Richard de Clare

I’m Richard de Clare –called ‘Strongbow’ like my father. I held Pembroke under king Henry II back in the 1150s.

Those were bad years to be a Norman in Wales, let me tell you. The Welsh had wanted their southern lands back – nothing new there, but they had finally found a leader, a man called Rhys ap Gruffudd ... ‘the Lord Rhys’, who was a match for us Marcher Lords.

Year after year we campaigned against this self-styled ‘Prince of Wales’. Turn your back for a minute and you’d find a Welsh war-band at your gates and your villages in flames. There weren’t really any borders – you held the land you could defend and probed the enemy for any weakness.

The worst of it was that we didn’t trust Henry, and he didn’t trust us. Every time we might have destroyed Rhys for good, he pulled us back as if we were his dogs. It’s hard to put your life on the line when your king seems undecided between war and peace.

I had enough of keeping rebellion under control for an ungrateful king, so I made plans for a new start – in Ireland. What could possibly go wrong? Well, come into my tower and find out how King Henry managed to destroy my ambitions there.