"This is the first full-length English-language study of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (c.1225-1282), prince of Wales. In this book J. Beverley Smith offers an in-depth assessment not only of Llywelyn but of the age in which he lived. The author takes thirteenth-century Wales as a backdrop against which he analyses the relationship between a sense of nationhood and the practical realities of creating a structure to embrace a unified principality of Wales held under the aegis of the English Crown. This examination of the triumphs and subsequent reverses of a ruler of exceptional vision and vigour is a substantial contribution to our understanding of the nature of Welsh politics and the complexities of Anglo-Welsh relations."--Jacket.