Flintshire

Flintshire is a county notable for appearing in older school geography texts as divided into two parts, with the smaller usually labelled "Part of Flint" and entirely surrounded by other counties. How it got into that state is story linked to the Earls of Chester, but the story has it's roots in Roman Chester and even Before The Romans.

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Historical Flintshire
At the time of the Roman invasion, the area of present-day Flintshire was inhabited by the Deceangli, one of the Celtic tribes in ancient Britain, with the Cornovii to the east and the Ordovices to the west. Lead and silver mine workings are evident in the area, with several sows of lead found bearing the name 'DECEANGI' inscribed in Roman epigraphy. The Deceangli appear to have surrendered to Roman rule with little resistance. The history of the area is quite complex given that it has switched between Welsh and "English" rulership on occasion. The exisrence of a line of Cheshire Castles along the River Dee and to the west of it at Pulford leads to a simplified view of the concept of a border, however the actual border location has fluctuated considerably.

Looking at topography there are several features which could provide a border between the northern Cornovii and the Deceangli. These include the Clwydian Range which has a number of hill-forts including (from the north) Y Foel (Moel Hiraddug), Moel-y-gaer, Penycloddiau, Moel Arthur, a second Moel y Gaer and Foel Fenlli. An alternative which follows the line of the present English/Welsh border is associated with the flood plain of the River Dee, other alternatives include the River Gowy and the line of hill-forts along the Sandstone Trail. Excavations at Pulford suggest there was a major settlement there in Iron-Age times and this could have been an important trade location between tribes on either side of a notional border.

Matters are complicated by the arrival of the Romans and a long period of Roman rule. The sub-Roman Britons were later to be faced with the progressive migration and settlement of the Anglo-Saxons from the east, which would create a new border between the "Welsh" and the "English".

The historic county does not have the same boundaries as the current administrative Flintshire; in particular it includes a large exclave, Maelor Saesneg ("English Maelor") on the "English" side of the River Dee; it also includes Prestatyn, Rhyl and St Asaph which are now administered as part of Denbighshire, as well as Bangor-on-Dee and Overton-on-Dee, which are administered as part of Wrexham. Other exclaves of the historic Flintshire include the manors of Marford and Hoseley, Abenbury Fechan and Bryn Estyn, all on the outskirts of Wrexham, and also a small part of the parish of Erbistock around the Boat Inn. These are all completely surrounded by the historic county of Denbighshire. Additionally, a small part of Flintshire, including the village of Sealand, is isolated across the River Dee when its course was changed to improve navigation.

Roman Remains
Prestatyn lies five miles north of the main east-west Roman Road from the legionary fortress at Deva (Roman Chester) into North Wales. Excavations between 1984–85 at Melyd Avenue, Prestatyn, in advance of proposed housing development, revealed part of a civilian settlement established shortly after AD 70, overlying an earlier Iron Age settlement dating to the 2nd–1st century BC. A bath-house and other buildings were added in the period AD 120–150, and there is evidence of continued occupation until the late 3rd or early 4th century AD. Apart from the stone bath-house all the buildings identified by excavation were of timber. Genetic evidence suggests some Balkan ancestry in the inhabitants of Prestatyn and this has given rise to the theory that the area may have been a popular retirement spot for troops of Legio XX, or possibly a location used for rest and recreation.

The later Romans were Christianised and a number of religious sites were established along the Roman roads of North Wales, with a significan monastery at Bangor-on Dee.



Sub-Roman and Welsh Monks
Following Roman Britain, the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons and the emergence of various petty kingdoms, the border region appears to have been "Welsh". Gildas provides little useful evidence on its location and neither does Nennius. Eliseg's Pillar may be associated with a border some distance to the east including what is known in later Welsh literature as "the Paradise of Powys". Viroconium Cornoviorum (near Shrewsbury) has been suggested as the capital of Powys - the semi-legendary "Caer Guricon". Faced with shrinking manpower and increasing Anglian encroachment, King Brochwel Ysgithrog (died c. 560) may have moved the court from Caer Guricon to Pengwern, the exact site of which is unknown but may have been at Shrewsbury, traditionally associated with Pengwern, or the more defensible Din Gwrygon, the hill fort on The Wrekin. Later rulers were buried at Meifod on the upper Severn. Meifod is a short distance north-east of the royal residence of the Princes of Wales at Mathrafal, and the relocation of the royal mausoleum indicates how Powys was being forced westwards. A number of places still identifiable in the Shropshire landscape today are mentioned alongside Pengwern in myth and poetry. The exact location of Llys Pengwern - the Court of Pengwern - is not known, and the problem is compounded by the fact that several other Pengwerns exist in Wales (e.g. near Denbigh in north Wales). A tradition, recorded by Gerald of Wales in the late 12th century, associates it with the site of modern Shrewsbury (although that town has been known as Amwythig in Welsh since the Middle Ages). A number of alternative locations have been proposed. A more recent suggestion is the Berth, a dramatic hillfort at Baschurch, but the archaeological evidence shows only the Iron Age fort with possible Roman reuse.

Another part of the evidence are the events surrounding the Battle of Chester (c616). Bede attempted to link this battle to the Augustinian mission to Britain and there is some suggestion that a synod of the British church took place at Chester in around 600. This would obviously place Chester in the still Christian British/Welsh region rather than in the "pagan" Anglo-Saxon region. However, the Chester/Flintshire region eventually became part of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia by the 8th century AD, with much of the western boundary reinforced under Offa of Mercia after 752. There is evidence that Offa's Dyke is possibly a much earlier construction, and several theories have been proposed as to whether earlier writers are referring to the dyke or Hadrian's Wall when they mention a border running "from sea to sea". Later writers seem to get it right: the late 9th- and early 10th-century Welsh writer Asser wrote that:


 * "there was in Mercia in fairly recent time a certain vigorous king called Offa, who terrified all the neighbouring kings and provinces around him, and who had a great dyke built between Wales and Mercia from sea to sea" (Asser, Life of Alfred, 14).

This evidence suggests that while the Welsh held Chester in 616, Offa had posession of Flintshire after 752. Tradition ascribes the foundation of St Johns to Æthelred, king of Mercia (674–704), in 689. He was the uncle to Werburgh. The direct authority for this statement quoted by John Leland is the Itinerary of Giraldus Cambrensisc (Gerald of Wales). However no such information is found in the surviving texts of the Itinerary (it was written in 1191). Two authorities of a subsequent date quote the early date in such a mannner as to imply their acceptance of it, and the source as being Giraldus: the MS Chronicle of St Werburgh and by Henry Bradshaw a native of Chester and monk of St Werburgh's Abbey. In his "Life of St Werburgh" (1513), Bradshaw writes:


 * "The year of grace six hundred fourescore and nyen As sheweth myne auctour a Bryton Giraldus Kynge Ethelred myndynge moost the blysse of Heven Edyfyed a Collage Churche notable and famous In the suburbs of Chester pleasaunt and beauteous In the honor of God and the Baptyst Saynt Johan With helpe of bysshop Wulfrice and good exortacion"

The first clear problem here is the unconfirmable primary source and the second that a Mercian is now founding a church in what was recently a part of Wales. One possible explanation is that Bradshaw is trying to create an early association between Werburgh, her brother Æthelred and Chester. Werbergh herself never visited Chester (at least when alive), and it is not clear who controlled the site of the city following the Battle of Chester (616) and during her lifetime (~650-700).

Wessex and Mercia


Ecgbert (also spelt Ecgberht) was King of Wessex from 802 until 839. His father was Ealhmund of Kent. In the 780s Egbert was forced into exile by Offa and Beorhtric of Wessex, but on Beorhtric's death in 802 Ecgbert returned and took the throne. With the death of Offa and Beorhtric the focus of power shifted to the House of Wessex. Under Ecgbert, Wessex rose to become the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, overthrowing the supremacy of Mercia. Ecgbert of Wessex captured Chester in 828. Holinshead recounts the conquest as follows:


 * After that king Egbert had finished his businesse in Northumberland, he turned his power towards the countrie of Northwales, and subdued the same, with the citie of Chester, which till those daies, the Britains or Welshmen had kept in their possession. When king Egbert had obteined these victories, and made such conquests as before is mentioned, of the people héere in this land, he caused a councell to be assembled at Winchester, and there by aduise of the high estates, he was crowned king, as souereigne gouernour and supreame lord of the whole land.

So now the evidence suggests that the border had shifted east again by 828 and that Chester, and presumably the parr of Flintshire between Offa's Dyke and the Dee has changed hands and is now back under Welsh control. It was not to remain fixed. Although Ecgbert seems to have defeated everyone in around 828, Mercia soon regained some independence. One problem with the historical evidence at this period is that it comes through the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle produced in Wessex which tends to downplay the role of Mercians. The Welsh kingdoms had been subject to Mercia since the mid seventh-century, at least in the eyes of the Mercians, and in 853 Burgred of Mercia sent messengers to Ecgbert's son Æthelwulf, king of the West Saxons, seeking his help to subjugate the Welsh. Æthelwulf advanced with Burgred against the Welsh, and successfully repressed their "rebellion". The ruler of North Wales at the time was Rhodri the Great, (c. 820–878) who had succeeded his father, Merfyn Frych, as King of Gwynedd in 844.

Just where the teritorial border between Rhodri and Burgred lay is uncertain. In the 870s Mercia became subject to attacks by the Viking Great Heathen Army, and in 874 it drove out King Burgred. He was succeeded by the last independent King of Mercia, Ceolwulf II, who was presented by the Wessex-influenced Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as a puppet of the Vikings. In 877 they partitioned Mercia, taking the east for themselves and leaving the west to Ceolwulf. Gwynedd was also under attack from the Vikings, and in 877 King Rhodri Mawr was defeated and driven out. He returned the following year, but immediately came under attack from Mercia, which was still trying to maintain its hegemony in Wales. King Alfred's victory over the Vikings at the Battle of Edington in May 878 relieved the pressure on Mercia, and in the same year Mercia defeated and killed Rhodri Mawr.

The Chronicle of the Princes records Rhodri's death occurring at the Battle of Sunday on Anglesey in 873; the Annals of Wales record the two events in different years. According to the Chronicle, Rhodri and his brother Gwriad were killed during an Anglo-Saxon invasion (which probably would have been under Ceolwulf of Mercia), although there is an alternative theory that he was engaged in conflict with the "dark foreigners" (Vikings). All the sources call his son Anarawd's subsequent victory over the Mercians at the Battle of the Conwy in 881 "God's vengeance for Rhodri". The fact that the battle was fought at Conwy seems to suggest that the Mercians under Ceolwulf II had seized teritory as far as the Conwy valley and that there was a counter-attack by the Welsh. It is not however certain where the border was situated after the defeat and death of Rhodri in 873. Some vague suggestion that the border was some distance to the west of Chester can perhaps be drawn from the fact that the remains of Werburgh were brought by Mercians to Chester for safety in c876 (between the Battle of Sunday and the Battle of Conwy). It also appears that around the time Plegmund was living near Chester from where he was summuoned to the court of Alfred sometime before 887.

Æthelred
Ceolwulf died or was deposed in 879, and was succeeded as Lord of the Mercians by Æthelred. One of the first thing he did was lose at least a battle and possibly territory in Wales. Æthelred gave up his ambitions in North Wales and submitted to Alfred (the Great) of Wessex, sealing the deal by marrying Æthelflæd, Alfred's daughter.

The next we hear of Chester is from 894, just over a decade after Conwy:


 * The "A" text of the ASC for the given year 894 is is described as " ... þæt hie gedydon on anre westre ceastre on Wirhealum, seo is Legaceaster gehaten ..." translated as referring to a "deserted" place on the Wirral;


 * The "C" text of the ASC for the given year 907 states simply "Her wæs Ligcester geedniwod" which is normally translated as "Here was Chester renewed".

One possible implication here is that a Welsh threat had caused Chester to be deserted, although the Mercians, possibly with help from Wessex fought the Vikings there in c. 893/4. Æthelflæd refortified Chester and in 916 she led an expedition into Wales to avenge the murder of Mercian abbot Ecbryht and his companions, and succeeded in burning the palace of king Tewdr of Brycheiniog at Llangorse Lake and taking the queen and thirty-three others captive. Edward the Elder would die at Farndon in the aftermath of a partly Welsh revolt at Chester, but before this he would fortify Cledematha (Rhuddlan) at the mouth of the River Clwyd, indicating that the English once again held Flintshire.



Ownership of Flintshire over the period leading up to the Norman Conquest was also complex. The House of Aberffraw was displaced in 942 by Hywel Dda, a King of Deheubarth from a junior line of descent from Rhodri Mawr. This occurred because Idwal Foel, the King of Gwynedd, was determined to cast off English overlordship and took up arms against the new English king, Edmund I. Idwal and his brother Elisedd were both killed in battle against Edmund's forces. By normal custom Idwal's crown should have passed to his sons, Ieuaf and Iago ab Idwal, but Hywel Dda intervened and sent Iago and Ieuaf into exile in Ireland and established himself as ruler over Gwynedd until his death in 950 when the House of Aberffraw was restored. Between 986 and 1081 the throne of Gwynedd was often in contention with the rightful kings frequently displaced by rivals within and outside the realm. One of these, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, originally from Powys, displaced the Aberffraw line from Gwynedd making himself ruler there. After gaining power he surprised a Mercian army at Rhyd y Groes, near Welshpool. Defeating it, he killed Edwin, brother of Leofric, Cnut's Earl of Mercia:


 * "Wealas slogon Eadwine Leofrices broðor eorles Þurcil Ælfget swiðe fela godra manna mid heom": (And the Welsh killed Eadwine, brother of Earl Leofric, and Thurkil and Aelfgeat, and very many other good men with him)

By 1055 he was able to make himself king of most of Wales. Eventually, he became powerful enough to present a real menace to England and annexed some neighbouring parts after several victories over English armies. Gruffydd had reached an agreement with Edward the Confessor, which actually gave him lands near Chester. Domesday also states that:


 * "King Edward gave to King Gruffudd all the land that lay beyond the water which is called Dee. But after the same Gruffudd wronged him, he took this land from him and restored it to the Bishop of Chester and to all his men, who had formerly held it."

The death of his ally Ælfgar who is last heard of in 1062 left him more vulnerable. In late 1062 Harold Godwinson obtained the king's approval for a surprise attack on Gruffydd's court at Rhuddlan. Gruffydd was nearly captured, but was warned in time to escape out to sea in one of his ships, though his other ships were destroyed. In the spring of 1063 Harold's brother Tostig led an army into north Wales while Harold led the fleet first to south Wales and then north to meet with his brother's army. Gruffydd was forced to take refuge in Snowdonia where he met his death. Gruffydd's head and the figurehead of his ship were sent to Harold. The Ulster Chronicle states that he was killed by Cynan ap Iago in 1064, whose father (Iago) had been put to death by Gruffydd in 1039 when Cynan had fled to Ireland and taken refuge in the Viking settlement at Dublin.

Gruffudd ap Cynan (c. 1055 – 1137) the son of Cynan would become the Welsh king of Gwynedd from 1081 on and off until his death in 1137. In the course of a long and eventful life, he became a key figure in Welsh resistance to Norman rule.

Englefield: Harold in Wales
Eventually what is now Flintshire became the Hundred of Englefield (Welsh: Cantref Tegeingl), derived from the Latin Deceangli. By the time of the Norman conquest in 1066 it was under the control of Edwin of Tegeingl, from whose Lordship the Flintshire coat of arms is derived, by attribution. Edwin's mother is believed to have been Ethelfleda or Aldgyth, daughter of Edwin of Mercia. At the time of the establishment of the Earldom of Chester, which succeeded the Earl of Mercia, the region formed two of the then twelve Hundreds of Cheshire of which it remained a part for several hundred years. Flintshire today approximately resembles the boundaries of the Hundred of Atiscross as it existed at the time of the Domesday Book.

In the late 11th century, the Normans invaded Gwynedd. Rhuddlan's strategic position ensured that it was fought over by the Princes of Gwynedd and the Earls of Chester, with Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, who had been driven out by Harold Godwinson, re-taking the town. The remains of a Norman castle at Twthill, built in 1086, is just to the south of the current castle; it was built by Robert of Rhuddlan, a supporter of King William I of England.

Later Medieval: Edwardian Wars
At the end of his first Welsh War in 1277, Edward I controlled Rhuddlan and built a castle there. It was built concurrently with Flint Castle, at a time when King Edward I of England was consolidating his conquest of Wales. It was temporarily his residence, and his daughter, Elizabeth, is presumed to have been born there.

Llywelyn ap Gruffudd surrendered the English Maelor to Edward I in 1282 following military campaigns; he then awarded it to Queen Eleanor. In 1309, under Edward II, it was granted to Queen Isabella. In 1397, under Richard II of England, it merged with the County Palatine of Chester to form "the Principality of Chester" restored to an earldom from 1398 by Henry IV.

More Modern
In 1536, under the rule of Henry VIII, the area became an exclave of the county of Flintshire, surrounded by Cheshire, Shropshire and Denbighshire, as the Hundred of Maelor, later often called "Flintshire Detached". The Welsh Maelor, or Maelor Gymraeg, was included in Denbighshire. The English Maelor's market town and administrative centre was Overton: its constituent parts were the parishes of Bangor on Dee and Worthenbury, the three townships of Overton Villa, Overton Foreign and Knolton in the parish of Overton, Penley township from the Shropshire parish of Ellesmere, Iscoyd township in the Shropshire parish of Malpas, and Wallington, Halghton, Tybroughton, Bronington, Hanmer and Bettisfield townships in the parish of Hanmer.

In 1887 a Boundary Commission was appointed to review these nationally. At an inquiry at Overton, it was found that most of the population favoured becoming part of Shropshire, and this was later supported by resolution of the Flintshire justices of the peace. However, when local government legislation was introduced no change was made. Under the Local Government Act 1894 the area became Overton Rural District.

The administrative county of Flintshire was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, and the area became part of Clwyd. Since Clywd was itself abolished in 1996 under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, the area has been administered as part of Wrexham County Borough

Related Pages

 * Dark Ages;
 * Battle of Chester;
 * Ecgbert;
 * Æthelflæd;
 * Chester in 900;

Online

 * Roman Baths at Prestatyn;
 * More on Roman North Wales;