What connects Neath Abbey with
the castles at Swansea ,
Caernarfon and Oxwich? What I have in
mind is that tragic individual born at Caernarfon Castle
who became King Edward II.
Caernarfon was one of the castles
designed by James St George - along with Harlech, Beaumaris and Conwy - and
built for the Plantagenet King Edward I as he consolidated his conquest of North Wales . On 25
April 1284 his fourth son Edward was born at Caernarfon
Castle to his wife Eleanor of Castile
– after whose death the 12 carved stone crosses including Charing
Cross and Waltham Cross were erected. Each one marks where the procession carrying
the Queen’s body rested overnight on the journey from Nottingham, where she had
died in 1290, to Westminster
for her funeral. Her husband Edward I -
known as ‘Longshanks’, as in the film ‘Braveheart’ – stayed two nights at
Oystermouth Castle in December 1284.
Their youngest son, the future
King Edward II, was in legend presented as a baby to the Welsh princes at
Caernarfon as a Prince of Wales who spoke no English: in reality there is no
historic basis for this unlikely event, which first appeared in writing nearly
three centuries later.
When Edward was born, his two
eldest brothers had already died, which made him second in line to the throne,
and then his remaining brother Alphonso died.
Edward of Caernarfon was tall and athletic like his father, but very
different in character – weak and easily led. He was interested in the theatre and
gardening, not ideal activities for a Plantagenet prince, and he became one of
the least suitable rulers of Britain ,
as depicted in Christopher Marlowe’s 1592 play “Edward II”. Though married in 1308 to Isabella, daughter
of the King of France, he preferred the company of male flatterers to that of
European princesses. After years of
misrule, trouble with the barons and the decisive defeat at Bannockburn by the
Scots, the king fled from London in 1326 before an invading force led by his
estranged wife and her lover.
Along with his corrupt favourite
Hugh le Dispenser, who was Lord of Glamorgan, Edward reached Neath Abbey in
November 1326. From there he sent ahead
armour, documents, charters and money to Swansea
Castle , intending to follow later,
possibly to sail to Lundy
Island . But he turned back and was captured near
Llantrisant at Pant-y-brad. Dispenser
was hung, drawn and quartered in Hereford , while
in January 1327 Edward was deposed, and later murdered in Berkeley Castle .
With news of the king’s capture,
a number of items were taken from Swansea
Castle , causing a hunt
for missing royal possessions by the new regime. Suspicion fell on Robert de Penrhys
(Penrice), though nothing could be proved.
Two of the purloined items emerged in peninsular Gower centuries later -
one being the marriage contract dated 1303 of Edward’s betrothal to Isabella,
daughter of the French King. This
document, written in medieval French, set out the terms of the dowry and had
important financial implications.
Sometime during the nineteenth century it was given by a Gower patient
in payment for services to Dr Nichol of the Royal Institution of South
Wales. For many years it hung on a wall
inside Swansea Museum , though it is now safe in
environmentally-controlled storage at West Glamorgan Archives.
There was also a 40mm diameter
gold ring-brooch with six elaborate settings dating from medieval times,
discovered in 1968 during restoration work at Oxwich Castle, formerly part of
the Penrice estate. Though we cannot be
certain, this brooch, which is displayed in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff , most probably
belonged to the king.
If the Oxwich brooch, like the marriage contract, had
been purloined from