On 10 November 1277, at Aberconwy, through the mediation of Dafydd ap Gruffudd, peace was made between Edward I of England and Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales. The text is enrolled in the Foedera. That summer the king’s host had reached the heart of Gwynedd and taken the harvest of Anglesey, the granary of the principality. Llywelyn, declared a rebel in 1276, submitted.

The prince’s authority remains west of the River Conwy. He keeps the title Prince of Wales. Eastern Gwynedd is split between the crown and Dafydd, the brother who had gone over to Edward. The lesser lords of Deheubarth, Powys and mid-Wales no longer recognise him as overlord: the tributary lands fall, in effect, under the king.

Dafydd’s lands in Gwynedd go back to Llywelyn; the reward is elsewhere. On 28 November Edward grants him the cantreds of Dyffryn Clwyd and Rhufoniog, the keepership of Denbigh and Hope, and £1,000 a year. He had made him a knight, contrary to Welsh custom. Rishanger writes of Dafydd’s “honesty and faithfulness”. Marriage to Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Derby, also brings him Cheshire lands, among them Frodsham.

Llywelyn does homage. Edward allows the marriage to Eleanor de Montfort, Simon’s daughter, held at Windsor after her ship was stopped in 1275. The wedding is at Worcester Cathedral, in 1278, in the king’s presence. At Flint, Rhuddlan, Aberystwyth and Builth, Edward raises fortresses on the road into Gwynedd.

Dafydd does not stay content. On the night before Palm Sunday, 22 March 1282, he takes Hawarden and seizes the justiciar Roger de Clifford. Llywelyn joins him. The war turns from punishment to conquest. Llywelyn falls at Orewin Bridge in December 1282. Dafydd is taken in June 1283, tried at Shrewsbury on 3 October and executed. His head goes on the Tower of London, beside his brother’s.

The Cistercian abbey of Aberconwy, the place of the peace, was moved by Edward to Maenan when he raised the town and castle of Conwy. The walls of St Mary’s still hold stone from that house.

Thomas Frederick Tout, in the Dictionary of National Biography, article Davydd III, dates the treaty to 10 November 1277 and points to Foedera, vol. I, p. 545.

Image: JohnArmagh, remains of Aberconwy Abbey, Conwy, 2008, public domain, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Treaty of Aberconwy. Treaty text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885–1900: Davydd III.