page_title: Principality of Wales
section_title: 1284 to 1542: annexed to the English crown
hierarchical_section_title: Principality of Wales / 1284 to 1542: annexed to the English crown
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of Wales in the 14th Century showing The Principality and Welsh Marches. Source data: South Wales and the Border in the Fourteenth Century (1933) W.M.Rees. Max Lieberman, The March of Wales (1067-1300) (from https://mappingwelshmarches.ac.uk/). RCAHMW Mapping the Medieval Cantrefi and Commotes of Wales (https://rcahmw.gov.uk/mapping-the-historic-boundaries-of-wales-commotes-and-cantrefs/)Kain, R.J.P., and Oliver, R.R. (2001) "Historic parishes of England and Wales".
context_page_description: The Principality of Wales existed between 1216 and 1536, encompassing two-thirds of modern Wales during its height between 1267 and 1277. For most of its history it was ’annexed and united’ to the English Crown except for its earliest few decades. However, for a few generations, specifically the period from its foundation in 1216 to the completion of the conquest of Wales by Edward I in 1284, it was de facto independent under a Welsh prince of Wales, albeit one who swore fealty to the king of England.
  The Principality was formally founded in 1216 at the Council of Aberdyfi and later recognised by the 1218 Treaty of Worcester between Llywelyn the Great of Wales and Henry III of England. The treaty gave substance to the political reality of 13th-century Wales and England, and the relationship of the former with the Angevin Empire. The principality retained a great degree of autonomy, characterized by a separate legal jurisprudence based on the well established laws of Cyfraith Hywel, and by the increasingly sophisticated court of the House of Aberffraw.
context_section_description: The governance and constitutional position of the principality after its conquest was set out in the Statute of Rhuddlan of 1284. In the words of the Statute, the principality was "annexed and united" to the English crown, It was the king's personal fief. In 1301, this modified principality was bestowed on the English monarch's heir apparent and thereafter became the territorial endowment of the heir to the throne. The rest of Wales continued to be constituted as the  "March of Wales" which remained outside of the Principality under the rule of Anglo-Norman Marcher Lords.
caption: Wales in the 14th century showing the Principality
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