Huwal was a

Brittonic Brittonic or Brythonic may refer to: *Common Brittonic, or Brythonic, the Celtic language anciently spoken in Great Britain *Brittonic languages, a branch of the Celtic languages descended from Common Brittonic *Britons (Celtic people) The Br ...

monarch of the early to mid-10th century whose name appears in the ''

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...

'' as the ruler of the "West Welsh". His identity is a matter of debate: " West Welsh" in medieval English sources usually refers to the Cornish or

Dumnonia Dumnonia is the Latinised name for a Brythonic kingdom that existed in Sub-Roman Britain between the late 4th and late 8th centuries CE in the more westerly parts of present-day South West England. It was centred in the area of modern Devon, ...

ns, suggesting Huwal may have been an otherwise unknown king of that region, but many scholars identify him instead with

Hywel Dda Hywel Dda, sometimes anglicised as Howel the Good, or Hywel ap Cadell (died 949/950) was a king of Deheubarth who eventually came to rule most of Wales. He became the sole king of Seisyllwg in 920 and shortly thereafter established Deheubarth ...

Deheubarth Deheubarth (; lit. "Right-hand Part", thus "the South") was a regional name for the realms of south Wales, particularly as opposed to Gwynedd (Latin: ''Venedotia''). It is now used as a shorthand for the various realms united under the House of ...

, in western Wales.

Source and interpretations

Huwal is recorded just once in the entry for 926 in manuscript D of the ''

'' as "Huwal king of the West Welsh" ("Huwal West Wala cyning"). The only other reference to him is a duplicate of this entry in

John of Worcester John of Worcester (died c. 1140) was an English monk and chronicler who worked at Worcester Priory. He is usually held to be the author of the ''Chronicon ex chronicis''. ''Chronicon ex chronicis'' The ''Chronicon ex chronicis'' is a world wide ...

's early 12th-century work ''Chronicon ex chronicis''. In the ''Chronicle'', Huwal is one of several kings who signed a treaty at

Eamont Bridge Eamont Bridge is a small village immediately to the south of Penrith, Cumbria, England. The village is named after the bridge over the River Eamont and straddles the boundary between the historic counties of Cumberland and Westmorland. One o ...

accepting King

Æthelstan Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first ...

of England as their overlord. " West Welsh" is usually an English term for the southwestern Britons, the Cornish or Dumnonians, and some historians believe this Huwal to be an otherwise unrecorded Cornish leader. According to

Philip Payton Philip John Payton is a Cornish-Australian historian and Emeritus Professor of Cornish and Australian Studies at the University of Exeter and formerly Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies based at Tremough, just outside Penryn, Corn ...

of the

Institute of Cornish Studies The Institute of Cornish Studies (, ICS) is a research institute in west Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, affiliated with the University of Exeter. Formerly at Pool, near Redruth, then in Truro, it is now on the Penryn Campus near Penryn, Co ...

, Huwal is "generally recognised as the last in a line of independent (or semi-independent) Cornish (Dumnonian) kings". As such the final submission of Cornwall to

Wessex la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum , conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons , common_name = Wessex , image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg , map_caption = S ...

may be attributed to him. However, most historians identify the Huwal of the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' with

, whose kingdom was located in south-west Wales. Hywel was one of a number of rulers from western and northern Britain who witnessed Æthelstan's charters in the 920s and 930s. While noting an otherwise unknown Cornish Huwal is possible, historian

John Edward Lloyd Sir John Edward Lloyd (5 May 1861 – 20 June 1947) was a Welsh historian, He was the author of the first serious history of the country's formative years, ''A History of Wales from the Earliest Times to the Edwardian Conquest'' (1911). Ano ...

believed that Hywel Dda is intended and that "West Wales is used in this passage in an unusual sense". According to

T. M. Charles-Edwards Thomas Mowbray Charles-Edwards (born 11 November 1943) is an emeritus academic at the University of Oxford. He formerly held the post of Jesus Professor of Celtic and is a Professorial Fellow at Jesus College. Biography He was educated at A ...

, the last king of Cornwall was

Dungarth Donyarth ( la, Doniert) or Dungarth (died 875) was the last recorded king of Cornwall. He was probably an under-king, paying tribute to the West Saxons. He is thought to be the 'Doniert' recorded on an inscription on King Doniert's Stone, a 9t ...

, who died in 875. He argued that while West Wales meant Cornwall to the West Saxons, Manuscript D of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was written from a

Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era=Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ye ...

n point of view, and to Mercians West Wales probably meant

Dyfed Dyfed () is a preserved county in southwestern Wales. It is a mostly rural area with a coastline on the Irish Sea and the Bristol Channel. Between 1974 and 1996, Dyfed was also the name of the area's county council and the name remains in use f ...

(the centre of power of Deheubarth) in south-west Wales as opposed to Gwent in the south-east.

References

{{reflist 10th-century English monarchs Monarchs of Cornwall Sub-Roman monarchs