Cunedda ap Edern
Cunedda was the first in the line of the Gwynedd royal line and a Romano-Celtic lord.
Cunedda ap Edern was born in about 386AD, and was a lord of the Celtic people who lived in Wales, South West England and the North of England, south of the Pictish area of Scotland.
A traditional account has his grandfather, Padarn Beisrudd as a Romano-British offical of high rank who was charged with fighting the Picts in Scotland. He may have been given, like other native frontier lords, a Roman rank. Cunedda is thought to have travelled to North Wales to defend the area against the Irish; an area which became Gwynedd.
The period was one of political chaos in Europe, as Rome was sacked by the Goths, and the previously mighty empire crumbled. Romano-British natives were left in something of a power vaccuum when the Roman state slipped out of Britain in 410AD.
Lords like Cunedda were left to keep something of a working state going, and he himself is thought to have been effective in repelling incursions into the area of which he had control. His family line, the royal family of Gwynedd, continued his military skills and set up a powerful kingdom within Wales.
