Excerpts from the Worcester Annals
So in 1282 Llywelyn collected a large force and came down to the lowlands, leaving his brother David in the mountains.
Edmund, heir of the late Roger Mortimer, lord of Wigmore, with a company of Marchers, fell upon Llywelyn's men, of whom they killed a large number without any losses of their own.
In this skirmish Prince Llywelyn's head was cut off. It was taken to London and displayed for a long time, crowned with ivy, on a stake at the Tower, where many years earlier Llywelyn's father Gruffudd, had fallen and died of a broken neck.
The Welsh alarmed and confused following the death of their prince, surrendered all the strongholds in Snowdonia to King Edward I.
William Rishanger, a monk from St Alban's, recorded the following opposing poems written about Llywelyn's death.
An epitaph to Llywelyn ap Gruffudd written by a Welshman:
Here lies the scourge of England,
Snowdonia's guardian sure,
Llywelyn, prince of Wales,
In character most pure.
Of modern kings the jewel,
Of kings long past the flower,
For kings to come a pattern,
Radiant in lawful power.
An English monk wrote a very different epitaph to Llywelyn the Last:
Here lies the prince of errors,
A traitor and a thief,
A flaring, flaming firebrand,
The malefactor's chief.
The wild Welsh evil genius,
Who sought the good to kill,
Dregs of the faithless Trojans,
And source of every ill.
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