If you remember, in Pt 1 I described how the Romans used this site close to the River Taff to build a succession of fortresses, but when William of Normandy defeated Harold Godwinson at Hastings in 1066 he achieved his aim of taking the English crown, which he believed was rightfully his.

Wales was of secondary importance to the new King of England and so he left some of his most trusted followers to look after the border area that separated Celtic Wales from what was previously Anglo-Saxon England. This area, known as the Welsh Marches, was given to the Marcher Lords to run their individual estates in any way they saw fit. The first of Cardiff Castle’s Marcher Lords was Robert Fitzhamon, whose original wooden keep was replaced by Robert Fitzroy, the 1^st Earl of Gloucester and illegitimate son of Henry I.

King Henry was the youngest of William the Conqueror’s three sons, but his eldest, Robert Curthose, who should have succeeded William, never got to wear the English crown at all and ended his days incarcerated in Cardiff Castle instead. It goes to show that a lack of brotherly love in the royal household is nothing new, and if you want to find out more about the civil war known as The Anarchy you can read about it in the first part of my blog about Bristol Castle.

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Originally posted 2024-04-05 15:42:30.