The Welsh

Ever since the 1050s, when Harold Godwinson had earned his military reputation as a slayer of Welshmen, the English had sought to expand their authority westwards across the Wye and the Dee into territories ruled by Welsh-speaking princes. The Normans after 1066 had continued this process, seizing most of southern Wales as far west as Pembroke and extending the frontiers of the county of Cheshire in the north. Henry II’s conquest of Ireland in the 1170s had further embedded this English ‘Drang nach westen’ (‘push to the west’), ensuring English control over one side of that Welsh–Irish axis around which had been focussed a great deal of the native Welsh economy and with it the tribute, in silver and cattle, paid to the native Welsh princes.