Gwynedd

A menacing Welsh tale about an evil oak tree….

Oct 31, 2024

anniversaries, travel

dolgellau, ghosts, Gwynedd, Halloween, howell sele, murder, nannau park, nannau woods, oaks, Owain Glyn Dwr, the strangling oak, trees, Vaughans, Wales

Well, Hallowe’en is nigh, a time when we like to shiver and squeal, so here is a dark legend to set those shivers and squeals in motion. It happened at the end of the 14th/beginning of the 15th century among the dense trees of Nannau Park near Dolgelly/Dolgellau, the county town of Merionethshire (now Gwynedd).…
A Royal guide to … Wales

Apr 25, 2024

anniversaries, battles, buildings, culture, genealogy, heraldry, television reviews

“Tudors”, aberfan, Arthur “Tudor”, Balmoral, banners, Battle of Bosworth, birth dates, Caernarfon Castle, Channel Four, Charles “III”, coronets, dragon, Edmund “Tudor”, Edward II, Edward VI, Edward VIII, Gwynedd, Harold II, harps, Henry VII, Henry VIII, investitures, John Ashdown-Hill, Master James of St. George, Normans, regalia, Rhuddlan Castle, statues, Victoria, Wales

This excellent documentary was featured on Channel Four during March. It told of Wales’ existence as a Kingdom before the Normans arrived and sought to reinforce their borders and the last Principality was suppressed about a year before the future Edward II was born at his father’s greatest military outpost at Caernarfon. It discussed the…
The Lordship of Powys. (Part 1)

Nov 30, 2023

battles, buildings, genealogy

de la Pole family, Edith Pargeter, Edward I, Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, Gwynedd, Hawise Lestrange, Hull, Joan Corbet, Knockin, Llewellyn, Marcher Lords, Owain ap Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, Owain de la Pole, Powis Castle, Princes of Powys, Sharon Kay Penman, Wales, Welshpool

Powys is an interesting Marcher Lordship in that it was never conquered by the English but descended by inheritance. Of course, the Welsh princes of Powys tended to be quite pro-English. (Perhaps one should really say pro-Anglo-Norman.) This is quite understandable, however shocking it may seem to modern nationalist sentiment. For one thing, Powys was…
Caernarfon Castle, one of Wales’s great historic sites….

Jul 7, 2023

anniversaries, battles, buildings, law, travel

“Tudors”, Afon Seiont, Anglesey, Caernarfon Castle, castles, Charles “III”, Country Life, Edward I, Edward II, Gwynedd, investiture, Menai Strait, Princes of Wales, Roman forts, tourism, Wales, William Prince of Wales

The great fortresses built by Edward I to subdue the rebellious Welsh are all spectacular and have survived the centuries. Now they are considered beautiful examples of medieval workmanship and have become great tourist attractions, which isn’t really what old Longshanks ever intended! One of the finest of these fortresses is Caernarfon which is always…
Was Roland de Velville the son of Henry VII….?

Jun 25, 2017

anniversaries, genealogy

“Beauforts”, Agnes Griffith, Anglesey, bardic tradition, Battle of Bosworth, Beaumaris Castle, bigamy, Blackheath, Breton expedition 1489, Brittany, Catherine de Valois, Catherine of Berain, Daffyd Alaw, dispensations, DNA, Edmund “Tudor”, Edward IV, Elizabeth of York, Gwynedd, hawking, Henry V, Henry VII, Henry VIII, hunting, Owain Tudor, Roland de Roncevaux, Roland de Velville, royal marriages, secret marriage, Sir John Cheney, Sir Robert Willoughby

The following article is necessarily filled with supposition, inference and sneaking suspicion. The result of smoke and mirrors, you ask? Well, I think it is all much more substantial than that, as I hope to explain in the coming paragraphs. Today (25th June) in 1545, died a man by the name of Roland de Velville…
Another little boy who went into the Tower and never came out. (As far as we know.)

Sep 11, 2015

battles, buildings

Catrin ferch Owain, Earls of March, Gwladys Dhu, Gwynedd, Harlech Castle, Henry IV, Henry Pole the Younger, Henry V, Lionel Mortimer, Llewellyn Fawr, Mortimers, Owain Glyndwr, Princes of Wales, Sir Edmund Mortimer, St. Swithin’s Church, Tower of London

After the fall of Harlech Castle in February 1409, various members of Owain Glyndwr’s family were taken to the Tower. Among them was his grandson, Lionel ap Edmund (or Lionel Mortimer) the young son of Sir Edmund Mortimer and his wife Catrin ferch Owain. This boy cannot have been older than six at the uttermost,…

Gwynedd

A menacing Welsh tale about an evil oak tree….

A Royal guide to … Wales

The Lordship of Powys. (Part 1)

Caernarfon Castle, one of Wales’s great historic sites….

Was Roland de Velville the son of Henry VII….?

Another little boy who went into the Tower and never came out. (As far as we know.)