"What would you have him be, then?"

"What his grandfather was before him - Prince of Wales in name and deed, one under whose leadership every Cymro could fight, be he Gogleddwr or Deheuwr, one to whose standard the men of Maesyfed, as well as of Gwent, Morganwg, Dyfed, and Arfon could alike flock and under whose reign rich and poor, noble and peasant, could have equal justice."

The year is 1262 and Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, Prince of Gwynedd, is about to embark on a daring plan to throw off the yoke of the detested Norman Marcher Lords and unite all of Wales under his banner. But with all the might of the English crown seemingly against him, how can he hope to triumph?

Beriah Gwynfe Evans (1848-1926) was a prolific novelist of the Victorian era in both Welsh and English, particularly associated with the genre of the historical romance. Llywelyn, originally serialised in 1886-87 but available here in book form for the first time ever, was one of a sequence of historical novels he referred to as the 'Gwynfe Novels' covering the breadth of Welsh history, in which he hoped to produce a Welsh equivalent to the Waverley novels of Walter Scott. (eBook version)