Cylchgronau Cymru

'THE LAST AND WEAKEST OF HIS LINE': DAFYDD AP GRUFFYDD, THE LAST PRINCE OFWALES DAFYDD AP GRUFFYDD, the last native prince of Wales, has not had a good press.1 Over the years historians have seen him as Llywelyn ap Gruffydd's evil genius, as the betrayer of his brother, as a man consumed by jealousy and as the instigator of the final disastrous war of 1282-3. To Sir John Lloyd he was 'the restless, discontented, shifty schemer, true neither to the Welsh nor to the English side', while Sir Maurice Powicke saw him as 'the most restless man of his time' and R. R. Davies has referred to his 'record of defection and treachery'. 2 Saunders Lewis echoed this view in the line from his elegy on Sir John Lloyd, a translation of which forms the title of this article.3 Given Dafydd's record, his changes of allegiance, his involvement in the assassination plot of 1274 and his participation in the war of 1276-7 on the English side, such judgements are hardly surprising, but they can also be construed as simplistic. This man was the last native prince and for many years his brother's heir. Perhaps he merits something more than the sweeping condemnation he has so often received. 1 There is no detailed study of Dafydd ap Gruffydd. There is a short account in Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940 (London, 1959), pp. 94-5, by T. Jones Pierce; there are also numerous references in J. E. Lloyd, A History ofWales from the earliest times to the Edwardian Conquest (3rd edn, London, 1939). The best account of his career and motivation is in J. Beverley Smith, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales (Cardiff, 1998), passim. For an attempt at rehabilitation, which should be used with care, see Ralph Maud, 'David, the last prince of Wales: the ten "lost" months ofWelsh history', Trans.Hon.Soc.Cymmrodorion, 1968 (i), pp.43-62. 2 J. E. Lloyd, op. cit., H, 742-3; F. M. Powicke, King Henry III and the Lord Edward (Oxford, 1947), II, 661; R. R. Davies, Conquest, Coexistence and Change: Wales, 1063-1415 (Oxford, 1987), p.318. 3 Thomas Parry (ed.), The Oxford Book of Welsh PfcwrfOxfbrd, 1962), p.465: 'yr ola' eiddila' o'i lin.'