When King Edward II hid at a farm in Llangynwyd

Local history with Graham Loveluck Edwards

Glamorgan Star news 19/03/2023

3 minutes read

KING Edward II, also known as Edward of Caernarfon, was born in Caernarfon Castle on 25th April 1284.

He was the fourth son of his predecessor Edward Longshanks and was the first ‘English’ Prince of Wales. He was King of England from 1307 to 1327 and it must be said that his rule was a liturgy of disasters and poor decisions.

It culminated in his own wife, Isabella forcing him to abdicate in favour of his son. She and her lover Roger Mortimer also arranged his rather brutal assassination – according to one source, from having a red-hot poker inserted where the sun doesn’t shine while imprisoned at Berkley Castle.

Despite the fact the king himself kept a journal we have very little accurate, contemporary account of the events leading up to his capture in LLantrisant. But we do have a pretty spectacular legend that fills in some of the gaps.

It was published in the South Wales Daily News on 29th August 1899 by a man from the hilltop village of Llangynwyd near Maesetg who called himself Cadrawd. He claimed that he had uncovered a genuine historical account written by a bard called Morien which told the full story.

The narrative of the article was that Edward II and his lover Hugh Le Despenser had fled London and sought refuge in Neath Abbey. They persuaded the Abbot of Neath to plead on their behalf but in doing so, he inadvertently gave away where they were hiding. So, they fled again and attempted to find their way to Despenser’s Castle in Caerphilly but, knowing there were soldiers looking for them everywhere, they had to stay away from busy roads and big towns where they could easily be spotted.

Thus, they ended up in Llangynwyd as it lies on the Glamorgan Ridgeway (which you may remember me writing about previously). It is an ancient road that runs from Margam to Caerphilly and passes through that very village.

Cadrawd writes “while in hiding from his enemies at Gaily Lenor Fawr… in order to keep up his character as a Welsh peasant, Edward accepted employment as a thresher of corn at the farm where he was afforded temporary shelter from the fury of Isabella and Mortimer, the farmer meanwhile keeping watch for suspicious characters in the locality- should any such characters appear the fugitive King hid himself in the branches of an oak tree, afterwards known as ‘Cadair Edward’, whence he saw on several occasions bands of soldiers in search of him…

In Bridgend, a contemporary brought to light another interesting find. This places beyond a shadow of doubt the truth of one at least of Morien’s statements. An inscribed stone is said to be the find which sets forth the fact that Edward II did really and actually come to the farm of Gelly Lenor Fawr. After centuries we are told that the stone has been revealed by the hand of Nature herself by the blowing down of the old tree”

Obviously, this story has a lot of overtones of the one about Charles I hiding in the Royal Oak. However, there is one inescapable fact in all of this. There genuinely is a stone. You need to work quite hard to find it these days, but it is there and a picture of it accompanies this article.

If you want to look at this story in more detail and hear some further expert insight into its outcomes and how true this story is likely to be, you may be interested to learn that it is the subject of a film I have just released on YouTube. Please hop along to here for more information and while you’re there, please also subscribe.

Graham Loveluck-Edwards

If you enjoy my regular columns about our rich and diverse local history, legends, and folklore you might be interested to know that I have compiled them all (and many more) into a second book on the subject which was newly released last September. It is called ‘More legends and folklore from Barry, Bridgend and the Vale’. It retails for £12.99 and is available from Amazon, all good book shops or from my own website at a discounted price here.

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