A Ring of Stone

Among the greatest tourist attractions of North Wales are its castles, especially the great fortresses built by the English King Edward I after his conquest of Wales in 1283. These massive strongholds, Conway, Caernarvon, Beaumaris and Harlech, along with various lesser refurbished castles, were intended to establish a ring of stone around Snowdonia, the heartland of Welsh resistance, and ensure that any rebellion was snuffed out quickly.

They never entirely succeeded in this, and the cost of building this chain of fortresses almost bankrupted the English king. Most, indeed, were never completed. Yet they remained as massive symbols of the new order in Wales for centuries. Usually with a town attached, populated by non-Welsh settlers, and from which the Welsh were excluded, they were viewed as symbols of alien conquest.

Almost immune to ordinary attack, the great Edwardian fortresses resisted even cannon fire during the Civil War of the 17th century, but over the following centuries gradually mouldered into the romantic ruins which became the tourist attractions of today.

The greatest of Edward's castles was and is Caernarvon (Caernarfon in Welsh). It was intended as the centre of English government in North Wales, and its walls were built with bands of different coloured stone, in imitation of the walls of Byzantium, for King Edward saw his Welsh possessions as part of an Empire similar to that of Rome.

In a particularly insensitive act in 1969, the London government held the investiture of an (English) Prince of Wales at Caernarvon (centuries' old symbol of English domination). Hardly surprisingly, this provoked considerable bitterness, including violence, and two deaths.

It is to be hoped that no such insensitive action will mark any future Prince of Wales.