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Updated: June 22, 2025
Yet Edward tarried at Rhuddlan for over six months, dividing his energy between watching the Welsh and replenishing his treasure and troops. His treasurer, John Kirkby, wandered from shire to shire soliciting voluntary contributions.
The submission of the lesser chieftains soon followed: and the country was secured by the building of strong castles at Conway and Caernarvon, and the settlement of English barons on the confiscated soil. The Statute of Wales which Edward promulgated at Rhuddlan in 1284 proposed to introduce English law and the English administration of justice and government into Wales.
Edward still tarried at Rhuddlan, with a host constantly varying in numbers, for his soldiers had long overpassed the period of feudal service. Every effort was made to bring fresh troops to the field, and Luke de Tany, seneschal of Gascony, came upon the scene with a small levy of the chivalry of Aquitaine.
Edward's task was more difficult than on the previous occasion. Though Rhuddlan, not Chester as in 1277, had become his starting-point against Gwynedd, he dared not advance so long as David threatened his left flank from Denbigh, and the rising in the south was far more formidable than that of five years before.
It was at Rhuddlan that Edward I. promised the Welsh "a native prince who never spoke a word of English, and whose life and conversation no man could impugn;" and this promise he fulfilled to the letter by naming as the first English Prince of Wales his infant son, then just born at Caernarvon Castle.
Military exigences had, however, already erected most of these lands into new marcher lordships, and Edward was perforce content with the union of some fragments of Rhos to the shire of Carnarvon, and with joining together Englefield and some adjoining districts in the new county of Flint. This arrangement secured the strongholds of Flint and Rhuddlan for the king.
Lancaster treasured this, and paid attention to the dog, which would nevermore follow Richard, but kept by the side of the Duke of Lancaster, "as was witnessed," says the chronicler Froissart, "by thirty thousand men." Rhuddlan Castle, also in Flintshire, is a red sandstone ruin of striking appearance, standing on the Clwyd River.
In 1284, by the statute of Rhuddlan, it was formed into six shires. The Snowdon district which held out last was made into the three shires of Anglesey, Carnarvon, and Merioneth. The part of the land between Conway and Dee that belonged to the king, not to barons, was made into the shire of Flint. The lands of Llywelyn's allies beyond the Dovey were made into the shires of Cardigan and Carmarthen.
Edward withdrew to Rhuddlan and dismissed the greater part of his followers. Enough were left to block the approaches to Snowdon, and Llewelyn, seeing no gain in further delay, made his submission on November 9. The treaty of Aberconway, which Edward dictated, reduced Llewelyn to the position of a petty North Welsh chieftain, which he had held thirty years before.
The advance was cautious and slow, with long halts at Flint and at Rhuddlan, where hastily erected forts secured the king's base and safe-guarded a possible retreat. By the end of August the king was at Deganwy, and the four cantreds were conquered. During all this time fresh forces were hurried up. Some 15,000 infantry, largely drawn from southern and central Wales, swelled the king's host.
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