Qualla: Battle of the Conwy https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-conwy en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:14 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Battle of the Conwy https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-conwy Battle of the Conwy: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-conwy/ Welsh annals called it 'God's revenge for Rhodri.' Three years earlier, in 878, the Mercians had killed Rhodri Mawr - Rhodri the Great - the king who had unified most of Wales. His sons did not forget. In 881 the Mercians came north again under Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, and met Rhodri's sons by the River Conwy. The Welsh won decisively. The battle ended four centuries of Mercian claims over north Wales, pushed Æthelred into Alfred the Great's orbit, and unfolded into one of the small inflection points from which the Kingdom of England would eventually emerge. It is barely remembered today. The chroniclers wrote a handful of lines about it. The site of the fighting is uncertain. But for the Welsh of Gwynedd in 881, it was a blood debt finally paid.

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/r/battle-of-the-conwy-wp/gcmr-battle-of-the-conwy-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of the Conwy: The world the battle was fought in https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-conwy/ Mercia had been the dominant power in what is now midland England since the seventh century, and Welsh kingdoms had paid tribute to it for two hundred years. In 853 the West Saxons of Wessex had even sent help to enforce that arrangement. Then the Vikings arrived. The Great Heath...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/r/battle-of-the-conwy-wp/gcmr-battle-of-the-conwy-the-world-the-battle-was-fought-in.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of the Conwy: 881 by the river https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-conwy/ Two years into Æthelred's rule, the Mercians invaded Gwynedd again. The sons of Rhodri Mawr - Anarawd, Cadell, and Merfyn - met them by the River Conwy. The exact location is unknown. A late source, the seventeenth-century History of Wales, says the Welsh army camped near the tow...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/r/battle-of-the-conwy-wp/gcmr-battle-of-the-conwy-881-by-the-river.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of the Conwy: What the battle changed https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-conwy/ Mercia abandoned its claim to lordship over north Wales after 881. Æthelred turned his attention south and east, toward the Welsh kingdoms of Glywysing and Gwent, but those kingdoms - according to Alfred's biographer Asser - then appealed to Alfred for protection 'driven by the m...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/r/battle-of-the-conwy-wp/gcmr-battle-of-the-conwy-what-the-battle-changed.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of the Conwy: Anarawd and the Vikings https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-conwy/ Anarawd ap Rhodri - now ruling in his father's place - briefly allied Gwynedd with the Vikings of Northumbria after the battle. Asser, writing for Alfred, attributes the southwestern Welsh kingdoms of Dyfed and Brycheiniog seeking Alfred's protection to 'the tyranny of Gwynedd' u...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/r/battle-of-the-conwy-wp/gcmr-battle-of-the-conwy-anarawd-and-the-vikings.mp3 0:06 5 full Battle of the Conwy: The forgotten battle https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-conwy/ Walk along the Conwy estuary today and there is nothing to mark the battle. No memorial, no information board, no certainty of where it happened. The site survived the eleventh-century Norman incursions, four centuries of medieval lordship, the Edwardian conquest that built the g...

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]]> Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/m/r/battle-of-the-conwy-wp/gcmr-battle-of-the-conwy-the-forgotten-battle.mp3 0:06 6 full