overlord.

And the result is that the Lord Rhys transforms himself

from troublesome rebel to honourable ally.

He's even appointed Justice of South Wales.

That really is a position of responsibility.

And by 1171, the Lord Rhys is acknowledged as Supreme Ruler

of South and West Wales.

While much of Wales is still divided,

Lord Rhys is its most successful leader.

His power recognised by Welsh and English alike.

Now he takes command of castles that will secure his borders.

They stretch across his kingdom from Dinefwr to Cardigan.

13th century Deheubarth glitters with Lord Rhys' lime-washed castles.

Aside from his success with the Normans,

Lord Rhys is known for two other reasons.

Firstly as a philanderer.

He has nine sons and eight daughters

even fathering illegitimate children by his own niece.

And secondly for starting a revival of Welsh culture.

In 1176 at Cardigan, he hosts a major festival

based on French traditions.

It's considered to be Wales' first Eisteddfod.

Well, with an impressive network of castles

and generous sponsorship of poetry and music,

Lord Rhys is responsible for a real blossoming of Welsh culture.

It stands proudly in that European tradition.

But the most enduring legacy of that revival

is to put Wales into the greatest European club of all.

These are the remains of Strata Florida,

One of the most important abbeys in Wales'.

It lies in a rural and isolated spot in the heart of Ceredigion.

In the 12th century it is run by monks, from Burgundy in France.

They're known as the Cistercians.

Famed for their white robes, hard work and simple life,

they are the latest must-have for any medieval king.

Janet Burton is a historian

who can tell me why the Lord Rhys became the abbey's main patron.

First and foremost, rulers like the Lord Rhys

wanted to have their own community of monks to pray for them.

It was a violent age.

They were aware that they might need that bit of help.

On the straight to salvation.

And that was what he wanted from a community of monks.

But there are other benefits for Welsh leaders.

The Cistercians are Wales' first international order of monks,

well-connected across the Continent,

from France and Spain to Eastern Europe.

Strata Florida is taken over by Rhys

at a time when his power is on the increase.

He's very much trying to fulfil territorial ambitions.

This is about his prestige, his power his authority.

And in backing the Cistercian monks

he's putting himself on an equal footing with other European rulers.

Over the next century,

Welsh rulers establish 14 Cistercian monasteries.

And because Cistercian abbots visit France each year

there's a constant exchange of ideas

with this well-connected, European club.

And this place itself, not just a centre of prayer

but an industrial centre too.

Yes, everything that would have surrounded the monastery within the precinct

would have been geared up towards economic activities.

Workshops, wool sheds, keeping of horses, cows,

arable farming, fishing - a huge range of economic activity.

-It was big business.

-It was big business, yes.

In fact, the writer Gerald of Wales, in the late 12th Century,

remarked of the Cistercians

that if you give them a wilderness and go away for a year and come back,

they will have transformed it.

Transformed the wilderness into what he called a smiling plenty.

So, economic transformation of the area.

The Welsh Cistercians have ready cash, they're farmers,

traders and merchants and they make the land prosper.

Strata Florida grows to 80,000 acres,

Wales' largest monastic estate and the jewel in its medieval crown.

What we have at Strata Florida is a vibrant community.

Yes, it's a house of prayer but it's much more than that.

It's a major centre of Welsh learning and culture.

And we have to see Strata Florida in a much a wider context,

not Welsh, not British, but European.

And when you see this glorious archway

you have the clearest evidence of the European influence

in medieval Wales.

The Cistercians aren't just a boon to the status and economy of Wales.

They also help cement the growing sense of a Welsh identity.

Because the monks are literate.

On animal skins they write down Welsh poems,

document daily life and record our history.

The work rate is astonishing.

The monks fill entire libraries with their books.

This is the site of the library at Strata Florida.

It was packed with volumes made of goat skin,

priceless records of Welsh life.

Their most important achievement is Brut y Tywysogion.

The chronicle of the princes.

This is a tale of Welsh history that starts in 682

and spans six centuries.

It tells of eclipses of the sun, plagues and earthquakes

and records royal births and deaths.

Before all this much of the story of our past

is preserved in popular memory or in some decaying documents.

But now for the first time, thanks to the Cistercians,

we have a proper written history preserved for the people.

In effect, it's our first national archive.

The Cistercians are part of the fabric of Welsh life

and they consolidate Welsh culture and history,

making it real and tangible.

Medieval Wales has its own language, its own laws

and now a preserved history

with a growing sense of its cultural heritage.

But any sense of a Welsh nation doesn't exist.

And by the 12th century,

the Welsh have witnessed the violent reigns of over 100 kings.

As time passes, the title of king, or Rex in Latin,

becomes a little devalued.

There had been so many kings!

Leaders prefer the title of Prince,

based on the Latin for principle ruler.

And it's in the 13th century that this notion of uniting Wales

under one leader starts to gather force.

That leader will be called Prince of Wales.

One ruler from Gwynedd is the only Welshman

who is ever recognised by England, as Prince of Wales.

He is Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, better known as Llywelyn the Last.

This story of Wales is all about discovery.

I'm on a country lane above the village of Abergwyngregyn,

overlooking the Menai Straits.

I'm in search of a place that in all likelihood

is one of the most significant sites in the history of Wales.

And yet it is relatively unknown.

And here it is.

This is Pen y Bryn, it's now privately owned.

Archaeologists tell us that parts of this building date back to 1200.

And there is a growing body of evidence now to suggest,

at one stage, this was the home of Llywelyn Fawr, Llywelyn the Great,

who ruled for 46 years, and of his grandson, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd.

Llywelyn ap Gruffydd is a bold man, taking command of much of Wales

and capturing land from English lords.

His opponent, the English King Henry III is a weak and unpopular monarch.

After struggling with years of civil war in England

he is willing to listen to Llywelyn.

It's late in the summer of 1267 when Henry's men

and Llywelyn's men hold a summit meeting in Shrewsbury.

It lasts for four days,

and some of the most notable people of the time are present,

including the Pope's envoy, and what they're after is a deal

which defines Llywelyn's power in Wales.

And it turns out to be a very significant moment.

On the 29th September 1267,

King Henry and Llywelyn meet at a ford on the Welsh-English border.

A formal meeting place, to ratify the treaty of Montgomery.

King Henry recognises Llywelyn as the official Prince of Wales,

so long as Llywelyn swears allegiance to the English Crown.

Llywelyn becomes the first Welsh ruler to be formally acknowledged

as Prince of Wales by an English king,

so it is a very significant moment. But this treaty isn't really

about Llywelyn's relationship with Henry,

it is more to do with Llywelyn's determination to legitimise

his power over other Welsh princes and lords.

And it helps, of course, that he's now backed by a powerful military machine.

It is Llywelyn's hunger for power that creates the principality of Wales.

Llywelyn is ruler of 200,000 subjects from Gwynedd to Brecon.

It is a new start for Wales.

A time of peace to begin the business of building its own state.

But this promising age would last only ten years.

The treaty Llwellyn has signed comes at a heavy price.

The price demanded of Llywelyn is painfully high

but he does agree to it.

Not only does he pay homage to the king he pays a lot of money too.

And the first instalment is 5,000 marks, that's around £3,000.

It's probably as much as the prince's entire annual income.

As well as Llywelyn's financial pressures,

he loses his deal with the English when Henry dies.

The new king, Edward I,

is an imposing figure, fierce of temper and violent.

He wants to crush this new Prince of Wales

and win back power over all of Britain, for himself.

Llywelyn's problems start to multiply.

He can't bring himself to pay homage to King Edward

and he stops the system of regular payments that he's agreed to make.

The response to that is entirely predictable.

The king judges him to be untrustworthy, unreliable

and he declares him a rebel.

In 1277, Edward gathers the biggest army seen in Britain

since the Norman invasion.

They force their way into Anglesey, the breadbasket of Wales

and confiscate the harvest.

Then Edward redistributes Llywelyn's land.

Llywelyn is cut off from most of his lands

and he has very few allies so he's forced to surrender

and in fact he retreats here to the heart of Snowdonia.

And there's more bad news for him, because a new treaty is signed

where most of the Welsh lords

declare their loyalty to the king and not to Llywelyn, so all

the power that he's built up over the past decade just fades away.

For the next five years, Llywelyn tries to patch up

his relationship with King Edward.

He even resumes payments.

But on Palm Sunday in 1282, things go badly wrong.

Llywelyn's brother decides to take his own initiative

and attack an English castle without Llywelyn's permission.

It sparks a rebellion and other Welsh lords join in.

That gives Llywelyn an impossible dilemma.

Does he stand aside or does he join in too?

What happens is that fate intervenes.

For several months Llywelyn hesitates.

He's desperate to keep the vengeful English king at bay.

But on 12 June 1282, his wife Eleanor dies,

while giving birth to their daughter.

In mourning and with no male heir he has nothing to lose.

He joins his brother to attack the King of England.

But Edward retaliates, attacking Llwellyn from all sides

including from the sea.

Edward's forces are closing in on Gwynedd

and the king has one principle demand.

He wants Llywelyn to surrender Wales.

Well, Llywelyn's advisors, the main figures here in Snowdonia send an urgent appeal

to the Archbishop of Canterbury and they declare the prince

should not throw aside his inheritance

"and that of his ancestors in Wales.

"And accept land in England, a country with whose language,

"way of life, laws and customs he is unfamiliar."

The view of Llywelyn's council is uncompromising.

They declare that Wales is an ancient inheritance.

It owes nothing to the King of England.

And Llywelyn himself writes to the king,

and he says he will never abandon the people

who have been protected by his ancestors since the days of Brutus.

It really is a cry of defiance at a desperate time.

By summoning the legend of Brutus,

the mythical ancestor of the Celts, Llywelyn lays claim to a much

older connection to this land, than the English ever can.

But just a month later,

Llywelyn, the last native Prince of Wales will be dead.

One story says that late in 1282, after battle near Builth Wells,

Llywelyn encounters an English knight.

Llywelyn isn't wearing any armour.

The knight runs him through with his lance.

The Prince of Wales is dead.

Llywelyn's head is paraded around London -

a gruesome display of English conquest.

How Llywelyn dies is a bit of a mystery.

He is the most wanted man in Britain.

Is he betrayed by one of his own?

Is he enticed into a trap?

Is he struck down by an English knight who doesn't even recognise the Prince of Wales?

We'll never know for sure.

What we do know, is for those who believe in Wales,

in the Land of the Cymru, in the building of a Welsh nation

the death of Llywelyn is the end of the world.

Wales loses hope of independence.

Worse still, Edward suppresses everything Welsh.

Land and castles are taken, treasures stolen.

Churches and abbeys are destroyed,

and the child heirs of Llywelyn's dynasty are imprisoned.

Edward takes a stranglehold on Wales' last refuge of power

in the mountainous north, by building imposing castles across Gwynedd.

His final symbolic touch is to bestow the title Prince of Wales

on his own heir, a tradition that continues to this day.

Wales is totally excluded from power.

It is no longer a place of kings and princes.

This is a land of political defeat.

But there is worse to come.

In 1349, an apocalypse engulfs the medieval world.

It takes the form of the Bubonic Plague, or Black Death.

Spread by the fleas of rats,

it kills 25 million people across Europe.

A third of England's population die.

Wales can't escape it.

Even its mountains and rural isolation

only hinder the spread of the disease.

In just two years, a quarter of the Welsh are wiped out.

After the Black Death, the economy can barely function.

Survivors are traumatised having witnessed

suffering on a biblical scale.

And more trouble is on the way.

Into this turbulent world steps the son of destiny,

the man who emerges as the standard bearer for Welsh nationhood.

His name - Owain Glyndwr.

And this mighty fortress of Harlech Castle,

a prime symbol of English power,

becomes, for several years, a Welsh fortress,

a Welsh seat of government under a Welsh leader.

Owain Glyndwr is an unlikely figure to inspire a fight for Welsh independence.

A nobleman from North Wales, he's also part of the English upper crust.

He studies law in London and joins the English army,

even taking part in an invasion of Scotland.

Not until his late 40s does Glyndwr turn into a rebel with a cause.

So what is it that sparks Owain Glyndwr's anger and resentment?

It seems to be a local dispute over land.

An English squire called Reginald Gray takes possession

of some of Glyndwr's territory.

It's a situation that spirals out of control and leads, eventually, to all-out rebellion.

In the first instance, Glyndwr takes his complaint to parliament.

He does want to play things by the book

but his case is rejected there in rather insulting terms,

with one member referring to the Welsh as "those barefoot rascals".

Now, if we add all that to the catalogue of injustice

being suffered by so many Welsh people under English rule, we begin

to realise why we now have the makings of an explosive situation.

Glyndwr's sense of Welsh identity comes to the fore.

Supporters rally round and, on the 16th of September, 1400,

they declare him Prince of Wales.

As a direct descendant of the Welsh princes, it is a title

to which he can lay good claim.

The self-proclaimed Prince of Wales Owain Glyndwr

makes the town of Ruthin the first target for his attack.

He's got new status, a new power. He wants to make a big impact.

And that's exactly what he does.

Before dawn, Glyndwr and 200 men raid the town.

They steal gold, silver and livestock,

and then burn Ruthin to the ground.

Glyndwr doesn't stop there. He attacks more English strongholds,

leaving a trail of burnt towns across North Wales.

As he gathers momentum, his support across Wales grows.

Reports tell of Welsh students at Oxford abandoning their books,

Welsh labourers leaving their English employers,

all of them returning home to join the rebellion.

Glyndwr and his men become famous for their guerilla-style warfare.

They ambush the enemy, and then melt away into the landscape,

as quickly as they appeared.

Glyndwr is outwitting the English.

By 1403, the scale of Glyndwr's revolt is truly national,

and the English are desperately trying to hang on

to four power bases, including this one at Harlech.

So Glyndwr decides to lay siege to the castle and starve them out.

And the tactic works.

A few months later, Glyndwr and his family are able to move in here and make Harlech Castle their home.

He's consolidating his hold on all of central Wales and he's moving

a step closer to uniting all of the Welsh against the great enemy.

And, for nearly two years, Glyndwr has the help of French troops

lent to him by the King of France, Charles the Sixth.

At the height of his power, Glyndwr comes here to Machynlleth

and assembles a parliament with representatives from all over Wales,

and, to add the prestige,

there are envoys from Spain and Scotland and France.

This is no small-time rebel leader. This is the Prince of Wales.

It's significant that Wales' first parliament

is held in Mid-Wales at Machynlleth,

a town that has no English castle.

Glyndwr's plans for his country are described in a letter

he writes to the French king.

It paints a vivid picture of a free and independent nation.

Glyndwr's vision of a vibrant Welsh state is dazzling in its ambition.

A powerful parliament, an independent church,

a university in the north and in the south.

It is sophisticated, it's forward-looking and it fails.

Glyndwr is still a rebel in the eyes of many

and his support in Wales is far from universal,

and, in 1406, France withdraws her troops.

Weakened by these set backs, Wales is quickly taken by England.

Glyndwr fights on until he is cornered in Harlech in 1409.

Glyndwr escapes but his wife, two daughters and a grandchild

are captured and imprisoned in London for the rest of their days.

Owain Glyndwr becomes a wanted man,

hunted by the forces of King Henry,

until he and his small band of supporters are no longer a threat,

and the flames of Glyndwr's revolt,

which once burned so brightly, are just embers and ashes.

In the aftermath, the Welsh are punished by the English.

Cut off from trade, they face poverty and starvation.

While Owain Glyndwr seems to vanish from history.

It is said that Owain, like King Arthur, is asleep somewhere

in these hills awaiting the call to return to save his country.

But 600 years after the revolt of Glyndwr,

his vision of a Senedd on Welsh soil has been fulfilled.

We have a Welsh government today, but it was the power-hungry kings

of medieval Wales who were the first to forge a sense of one nation.

The great struggles of Llywelyn the Last

and Owain Glyndwr are powerful emblems of our nationhood,

part of our identity and that will never change

but in the next chapter of our story of Wales,

we will see the crowning of a man with Welsh blood in his veins,

not a prince of Wales, but the King of England.

The Open University has produced a free booklet for you to learn

more about the history of the people of Wales.

Call or visit the website and follow the links to the Open University.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd