Historical Background

Crouchback is set in the medieval world of 1284, and is based on true events surrounding the death of the last native Welsh Prince of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, who was ambushed at a place called Cilmeri in eastern Wales, late in the afternoon on December 11^th, 1282.

And then Llywelyn ap Gruffydd left Dafydd, his brother, guarding Gwynedd; and he himself and his host went to gain possession of Powys and Buellt. And he gained possession as far as Llanganten. And thereupon he sent his men and his steward to receive the homage of the men of Brycheiniog, and the prince was left with but a few men with him. And then Edmund Mortimer and Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn, and with them the king’s host, came upon them without warning; and then Llywelyn and his foremost men were slain on the day of Damasus the Pope, a fortnight to the day from Christmas day; and that was a Friday.

—-Brut y Tywysogyon, Peniarth manuscript 20 (The Chronicle of the Princes)

The men who killed Llywelyn cut off his head and carried it to King Edward, who ordered it displayed on a pike in London. Legend says that the rest of Llywelyn’s body was buried at an abbey north of Cilmeri.

Llywelyn’s brother, Dafydd, who took up the mantle of leadership of the Welsh forces after Llywelyn’s death, was captured a few months later and then hanged, drawn, and quartered and dragged through the streets of Shrewsbury, the first man of significance to experience that particular death. Gwenllian, Llywelyn’s infant daughter and only child, was abducted from Llywelyn’s palace at Aber and sent to a convent in England, where she remained a prisoner for the rest of her life.

At Llywelyn’s death, Wales lost its independence and, after the birth of Edward II in Caernarfon in April 1284, King Edward declared him the new Prince of Wales, ensuring that the titular ruler of Wales from then on would be the son of the English king rather than a Welshman.

Unlike my After Cilmeri series, which is set in an alternate universe where Llywelyn lives, Crouchback is set in the real world, our world, where he does not.

All that sounds terribly depressing doesn’t it? Why would anyone want to read a book (never mind write one!) with all that as the background?

One of my favorite writing quotes, the provenance of which I am uncertain, says to write a good book, the author needs to give her characters a very bad day and make it worse. In the world of medieval Wales, there was nothing ‘worse’ than the conquest of Wales by King Edward of England. For Catrin and Rhys, their world had, in a very significant way, come to an end. In writing this book, I found myself exploring how a person could have something so terrible happen and still live.

Which the people of Wales did. They endured and even prospered for over seven hundred years, speaking their language and living their lives as Welsh men and women.

I also wrote this book as an 80,000 word subtweet, as my daughter says, to a question posed to me a few years ago: if the Welsh had actually hated Edward or resented their colonization, why would they have enlisted in his military in droves and, more to the point, joined his personal guard?

To my mind, the answer is obvious. Worldwide, military service in a conqueror’s army provides stability and income to people who would otherwise have none, regardless of their feelings about their situation. That was clearly the case with medieval Wales, and I wanted to explore that question more fully.

On an even more personal note, my mother was dying of metastatic breast cancer as I wrote this book. In the weeks before she died, we made one last trip together to see family, and I finished the first draft of the book with her sleeping beside me on the plane home. She’d heard all about Crouchback, of course, and I was looking forward to reading it to her out loud in the following week. Instead, she died the next day.

Which brings me back to my question—why write a book set in such a dark time? The answer, for me, is because Crouchback isn’t about grief, as it turns out, but about hope and perseverance, courage and love—and finding joy in the darkest moments of our lives.

Thank you so much for reading Crouchback! For more information about medieval Wales, my other books, or to sign up to be notified the moment book two in The Welsh Guard Mysteries is released, please see my web page:

I also write another medieval mystery series that begins with The Good Knight, set in 1143 Wales.

Continue reading for the beginning of Footsteps in Time, the first book in the After Cilmeri series.

“How can you leave Gwynedd undefended, my lord? Without you, we can’t hold back the English.”

Goronwy stood with his back to me, gazing out the window at the courtyard where a dozen men prepared to ride out on a scouting mission. I didn’t envy them, for rain lashed their faces and the temperature hovered just above freezing. It was cold for November, even here by the sea.

I put aside the letter I was writing and gave Goronwy, my steadfast friend through nearly fifty years of governing and fighting, my full attention.

“Dafydd will hold the north for me, and you with him,” I said. “You may travel with me as far as Castell y Bere, but not beyond that. I need you to watch Dafydd and rein him in if necessary.”

“Dafydd.” Goronwy swung around to face me. “Traitor isn’t too strong a word to describe him. You can’t deny it.”

“I don’t deny it. Dafydd follows always his own desires, usually in direct opposition to mine. I can’t trust him to remain true to Wales or to me, but I can trust him to remain true to himself. For now, his interests and those of Wales coincide.” I picked up my pen and twirled it in my hand. “It’s not Dafydd’s loyalty that concerns me, but the Mortimers.”

“The Mortimers!” Goronwy’s tone for them matched the one he’d used for Dafydd. “We’ve heard rumors only. They hold Buellt Castle for King Edward and no amount of persuasion is ever going to talk them out of it.”

“You still want to risk it? You listen to neither her nor me. If you go south to meet them, I fear you meet your death.”

“I do listen, Goronwy,” I said. “That’s why you’re staying behind, in case I don’t return. The men will follow Dafydd if they know you stand with him.”

Goronwy rubbed his face with both hands. “There’s nothing I can say to persuade you not to make this journey?”

“If we are to defeat the English once and for all, if I am to rule Wales in fact as well as name, I must control the south. The Mortimers’ allegiance would strengthen my position and shorten the war. Surely you can see that I must meet them?”

“If it were true, I would see it, my lord; but I don’t believe they will betray England. Not all men bend with the wind as easily as Dafydd.”

“Some bend; some break.” I picked up the letter and saluted Goronwy with it. “This time either Edward or I will break. I know only that I can bend no longer.”

I nodded. Goronwy bowed and left the room. I gripped my pen, reading over the words I’d written, and signed my name at the end: We fight because we are forced to fight, for we, and all Wales, are oppressed, subjugated, despoiled, reduced to servitude by the royal officers and bailiffs so that we feel, and have often so protested to the king, that we are left without any remedy ...

It is also available as part of a two-book bundle that includes Footsteps in Time and Prince of Time