Sean Davies – författare

This text offers an examination of Welsh military organization, strategy, tactics and conduct in war which goes beyond the military sphere and touches on all aspects of Welsh society in this period.

Gruffudd ap Llywelyn was Wales’ greatest king. Ambitious and battle-sure, he succeeded in doing what no Welsh king before him was capable of: he ruled all Wales as a united and independent state. He went further by turning the Viking threat to his realm into a powerful weapon and conquering border land that had been in English hands for centuries. Having emerged as a war leader, Gruffudd also proved to be much more: a patron of the arts and church, with the trappings of a king who was respected and feared on the European stage. His eventual murder at the hands of his own men narrowed the country’s political ambitions and left Wales in chaos on the eve of the arrival of the Normans. Those who betrayed Gruffudd were the forebears of the famous princes who would dominate Wales until the Edwardian Conquest, meaning that the former king left no one to tell of his glory. As a result, 1,000 years after his birth, the would-be nation builder is all but forgotten. Here, Sean and Michael Davies reveal the king in all his glory, telling for the first time the story of one of Wales’ greatest figures and exploring the full implications of Gruffudd’s rule. For, without Gruffudd, the fate of King Harold and the outcome of the Battle of Hastings would have been very different…

Edward I s conquest of Wales was a key formative event in the history of Britain, but it has not been the subject of a scholarly book for over 100 years. Research has advanced since then, changing our perception of the medieval military mind and shining fresh light on the key characters involved in the conquest. That is why Sean Davies s absorbing new study is so timely and important. He takes a balanced approach, giving both the Welsh and English perspectives on the war and on the brutal, mistrustful and ruthless personal motives that drove events. His account is set in the context of Welsh warfare and society from the end of Rome to the time of Edward s opening campaign in the late thirteenth century. The narrative describes in vivid detail the military history of the conflict, the sequence of campaigns, Welsh resistance, Edward s castle building and English colonization and the cost of the struggle to the Welsh and the English and the uneasy peace that followed.

This text offers an examination of Welsh military organization, strategy, tactics and conduct in war which goes beyond the military sphere and touches on all aspects of Welsh society in this period. It helps to explain the transformation of the country from a part of post-Roman medieval Europe to the series of independent principalities eventually conquered by Edward I. The author questions many of the traditional assumptions, notably the tendency to see the Welsh (and the Irish and the Scottish) as "barbaric" and provides a corrective to these current views. It demonstrates that, whilst allowing for differences given the nature, economy, geography and topography of the country, Welsh military developments from the end of Roman rule to the Edwardian conquest generally correspond to those seen in the rest of Western Europe.