The Last King of Wales

Impulsive, burly Celt (all heart, GSOH) has disastrous relationship – despite this merciful respite - with lean, mean, Anglo-Saxon machine!

History as romance: Impulsive Celt King Llewellyn (more accurately, Prince Llywelyn) is all heart and played by Charles Ashton togged out in Viking helmet and garments that suggest a Scottish clansman crossed with a Roman centurion. He is over-come by the lithe and sensible Anglo-Saxon Edward I (Reginald Fox), who is ruled by his head. The teddy-bearish Llewellyn is brought to heel when his beloved is taken prisoner during the Welsh prince v English king conflict.

Scripted by Eliot Stannard who wrote also for Hitchcock, this film was produced for The British and Colonial Kinematograph Company's Romance of British History series. Closing the film with what would have been the Treaty of Aberconwy in 1277, Edward I is here portrayed as a superb specimen of royal humanity. Not only wise, peace-loving and merciful, he even boasts a stable marriage! Llywelyn died in 1282 during a further war with Edward, whose own son then became the first English person to be invested as Prince of Wales. Life did not pan out quite as expected, perhaps, for Charles Ashton either. His Essex accent was regarded unfavourably once the 'talkies' arrived and he took to writing detective novels.