Owain Goch

The ruins of Dolbadarn Castle, the castle where Owain Goch was imprisoned for more than 20 years

Owain Goch (Owain the Red, actually: Owain ap Gruffydd ; † around 1282) was a Welsh prince of Gwynedd .

He was the eldest son of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn Fawr and his wife Senana. Together with his father, he was captured by his uncle Dafydd ap Llywelyn in 1240 . Dafydd ap Llywelyn feared that his half-brother Gruffydd ap Llywelyn could claim the throne of Gwynedd, since he was the older, but illegitimate, son of Llywelyn from Iorwerth . After the defeat of Dafydd against the English King Henry III. Owain accompanied his father as a prisoner to England in 1241, where he was imprisoned in mild prison in the Tower of London . Owain remained in English captivity even after his father's death in 1244. In early 1246, during his campaign against Gwynedd, the king brought Owain to Chester to be used as a bargaining chip against Dafydd ap Llywelyn, but Owain refused to enter Gwynedd while his uncle was alive. However, after Dafydd died in February 1246 without male descendants, Owain made his claims to rule in Gwynedd. As a former hostage, however, he did not receive the full support of the Gwynedd nobility and had to come to terms with his younger brother Llywelyn ap Gruffydd . He and Llywelyn had to accept English supremacy and significant loss of territory for Gwynedd in the Treaty of Woodstock on April 30, 1247 , in return the king recognized Owain and Llywelyn as princes of Gwynedd. It is unclear how the two brothers shared their power among themselves. In the following years Owain and Llywelyn tried to expand the power and influence of Gwynedd again, so they formed an alliance with Maredudd ap Rhys and Rhys Fychan von Deheubarth in 1251 . By 1253 at the latest, however, there was a dispute between the brothers, which was probably triggered by the inheritance claims of their younger brother Dafydd . The dispute turned into an armed conflict in which Owain allied with Dafydd against Llywelyn in 1255, but in early June 1255 they lost the Battle of Bryn Derwin on the border of Arfon and Eifonydd and were captured by their brother. Llywelyn presumably imprisoned Owain at Dolbadarn Castle . Owain was only released again through the Treaty of Aberconwy in 1277, and his brother had to leave the Lleyn peninsula to him , where he probably died before 1282.

Web links

• Thomas Jones Pierce: Owain ap Gruffydd, or Owain Goch, (fl. 1260) , Welsh Biography Online, National Library of Wales, [1] , accessed July 2, 2014

Individual evidence

1. ^ David Walker: Medieval Wales. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1990, ISBN 0-521-31153-5 , p. 112.
2. ^ Rees R. Davies: The Age of Conquest. Wales, 1063-1415. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 1991, ISBN 0-19-820198-2 , p. 309.
3. ^ Owain Goch & Dolbadarn Castle. Retrieved June 2, 2014 . 
4. ^ David Walker: Medieval Wales. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1990, ISBN 0-521-31153-5 , p. 128

predecessor	Office	successor
Dafydd ap Llywelyn	Prince of Gwynedd 1246-1255 (together with Llywelyn ap Gruffydd )	Llywelyn ap Gruffydd