LLEWELYN I  ., AB IORWERTH (d . 1240), prince of North Wales, was born after the expulsion of his father, lorwerth, from the principality . In 1194, while still a youth, Llewelyn recovered the paternal inheritance . In 1201 he was the greatest prince in Wales . At first he was a friend of King John, whose illegitimate daughter, Joanna, he took to wife (1201); but the alliance soon fell through, and in 1211 John reduced Llewelyn to submission . In the next year Llewelyn recovered all his losses in North Wales . In 1215 he took Shrewsbury . His rising had been encouraged by the pope, by France, and by the English barons . His rights were secured by special clauses in Magna Carta . But he never desisted from his wars with the Marchers of South Wales, and in the early years of Henry III. he was several times attacked by English armies . In 1239 he was struck with paralysis and retired from the active work of government in favour of his son David . He retired into a Cistercian monastery .

See the lists of English

chronicles for the reigns of John and Henry III.; also the Welsh chronicle Brut y Tywysogion (ed . Rolls Series); O . M . Edwards, History of Wales (1901); T . F . Tout in the Political History of England, iii . (1905) .