24/03/2024
1603 – James VI of Scotland is proclaimed King James I of England and Ireland, upon the death of Elizabeth I.
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24/03/2024
1765 – Great Britain passes the Quartering Act, which requires the Thirteen Colonies to house British troops.
Quartering Act is a name given to two or more Acts of British Parliament requiring local governments of the American colonies to provide the British soldiers with housing and food. Each of the Quartering Acts was an amendment to the Mutiny Act and required annual renewal by Parliament.
They were originally intended as a response to issues that arose during the French and Indian War and soon became a source of tensions between the inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies and the government in London, England. These tensions would later lead toward the American Revolution.
21/03/2024
21 March 1871 – Journalist Henry Morton Stanley begins his trek to find the missionary and explorer David Livingstone.
Sir GCB (born John Rowlands; 28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904) was a American journalist, explorer, soldier, colonial administrator, author and politician who was famous for his exploration of central Africa and his search for missionary and explorer , whom he later claimed to have greeted with the now-famous line:
"Dr Livingstone, I presume?".
He is mainly known for his search for the source of the Nile, work he undertook as an agent of King Leopold II of Belgium, which enabled the occupation of the Congo Basin region, and for his command of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. He was knighted in 1899.
David Livingstone (9 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of the late 19th-century Victorian era.
Livingstone's fame as an explorer and his obsession with learning the sources of the Nile River was founded on the belief that if he could solve that age-old mystery, his fame would give him the influence to end the East African Arab–Swahili slave trade. "The Nile sources", he told a friend, "are valuable only as a means of opening my mouth with power among men. It is this power [with] which I hope to remedy an immense evil."
His subsequent exploration of the central African watershed was the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial pe*******on of Africa. At the same time, his missionary travels, "disappearance", and eventual death in Africa—and subsequent glorification as a posthumous national hero in 1874—led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European "Scramble for Africa".
02/03/2024
Have you ever wanted to make your own delicious Welsh cakes?
Here's how ⬇️
01/03/2024
🏴 Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus
Happy St David’s Day 🏴
01/03/2024
🏴 Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus
Happy St David's Day 🏴
01/03/2024
Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant ar 1 Mawrth yw'r diwrnod y dethlir Dewi Sant, nawddsant Cymru. Bydd nifer o blant yn gwisgo'r wisg Gymreig ac yn cystadlu mewn eisteddfodau ysgol—yn arbennig trwy ganu ac adrodd.
Bydd llawer o bobl o bob oed yn gwisgo cenhinen bedr (a welir fel arwyddlun Cymreig) neu genhinen (arwyddlun Dewi Sant) ar y diwrnod. Cynhelir nifer o Nosweithiau Llawen a chyngerddau.
Hefyd y mae nifer o gymdeithasau yn cael noson gawl a gŵr gwadd i'w hannerch.
Mae'r cyntaf o Fawrth wedi bod yn ŵyl genedlaethol ers canrifoedd ; yn ôl y traddodiad bu farw Dewi Sant ar y cyntaf o Fawrth 589 OC.
Gwnaed y dyddiad yn ddydd cenedlaethol (answyddogol) Cymru yn y 18g.
Cynhelir gorymdaith flynyddol yng Nghaerdydd i ddathlu'r ŵyl. Yn 2006 yn yr Unol Daleithiau cafodd Dydd Gŵyl Dewi ei gydnabod yn swyddogol fel diwrnod cenedlaethol y Cymry, ac ar y cyntaf o Fawrth cafodd Adeilad Empire State ei oleuo yn lliwiau baner Cymru. Mae cymdeithasau Cymreig drwy'r byd yn dathlu drwy gynnal ciniawau, partion a chyngerddau.
Mae ymgyrch ar droed i gael Dydd Gŵyl Dewi yn ddydd gŵyl banc swyddogol yng Nghymru. Yn ôl arolwg a gynhaliwyd ar Ddydd Gŵyl Dewi 2006 yr oedd 87% o bobl Cymru yn cefnogi hyn, gyda 65% yn barod i aberthu gŵyl banc arall yn ei le.
01/03/2024
Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!
Saint David's Day (Welsh: Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant or Dydd Gŵyl Dewi, is the feast day of Saint David, the patron saint of Wales, and falls on 1 March, the date of Saint David's death in 589 AD. The feast has been regularly celebrated since the canonisation of David in the 12th century (by Pope Callixtus II), though it is not a national holiday in the UK.
Traditional festivities include wearing daffodilsand leeks, recognised symbols of Wales and Saint David respectively, eating traditional Welsh food including cawl and Welsh rarebit, and women wearing traditional Welsh dress. An increasing number of cities and towns across Wales including Cardiff, Swansea and Aberystwyth also put on parades throughout the day
01/03/2024
Wear that dragon with pride today
🏴💪🏴
Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!
22/02/2024
Porthmadog Masonic Hall
Porthmadog (formerly known by its anglicised name of Portmadoc and known locally as "Port", is a small Welsh coastal town and former community, now in the community of Penrhyndeudraeth in the Eifionydd area of Gwynedd. Prior to local government re-organisation in 1974 it was in the administrative county of Caernarfonshire. It lies 5 miles (8 km) east of Criccieth, 11 miles (18 km) south-west of Blaenau Ffestiniog, 25 miles (40 km) north of Dolgellau and 20 miles (32 km) south of Caernarfon. It had a population of 4,185 (2011 census).
It developed in the 19th century as a port exporting slate to England and elsewhere, but since the decline of the industry it has become a shopping centre and tourist destination. It has easy access to Snowdonia National Park and is the terminus of the Ffestiniog Railway.
The 1987 National Eisteddfod was held in Porthmadog.
It includes the nearby villages of Borth-y-Gest, Morfa Bychan and Tremadog.
22/02/2024
Welcome to Wales.
Make sure you get of the right station - it helps to count the syllables to be sure.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, official short form name Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, also spelt Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll, is a large village and local government community on the island of Anglesey in Wales. It is situated on the Menai Strait next to the Britannia Bridge and across the strait from Bangor. Whilst the official short form name is used in official contexts, both the full name and shortened (Llanfairpwll or Llanfair PG) forms of the place name are used in various contexts.
At the 2001 census, the population of the community was 3,040.
By the time of the 2011 Census the population had increased to 3,107, of whom 71% could speak Welsh.
It is the sixth largest settlement on the island by population.
The long form of the name, with 58 characters split into 19 syllables, is the longest place name in Europe and the second longest official one-word place name in the world.
Although this name is generally stated to have been invented in the 1860s for promotional purposes, a similarly lengthy version was recorded as early as 1849.
08/01/2024
Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey, DBE (born 8 January 1937) is a Welsh singer, whose career began in 1953, well known for her expressive voice and for recording the soundtrack theme songs to the James Bond films Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Moonraker (1979).
In January 1959, Bassey became the first Welsh person to gain a No. 1 single.
In 2000, Bassey was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to the performing arts. In 1977 she received the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist in the previous 25 years.
Bassey is one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain.
08/01/2024
Alfred Russel Wallace (8 January 1823 – 7 November 1913) was a Welsh naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, biologist and illustrator.
He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection; his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin's writings in 1858.
This prompted Darwin to publish On the Origin of Species.
Like Darwin, Wallace did extensive fieldwork; first in the Amazon River basin, and then in the Malay Archipelago, where he identified the faunal divide now termed the Wallace Line, which separates the Indonesian archipelago into two distinct parts: a western portion in which the animals are largely of Asian origin, and an eastern portion where the fauna reflect Australasia.
He was considered the 19th century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species and is sometimes called the "father of biogeography".
Wallace was one of the leading evolutionary thinkers of the 19th century and made many other contributions to the development of evolutionary theory besides being co-discoverer of natural selection. These included the concepts of warning colouration in animals, and reinforcement (sometimes known as the Wallace effect), a hypothesis on how natural selection could contribute to speciation by encouraging the development of barriers against hybridisation. Wallace's 1904 book Man's Place in the Universe was the first serious attempt by a biologist to evaluate the likelihood of life on other planets. He was also one of the first scientists to write a serious exploration of the subject of whether there was life on Mars.
02/01/2024
2 January 1941 – World War II: The Cardiff Blitz severely damages the cathedral in Cardiff, Wales.
The Cardiff Blitz (Welsh: Blitz Caerdydd); refers to the bombing of Cardiff, Wales during World War II. Between 1940 and the final raid on the city in March 1944 approximately 2,100 bombs fell, killing 355 people.
Cardiff Docks became a strategic bombing target for German Luftwaffe (the N**i German air force) as it was one of the biggest coal ports in the world.
Consequently, it and the surrounding area were heavily bombed. Llandaff Cathedral, amongst many other civilian buildings caught in the raids, was damaged by the bombing in 1941.
Sitting on the flat coastal plain below the twin Rhondda valleys, Cardiff sent out a much greater tonnage of coal than any other British port, including the bigger and more renowned docks of places like London, Newcastle and Liverpool.
Therefore, it was inevitable that, as the aerial war developed, the city and its docks would become a major target for enemy bombers. And yet, in those early war years, nobody really had the slightest inclination of what was to come.
The first German air raid on Cardiff took place on 3 July 1940, only a few weeks after the fall of France. Previously, the Welsh port had been virtually out of range for the German Dornier and Junkers bombers but with captured French airfields now in enemy hands the war came suddenly close, terrifyingly close, for the people of south Wales.
Further raids on Cardiff occurred that year on 10 and 17 July, and then again on 7 August. They were just the start of a four year bombing offensive but they were terrifying occasions for the city's populace - air raid sirens screaming, the wail of bombs hurtling through the air, the crump of anti-aircraft shells, smoke, dust and rubble and, always, the thought of red-hot pieces of metal cutting into human flesh.
The next year, 1941, saw dozens of raids, particularly in the spring and early summer months when, sometimes, it seemed as if the bombers would appear every single night of the week. There were fewer raids in 1942, the most noticeable being an attack on 17 May. It was widely believed that this was a retaliation for the famous Dambuster Raids on the German industrial centres and hydro-electric dams earlier in the year.
The final attack on Cardiff came, surprisingly when you consider the state of German armaments, as late as March 1944. During this raid Cardiff station was hit and for a while it looked as if the main Cardiff-London railway link would be severed.
Strangely, there was also an air attack on Cork in neutral Ireland at this time. The pilot and navigator mistook the Irish town for Cardiff, believing that they were over, not the Irish Sea but the River Severn! Diplomatic incidents had been started by less.
In all more than 2,100 bombs fell on Cardiff during the war years. They caused 355 deaths and at least 500 injuries.
Hundreds of houses and business premises were damaged or destroyed in the four years of heavy and sustained bombing, particularly in the western end of the city.
Cardiff's worst night was 2 January 1941 when a fleet of over 100 German planes droned in across the Severn Estuary. There was a full moon that night - a 'bombers moon' as they called it - and the whole of Cardiff, docks and town, were illuminated as if it was day. Over 350 homes were destroyed in the raid that began just after 6.30pm and lasted for a horrifying ten hours.
Llandaff Cathedral was badly damaged and both the Canton and Riverside areas were also seriously hit. A total of 165 people were killed in the raid, 116 of them coming from the Canton and Riverside communities. Fifty people from just one street in Riverside became casualties.
The saddest story about the raid concerned Hollyman's bakery on the corner of Stockland Street and Corporation Road in Grangetown. Mr Hollyman had a huge cellar under his house and business and as the raid began he encouraged people to come and take shelter. Unfortunately, the building took a direct hit and 32 people were killed, including at least five members of the Hollyman family.
Sometimes, however, there were funny sides to the German raids, particularly for the children of the city who were more concerned about collecting shrapnel than they were with potential danger. Alan Worrell particularly remembered one incident involving the old swimming pool in Splott Park:
"We were crowded into the swimming pool and, believe me, they really used to jam them in. The air raid warning went but we didn't hear it. The pool attendant came round shouting 'Everybody out of the pool.' So we got out, just as we were, in our bathing costumes, and went across the road into Baden Powell School which had air raid shelters. And we spent the rest of the afternoon in those shelters, just sitting there with our bathers on."
(from "Wales at War", Gomer Press)
Clearly the memory of those cold and wet bathing costumes and the dank, dark air raid shelter - when he should have been enjoying himself in the swimming pool - has stayed with him!
In all, nearly 1,000 people across Wales were killed in air raids during the war. Most of these came from Cardiff and Swansea but other, smaller communities suffered as well. As far as the people of the capital city are concerned, however, they will never forget the dreadful memories and the horror of the four-year Cardiff Blitz.
02/01/2024
Mwnt was the site of an unsuccessful invasion by Flemings from Deheubarth on 2 January 1155.
Its defeat was celebrated, at least in the eighteenth century, by a games meeting on the first Sunday in January known as Sul Coch y Mwnt (Red Sunday of Mwnt), commemorating the blood shed on that day. Within living memory human bones and skeletons have been exposed in the area. A nearby brook is called Nant y Fflymon (Flemings' Brook).
Many Flemish had fought for William the Conqueror during the Norman Invasion of England in 1066 and were subsequently rewarded with land holdings by William after he took control.
In fact as William the Bastard was married to Matilda of Flanders, the daughter of Count Baldwin V of Flanders and Adela of France, the majority of William's force were Flemish and French knights.
Matilda of Flanders was Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy by marriage to William the Conqueror, and regent of Normandy during his absences from the duchy.
She was the mother of ten children who survived to adulthood, including two kings, William II and Henry I.
By the early 12th century, Flanders was becoming overpopulated and this combined with devastating floods in 1106 saw many more Flemish people move to England.
Initially, they were welcomed, but friction soon developed between them and the English natives.
The then king, Henry I's solution was to drive out the native Welsh so that the Flemings could colonise parts of Wales.
In 1136, Prince Owain Gwynedd at Crug Mawr near Cardigan met and destroyed a 3,000-strong Norman/Flemish army and incorporated Deheubarth into Gwynedd.
Norman/Flemish influence never fully recovered in West Wales.
Henry I died in 1135, which led to a succession crisis in England, and a civil war that lasted until his grandson Henry II took the throne in 1153.
Welsh rulers had taken advantage of the long civil war in England to regain disputed lands and Henry II set about reversing this trend with the invasion at Mwnt probably being part of this process.
Henry I died on 1 December 1135, and his co**se was taken to Rouen accompanied by the barons, where it was embalmed; his entrails were buried locally at the priory of Notre-Dame du Pré, and the preserved body was taken on to England, where it was interred at Reading Abbey.
Despite Henry's efforts, the succession was disputed. When news began to spread of the King's death, Geoffrey and Matilda were in Anjou supporting the rebels in their campaign against the royal army, which included a number of Matilda's supporters such as Robert of Gloucester.
Many of these barons had taken an oath to stay in Normandy until the late king was properly buried, which prevented them from returning to England.
The Norman nobility discussed declaring Theobald of Blois king.
Theobald's younger brother, Stephen of Blois, quickly crossed from Boulogne to England, however, accompanied by his military household.
Hugh Bigod dubiously testified that Henry, on his deathbed, had released the barons from their oath to Matilda, and with the help of his brother, Henry of Blois, Stephen seized power in England and was crowned king on 22 December.
Matilda did not give up her claim to England and Normandy, appealing at first to the Pope against the decision to allow the coronation of Stephen, and then invading England to start a prolonged civil war, known as the Anarchy, between 1135 and 1153
The Flemish soldiers that landed at Mwnt were heavily defeated by the native Welsh and the victory was celebrated in later centuries on the first Sunday in January by a festival known as 'Sul Coch y Mwnt', or Red Sunday, a reference to the bloodshed during the invasion. A nearby stream still goes by the name of Nant y Fflymon (Flemings' Brook). Bones of soldiers who died in the fighting were still being discovered within living memory.
Under William's fourth son, King Henry I, the Normans, now well established in England, responded by pushing west into Wales. This time, both the Welsh and the Normans were more interested in making peace than fighting bloody battles, and a relatively stable situation developed, although the Normans fared worse in southeast Wales than in the west of the country. The standoff continued from 1135 to 1154 under Stephen, nephew of Henry and a maternal grandson of William, who became locked in a power struggle and civil war with Empress Matilda, Henry's daughter and only surviving legitimate child.
By the 1150s, Matilda's son King Henry II of England had set upon fighting back, leading his first expedition into Wales in 1157. He met with heavy and humiliating defeat, particularly in the Battle of Ewloe at Coleshill / Coed Eulo, where Henry was entirely unsuccessful and was almost killed in the fighting, his army routed and fleeing. He moved against his British adversaries again in 1163. Later sources related how he gained an unclear form of homage from the two most powerful princes of Wales, Rhys ap Gruffydd and Owain Gwynedd, along with the king of Scotland. This was the catalyst to revolt in Wales; Henry II met with humiliating defeat in 1165 at the Battle of Crogen by the Berwyn range. Henry never successfully invaded Wales and he was obliged to seek compromise with Rhys ap Gruffydd for control of the south.
By the mid-11th century, Wales had been united by the Prince of Gwynedd, Gruffudd ap Llywelyn. Gruffudd pushed into Saxon England, burning the city of Hereford, overwhelming border patrols, and proving the English entirely inadequate to respond to Welsh invasions.
During this time, Harold Godwinson led a campaign of raids which dented the authority in Wales.
In the wake of this campaign, Gruffudd was turned upon by his own men, who killed him in 1063 and shipped his head off to Edward the Confessor in exchange for the redivision of Wales into its traditional kingdoms.
This left a vacuum of power in Wales in which princes and kings were free to squabble over their lands, without the unifying presence of Gruffudd to ward off Norman attacks.
A Welsh revolt against Norman rule had begun after the death of King henry I in South Wales, where on 1 January 1136 the Welsh won a victory over the local Norman forces at the Battle of Llwchwr between Loughor and Swansea, killing about 500 of their opponents.
Richard Fitz Gilbert de Clare, the Norman lord of Ceredigion, had been away from his lordship in the early part of the year. Returning to the borders of Wales in April, he ignored warnings of the danger and pressed on towards Ceredigion with a small force. He had not gone far when he was ambushed and killed by the men of Iorwerth ab Owain, grandson of Caradog ap Gruffydd (the penultimate prince of Gwent).
The news of Richard's death led to an invasion by the forces of Gwynedd, led by Owain Gwynedd and Cadwaladr ap Gruffydd, sons of the king of Gwynedd, Gruffudd ap Cynan. They captured a number of castles in northern Ceredigion before returning home to dispose of the plunder. Around Michaelmas (11 October in the Julian Calendar used at the time) they again invaded Ceredigion and made an alliance with Gruffydd ap Rhys of Deheubarth.
The combined Welsh forces headed for the town of Cardigan. This army, said to number 6,000, including 2,000 mailed horsemen, had taken up a style of warfare learnt from the Normans.
The Normans were said to have a substantial force.
Deheubarth (lit. "Right-hand Part", thus "the South") was a regional name for the realms of south Wales, particularly as opposed to Gwynedd (Latin: Venedotia).
It is now used as a shorthand for the various realms united under the House of Dinefwr, but that Deheubarth itself was not considered a proper kingdom on the model of Gwynedd, Powys, or Dyfed is shown by its rendering in Latin as dextralis pars or as Britonnes dexterales ("the Southern Britons") and not as a named land.
In the oldest British writers, Deheubarth was used for all of modern Wales to distinguish it from Hen Ogledd (Y Gogledd), the northern lands whence Cunedda and the Cymry originated.
31/12/2023
The Nos Galan (Welsh: Ras Nos Galan) is an annual 5 kilometre (3.1 mi) race, run on Nos Galan (New Year's Eve) in Mountain Ash, in the Cynon Valley, Wales. It attracts runners from all over Great Britain. The 2009 race attracted over 800 runners, and 10,000 people into Mountain Ash for the associated entertainment.
The race was created by local Mountain Ash resident Mr. Bernard Baldwin, a PE teacher at Mill Street Secondary school in Pontypridd and a President of the Amateur Athletic Association, in 1958 as a memorial. It is run over the course of Guto's first competitive race. Each year a mystery runner competes: these have included Lillian Board, Iwan Thomas and Linford Christie.
The main race starts with a church service at Llanwynno, and then a wreath is laid on Guto's grave in Llanwynno graveyard. After lighting a torch, it is carried to the nearby town of Mountain Ash, where the main race takes place. The current route consists of three circuits of the town centre, starting in Henry Street and ending in Oxford Street, by the commemorative statue of Guto.
Traditionally, the race was timed to end at midnight, but in recent times it was rescheduled for the convenience of family entertainment, now concluding at around 21:00. This has resulted in a regrowth in size and scale, and now starts with an afternoon of street entertainment, and fun run races for children, concluding with the church service, elite runners' race and presentations.
Griffith Morgan (1700–1737), better known as Guto Nyth Brân (Guto being a diminutive of Griffith and Nyth Brân (English: Crow's Nest) the name of his parents' farm near Porth), was an athlete. Many of Guto's running feats have since become merged with legend, and were disseminated by poets and authors such as I. D. Hooson, who wrote the ballad Guto Nyth Brân. Much of what is known of Guto was recorded by William Thomas (Glanffrwd) [cy] in his 1888 book Plwy Llanwynno (Llanwynno Parish).
31/12/2023
Griffith Morgan (1700–1737), better known as Guto Nyth Brân (Guto being a diminutive of Griffith and Nyth Brân (English: Crow's Nest) the name of his parents' farm near Porth), was an athlete. Many of Guto's running feats have since become merged with legend, and were disseminated by poets and authors such as I. D. Hooson, who wrote the ballad Guto Nyth Brân. Much of what is known of Guto was recorded by William Thomas (Glanffrwd) in his 1888 book Plwy Llanwynno (Llanwynno Parish).
Guto was born in Llwyncelyn, a small village found today in the community of Porth. It was said that his talent first came to prominence as he was helping his father herd sheep when he managed to chase and catch a wild hare. Once locals heard of this there were new rumours every day of him catching hares, foxes and birds. One such legend has him running from his home to the local town of Pontypridd and back, a total distance of some 7 miles (11 km), before his mother's kettle had boiled.
Another tale is that he could blow out a candle and be in bed before the light faded. His talent was noticed by a local shopkeeper, Siân o'r Siop (Siân from the Shop), and she became his trainer and manager.
The very first race organised by Siân o'r Siop saw Guto taking on an unbeaten English Captain over a distance of 4 miles on Hirwaun Common. Guto won easily and collected the £400 prize money, the first of many prizes he and Siân would win.
Guto and Siân fell in love. As Guto kept winning his races it became difficult for him to find willing opponents to race against. He and Siân decided to retire to a quiet life before Guto turned 30. But years later a new runner had come to the fore: his name was Prince and he was affectionately known as the "Prince of Bedwas". Siân convinced Guto to come out of retirement in 1737 for one race with the prize being 1000 guineas.
This is equivalent to £180,000 in 2021.
The race was over 12 miles between Newport and Bedwas. Guto's effort looked in vain as Prince took an early lead, but a devastating uphill sprint from Guto saw him surge past Prince near the end and beat his challenger, taking the prize and the honour of being named the fastest man of his time.
25/12/2023
Nollaig Shona Daoibh is go méadaí Dia bhur stór san Athbhliain
Nollaig Chridheil agus gum beannaicheadh Dia thu sa Bhliadhn ’Ùr
Nadolig Llawen ac i Dduw eich bendithio yn y Flwyddyn Newydd
13/11/2023
Gerald of Windsor is the founder of the FitzGerald clan, one of the most famous families in Ireland.
Gerald de Windsor (c. 1075–1135), alias Gerald FitzWalter, was the first castellan of Pembroke Castle in Pembrokeshire (formerly part of the Kingdom of Deheubarth), in Wales, and was in charge of the Norman forces in southwest Wales. He was the ancestor of the FitzGerald , FitzMaurice and De Barry dynasties of Ireland, who were elevated to the Peerage of Ireland in the 14th century and was also the ancestor of the prominent Carew family, of Moulsford in Berkshire, Carew Castle in Pembrokeshire (in the Kingdom of Deheubarth) and of Mohuns Ottery in Devon (see Baron Carew, Earl of Totnes and Carew baronets).
Gerald was probably born at Windsor Castle in Berkshire, then a strategically placed motte-and-bailey royal fortress and a principal royal residence, hence his sobriquet "de Windsor". He was a younger son of Walter FitzOther (fl.1086, died 1100/1116), feudal baron of Eton in Buckinghamshire (now in Berkshire) who was Constable of Windsor Castle in Berkshire (directly across the River Thames from Eton), a principal royal residence of King William the Conqueror, and was a tenant-in-chief of that king of 21 manors in the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Hampshire and Middlesex, as well as holding a further 17 manors as a mesne tenant in the same counties.
Walter FitzOther, as his surname Fitz asserts, was the son of Otto Gherandini (Latinized to Otheus), who had been Constable of Windsor Castle during the reign of King Edward the Confessor (1042-1066).
Walter FitzOther became a follower of the Norman invader King William the Conqueror (1066-1087), who appointed him as his first castellan of Windsor Castle and Keeper of the Forest of Windsor, an important royal hunting ground.
Upon his father's death after 1100, Gerald's oldest brother William inherited the office of Constable of Windsor Castle; his second oldest brother Robert inherited the nearby manor of Eton in Berkshire.
Gerald's family was one of the "service families" on whom King William the Conqueror relied for his survival.
The death in battle of Gerald's father-in-law, Rhys ap Tewdwr, Prince of Wales, and the last King of Deheubarth in Wales ("last king of the Britons"), was the opportunity for a general Norman invasion of South Wales during which Arnulf de Montgomery, youngest son of the powerful Roger de Montgomerie, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, swept out from Shrewsbury and ravaged south into Dyfed, where he built Pembroke Castle, in the form of a rudimentary fortress later described by Giraldus Cambrensis (c.1146-c. 1223) (Gerald's grandson) as a "slender fortress of turf and stakes. When he went back to England, Arnulf left the fortress and a small garrison in the charge of Gerald of Windsor, a stalwart, cunning man, his constable and lieutenant".
The first Pembroke Castle was not very strong and offered little resistance.
In 1096, two or three years after the establishment of Norman Pembrokeshire, a general uprising occurred in Wales against the Norman invasion during which Gerald's defence of Pembroke Castle excited the admiration of his contemporaries, all the more for his unique stratagems during the desperate stance. While fortress after fortress fell to the Welsh onslaught, Pembroke Castle held out, despite the rigours of a lengthy siege by Uchtryd ab Edwin and Hywel ap Goronwy, which greatly reduced Gerald's forces. Fifteen of Gerald's knights deserted at night and left by boat, on the discovery of which Gerald confiscated their estates and re-granted them to the deserters' followers whom he created knights. Giraldus Cambrensis described the events as follows:
"When they had hardly any provisions left, Gerald, who, as I have said, was a cunning man, created the impression that they were still well supplied and were expecting reinforcement at any moment. He took four hogs, which was about all they had, cut them into sections, and hurled them off over the palisades at the besiegers. The following day he thought of an even more ingenious strategism.
He signed a letter with his own seal and had it placed just outside the lodgings of Wilfred, Bishop of St David's, who chanced to be in the neighbourhood. There it would be picked up almost immediately and the finder would imagine that it had been dropped accidentally by one of Gerald's messengers. The purport of the letter was that Gerald would have no need of reinforcements from Arnulf for a good four months. When this despatch was read to the Welsh, they immediately abandoned the siege and went off home."
In 1094 in recognition of Gerald's successful defence of Pembroke, King William II rewarded Arnulf, Gerald's overlord, with the lordship of Demetia, and created him Earl of Pembroke.
In 1102, before the revolt of the Montgomery faction against King Henry I, Gerald went to Ireland, where he negotiated the marriage of his overlord Arnulf de Montgomery with Lafracoth, daughter of the Irish king Muircheartach Ua Briain.
Gerald de Windsor held the office of Constable of Pembroke Castle from 1102. In 1108 Gerald built the castle of Little Cenarth(Cenarth Bychan)which is probably Cilgerran Castle.
Gerald received the manor of Moulsford then in Berkshire (since 1974 in Oxfordshire), by grant of King Henry I (1100-1135).[11] Moulsford descended to the Carew family of Carew Castle in Pembrokeshire, descended from Odo de Carrio, a son of William FitzGerald, son of Gerald de Windsor.
Gerald married Nest ferch Rhys ("Nesta") a Welsh princess, daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, the last King of Deheubarth in Wales. Nest brought the manor of Carew as part of her dowry, and Gerald cleared the existing fort to build his own castle along Norman lines.
They had five children:
1. William FitzGerald, Lord of Carew and Emlyn
2. Maurice FitzGerald, Lord of Lanstephan
3. David FitzGerald, Bishop of St. David's
4. Angharad
5. Gwladys
In 1109 his wife Nesta was abducted by her second cousin Owain ap Cadwgan. According to the Brut y Tywysogion, Owain and his men entered the couple's home (assumed by historians to have been either Cilgerran Castle or Little Cenarch) and set fire to the buildings. When Gerald was awoken by the noise, Nesta urged him to escape by climbing out through the drain-hole of the garderobe. Owain then seized Nesta and her children and carried her off. Some sources however suggest that she went with him willingly.
Gerald's influence was such that due to Nesta's abduction Owain and his father soon lost much of their territory of Powys. Owain himself was obliged to go into exile in Ireland and when he returned in 1116, he was killed when his retinue of fifty men at arms was cunningly attacked by Gerald and his large cohort as they both traveled to aid the king of England.
Gerald's son William had a daughter named Isabella Le Gros who married William De Haya Walensis by whom she had sons David Walensis and Philip Walensis. David and Philip were surnamed in Latin Walensis ("of Wales"), and were the founders of the widespread family surnamed Welsh or Walsh or Wallace. Philip Walensis had a son named Howell of Welsh Walensis.
Nesta is the female progenitor of the Fitzgerald Dynasty, and through her the Fitzgeralds are related to Welsh royalty and to the Tudors (Tewdwrs). The Tudors are descended from Nest's father Rhys ap Tewdwr (Anglicized to "Tudor"). Henry Tudor, King of England, was a patrilineal descendant of Rhys ap Tewdwr. Consequently, Gerald and Nest's offspring, the Fitzgeralds, are distant cousins to the English Tudors.
The "Annals of Cambria" record the date of Owain's death as 1116. As Gerald de Windsor makes no further appearance to that date in the "Annals" or in the "Chronicles of the Princes", the presumption is that he did not long survive his enemy, Owain ab Cadwgan, and that the Earl of Kildare's Addenda is erroneous in putting his death as late as 1135.
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Come on Scotland! All the Celtic nations are supporting ye! Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi, Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri; Ei gwrol ryfelwyr, gwladgarwyr tra mâd, Tros ryddid gollasant eu gwaed.… Duggie & Daphne @duggie_and_daphne @scotlandteam @sixnationsrugby @walesrugby #scovfra
And the winner of #GuinnessSixNations Try Of The Round with 48.3% of the vote is... 🥁 The Scarlets scrum half took a quick tab and scored a crucial try for Wales. At 25 years of age and in his second season and his first six nations with Wales we haven’t seen the end of him yet. He was named on my birthday in 2020 as part of the Wales squad for the 2020 autumn nations cup and has since become a key player. Wales won the Triple Crown this weekend, an honour contested by the home nations, Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, and is won by the team that defeats all other three teams in the Six Nations. Playing Italy next and finally France Wales can also still win a Grand Slam, the teams that wins defeating all other teams, and the six nations title. #jorgenhartogstourguide #historicaltourswales
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#BornThisDay #OTD #BornThisDay Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey, DBE (born 8 January 1937) is a Welsh singer, whose career began in 1953, well known for her expressive voice and for recording the soundtrack theme songs to the James Bond films Goldfinger (1964), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Moonraker (1979). In January 1959, Bassey became the first Welsh person to gain a No. 1 single. In 2000, Bassey was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to the performing arts. In 1977 she received the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist in the previous 25 years. Bassey is one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain. #historicaltourswales #jorgenhartogstourguide
Welsh place names
A petition to stop Welsh place names being changed to English has reached the Senedd with over 5,000 signatures. This film by Tudur Owen for Wales Live outlines his views on the issue.
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