This is the first ever comprehensive history of the Aberffraw region in the distant post-Roman and early medieval period. Its starting point is the collapse of the Roman Empire in Britain, when north Wales was over-run by Pictish and Irish invaders, and a band of brothers from northern Britain came down to drive them out. One of these brothers, the seventh, became the very first King of north Wales. For two generations longer, the island of Anglesey remained firmly under Irish control, until a young cavalryman Caswallon the Long-handed succeeded, where others far more experienced had failed before, and after three critical battles finally completed the mission. He became Aberffraw’s first King.   

The struggles of its rulers to defend the kingdom against repeated attacks and invasions from both east and west forms the main narrative, as the Author describes the efforts of three successive Dynasties of Aberffraw’s Kings and Princes to defend their Kingdom from repeated challenges and attacks. Her story is told in a way that can engage the interest of a broad range of readers.

This history of Aberffraw offered here concentrates on three topics – the region, its rulers and their royal courts, covering the many centuries from AD 378 to 1282 when the kingdom was controlled by its own independent leaders. Many of these rulers were Giant figures, in every sense of the word. For the very first time, every one of the kingdom’s known rulers receives attention. The author traces the lateral shifts of the royal court around the Aberffraw region, with periods when the area was abandoned completely.

No one has ever attempted a history of Aberffraw before because of the extreme shortage of evidence. Despite all the challenges, the author (an Archivist who has handled original sources for the whole of her career) has uncovered a body of fresh material that has never received attention before. Virtually every chapter brings new revelations.

The focus is on evidence and how we know, as every source is subject to rigorous scrutiny and, at times, an almost forensic reconstruction. The book offers many challenging new interpretations. The Author has not been afraid to question long held tenets of accepted wisdom and has approached the topic without any preconceptions or back-projections, following the evidence where ever it led. This has frequently led on to new and unexpected insights. The intriguing defensive enclosure underlying Aberffraw village has been variously interpreted as a Roman Fort or a Palace, but the Author offers a different, completely novel re-interpretation.  For the very first time too, the Author decribes how the Aberffraw village evolved over time, once the Court finally relocated to the banks of the River Ffraw, and chronicles its development into a remarkable and sophisticated urban capital, unique in Wales.

Many other topics are explored. Some of these have never been on the radar before ranging from Anglesey’s lost Seventh Commote (which once formed the third Commote in Aberffraw’s wider Cantref) to the Viking role in Anglesey and their formative impact on the development of Aberffraw village itself, or the remarkable social and economic transformation carried through by the Princes of Gwynedd after the Norman conquest of England and most of Wales. This ensured that the Principality of Gwynedd was able to hold out against Norman agression for nearly two centuries longer, until the final fatal takeover of the Principality by King Edward I brought the era to a close.