Caernarfon Castle

Caernarfon Castle, Gwynedd
Photo © Herbert Ortner, 18 July 1994

Caernarfon Castle (Welsh: Castell Caernarfon) was constructed at Caernarfon in Gwynedd, north-west Wales, by King Edward I of England, following his conquest of Gwynedd in 1283. Caernarfon Castle is part of the World Heritage site 'Castles and Town Walls of King Edward in Gwynedd'.

Background

Caernarfon Castle Photo © Petrusbarbygere, 27 April 2005
The ward of Caernarfon Castle, showing (from left to right) the
Black Tower, the Chamberlain's Tower, and the Eagle Tower.

Edward I built castles and walled towns in North Wales to control the area following his conquest of the independent principality of Wales, in 1283.

Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, prince of Wales, having rejected a bribe of one thousand pounds a year and an estate in England, if he would surrender his nation unreservedly to the king of England, had been lured into a trap on 11 December 1282, and put to death. His brother Dafydd ap Gruffudd had continued the struggle for continuing independence, but had been captured at Bera Mountain in the uplands above Garth Celyn, in June 1283.

Edward surrounded and overshadowed Garth Celyn, the royal home and the headquarters of resistance to English domination, with Caernarfon and Conwy castles, and later Beaumaris Castle. The other fortress in the iron ring encirling Snowdonia was Harlech Castle.

The site selected for Caernarfon was strategically important, located on the banks of the River Seiont where it flows into the Menai Strait. It had been the site of a Roman fort, and a later motte and bailey castle built c. 1090 by Hugh d'Avranches. The castle was, at the time, surrounded on two sides by water, and the other by the Caernarfon city walls, but in the 19th century, the area on the River Seiont was filled in to enlarge the port of Caernarfon, and is today part of the castle's car park.

Construction

Begun in 1283 after Snowdonia - the heartland of Gwynedd - had been overrun by the massive army, it reached something like its current state in 1323. It was never completed, and even today there are joints visible in several places on the internal walls ready to accept further walls which were never built. Contemporary records note that the castle's construction cost some £22,000 – an enormous sum at the time, equivalent to more than a year's income for the royal treasury. The castle's linear design is sophisticated by comparison with earlier British castles, and the walls are said to have been modelled on those of Constantinople, Edward being a keen Crusader. The castle dominates the Menai Strait.

History

Edward II of England was born here, during the initial stages of the castle's construction in 1284.

In the uprising of 1294–1295, Caernarfon was taken by the forces of Madog ap Llewellyn, but recaptured in 1295 and its defenses brought nearer to completion. In 1403 and 1404 it withstood sieges by the forces of Owain Glyndŵr. During the English Civil War its Royalist garrison surrendered to Parliamentary forces in 1646.

Ceremonial Usage

• The tradition of investing the heir of the monarch of Britain with the title of "Prince of Wales" began in 1301, when King Edward I of England, having completed the conquest of Wales, gave the title to his heir, Prince Edward (later King Edward II of England). According to a famous legend, the king had promised the Welsh that he would name "a prince born in Wales, who did not speak a word of English" and then produced his infant son to their surprise ; but the story may well be apocryphal, as it can only be traced to the 16th century. However, Edward II certainly was born at Caernarfon while his father was campaigning in Wales, and like all infants, could not at the time speak English. (Indeed, growing up in the royal court over the succeeding years his first language may well have been Anglo-Norman, not English.)

• The castle was used again in 1911 for the investiture of the then Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, because of its past associations with the English crown. This set a precedent which was to be repeated in 1969 with the investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales.

Present Day

The castle houses the Royal Welch Fusiliers Museum, and is part of the World Heritage Site "Castles and Town Walls of King Edward I in Gwynedd".

In 2007, a copy of the Eagle Tower was recreated on the boulevard of the coastal town of Zandvoort in the Netherlands. The sandsculpture, made entirely out of sand and water, was carved out by a team of professionals and was 15 feet (4.6 m) tall.

A diesel locomotive on the nearby Welsh Highland Railway bears the name Caernarfon Castle.

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