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 apparently 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.

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".

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.

Sub-Roman
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.

Wessex
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. 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 certain where the border was situated after the Mercian defeat at Conwy.

Ceolwulf died or was deposed in 879, and was succeeded as Lord of the Mercians by Æthelred, who may well have played a part at Conwy. The first thing he did was invade Wales.

Englefield
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. 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.

Related Pages

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

Online

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