The History of Wales is largely forgotten when we tell the story of Britain.
The best most people get is “Finally Edward I conquered Wales and built lots of castles which survive to this day”, but it is a fascinating story that deserves to be told in its own right.
It is complicated - we are not talking about one country called Wales but a patch-work of small kingdoms (Gwynedd, Powys, Deheubarth being the most powerful) and often one of them tends to dominate for a short period. The royal family’s were often interrelated and everyone had similar names, which (unless you speak Welsh) are hard to pronounce.
And because it is complicated we tend to avoid teaching it. But this is an opportunity to explore the story of Wales in a bit more detail.
So here goes...this is the story of Wales in the Middle Ages, when Wales (or at least parts of it) remained an independent political entity as they had for nearly 1,000 years.
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