The Execution of Dafydd ap Gruffydd: The Last True Prince of Wales

Holland
Oct 2, 2020
6 min read

Today is 3 October, and on this date in 1283, Dafydd ap Gruffydd met an infamously grisly end at the hands of the English crown. He wasn’t just any nobleman. He was a Prince of Wales in the truest sense, one born into the ancient royal line of Gwynedd, a Welshman fighting for Welsh independence long before we had inherited titles and investiture ceremonies at Caernarfon Castle. His death wasn’t just an execution; it was a political theatre piece. And its brutality marked the first time “high treason” would become a formal crime under English law.

So who was this man who ended up hanged, drawn, and quartered, the first nobleman in England to be punished in that now-notorious manner?

The Roots of a Rebellion

Dafydd was one of four sons of Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, himself a member of the powerful Aberffraw dynasty in Gwynedd. His brothers were Owain, Llywelyn, and Rhodri—names that, even now, echo through Welsh history.

Gruffydd, their father, met a tragic fate. In 1241, he was handed over to King Henry III of England by his own brother, also named Dafydd. The English King stashed him away in the Tower of London. After three years of captivity, Gruffydd attempted to escape by knotting together bed linen to fashion a rope. It snapped mid-descent. He fell and died, becoming a sad symbol of how Wales was increasingly squeezed by English ambition.

With Gruffydd gone and their uncle dying just two years later, power in Gwynedd passed to the four brothers. And like many siblings in medieval power struggles, they quickly turned on each other.

A Family Affair (With Swords)

Llywelyn, the most capable of the four, outmanoeuvred his brothers in a classic medieval power grab. He defeated a joint force of Owain and Dafydd in 1246 and gradually tightened his grip on the north.

But political rivalry wasn’t the only pressure. England was stirring again. By the 1270s, Edward I (yes, the one with the long shins—“Edward Longshanks”—and the cinematic villain in Braveheart) had taken the throne and was far less patient with Welsh independence than his father had been.

By 1282, tensions boiled over. It was Dafydd—now reconciled with Llywelyn—who sparked the revolt by attacking Hawarden Castle on Palm Sunday. Llywelyn threw in his lot with him, but it was a doomed alliance. By December, Llywelyn was dead, ambushed and killed at the Battle of Orewin Bridge. His head would later be sent to London and displayed above the Tower’s gate.

Of the four brothers, only Dafydd remained in any position to lead. Owain had become disillusioned and quietly slipped from the political scene. Rhodri had sold his inheritance and titles and was effectively out of the picture.

So, by default more than design, Dafydd ap Gruffydd became the last free Prince of Wales.

Caught, Tried and Sentenced

The revolt failed spectacularly. Dafydd retreated into the hills with a dwindling band of supporters, but the English military machine was relentless. He was eventually captured near Bera Mawr in June 1283, along with his wife, children, and supporters.

Edward I decided to make an example of him. On 30 September, Dafydd was tried in a specially convened Parliament at Shrewsbury Castle. His crimes were manifold, but the one that would be written into legal precedent was high treason—the crime of betraying the king to whom you owed allegiance.

This was new territory. Rebellion had always been harshly dealt with, but never before had a nobleman been executed in this fashion. It marked a turning point in the codification of political dissent.

Hanged, Drawn and Quartered

The execution of Dafydd ap Gruffydd on 3 October 1283 was not only a judicial sentence but a calculated spectacle of horror, crafted to leave an indelible mark on all who witnessed or heard of it. It was the first recorded instance of a nobleman being executed by the method that would later become infamous for traitors, hanged, drawn, and quartered. In Dafydd’s case, the sentence was ritualistic, theatrical, and designed to send a clear and brutal message: resistance to English rule would be met with the most grotesque punishment imaginable.

The procession began in Shrewsbury, where Dafydd was dragged through the town’s streets behind a horse, his body bouncing and scraping along the dirt and cobbled roads. This was a deliberate act of degradation, symbolising the stripping away of his nobility and honour. In medieval law, treason was not only a crime against the monarch but a spiritual offence against the natural order. Dragging the condemned was therefore part of the public humiliation, a prelude to the greater violence to come.

He was then hanged by the neck, but only partially. The executioners took great care not to kill him. The goal was to inflict pain, not to grant the release of death. As he dangled, gasping and semi-conscious, he was cut down, laid out, and subjected to the next phase.

Still alive, Dafydd was disembowelled—his stomach sliced open, and his entrails slowly pulled out. The chroniclers report that his intestines were burned before his eyes while he remained alive, adding a layer of psychological torment to the intense physical pain. His genitalia were also likely removed, a symbolic act intended to extinguish his bloodline and humiliate him as a man and leader.

Seventeenth century print of the execution, by hanging, drawing, and quartering of the members of the Gunpowder plot

Only then was he beheaded, ending his suffering. His body was then hacked into four parts. This process, known as quartering, served a dual purpose. It not only further dishonoured the dead but allowed the authorities to send physical reminders of English supremacy across the realm.

Each of the four quarters of Dafydd’s body was dispatched to different locations across England and Wales. This was not random: it was a political map etched in flesh. These remains were placed in prominent public spaces—castles, market squares, bridges—where they could fester in the open air, reminding locals what fate awaited those who defied Edward I. His head was impaled on a spike and displayed at the Tower of London, alongside that of his older brother Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, who had been killed the year before. The symbolism was stark and unmistakable: the last native princes of Wales had fallen, and their legacy was extinguished.

One of Dafydd’s limbs was sent to Bristol, a city of strategic and symbolic importance in western England. It is also likely no coincidence that this was near to where his surviving sons, Llywelyn and Owain, were imprisoned for the remainder of their lives. They were young boys at the time, taken into custody and confined to Bristol Castle, their lineage used to bolster the spectacle of total English domination. They would die in obscurity, their father’s public obliteration setting the tone for their own quiet erasure.

The man tasked with carrying out this appalling sentence was one Geoffrey of Shrewsbury. His name appears in the records as the executor of the Crown’s will. For his role in the execution, he was paid 20 shillings—a sum that would be roughly equivalent to £5,000 in today’s money. It was a substantial fee, commensurate with the scale and gruesomeness of the job. In the medieval economy, executioners were not just men with axes; they were state instruments, chosen for their precision, resilience, and ability to conduct spectacles of terror without flinching.

A Legal First

While others had met similar ends before Dafydd, such as a nameless would-be assassin of Henry III and Walter Scoteney, a poisoner, Dafydd was the first to be punished in this way under the specific legal charge of treason. From this point onward, the act of rebelling against the English crown took on new legal and symbolic significance.

And the method of execution would only get more elaborate. Later victims of the same punishment would have their genitals cut off and burned, their hearts removed and brandished before they died. It remained on the statute books until the 19th century, with the final official sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering handed down (though not carried out) in 1839. It wasn’t fully abolished until 1870.

The End of an Era

Dafydd ap Gruffydd's execution marked the end of native rule in Wales. With his death, the English crown consolidated its control, and in 1301, Edward I bestowed the title Prince of Wales upon his son, beginning the now centuries-old tradition of English royalty holding a Welsh title that once meant something altogether different.

So today, if someone mentions the Prince of Wales, spare a thought for the man who once held that title with real sovereignty, whose fate shaped the future of Welsh-English relations, and whose final moments were as unforgettable as they were grotesque.

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