URIEN

The most famous King of Rheged (north-west England), who held court at Cair Ligualid (Carlisle). Unfortunately most of what we know about him was written by his bard: a professional spin-doctor who was paid to praise his king. So we keep reading of his wonderfiol qualities: “Urien, the most liberal man in Christendom.”

He had a son called Owain, who succeeded him in about 590. Urien led a coalition of northern British kings, including Rhydderch of Clyde and Gwallawg of Elmet, in a campaign against the Angles under their king, Hussa, who were encroaching from Bernicia to the east. Urien thus became an unofficial northern dux bellorum, like Arthur in Britannia Prima some 70 years earlier.

Urien’s neighbor to the north was Mynyddawg Mwynfawr, King of Gododdin, who was based at Din Eidyn, while his neighbor to the north-west was Rhydderch Hael, King of Clyde, who fought with Urien against Thedoric of Bernicia, the leader of the Angles in the north.

In 590, Urien’s ally Morcant commissioned two men, Dyfhwal ap Mynyddawg and Llovan Llawddino of Din Eidyn, to murder King Urien out of jealousy for Urien’s all-surpassing generalship, “because in him above all the kings was the greatest skill in the renewing of battle.” They assassinated him while he was out on campaign. Urien’s bard, Taliesin, sang nostalgically of the greatness of the dead king:

Sovereign supreme, ruler all highest, the strangers ’ refuge, strong champion in battle.

This the English know when they tell tales.

Death was theirs, rage and grief are theirs, burnt are their houses, bare are their bodies.

These are fine words, but they conceal the truth of what was happening. They convey that the warriors of Rheged were defeating the English. But death was not theirs, not theirs at all. At Arderydd, and in the murder of Urien too, the British were destroying one another, not the English (see also Rhun, Son of Urien).