See also

Family of Cadwaladr + ap CADWALLON

Partner: Cadwaladr + ap CADWALLON (615-682)
Partner: (unknown)
Children: Idwal + ap CADALADR (664-712)

Partner: Cadwaladr + ap CADWALLON

Name: Cadwaladr + ap CADWALLON
Sex: Male
Father: Cadwallon + ap CADFAN (591-634)
Mother: Alcfrith + of MERCIA (594- )
Birth 0615 Wales
Occupation King of Gwynedd
Title frm 0655 to 0682 (age 39-67) King of Gwynedd
Death 0682 (age 66-67)
Cause: killed by a plague

Child 1: Idwal + ap CADALADR

Name: Idwal + ap CADALADR
Sex: Male
Birth 0664 Wales
Occupation King of Gwynedd
Title King of Gwynedd
Death 0712 (age 47-48)

Note on Husband: Cadwaladr + ap CADWALLON

Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon (English: Cadwaladr son of Cadwallon) was King of Gwynedd (reigned c. 655 – 682). Two devastating plagues happened during his reign, one in 664 and the other in 682, with himself a victim of the second one. Little else is known of his reign. Cadwaladr is most widely recognised as a prominent character in the romantic stories of Geoffrey of Monmouth, where he is portrayed as the last in a line of legendary kings of Britain.

 

Y Ddraig Goch (English: The Red Dragon) has long been known as a Welsh symbol, appearing in the Mabinogion, the Historia Brittonum, and the stories of Geoffrey of Monmouth. It has commonly been referred to as 'The Red Dragon of Cadwaladr', and since the accession of Henry VII to the English throne, it has often been referred to as 'The Red Dragon of Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon'. The association with Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon is a traditional one, without a firm historical provenance.

 

Cadwaladr's name appears without the identifying patronymic 'ap Cadwallon' in a number of historical and literary works, such as in the Armes Prydein. Without additional corroborating information it cannot be assumed that Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon is the person referred to, rather than a different person with the same name.

 

Cadwaladr's name appears in passing in serious historical works, such as those by Davies[1] and Lloyd,[2] and then only to mention that he was the son of a famous father, Cadwallon ap Cadfan, and the successor to King Cadafael. His name appears in the pedigrees of the Jesus College MS. 20[3] (as "Kadwaladyr vendigeit", or "Cadwaladr the Blessed"). Cadwaladr's name appears as 'Catgualart' in a section of the Historia Brittonum, where it says he died of a dreadful mortality while he was king.[4]

 

The great plague of 664 is not noted in the Annales Cambriae, but Bede's description[5] makes clear its impact in both Britain and Ireland, where its occurrence is also noted in the Irish Annals.[6]

 

The plague of 682 is not noted by Bede, but the Annales Cambriae note its occurrence in Britain and that Cadwaladr was one of its victims.[7] Both the Annales Cambriae and the Irish Annals note the plague's impact in Ireland in 683,[8][9] as do other sources.[10]

 

The genealogies in Jesus College MS. 20[11][12] and the Harleian genealogies[13][14] give Cadwaladr as the son of Cadwallon and the father of Idwal Iwrch. Idwal, who fathered the later king Rhodri Molwynog, may have been his successor.

 

[edit] Geoffrey of MonmouthThe name of the historical Cadwalladr ap Cadwallon figures prominently in Geoffrey of Monmouth's romantic account of the Historia Regum Britanniae (English: History of the Kings of Britain). As such, the Cadwaladr of Geoffrey is a literary invention that used the name of a historical person in order to advance the plot of the story. In Book XII, Chapter XIV of the Historia, Cadwaladr is given as the last in a line of kings that began with Brutus of Troy. Chapters XV – XVIII have him leaving a depopulated Britain for Brittany, then traveling to Rome, where he dies after meeting the pope.[15]

 

Also traced to Geoffrey's fertile imagination are stories of Ivor ap Alan and Ynyr traveling from Brittany to Britain.[16] The choice of names for Ivor and Ynyr in the stories may be a consequence of spurious additions to the Laws of Edward the Confessor, which inaccurately speak of good relations between Wessex and the Welsh in the reign of King Ine of Wessex (reigned 688 – 726). From there emerges a conflation of Cadwaladr or Cadwallon with Cædwalla of Wessex (reigned 685 – 688), and a conflation of Cadwaladr's son Ivor with Cædwalla's son Ine.[17]