Remembering Gwenllian

On the 12th of October 1278 Llywelyn ap Gruffydd (‘Ein Llyw Olaf’ or Our Last Leader), Prince of Wales and Lord of Snowdonia, married Eleanor de Montford (daughter of Simon de Montford) on the steps of Worcester Cathedral.

Eleanor's mother was the daughter of Henry III, and her grandfather was King John of England. Present at the wedding were Alexander, King of Scotland and Edward 1 of England, the bride's cousin. To celebrate the event, a colourful window was installed in the Cathedral... which can still be seen to this day. There was a celebration and generous gifts were bestowed but this friendship did not prove to be long-lasting.

In 1282 at Garth Celyn near Bangor, Gwenllian, the only child of Eleanor and Llywelyn, was born. Sadly, Eleanor died at the birth of Gwenllian. The baby, part of the lineage of the Princes of Wales, and Edward viewed her as a threat to his Crown. Six months later he arranged for Llywelyn to be murdered, near Builth Wells. Edward betrayed the Welsh after he promised that the soldiers in the Cilmeri area would be allowed to return home quietly, and that they would be in no danger, but 3,000 Welsh soldiers were murdered. A year passed before Edward ventured into Wales again, and it was a time of great vulnerability for the English!

Edward arranged for Gwenllian, the orphan, to be abducted when she was about eighteen months old and sent to a Priory on the grounds of Sempringham Abbey in Lincolnshire.

She was imprisoned there for 54 years as a nun, was denied access to any visitors and had no right to receive gifts or leave. This is where she died in 1337, at the age of 54, without knowing of her family or of Wales. This was Edward's way of ensuring that there would be no progression in the lineage of the Princes of Wales.

In 1991 Byron Rogers wrote a newspaper article under the headline "The Lost Children" and in 1993, Richard Turner, a former ship captain, read it and arranged for a memorial to Gwenllian to be erected at Sempringham.

By 2001 the memorial was in disrepair but a new memorial was erected, thanks to the generosity of a number of Welsh people, under the care of the Princess Gwenllian Society.

The memorial is the work of Ieuan Rees, the world-famous calligrapher from Carmarthenshire. A Tribute Slate was also designed and placed near the summit of yr Wyddfa.

Although medieval Britain was a period of great chivalry and lyric poetry, it was also a time of intense cruelty and hardship. It is so important therefore that the history of brave Welshmen and women over the ages is not forgotten.