There is little doubt about Owain ap Cadwgan’s status as one of the most savage and violent figures of his day. But was he really a noble warrior or simply a homicidal maniac?
FEW people today are probably aware of the story of Owain ap Cadwgan, the young, violent prince of Powys who lived in the decades that straddle the year 1100.
Yet during his lifetime Owain was an infamous character.
His deeds were a cause for concern at the highest levels of society and his brief existence left a blood-soaked trail worthy of any modern Tarantino movie. Yet, Owain’s violent deeds had a context and his life can reveal a great deal about the nature of society, politics and power during this momentous period in Welsh history.
Discovering Owain – sources and problems
Most of what we know about Owain’s life and deeds is gleaned from the native Welsh Chronicles and annals. Like modern newspapers, these medieval accounts provide us with reports of significant events and descriptions of the personalities of the day.
As sources, they are not without their problems not least because they were sometimes written down well after the events concerned. At times they are inaccurate and are often heavily biased towards certain parties. Nevertheless, for better or worse, they are the best record that we have for events in Wales in this period.
In order to understand Owain’s life and career we need to briefly set the scene and examine the nature of Welsh society and politics in his era. We cannot be certain but it seems likely that Owain ap Cadwgan came into the world in the late 1080s, around 20 years after the Battle of Hastings. At that time, Wales was a patchwork of competing native kingdoms.
There was no clear sense of Welsh unity or nationhood in this period. The Welsh political scene was violent and riven by bitter in-fighting and factional dynastic disputes for power and territory. Young men of power like Owain were socialised into a culture of violence and warfare.
They were raised to be warriors and often lived turbulent lives focused on raiding, plunder and the defence of their family line.
The cult of the young warrior
For medieval European societies one of the most significant rituals involved the taking of arms by young men. Following this, young men often formed into gangs or war bands and followed a riotous lifestyle.
The behaviour of such war bands was significantly characterised by indiscriminate violence, the abduction of women, slave raiding and plundering activities.
The Vikings’ tendencies towards such behaviour is pretty well known. However such practices were evident in societies across the Northern world prior to the Norman Conquest and Wales was no exception.
The Normans in Wales
When William the Conqueror seized the throne of England this did not give him any right to rule over the Welsh kingdoms. In the aftermath of Hastings, the Normans were probably too insecure in England to worry about Wales. Welsh war bands seem to have taken advantage of this and attacked border regions with England. These attacks appear to have drawn William the Conqueror’s attention to his frontier with Wales. In the late 1060s he endeavoured to do something about them.
In order to contain threats from Wales, William established a series of buffer territories or marcher earldoms and placed them under the control of tough and trusted Norman leaders.
He gave these leaders wide-ranging powers which appear to have included a licence to launch individual campaigns against the Welsh kingdoms.
Attack being the best form of defence, William’s marcher earls proceeded to carve out their own lordships with some vigour over the following years. They built substantial castles at key locations and became embroiled in Welsh politics; skilfully manipulating Welsh political fragmentation in order to further their territorial aims.
Not surprisingly Norman territorial conquests soon began to generate differences and ethnic tensions in Wales.
These tensions led to periodic Welsh uprisings and resistance to the new Norman overlords. Yet, as the marcher earls gained more and more power, subsequent English kings began to pursue a policy which also encouraged the independence of Welsh rulers.
This policy was implemented in order to maintain a balance of power between Norman and native in Wales.
The result was that Welsh rulers were increasingly being drawn into the political and cultural orbit of their powerful neighbour to the east.
As we shall see, this placed significant strains upon family relationships in native Welsh society.
Family problems – Owain and his father, Cadwgan
Owain’s father, Cadwgan ap Bleddyn, ruled Powys from the late 1090s until his death in 1111.
Cadwgan sired at least five sons, but Owain appears to have been both his favourite and his recognised heir.
During the 1090s, Cadwgan staunchly resisted the new Norman incomers and was heavily involved in the Welsh risings of that decade. In 1098 he fled to Ireland to escape a massive incursion into Wales by Norman forces.
Yet, in the following year Cadwgan returned home and appears to have made peace with the Norman invaders and their royal ruler King Henry I.
Following his submission to the English king, Cadwgan’s policy towards the Normans shifted from violence and conflict to collaboration and compromise.
It is true that he became involved in a rebellious plot against Henry I in 1102, yet, his co-conspirators in this instance were not other Welsh leaders but rather the Norman nobles Robert, Earl of Shrewsbury and his brother Arnulf of Montgomery, Earl of Pembroke.
Cadwgan was forgiven by King Henry for this misdemeanour and was subsequently given control over Ceredigion and further lands in Powys. He prospered from this co-operative attitude towards the English monarch.
But his increasingly close connections with Henry and his alliances with Norman leaders in Wales appears to have created problems within his own household. This was especially true in respect of his favourite son. Owain, seems to have deeply resented this intrusion of external influences into his father’s court. These family tensions came to a head, as they often do, at a party.
Owain and Nest – the ‘Welsh Helen of Troy’
In 1109 Cadwgan laid on a great feast for all of the rulers of Wales.
The author of the Brut (the Welsh Chronicle of the Princes) tells us that during this great banquet Owain heard much talk of a beautiful Welsh noblewoman named Nest. Nest was the daughter of the Welsh ruler of Rhys ap Tewdwr who had been slain by the Normans in 1093.
She had subsequently been married to the powerful Norman knight Gerald of Windsor, the steward of Pembroke castle. She was also having an affair with the English king, Henry I, to whom she subsequently bore an illegitimate son also named Henry.
During Cadwgan’s feast it seems that Owain learned that Gerald and Nest were staying at the nearby Norman castle at Cenarth Bychan (most probably Cilgerran castle near Cardigan).
Picture of Cilgerran Castle - with thanks to Cadw
During the night that followed the banquet Owain headed directly there. He besieged and set fire to the castle with a small band of determined young warriors.
In the turmoil, Nest persuaded her husband to make a humiliating escape down the castle’s latrine. The Brut tells us that Owain subsequently broke into the castle, raped Nest and abducted her along with Gerald’s children and much of his treasure. Historians have pondered over Owain’s motives and actions on this pivotal night. Were these the unpredictable actions of an unpleasant personality? Was this some crime of passion?
Personally, I would contest that this was no random act of youthful drunkenness and delinquency. Owain’s actions must be regarded in the context of contemporary warrior codes of behaviour and honour. From this perspective, the abduction of Nest was a deliberate symbolic statement against the Norman intrusion into Wales.
Through his actions Owain was directly defying his father’s will and protesting against Cadwgan’s collaborative attitude towards the Normans.
He was also emphasising his power by dishonouring the wife of Gerald of Windsor (and mistress of the English king) whose forces had dared to occupy Welsh territory.
He did this by abducting a native Welsh princess who had been “sleeping with the enemy”. As was often the case in early medieval societies, Owain’s overtly political action was characterised by violence, plunder and female abduction.
Next page: Owain the Outlaw
Owain the Outlaw
Following Owain’s night of violence, Cadwgan was very angry and demanded that his son should immediately return Gerald’s wife and property but to no avail. Owain was effectively outlawed and the Normans seem to have placed a bounty on his head and arranged that the war band of Madog ap Rhiddid, a sworn enemy of Owain’s, should hunt down and capture the Welsh renegade. Owain appears to have learned of this plot and subsequently fled to Ireland as a fugitive.
His father, Cadwgan, appears to have felt that his inability to control his son had implicated him in Owain’s crime and he accompanied him into exile. Yet, Cadwgan soon returned and submitted himself to King Henry for forgiveness. For his part, Henry appears to have followed a reconciliatory policy towards Cadwgan. Henry rewarded the Welsh ruler’s obedience with the return of his territory and also with a noble French bride. But there were significant strings to this favourable settlement. The author of the Brut relates that Cadwgan’s rewards were subject to one very strict condition: that there was to be no contact between him and his son. Owain was to be banished from Powys and given no help or support of any kind. Evidently, the tensions caused by the Norman settlement were straining the very bonds between a father and his son.
Owain and the ynfydyon (hot headed warriors)
As for Owain, he continued to act in a manner befitting the leader of a volatile Welsh war band.
He returned from Ireland shortly afterwards and allied himself with the warriors of another youthful warrior Madog ap Rhiddid.
This alliance is particularly significant because Madog had traditionally been a savage enemy of Owain’s.
Indeed, this was the same Madog who had been hired by the Normans to hunt Owain down. So how had these two volatile characters been drawn together?
Well, the author of the Brut notes that Madog had subsequently fallen from Norman favour because he had been harbouring and protecting a dissident band of Anglo-Saxon warriors who seem to have been continuing some kind of long-standing guerrilla campaign against Norman rule. The Normans had ordered Madog to hand over these English warriors but he refused and it was at this point that he struck an alliance with Owain.
What happened next is very interesting.
Owain’s war band joined with both Madog ap Rhiddid and the dissident Saxons and all three together carried out an orgy of ravaging and slave- raiding activities in West Wales along with a hosting of local youths who are described as ynfydyon.
The term ynfydyon is a difficult one to translate but seems to denote a group of hot-headed young warriors.
Significantly, this term is used only five times by the author of the Brut and only in reference to Welsh warriors who attacked the Norman invaders and settlers.
The ravages of Owain’s ynfydyon appear to have been an expression of deep-seated anxiety emanating from these young Welsh warriors.
This reaction was directed against the increasing ties of allegiance between their Welsh rulers like Owain’s father and the new Norman overlords.
Furthermore, the inclusion of Anglo-Saxon warriors in Owain and Madog’s unholy alliance reveals that their actions should not be regarded in terms of national resistance.
Rather they were motivated by strong cultural differences with the Normans that transcended their old rivalries and ethnic divisions.
Coming in from the cold – Owain and King Henry I of England
Cadwgan’s failure to control the disruptive ravages of his wayward son appears to have exasperated King Henry I. However, in 1111 the issue was abruptly resolved when Cadwgan was murdered. At this juncture Henry I seems to have decided to bring Owain in from the cold and he was summoned to the royal court. The magnetism of the English monarch proved too powerful for Owain and he made peace with Henry and was granted his father’s kingdom in Powys.
Following this, it appears that Henry attempted to integrate the Welsh renegade into his charmed circle. The Brut suggests that Henry took a personal interest in rehabilitating Owain, knighting him and taking him on an expedition to Normandy.
It would seem that, like his father before him, Owain had been lured into a position of compliance. Yet, this is not quite the end of Owain’s story.
Clash of the firebrands; Owain and Gruffudd ap Rhys
In the year 1115 another young firebrand prince, Gruffudd ap Rhys, returned to Wales following a long exile and began to assert his claim to power through warrior ferocity. Gruffudd adopted a strategy that consistently targeted Norman strongholds. He clearly intended to capitalise upon the tensions created by the Norman settlement. It appears that he was very successful in this respect because the author of the Brut remarks that following his ravages many young ynfydyon came to his assistance from all sides.
Henry I appears to have recognised the nature of these disruptions and he summoned the most suitable man for dealing with this troublesome character. That man was Owain ap Cadwgan. Owain’s subsequent actions reveal that he prosecuted this royal task with his trademark brutality, putting Gruffudd’s men, women and children to the sword.
The big payback – the revenge of Gerald of Windsor
The author of the Brut relates that following Owain’s ravages several fugitives managed to escape to the castle at Carmarthen where they found a champion in Owain’s longstanding enemy, Gerald of Windsor, the husband of Nest.
Gerald was probably aware of Owain’s royal mission; however, unlike King Henry, he had not forgiven Owain for the rape of his wife.
He, therefore, summoned a large force that surprised Owain’s war band and our man finally met with a suitably violent end being slain by the arrow fire of Flemish immigrants.
Owain ap Cadwgan; delinquent outlaw or Welsh hero?
Do I regard Owain as a villain? I am not sure that we should pass moral judgements on medieval warriors but rather attempt to understand their context. Perhaps the most satisfactory way to answer that question is to look at what his contemporaries thought of him.
From the Norman perspective he was definitely a villain; a disruptive and unpredictable complication in the complex world of Welsh politics.
Native Welsh views of him may well have been more sympathetic.
The author of the Brut clearly regarded his actions with concern but also awe. His resistance to Norman influences and his adherence to warrior values certainly seem to have earned him some begrudging admiration.
In many ways, Owain’s behaviour mirrors that of the mythical Welsh anti-hero/villain Efnisien who appears in the second branch of the Mabinogion. Efnisien, too, was an unpredictable warrior whose actions created political problems.
He too resisted external cultural influences and the dilution of Welsh blood.
When we consider that the tales of the Mabinogion may well have first been written down during Owain’s era then perhaps these similarities between medieval fiction and reality are more than just a coincidence?