Publisher's Synopsis
Did King Edward I really give his baby son the title he had stolen from Gwynedd's native princes? Or was the truth a little more complex? This up-to-date and concise overview covers the origins of the title, Prince of Wales, and the lives and activities of its twenty-one "official" holders since the Statute of Rhuddlan confirmed Edward's conquest of Wales in 1284. From tragic youths to seasoned warriors, from sickly children to men who held the title into old age, they are all here, in a 700-year panorama of British royalty. The first book on the subject for over twenty years, Deborah Fisher's "Princes of Wales" acts as a useful companion volume to the "Pocket Guide on Princesses of Wales" by the same author. Readers will find that, just as with the princesses, the personalities of the princes, revealed in their public and private lives, are enormously varied, and yet they are bound together by many a common thread.