Cadwaladr

Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon or Cadwaladr Fendigaid ('Blessed Cadwaladr', , – 664 or 682) was the king of Gwynedd from about 655 to 664 or 682. Little is known of Cadwaladr's reign, but he later became a mythical redeemer figure in medieval Welsh literature following his depiction in the De gestis Britonum by Geoffrey of Monmouth. In Geoffrey's narrative, Cadwaladr was the last native Briton to be King of Britain, and renounced his throne in 689 to go on pilgrimage to Rome in response to a prophecy that his sacrifice of personal power would bring about a future victory of the Britons over the Anglo-Saxons. Geoffrey's story of Cadwaladr's prophecy and trip to Rome is believed to be an embellishment of the events in the life of Cædwalla of Wessex, whom Geoffrey mistakenly conflated with Cadwaladr.

For later Welsh writers, the myth provided hope in a period where the native order was increasingly finding itself encroached upon by and subject to English authority and customs. However, because of Geoffrey's popularity in England, the legend was also used by both the Yorkist and Lancastrian factions during the Wars of the Roses to claim that their candidate would fulfil the prophecy by restoring the authentic lineage of Cadwaladr to the throne of England. From the sixteenth century onwards, the Welsh Dragon has sometimes been conflated with Cadwaladr's legend and referred to as "Red Dragon of Cadwalader" because of the importance of both Cadwaladr and the dragon in the ideology of Henry Tudor's supporters which helped to justify his claim to the throne. == Historical record == There are no contemporary records of Cadwaladr or his reign, and those which do survive are confused and contradictory. Peter Bartrum suggested that he may have been born about 633 AD, shortly before his father's death at the Battle of Heavenfield. The earliest Welsh genealogies contained in the ninth-century manuscript Harley 3859 record him simply as and trace his ancestry back to Cunedda Wledig. However, later genealogies give him a sobriquet, with the genealogy of Gruffudd ap Cynan in the twelfth-century Vita Griffini filii Conani calling him , and the genealogy of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth in the Llywelyn ab Iorwerth Genealogies referring to him as , both meaning 'Blessed Cadwaladr'. The Llywelyn ab Iorwerth Genealogies also assert that Cadwaladr's mother was a daughter of Pybba and sister of Penda, though this may be under influence from Geoffrey of Monmouth's fictionalisation of Cadwaladr's life.