:Llywarch ap Hyfaidd

{{Short description|King of Dyfed from 893 to 904}}{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}{{Use British English|date=April 2021}}

{{wn|Llywarch|Hyfaidd}}

Llywarch ap Hyfaidd (died {{circa|lk=no|904}}) was a king of Dyfed, an independent kingdom in southwest Wales.{{Cite book |last=Cheshire |first=Paul |title=Kings, queens, chiefs & rulers: A source book |date=2003 |publisher=Flame Tree |isbn=9781904041801 |location=London |pages=84}} He was the son of Hyfaidd ap Bleddri and is thought to have inherited the kingdom of Dyfed after his father's death in c. 892.{{Cite book |last=Charles-Edwards |first=T. M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AK_yn7Q3_x0C&pg=PA495 |title=Wales and the Britons, 350-1064 |date=2013 |publisher=OUP Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-821731-2 |language=en |access-date=28 April 2025}} Sometime soon after Llywarch's death at the beginning of the tenth century, Dyfed became part of the new kingdom of Deheubarth, ruled by Hywel Dda who was married to Llywarch's daughter Elen.{{Cite book |last=Williams |first=A. H. |url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontohi0001ahwi/page/160/mode/2up?q=elen |title=An Introduction to the History of Wales |date=1962 |publisher=University of Wales Press |edition=Revised |volume=I, Prehistoric Times to 1063 A.D. |location=Cardiff |pages=161 |access-date=28 April 2025}}{{Cite web |title=The Laws of Howel the Good/The Houses of Cunedda and Rhodri Mawr - Wikisource, the free online library |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Laws_of_Howel_the_Good/The_Houses_of_Cunedda_and_Rhodri_Mawr |access-date=2025-04-27 |website=en.wikisource.org |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=HYWEL DDA (Hywel the Good) (died 950), king and legislator {{!}} Dictionary of Welsh Biography |url=https://biography.wales/article/s-HYWE-DDA-0950 |access-date=2025-04-27 |website=biography.wales}}

Upon Llywarch's death in 904, the kingdom passed briefly to his brother Rhodri ap Hyfaidd, but he was killed by beheading in Arwystli in mid Wales, likely as a result of execution following a defeat in battle against Hywel, his father Cadell ap Rhodri, King of Seisyllwg or his uncle Anarawd ap Rhodri, King of Gwynedd. Hywel soon consolidated his rule, eventually merging Dyfed with his paternal inheritance as the new kingdom of Deheubarth. Later Welsh tradition held that Hywel inherited Dyfed peacefully through his supposed marriage to Llywarch's daughter Elen (d. 929){{Cite journal |last=Thornton |first=David E. |date=1999 |title=Predatory Nomenclature and Dynastic Expansion in Early Medieval Wales |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/44946879 |journal=Medieval Prosopography |volume=20 |pages=1–22 |jstor=44946879 |issn=0198-9405 |access-date=27 April 2025}}{{Cite ODNB |title=Hywel Dda [Hywel Dda ap Cadell] (d. 949/50), king in Wales |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-13968 |access-date=2025-04-27 |date=2004 |language=en |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/13968}} in a manner similar to the stories told about his great-grandfather Merfyn's acquisition of Gwynedd, his grandfather Rhodri's acquisition of Powys, and his father Cadell's acquisition of Ceredigion, all of this despite female inheritance of land having no place in the Welsh law of the period.{{Cite book |last=Watkin |first=Thomas Glyn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QFWuBwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Llywarch+ap+Hyfaidd%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA44 |title=The Legal History of Wales |date=2012-09-15 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-0-7083-2545-2 |language=en |access-date=27 April 2025}} However, the repeated military attacks of Cadell and Hywel on Dyfed were recorded in Asser's (d. 909) Life of King Alfred, where it states he was replaced by his brother Rhodri, although the cause of his death is unknown.