This is the tomb (part of his body is buried nearby) of Dafydd ap Gruffyd the last King of wales who was executed in 1283 by Edward the long shanks (Edward I).
He was a prince of Gwynedd, a younger son of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn and his wife, Senena, and thus grandson of Llywelyn Fawr. In 1241, he is recorded as having been handed over to Henry III of England as a hostage with his younger brother, Rhodri, as part of an agreement. He may have come of age under Welsh law on 11 July 1252, on which date he issued, in front of his mother, Senena, and the Bishop of Bangor, a charter as lord of the commote of Cymydmaen, at the outer reaches of the Llyn Peninsula. In 1253, he was called upon to pay homage to King Henry III of England.
In 1255, he joined his brother, Owain, in a challenge to their brother, Llywelyn, but Llywelyn defeated them at the Battle of Bryn Derwin. Dafydd was imprisoned, but Llywelyn released him the following year and restored him to favour. In 1263, he joined King Henry in an attack on his brother. After Llywelyn was acknowledged by King Henry as Prince of Wales in 1267, Dafydd was again restored to Llywelyn's favour, but in 1274, he joined King Edward I of England to challenge Llywelyn once again. In 1277, following the Treaty of Aberconwy, he was reconciled, finally, with his brother.
At Easter 1282, Dafydd ap Gruffudd attacked Hawarden Castle, thereby starting the final conflict with Plantagenet-ruled England, in the course of which Welsh independence was lost. In December Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, had been lured into what was probably a trap and killed on 11 December 1282. Dafydd was his brother's successor and became the last Tywysog of Gwynedd and Prince of Wales. Dafydd was leader of his nation only for a few months after his brother's death.
On 30 September, Dafydd ap Gruffudd, Prince of Wales, was condemned to death, the first person known to have been tried and executed for what from that time onwards would be described as high treason against the King. Edward ensured that Dafydd's death was to be slow and agonising, and also historic; he became the first prominent person in recorded history to have been hanged, drawn and quartered, preceded by a number of minor knights earlier in the thirteenth century. Dafydd was dragged through the streets of Shrewsbury attached to a horse's tail then hanged alive, revived, then disembowelled and his entrails burned before him for "his sacrilege in committing his crimes in the week of Christ's passion", and then his body cut into four quarters "for plotting the king's death". Geoffrey of Shrewsbury was paid 20 shillings for carrying out the gruesome task on 3 October 1283 (though some sources give the date as 2 October).
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