by Mike Ashley
17. Artúir mac Aedan (560–596)
This historically-attested character was recorded by Adomnán in his Life of Columba, written less than a century after the real events. Columba had, apparently, correctly foretold that Artúir would not succeed Aedan as king of the Dál Riatan Scots. Artúir met his fate in battle against the Picts, probably in 596. Laurence Gardner, though, who believes Artúir was the original Arthur, gives the date as 603. He believes that Artúir fought at both Camelon, near Falkirk, and Camboglanna on Hadrian’s Wall. The battle at Camboglanna was savage, resulting in a rout that spilled over into a second battle at Degsaston [Dawston]. It was there that Artúir died, along with hundreds of his fellows. This was the decisive battle for the English that saw Athelfrith’s domination of the north and the capitulation of the British and Scots. Aedan was a broken man after that.
Gardner makes Aedan the Pendragon of Britain and thus claims that Artiiir is the only “Arthur” to have been born to a Pendragon. This is true if we exclude Arthen ap Brychan, previously cited. Although the exploits of Artúir are not fully recorded, many of his father’s are, as he was, according to the authors of the Biographical Dictionary of Dark Age Britain, “one of the greatest warlords in the British Isles during the early Middle Ages”. Although of Irish stock on his father’s side, through his mother and grandmother he was of British stock and could claim descent from Dyfnwal Hen, so he was arguably more British than Irish. Aedan’s wife was also British, which makes Artúir at least three-quarters British.
Aedan undertook several exploits in which Artúir would have been involved. He fought against his overlord Baetan mac Cairill in Ulster in 574, when Gardner maintains Artúir would have fought at Dun Baetan. Aedan then led a campaign against the Orkneys in 580, and conquered the Isle of Man in 582, a sequence of battles that closely follows Arthur’s own, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth. It was not until the 590s, with his battles against first the Picts and then the Angles, that Aedan’s golden touch began to fail, and it was at this time that Artúir died. Of course Geoffrey conveniently ignores this and moves on to another chronicle to explore Arthur’s later adventures. But it seems likely that Geoffrey was influenced by Artúir mac Aedan’s exploits as part of Arthur’s early conquests. Some of these may translate into the battles in Nennius’s list, especially those in Glen Douglas in Lennox.
Artúir ultimately failed in his battles against the Picts and there was no heroic accession to the throne. Artúir, therefore, also fits the criterion of a battle lord who fought alongside kings. Yet his victories were not his own, but his father’s, and they did not herald a period of peace between the British and Saxons as achieved at Badon. Artúir is clearly one of the figures behind Arthur, but he’s not the major one.
18. Arthlwys ap Arthfoddw (570–640)
Listed only for completeness. His father is included above, and the fact that Arthlwys inherited the Arth- prefix emphasises the growing significance of the name.
19. Artúir ap Bicor (590–660)
As discussed in Chapter 8, this Artúir immortalized himself through a lucky slingshot throw in killing the Irish champion Mongan, and with the Arthur name now gathering interest this exploit was yet another to add to the list of achievements. If the episode had reappeared in the legends it would have meant something, but as it didn’t, we can only conjecture that Artúir’s moment of fame, sufficient for him to be remembered in the Irish Annals, served to feed the rumour mill even more on the growing legend of Arthur.
20. Athrwys ap Meurig (610–680)
Of all the “Arthurs”, this one is both the most promising and the most frustrating. Athrwys was a ruler of Gwent sometime in the seventh century, or possibly earlier. Blackett and Wilson, in Artorius Rex Discovered, date him 503–579, a century earlier than the date given in Table 3.7, whilst Barber and Pykitt, in Journey to Avalon, date him even earlier, 482–562. Since everyone has used the same pedigree, the difference is due to methods of dating. We know that his great-grandson Ffernfael died in 775, a date unlikely to be wrong, as the Annals in which that is recorded were brought into their final form only fifty years afterwards. Even if Ffernfael lived till he was 90, and was thus born in 685, and each respective father was 50 when their son was born, we could only push Athrwys’s birth back to 535. There may be a missing generation but, in all probability, Athrwys was a seventh-century ruler, perhaps born as early as 600 or 590 at a push, but no earlier.
Although I have used the name Athrwys here, he only appears in one pedigree under that name. Elsewhere he is listed as Atroys, Adroes, Athrawes and Adros, scarcely names to cause confusion with Arthur.
Bartrum notes that whilst he appears frequently in the Book of Llandaff as a witness to charters and grants, he is never identified as a king. Possibly his father Meurig lived to a great age, as seems the case with several of the rulers of Gwent, and thus outlived Athrwys. This would support Nennius’s remark that Arthur fought alongside kings but was not apparently king himself. Perhaps Athrwys served as regent in his father’s old age, and was thus king in all but name, and he may have served as a sub-king of Ergyng.
There is a deed in the Book of Llandaff apparently witnessed by Athruis rex Guenti regionis pro anima patris sui Mourici, and though the grant may be accurate the other witnesses all date from the time of Dubricius, a hundred years earlier. The Book of Llandaff was not compiled until 1108, when the abbey needed to establish its rights over lands being appropriated by the Normans, and though it was drawn together from surviving documents doubtless much creativity was exercised in trying to reconstruct the more ancient and lost ones. It suggests that Athrwys was believed to be a contemporary of Dubricius and no one really knew which century that was.
Does all this necessarily matter? It certainly does, because Arthur of Gwent lived in the century or two before the tales of the Mabinogion and the Welsh Annals and other old documents were being created. He was the Arthur freshest in people’s collective memories. He was far enough back for all history to be blended together (200 years might as easily be 400 in folk memory) but recent enough that the oral tradition remembered him fairly freshly. Thus all memories of Arthur could be pinned on to him.
However, Athrwys ap Meurig had to have been a memorable king in his own right in order for the blurring of memories to work. It would be no good if he were remembered as a coward or an imbecile. The memory of Athrwys ap Meurig could most easily be confused with Arthur of Badon if they had done something similar – something remarkably similar.
The clue to this may lie in the fact that at the time that the Arthurian legends were coming together, in the late eighth century, there was another Athrwys ruling Gwent, the great-great-grandson of Athrwys ap Meurig. This later Athrwys was the son of Ffernfael and ruled from about 775 to 800. This was when Offa ruled Mercia. At that time no other ruler in Britain mattered. Offa was the great king, the first to style himself “King of the English”, with designs on becoming Emperor. He had come to power in 757 and defeated the Welsh at Hereford in 760. It is believed that part of the treaty was that Ergyng was taken over by Mercia, perhaps still administered by Ffernfael ap Ithel, but subservient to Offa. After Ffernfael’s death in 775, it seems that Ergyng passed completely to the English. From 777 onwards Offa instigated a further series of raids into Wales, this time in retaliation for an offensive from Powys under Elisedd. Having asserted his authority Offa instigated the construction of the great earthwork known as Offa’s Dyke and the building of this must have run throughout the reign of Athrwys ap Ffernfael. Although the Dyke did not run continuously into the south, as the Wye effectively formed the border, it was particularly strong around the border with Gwent. The ditch of the Dyke was on the western side, meaning it was there to stop the Welsh getting out. Wales was being hemmed in.
We know next to nothing about Athrwys ap Ffernfael, yet I am sure he is the key to the Arthurian legend. Here was a king who had lost part of his kingdom and was now being further humiliated by the greatest king Britai
n had known and was powerless to respond. What better way to save face than to revel in the glories of the past and to remember the great deeds of his ancestors?
What great deeds?
Well, there was one of great significance and that was the battle of Tintern Ford or, to give it its proper name, Pont y Saeson. Tintern had once been a royal fortress, and in the days of Tewdrig ap Llywarch it was one of the glories of the kings of Gwent. The story, as told in the Book of Llandaff, says that Tewdrig had ruled for many years and was old and tired. He wished to retire into the church and pass the governance to his son Meurig. Not long after, however, the Saxons invaded Ergyng and Meurig was under pressure. Tewdrig, who had a vision in which an angel told him he would be victorious but would himself be killed, came out of retirement, buckled on his sword and led his army to one last victory. It was the greatest victory of them all. As Archenfield Archaeology report, “This stopped their advance and South Wales was never again to be seriously threatened by the English people.” This battle has strong resonances of Badon, perhaps even of Camlann, because, as prophesied, Tewdrig was injured by a lance and died three days later. He was buried at Matharn near Chepstow, close to Caradog Vreichfras’s palace at Caldicot, and Caradog was probably present at that battle.
The battle of Tintern was as important to the kings of Gwent and Ergyng as Badon had been a hundred years earlier. Could Athrwys of Gwent have been at the Battle of Tintern? If so, maybe some of the glory of that battle passed to him and over time, Tintern and Badon merged in the collective memory.
There has always been a problem dating this battle. Amazingly, it does not feature in the Welsh Annals, which may be a point in favour of arguing that by the time those Annals were compiled, memories of Tintern and Badon had started to blur. John Morris in The Age of Arthur suggested the battle may have happened in 584. After their victory at Dyrham in 577, when the Saxons defeated the rulers of Gloucester, Cirencester and Bath, the Saxons invaded the Severn Valley. The ASC reported a setback in 584 when Cutha was killed at Fethan Lea. The identity of that battle site has not been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Both Stoke Lyne in Oxfordshire and Stratford-on-Avon have been suggested and Tintern can’t be ruled out. However, other dates have been suggested. Sarah Zaluckyj in Mercia cites 597, whilst Hereford’s own archaeological studies suggest around 620 or as late as 630.
It is unlikely to have happened much after the succession of Penda of Mercia, whose rise to power began in 626. The evidence suggests that Penda had an alliance with various Welsh princes, which he called upon as he fought his way to Mercian control. The battle would probably have been after Chester, which had been an overwhelming victory for the Northumbrians against the British. That defeat had been one of the factors that caused the Welsh to ally with Mercia. Chester also frustrates dating, but the prevailing view is that it happened in 615. The West Saxons were heavily on the offensive in the late 620s. Penda managed to defeat them with British help at Cirencester in 628. In all likelihood a West Saxon defeat by the Welsh at Tintern happened just before then, perhaps with Penda’s help, in around 626. It could have been slightly earlier. It’s unlikely to have been later.
If we suggest 626x628, that fits in remarkably well with our pedigrees in Table 3.7. Despite the problem in dating the Gwentian kings, that date exactly fits the lifespan for Tewdrig. It would also suggest that his grandson Athrwys could have fought at the battle. He was probably around twenty and it might have been his first major conflict.
Perhaps thereafter Athrwys fought alongside Penda. Perhaps some of Nennius’s battle list relates to Penda’s climb to power between 626 and 633. Penda had combined forces with Cadwallon of Gwynedd who was on a personal vendetta of revenge against Edwin, king of Northumbria. Cadwallon and Edwin had apparently been childhood friends but when Edwin defeated Athelfrith and became king in 616 all that changed. Cadwallon succeeded to Gwynedd around the year 620. In that same year Edwin conquered and extinguished the British enclave of Elmet near Leeds, and doubtless refugees settled in Wales. This was probably the spark that lit the fire, as Cadwallon is supposed to have fought Edwin soon after and was soundly defeated. Geoffrey of Monmouth places the battle at Widdrington, near Morpeth in Northumberland, but it is unlikely that Cadwallon would have undertaken a battle so far from his base at that stage. Edwin continued the campaign through North Wales and into Anglesey. Cadwallon was driven to the very tip of the island and had to flee to Ireland (or possibly Brittany) where he remained in exile for seven years.
He returned in about 629 and it was then that his campaign of revenge began. An elegy to Cadwallon, Marwnad Cadwallon, talks of fourteen major battles and sixty musterings. The battle list is longer than Arthur’s and includes a battle at Caer Digoll in Shropshire, close to the site for Caer Faddon in The Dream of Rhonabwy. At what stage Cadwallon and Penda joined forces is not clear. It may well have been from the start, with the mutual objectives of the extermination of Edwin and the conquest of Northumbria.
The culmination of the campaign happened on 12 October 632 at Hatfield, which is almost certainly Hatfield in Yorkshire, north of Doncaster – possibly the place that Geoffrey cited in his History for Ambrosius’s defeat of Hengist. Here Penda and Cadwallon slaughtered the forces of Edwin of Northumbria, including Edwin himself and most of his family. The two did not leave it there. They went on a rampage through Northumbria, laying waste to the land, for a whole year. However, Cadwallon was caught by surprise at Heavenfield, near Hexham, by Hadrian’s Wall and was killed by Oswald, son of King Athelfrith who had defeated the British at both Chester and probably Catraeth.
Had Cadwallon survived, the future of the British may have been very different. Cadwallon could have reclaimed much of the North for the British, but with his death the British resistance crumbled. The year 632/3 was their final triumph.
Perhaps Athrwys of Gwent was involved in it all. We know that Cadwallon had a huge force with him. The campaign could not have been supported by Penda’s men alone. Cadwallon no doubt mustered British men in the North, but he needed large reserves to sustain his campaign for a whole year so far from Gwynedd. With Tewdrig dead and Meurig king, Athrwys was heir apparent but doubtless looking for battle experience. If he had helped in the victory at Tintern he now helped in the destruction of a kingdom.
We don’t know if Athrwys was involved, but it would surprise me if he weren’t. Cadwallon could not have achieved this with a force from Gwynedd alone, or even with the men of Powys. Gwent had already shown its prowess by defeating the Saxons at Tintern, and surely Cadwallon would have wanted some of that prestige for his army.
This is not to say that the legend of Arthur is based on the campaign of Cadwallon. Not at all. But when, in the 770s, Athrwys ap Ffernfael looked back to that Golden Age when the Welsh had proved they could defeat the English, who’s to say that in pushing the case for the Arthur of legend he did not colour it with memories of Athrwys ap Meurig’s victory at Tintern and the subsequent campaign that gave Wales glory and freedom?
It is only a proposal, but it would explain why Athrwys ap Meurig, who lived over a hundred years after Badon, and well beyond the traditional Arthurian period, might in any way be regarded as a candidate for the original Arthur. It explains why Arthur is shown as ruling from Caerwent (or Caerleon, as Geoffrey believed) and from Gelliwig, because that was Arthur of Gwent’s base. It explains why so many of Arthur’s court in Culhwch and Olwen and The Dream of Rhonabwy are people of Gwent, such as Bishop Bedwin and Caradog Vreichfras. Doubtless both were involved in the Battle of Tintern and the subsequent campaign of Cadwallon. It would explain the second half of the pursuit of the Boar Trwyth which takes place through Gwent. The victory at Tintern is close to the eventual expulsion of the Boar at the estuary of the Wye. It would also explain how Arthur’s campaigns seem to shift between Wales and the North.
This does not mean that Geoffrey confused Cadwallon’s campaign with Arthur’s. The memories and histories of these still remained sepa
rate, but in Gwent the emphasis was changed so that Athrwys’s role became more significant, and over a relatively short period of time this change in emphasis became fused with earlier tales of Saxons vanquished by the British. Athrwys, now treated as the victor at Tintern, also became the victor of Badon by association and the two histories merged.
If this is so, then Athrwys’s victory at Tintern needed to be superimposed in people’s memories over the victory at Badon, and it would help the argument if the victor at Badon was also called Athrwys or, as is possible, Arthwys of the Pennines. Perhaps the final picture is similar to Geoffrey’s portrayal. Let me suggest the following.
Arthwys of the Pennines was fighting a sustained campaign against the Saxons along the eastern frontier. His forces were stretched to the south which allowed a retaliation by Aelle of the South Saxons who mounted his own campaign into the heartland of Britain. There could have been battles along the Ridgeway at Liddington or further north towards Lichfield. Aelle’s forces, perhaps cut off from their retreat, pushed further west and were met by the coalition of kings – Cadell, Riocatus, Aircol, Vortipor, Caradog – along the western frontier, resulting in a siege at either the Wrekin or the Breidden Hills. Arthwys was able to bring his forces into play and wiped out the Saxon force. Aelle, Bretwalda of the Saxons, was killed, and thereafter the Saxons lacked a figurehead. The coalition of kings was now able to dictate a boundary which the Saxons could not cross, a boundary which Arthwys may have continued to patrol from his base in central Britain, which may well have been at Lichfield. Arthwys maintained a peace in Britain until his own death at the hands of the son of Sywno in the 530s. This is likely to have been near the frontier, perhaps at Camboglanna, which is why it would also be remembered in Y Gododdin.
Although Arthwys/Arthur was remembered as a great hero in the generations following, after two hundred years the where and the when had become blurred. By the time scribes tried to record the details in the Welsh Annals the dates had become confused. By now Athrwys ap Ffernfael’s propaganda had done its work. His ancestor had become superimposed over Arthwys ap Mar and become a national hero. During this period other stories about other Arthurs became sucked into the story along with those of other heroes. By the time Culhwch and Olwen and its companion stories took their final form, heroes from throughout the fifth and sixth centuries had become Arthur’s companions.