Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon

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Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon (died 682) or Cadwaladr Fendigaid was a late seventh-century king of Gwynedd who reigned from the middle of the century until his death. Little is known of his reign, but he later became a mythical redeemer figure in medieval Welsh literature following his depiction in the De gestis Britonum by Geoffrey of Monmouth. In Geoffrey's narrative, Cadwaladr was the last native Briton to be King of Britain, and renounced his throne in 689 to go on a pilgrimage to Rome after an angel prophesied to him that he must do so in order for the Welsh to eventually recover their patrimony. However, Geoffrey's account of Cadwaladr's sanctity and his visit to Rome is the result of an intentional or pre-existing conflation with events in the life of King Cædwalla of Wessex. For later Welsh writers, the myth provided hope in a period when the native order was increasingly encroached upon by and subject to English authority and customs. Because of the popularity of Geoffrey's work in...

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