FINDING NESTA

THE KING’S JEWEL tells the story of Nesta ferch Rhys (meaning daughter of Rhys)  ap Tewdwr of Dyfed, an area roughly equating to modern Pembrokeshire.  Her tale is fascinating, but has to be assembled from numerous sources, and it’s still a jigsaw puzzle with gaps, and  alternative scenarios,  depending on the interpretation of the scattered pieces.

Here’s what I discovered, when I embarked on my particular interpretation of that jigsaw puzzle when setting out to write THE KING’S JEWEL.

Wales in the eleventh century consisted of numerous principalities and the rulers of those principalities spent a great deal of time warring with each other. The Welsh system of inheritance was based upon a division between the sons, which led to infighting and scheming, even while the strongest usually took the upper hand. Often the younger sons, both legitimate and not, would unite or squabble as shifting political scenery and loyalties dictated. A stab in the back or a shove into the fire were not uncommon outcomes.

Nesta’s father, Rhys ap Tewdwr, was the enemy of Cadwgan ap Bleddyn of the neighbouring principality of Powys and they had long fought for dominance of south and mid Wales.  At one point, Cadwgan had forced Rhys to flee to Ireland with his family – Nesta would have been a small child at the time.  Ireland was often a place of refuge for displaced Welsh princes and a useful source of mercenaries.

After a short while, Rhys regrouped and returned to Wales. He fought Cadwgan, defeated him and in the battle killed two of Cadwgan’s brothers. Re-establishing himself and holding court at his palace at Carew, Rhys made a protection pact with William the Conqueror that lasted until the Conqueror’s death in 1089.

The Conqueror’s successor, William Rufus, did not continue that pact and a new offensive on the Welsh principalities was launched, driven by ambitious power-hungry Norman warlords who began extending their territories, building castles as they advanced. Arnulf de Montgomery was one such warrior, part of the powerful House of Montgomery, Earls of Shrewsbury, and lords of the Welsh Marches.

In the spring of 1093, when Nesta was about twelve or thirteen, her father Rhys was killed in a skirmish near Brecon. His lands were overrun by the Normans and Nesta was taken hostage. Her younger brother Gruffydd was spirited away to Ireland under the noses of the invaders and there raised in exile.  Another brother Hywel, was held captive and possibly castrated. There is no mention of what happened to Nesta’s mother, Gwladus following Rhys’s death.

We don’t know what happened to Nesta in the years following her father’s death; all we have are possibilities. We do know that William Rufus and his brother, the future Henry I came to Wales on campaign in 1097, and that Nesta was very likely in the custody of the Montgomery family at that time. She may well have encountered Henry then and become his concubine.  She would have been in her mid-teens at that point. Some historians suggest a later date of 1114 for her meeting with Henry when he came to the Marches again to deal with Welsh affairs.  In THE KING’S JEWEL,  I have gone with the 1097 dateline because Henry seems to have mostly preferred younger women for his conquests, rather than wives of many years’ standing. There were exceptions, but on the whole he tended not to make concubines of long-married women, which Nesta would have been in 1114.  It is also unlikely, given his theatre of operations that he would have had the opportunity to encounter Nesta in 1114, as he did not travel deep into South Wales where she dwelt as lady of Carew. Whatever the dateline of their liaison, however,  it is almost certain that Nesta bore Henry a son, who was given his father’s name.  She was known as the ‘Helen of Wales’ (after Helen of Troy) and was supposedly very beautiful.

Around 1102 Nesta married Gerald FitzWalter of Windsor constable of Pembroke castle and bore him five children: William, Angharad, Dafydd,  Maurice, and Gwladus. All would make successes of their lives. William would continue the family line at Carew; Dafydd would become the Bishop of St David’s and head of the Welsh church; Maurice would travel to Ireland and make a name for himself among the Cambro-Norman invaders in Leinster, and establish a dynasty.  Angharad married William de Barri of Manorbier,  and their son Gerald, became a famous raconteur and chronicler whose works are still in print today. Gwladus married into the de Cogan family whose descendants also crossed to Ireland with Richard de Clare.

Manorbier Castle Today

Nesta’s son by Henry I, Henry Fitzroy was given lands in Wales by his father and died in battle in 1158, fighting the troops of Owain Gwynedd in Anglesey. His son Meilyr would become King John’s justiciar in Ireland.

In 1109 Nesta was abducted by Gerald’ s rival and neighbour, Prince Owain of Powys, eldest son of the above mentioned Cadwgan.  The details surrounding the abduction have an element of legend and storytelling about them but the gist is that Owain seems to have abducted Nesta perhaps for political purposes, perhaps out of  lust, perhaps both.  Having broken into Gerald’s stronghold where Gerald and Nesta and three of the children were dwelling, Owain set fire to the buildings. Gerald narrowly escaped with his life by hiding supposedly in a latrine while Owain carried Nesta off and had his way with her whether she was willing or not. (that’s one of the many unknowns).  At some point – and here the history is obscure on the dateline – Nesta was restored to Gerald and they clearly continued to live together and share a marriage bed, for they went on to have two more children.

Carew Castle today – a much later creation but built roughly on the footprint of Nesta’s original home.

Nesta and Gerald continued to live together and raise their offspring until Gerald’s death. We don’t have a date for this but we do know that somewhere around 1130 Nesta married a man called William Hait who appears in the records as Lord of Llansteffan, so Gerald was clearly dead by then. Nesta bore Hait a son named William. However, the marriage was not long-lived and Nesta married a third time to Stephen, constable of Cardigan castle whom she also bore a son named Robert who joined the Cambro-Norman invasion of Ireland in the 1160s.

We have no death date for Nesta herself; there is an absence of evidence in the records. Other than mentions connecting her with men, husbands and offspring, she has dwelt off the beaten path in terms of who she was and what she did but I hope that in writing THE KING’S JEWEL  I have brought her a little out of the shadows.

Select bibliography

Barlow, Frank, William Rufus (Yale, 1983)

Carew Castle Souvenir Guide (Pembrokeshire Coast National Park)

Crouch, David, Robert of Gloucester’s mother and Sexual Politics in Norman Oxfordshire (Historical Research vol 72 issue 179 pages 323-333 1999)

Davies, Sean, War and Society in Medieval Wales 633?1283:

Welsh Military Institutions (University of Wales Press, 2004)

Davies, Sioned and Jones, Nerys Ann (eds), The Horse in Celtic Culture: Medieval Welsh Perspectives (University of Wales Cardiff, 1997)

Gerald of Wales (translated with an introduction by Lewis Thorpe), The Journey Through Wales and The Description of Wales (Penguin Classics, 2004)

Green, Judith A., Henry I (Cambridge University Press, 2009)

Hilling, John B., Cilgerran Castle, St Dogmael’s Abbey, Pentre Ifan Burial Chamber (Cadw, 2000)

Johns, Susan M., Gender, Nation and Conquest in the High Middle Ages: Nest of Deheubarth (Manchester University Press, 2013)

Lloyd J. W., A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest, Vol II. (Longman, 1948)

Ludlow, Neil, Pembroke Castle (Pembroke Castle Trust)

Maund, Kari, Princess of Wales: Seductress of the English (Tempus 2007)

Roberts, Sara Elin, The Legal Triads of Medieval Wales (University of Wales Press, 2011)

Stephenson, David, Medieval Wales c. 1050?1332: Centuries of Ambiguity (University of Wales Press, 2019).

Williams, John (ed.), Brut y Tywysogion: The Chronicle of the Princes of Wales (Cambridge University Press, 2012)