Introduction

In our Overview of the Prichard ancestry, we briefly explain how the known pedigrees of
?MARGARETTA PRICHARD’S paternal ancestors in Wales were traced through different branches, and how their reliability was tested. We give these branches in toto in the two parts of ?MARGARETTA’S ANCESTRY CHART, the Primary Chart and the Branch Chart, along with various possible but uncertain ancestors who lack our desired level of reliable support. Here in this HISTORICAL NARRATIVE, we give all of those lines we consider reasonably well supported by pedigree and historical documentation, and we present them with their family relations shown diagrammatically in classic pedigrees. Many of
?MARGARETTA’S ancestors were figures of great historical significance in Wales. Therefore, this narrative also includes an account of the large role they played in Welsh history.

We traced these ancestors back to Welsh rulers in the 9th century, and pedigrees also exist which claim to trace their lines back to the 4th century. Such early times, however, are now obscure, and even the pedigrees of historically known figures cannot be well substantiated. Their claimed marriage links to later rulers in ?MARGARETTA’S known ancestry may be only convenient inventions, as seen in our brief summary of these uncertain lines in the second part of the ANCESTRY CHART titled Branch Chart. Therefore, we do not give the earliest rulers here, yet that early history itself was crucial to later Welsh culture and history, so we shall summarize it briefly before we take up ?MARGARETTA’S known ancestors.

DNA studies support the view of historians that the Welsh descended from the prehistoric inhabitants of Britain and other parts of the western seaboard of Europe (J.Davies, p.13; National Geographic, June 2001; see also B.Cunliffe’s Facing the Ocean, F.Pryor’s Britain BC, and D.Miles’sThe Tribes of Britain). In the centuries after 600 B.C., the original inhabitants were probably joined by Celts migrating from the continent and bringing to the British Isles a language that eventually developed into Welsh and Gaelic. The resulting mixed population can best be called Britons, and the most striking part of their cultural synthesis appeared with Celtic visual art. This intricate art, unlike classical pictorialism and naturalism, was characterized by abstract design that "with its subtlety and its ambiguity, its confidence and its tension, contains intimations of the divine and the infinite" (J.Davies, pp.20). We are now most familiar with this quality in the famous Celtic knot without start or end, thus easily symbolizing eternity.  I. M. Stead's description of the British Museum collection concludes that Celtic art was one of the "outstanding abstract arts in world history" and that the British contribution to it was "second to none" (p.70).  Archaeological finds in Wales show both imported and native forms, especially in Anglesey by the turn of the millenium to 50 A.D. For details, see www.walespast.com/article.shtml?id=40 and associated links.

The Celts had reached their peak as the most powerful people in Europe around the year 300 B.C. when their territory

They were eventually defeated by the legions of Rome, and Julius Caesar conquered Gaul in present-day France in 52 B.C. The Romans in force invaded Britain nearly a hundred years later, and the Romano-Briton period lasted for a further three and a half centuries. In that time Latin provided an international tongue, Roman towns were created on Roman roads (such as our ancestors’ Carmarthen and Caerleon), and pagan Roman and Celtic religious rituals existed side by side. Only the Britons of present-day England and Wales (named Britannia by the Romans) shared this Roman experience, as Hadrian’s Wall kept back the Picts of the north in present-day Scotland, and Roman legions never invaded Ireland.

The Welsh considered themselves the true heirs of the Britons and the later Romano-Briton cultural synthesis, and this belief became central to their consciousness for at least the next millennium (R.R.Davies, Conquest, pp.16,78-80,434-6). They were long sustained by pride in descent from the rulers who once controlled the whole of England and the south of Scotland as well as present-day Wales, and who continued to rule much of these areas for a considerable time after the Roman legions left. Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century drew the attention of outsiders to this Welsh pride, and the Archbishop of Canterbury remarked, “The Welsh, being sprung by unbroken succession from the original stock of Britons, boast of all Britain as being theirs by right” (R.R.Davies, p.79). Recent scholarship has revealed a considerable measure of continuity in the social and institutional features of early medieval Wales from Romano-Briton and even pre-Roman times (R.R.Davies, p.149).

A major effect of the Romano-Briton synthesis was the establishment of Christianity from Rome through the three stages of individual persecution or martyrdom, then acceptance or toleration, and official establishment by mid-4th centrury. Bishops from Britain were present at the Councils held in Arles in 313 and Rimini in 359 (J.Davies, p.37). Their presence at the church councils shows not only communication but participation and recognition in the European church, so it is not surprising that the Britons of south east Wales were considered the originators of what came to be called the Celtic church. The school at Llantwit Major was organized by St. Illtud and it trained Samson, who was a pioneer of Breton monasticism, and Paul Aurelian, who was influential in Cornwall. Even most of the leaders of early Irish monasticism were trained in Wales (J.Davies pp.72-75). St. Patrick himself grew up in a Briton Christian community, perhaps in the lowlands near Carlisle below Hadrian’s Wall, and he took that Christianity with him to Ireland in 432-461 and rooted it deeply. The period 400-600 in Wales is known as the Age of the Saints, and most parishes and many villages were given the name of a Welsh saint prefixed by “Llan”, which means “church enclosure.” The 5th century monk David, who became the patron saint of Wales, presided over ecclesiastical synods and was so influential that by 1200 more than sixty churches were dedicated to him. This religious prominence probably contributed to the lasting Welsh grief at the coming defeats of the Britons at the hands of a new enemy.

After the departure of the Roman army at the beginning of the 5th century, the Romano-Britons were prepared to replace the lost Roman power with their own rule over their large homeland, but the vacuum was instead being filled by pagan strangers from northern Europe, as Germanic colonists settled in the area of present-day England, their names Angles and Saxons providing the new words Anglo-Saxon, England, and English. Despite the Britons’ battles of resistance, soon after 500 A.D. a number of small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms came into being in the south and east of present-day England. The years 550-650 were decisive, when the English won supremacy over most of south central Britannia. According to the English author Michael Wood, in southern Britain by about 600 AD Germanic culture emerged after overwhelming the native culture (p.80). The Britons’ sense of loss and the pain of defeat by pagan strangers were “at the root of their anguish, which would become the motive force of much of Welsh mythology” (J.Davies p.49). Thus, Welsh history increasingly concerned the need to resist English encroachment upon Wales and its people. As the English expanded over the former Britannia, the Welsh were forced to concentrate their efforts within the area of present-day Wales, and they established the dynasties of the main kingdoms of Wales (J. Davies pp.45).

The north and south kingdoms of Gwynedd and Deheubarth respectively are shown on our Map, as well as the north east kingdom of Powys. Gwynedd included and had its royal seat on the island of Anglesey. Parts of Deheubarth later acquired the English county names Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, and Cardiganshire. Kingdoms in the south east are also shown on our MAP, but are given their later county names of Glamorgan, Monmouthshire and Breconshire. For modern Welsh locations, we recommend the interactive site www.multimap.com.

In the long period from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, the Welsh princes reached their peak of power, as shown in the first part of the HISTORICAL NARRATIVE, titled The Welsh Princes, but then they were diminished and defeated. Their descendants were no longer royal, but they became members of the powerful Welsh gentry and royal or official administrators, and they are described in the second part of the NARRATIVE, titled The Gentry.