The Destabilizing Effects of English Politics

Welsh king Griffith Appluelaan had been the first person to have fully united the region under a single local monarch. Harold, representing Edward the Confessor, split Wales up among the various dynasties and nobles of the region. He probably did this not due to any sort of ethnic antagonism, but simply because of politics. If the Mercians could draw upon a united Wales for aid, then Harold's rise to power would be far more difficult.