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Ab Iorwerth Llewelyn I

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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(d. 1240), prince of North Wales, was born after the expulsion of his father, Iorwerth, from the principality. In 1194, while still a youth, Llewelyn recovered the paternal inheritance. In 1201 he was the greatest prince in Wales. At first he was a friend of King John, whose illegitimate daughter, Joanna, he took to wife (1201); but the alliance soon fell through, and in 1211 John reduced Llewelyn to submission. In the next year Llewelyn recovered all his losses in North Wales. In 1215 he took Shrewsbury. His rising had been encouraged by the pope, by France, and by the English barons. His rights were secured by special clauses in Magna Carta. But he never desisted from his wars with the Marchers of South Wales, and in the early years of Henry III. he was several times attacked by English armies. In 1239 he was struck with paralysis and retired from the active work of government in favour of his son David. He retired into a Cistercian monastery.

See the lists of English chronicles for the reigns of John and Henry III.; also the Welsh chronicle Brut y Tywysogion (ed. Rolls Series); O. M. Edwards, History of Wales (1901); T. F. Tout in the Political History of England, iii. (1905).