Edward II in Glamorganshire by John Griffth

EDWARD II in GLAMORGAN THE TRAGIC DOWNFALL OF THE FIRST PRINCE OF WALES

By John Griffith Transcribed by Norena Shopland

First published in 1901-2 This web edition published by Draig Enfys.

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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY Edward the Second, called from the accident of his birth Edward of Carnarvon, distinguished among English Princes as the first Prince of Wales, ended his reign in the land where his life began.

The sun of Carnarvon, whose rising, according to a popular legend, was hailed by the Welsh people with the ardour with which their ancestors would hail the god of day, set under the darkest cloud in fair Glamorgan. Here in Glamorgan was enacted the crowning tragedy of his reign, and here, also, are many traditions of the Royal fugitive preserved with a jealous care. It is this marked local interest in the story of the unfortunate King that induced the writer to gather together materials towards making the narrative of the King’s flight in Glamorgan tolerably complete.

The Glamorgan of our inquiry is the Glamorgan of the first quarter of the fourteenth century, which, in a general way, included both Gwent and Morganwg, or the modern counties of Monmouth and Glamorgan. From the time the King crossed the Wye, near Tintern, in his headlong flight to the time he re-crossed the same river at Monmouth as a prisoner were thirty-seven days.

But, although the period of time strictly occupied by our narrative is limited to a little over a month, it will be necessary, in order to give the actual events of Edward’s itinerary in Glamorgan a fair historical setting, to bring under review the events of a longer period.

The general histories pass over the reign of Edward II very lightly, and Stubbs, the best authority on that reign, gives the reason. “Outside the dramatic crises, it may be described as exceedingly dreary. There is a miserable level of political selfishness which marks without exception every public man; there is an absence of sincere feeling, except in the shape of hatred and revenge; there is a profession of economic and reforming zeal which never comes into practice, and there is no great triumph of good or evil to add a moral or inspire a sympathy. This absence of inspiring topics renders certain parts of the reign simply unreadable; yet there are great quantities of records which are, as a series, instructive enough, and capable of a good deal of antiquarian illustration.”

The last sentence describes the scope and the materials for a work such as this narrative, however imperfect, is intended to form a section. Some valuable materials cast aside by the general historian have been utilised as a contribution to local history, for the gratification, it is hoped, of a wide local interest. What must be reduced to a small space in the perspective of a general history may be, at the same time, a subject worthy of the labours of local historians to amplify and elucidate, and “capable of a good deal of antiquarian illustration.”

The following narrative has, at least, the merit of being the first in the field as anything like a complete account from the most reliable sources of events which form an important chapter in the history of Glamorgan, and, indeed, of Wales.

Still, with due respect to the general historian’s sense of proportion and perspective, a layman would have expected a larger space allotted to the Glamorgan journey. Stubbs, while saying that the reign “may be described as exceedingly dreary,” also says that it possesses in its most important events an extraordinary amount of tragic interest.” But in his most widely known work Stubbs disposes of the Glamorgan episode in three sentences. In the more elaborate histories hardly a page is devoted to an episode which, in the writer’s hand, has grown into a volume. While to the general reader, as to the general historian, an attempt to expand three sentences into a volume may appear an unpardonable piece of padding, the writer, on the other hand, has an uncomfortable feeling that what he does not know of the subject might fill another volume.

Perhaps, indeed, the subject may not be of much interest to anybody except a Welshman.

The exceedingly humiliating details of Edward’s downfall may not appear dignified enough for a history. “There is a vile phrase,” says Macaulay, “of which bad historians are exceedingly fond, ‘the dignity of history’”. But who can decide on what the historical importance of an event depends? The merest trifles of Edward’s reign throw some light on recognised important matters, and an episode which is lightly passed over in general histories serves as a veritable searchlight to illumine the history of Glamorgan, and, to a large extent, of Wales, at that time.

True to the fitness of things, while the historians have avoided the “exceedingly dreary,� the poets have been attracted by the tragedy of this reign. Marlowe and Drayton have sung the tragic downfall of the first Prince of Wales. Both have furnished illustrations of the poet’s power to amplify a somewhat meagre history. The subject is better suited to the tragic muse than to the matter-offact genius of history. Better poetry on the subject one could hardly expect. It would have been but a poor compliment to anyone to have produced a better history. Still, when the interest of the reader begins to droop during the recital of some of the drier and drearier details of our story, he will find either Marlowe or Drayton at hand to revive him with the ozone of Parnassus and the tonics of Helicon.

It is said that everybody who is anybody in Glamorgan traces his pedigree to one or all of five Welsh families of ancient Morganwg. To such some portions of this narrative cannot but be interesting. They will be able to recognise their own kith and kin in the host of valiant Aps whom Edward requisitioned to his service while hiding himself amongst them.

CHAPTER II THE BEGINNING OF THE END

It is no part of the writer’s purpose to attempt an estimate of the reign of Edward II, or even of the character and personality of that King as such. But for the right understanding of the events and circumstances of our narrative it would be well to have in mind the best and handiest characterisation of the reign as a whole, and our best authority is the late Bishop Stubbs. We shall consult him time and again by way of finding our bearings amidst a chaos of conflicting statements.

The beginning of the end of Edward’s reign may be dated October 1, 1326, when he set out from the Tower of London on his westward flight. Although that flight was a series of tragedies, the vision of a King in possession, abandoning the stronghold of his kingdom at the mere news of his wife returning home with a party of friends, might force a faint smile on even a tragedian’s face. She had only brought some friends with her from abroad to destroy the King’s favourites, which to almost everybody was a consummation devoutly wished. She wished to destroy the two Despensers, father and son, Hugh the elder, Earl of Winchester, and Hugh the younger, Earl of Gloucester and Lord of Glamorgan. She wished to destroy these by way of righting her own past wrongs, and by way of avenging the death of a brave man, Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, for whose execution the Despensers were primarily responsible.

There is evidence to show that the King and his favourites lost their heads almost completely on the approach to London of the infuriated Queen, a very cheap edition of the British Boudicca. But Boudicca was the incarnation of British patriotism. No one believed in Isabella’s alleged wrongs, and she only wished to destroy the Despensers, as it appeared pretty soon, in order to prove herself more than their match in greed, cruelty, and crime.

For months the King had been apprehensive of her home-coming. He had also made extensive preparations. “All through the summer,” Stubbs remarks, “there had been rumours of an invasion. The King had not been put off his guard by his knowledge of the very small resources that

were at his wife’s disposal. He had been nervously alive to the danger, all the more as it was for long altogether uncertain on what side it was likely to come. After spending the spring at Kenilworth, and June and July in London, he had gone in August to Clarendon, where he had in former years spent so much time in laying out his park and improving his forest domain, and had in September been at Porchester issuing writs of array and taking other precautions. In this month he was informed where the Queen was likely to land, and on the 23rd directed the march of forces to Orwell, where, in fact, she did land three weeks later. On the 23rd of September he was in London, and there the news that she had landed on the 24th reached him on the 27th. She had landed at noon near Harwich, at Colvasse, and lodged the first night at Walton. She had ten ships, and the disembarkation was so rapidly effected that nine of them were cleared before sunset. The tenth was brought by the King’s sailors to London, and, with the news of his wife’s arrival, presented to him at the Tower. He remained in London for a few days longer; was at Westminster on the 2nd of October, and on that day set out for the West, leaving in the Tower his son, John of Eltham, a mere child, as nominal governor, with Sir John Weston, the constable. Isabella marched towards London, expecting to find her husband still there, and being joined by all classes as she proceeded.” “No one believed in her alleged wrongs, but she gained a following as the avenger of the earl who was more honoured in his death than in his life. She won a great victory, but it was over a foe that put in no appearance, without a battle, but not without wanton and cruel bloodshed, prolific of quarrels, vengeances, and further bloodshed for long years to come.”

THE ISOLATED KING “The Queen had no great force nor any sound political cry,” but it was “his helplessness and isolation that ruined the King.” He “had been very much isolated since his tragic victory over Earl Thomas.” That is, he had no faithful friends and sound counsellors. His alliance with the Despensers had made his isolation much greater. These men had neither friends nor adherents, though they virtually ruled the realm. Their sole source of strength seems to have been their hold on the person

and will of their master, and their ability to use the little influence that still remained to him after he had lost his wife and son, sacrificed his relatives to his revenge, and signally failed at Bannockburn, at Byland, and at Berwick to prove that he inherited his father’s prowess.”

The King and his favourites had been working out their doom hand in hand. All his life the King lived and acted under the spell of a will stronger than his own. At every crisis the reigning favourite speaks and acts. He had neither the mind nor the will to face alone the righteous anger of his people, “snatch the rudder of his (as yet) undismantled fate,” and attempt to steer the ship of State between the Scylla of the Queen’s intrigues and the Charybdis of his Ministers’ wrong-doings.

But the Despensers clung to him like those marine monsters whose embrace is deadly. His blunder in sending his wife and heir to France to do homage for him to the King of France, where an army of traitors and malcontents gathered around her, was due to the fact that the Despensers would not let him go himself to France. The Despensers dared not appear in France to perform such a service for the King, and they dared not attempt to rule the kingdom in the King’s absence. They would not alone risk a conflict with their enemies. So they clung to him, and dragged him with them to disgrace and death. There was undoubtedly a genuine friendship existing between the King and Hugh the younger, and the pleasant view has been advanced that the King risked everything by way of proving his friendship. Instances of something of the kind are given in semi-mythical histories and novels. A man who deliberately courts disgrace, death, and the ruin of a kingdom to prove his friendship towards a man who deserved nothing but the severest punishment for countless inhumanities deserves a prominent niche in a gallery of historical curiosities. What is more certain is that the Despensers had made themselves indispensable to the King, and that he could not, even if he would, rid himself and his kingdom of two men whose administrative abilities were of the highest order.

THE DUMB SPEAK The reader naturally asks, What of the people? Had the people no voice at such a crisis? Yes, they had. It was the people who frightened the King and his astute advisers almost out of their wits.

Inarticulate as the people’s voice was at the time, with hardly any language but a cry, it spoke more to the point than a trenchant Socialistic speaker of our time. It was the time when the people were just discovering their power. “With his kiss-men alienated,” Stubbs remarks, “his great nobles in minority or retirement, his bishops untrustworthy and his Ministers unpopular, a really able King could scarcely have failed to strengthen himself by alliance with such strong political elements as were to be found in the cities and in the country party, which in the next reign showed itself so strong. There is, indeed, some evidence that Edward had tried to propitiate the Londoners, and we can scarcely think that the Despensers had so entirely lost their heads as not to have attempted to create a party of personal adherents.”

As the Queen’s War was an affair between favourites - those of the Queen and those of the King - the people had little interest in it. But, driven into madness by the oppressions of the King’s Ministers, they sided with the invading party, knowing that a change of government could not make their lot any the worse, and hoping, Micawber-like, that something better might turn up. On the face of it, their choice was little better than that between the devil and the deep sea. They had nothing to lose, and their immediate gain was only an increase of their woes. But in choosing as they did, they gained the consciousness that they could set a limit to any power that trifled with them. Edward had been so accustomed to let others think for him, and to obtain his information of the mind of his people at second-hand, that his calculations of the people’s support in his direst necessity were fatally defective. Before he set out from London he had, for once at least, applied his ear to the ground to some purpose. He discovered the true state of popular feeling. He judged correctly that the people were going to join the Queen’s forces. In his mad flight, therefore, there is a gleam of rationality. But he knew, also, that there was no particular reason for the people to side with the Queen, and he was far from being so daft or so blinded by his love for the Despensers as not to know right well why the people had been estranged from himself. But either he had not the courage to do the right thing, or, what appears more likely - for among all his faults cowardice was not one of them - he felt, with his class at that time, that he could afford to ignore the people as such, and that a

sufficient number of them could be raised in the West to follow blind-folded the barons and Welsh chieftains, of whose support Edward seemed as yet to have no doubt whatever. Instead of making but a faint appearance of dealing with the surging discontent among his people, when a long drought and a severe famine filled up the measure of their endurance of chronic grievances, Edward preferred to make a virtue of protecting his favourites, and with them he courted a swift and utter destruction.

THE CARNAGE BEGINS After the King turned his back on London - that is, the people - the latter, in their blind passion, inaugurated a saturnalia of carnage on their own account. London, in the absence of both the King and Queen, crowned King Lynch, the great stop-gap king the world over. The King’s treasurer, Stapleton, Bishop of Exeter, had made himself particularly obnoxious to the people.

Capgrave says:- “He was noted for a grete enmye ageyn the libertes of London.” Fabyan tells us that the King had left the bishop “to have the rule of the cytie of London.” “He sent unto the mayor to haue the keyes of the gates of the cytie, by vertue of his commyssyon, by the whiche he stode so fermly, and used so sharpe wordes in the Kynge’s name, that varyaunce grewe atwene hym and the cytezens, so ferfourthe that the commons of the cytie in theyr rage toke lye sayde bysshoppe, the xiiii. day of October, and hym with ii. of his howshold esquyers, behedyd vnreuerently at ye standard in Weschepe; and on the same daye was takyn for a spye a cytezyn called Ihn (John) Marshall, which fauorid ye Spensers partye, and in the same place- also behedyd without processe of lawe: and the corps of the sayde bysshop with his ii seruauntys were haryed to Thames syder -where the sayd bysshop had begunne to edyfye a toure, aind there in the rubbushe and sand of the same they buryed and conveyed these iii bodyes: which dispyte to hym was doone, after some auctours, for so moche as he had vsurpyd of the common grounde of ye cytie, in settynge of the sayde towre.”

Gory as this prelude to a drama of carnage is, it is an illuminating incident. Their King having deserted them, his representative insulting them, the Despensers’ agent prying about them,

mistrusted, domineered, and forsaken, the people were maddened at the moment when a strong man might have won them as one man to his cause. But their King, the son of a strong man and the father of a strong man, was at that time about crossing the River Wye into Wales, the head, like that of the ostrich, seeking a hiding-place in the ground, while the body - the kingdom - was left recklessly exposed to unscrupulous foes.

A SHAM BOUDICCA Who was this fierce Boudicca whose very landing in Norfolk, with an insignificant force, frightened the King out of his wits and caused him to abandon his kingdom by default? First of all, she was not Edward’s first “intended.” Hardly had he dispensed with the attentions of his nurse, who was, probably, a Welshwoman, than the estates of Scotland, in 1290, joyfully agreed to his marriage with Margaret of Norway. But that child - Scotland’s hope - died a few months later. A peaceful union of the Scotch and English thrones was thus postponed three centuries. Thus the first Prince of Wales narrowly missed the distinction conferred upon, and highly appreciated by, his Majesty,” by Divine right,” James I. After such a disappointment in love at the mature age of six, Edward was fourteen years old when he was finally matched. A truce between Edward I and Philip the Fair of France was brought about by the Pope in 1298, by which Edward was to obtain a second wife for himself and a sweetheart for his son. Philip was able to accommodate the King of England with both. Margaret, Philip’s sister, became at once Edward’s wife, and Isabella, Philip’s daughter, was promised to young Carnarvon. But yet for a while Isabella could not leave her dolls, being only six years old. In May, 1303, they were formally betrothed, Isabella being eleven and Edward nineteen years of age. They were married June 25, 1308. A girl of sixteen became the consort of a King eight years her senior and with a year’s experience of almost unbridled monarchical power; or, more correctly speaking, the King thought so little of the power given unto him that he threw the reins of government almost at once to his man-favourite, Perrot Gaveston, and the girl-queen found her place in the King’s

affections and counsels occupied by an adventurer, whom Edward I, for the welfare of his son, had banished the realm.

After the marriage the King lost no time in showing Gaveston that he loved him better than his wife, by giving him all her presents from her father. She was soon subjected to a process of systematic neglect. When, in course of events, the Despensers got the realm into their hands, they advised the King to take possession of the Queen’s estates, and she was put on an allowance of twenty shillings a day. Her friends and her servants were removed from her. The wife of Hugh the younger was appointed her gaoler. She was not allowed even to write without the knowledge of Hugh’s wife.

Bad as was Edward’s treatment of his girl-wife, there is little doubt but that, in a large measure, she deserved it. She was an adept at intrigue. The unhappy couple, having drifted apart, did their best to injure each other and to bring disgrace and ruin in their respective paths. They were differently constituted. While the worst that may be said of the King is that he was culpably inefficient, the Queen was fiendishly vindictive. The one could not be happy while the other was at liberty; the other could not get sufficient liberty to keep up a criminal alliance without murdering the other. But in fulfilling their respective destinies one should remember that both acted under the spell of stronger wills than their own. Edward never was such a slave to Hugh the younger as the Queen was to the powerful and vengeful Mortimer.

Like King, like nobles. The King, who made his conjugal troubles a subject of supreme concern to his subjects, taught his nobles to respect their personal quarrels above the welfare of the kingdom. Everybody who had a grudge to vent, a score to pay off, a quarrel to pick, if he was anybody, found his opportunity in the distracted state of the kingdom. So many flagrant injustices were connived at, and even committed, in high quarters that nothing was easier than to manufacture plausible local war- cries, except, perhaps, the ease with which such war-cries were

raised to cover indulgence in personal revenge, spite, and greed. Such is the “miserable level of political selfishness� which marks the reign of Edward of Carnarvon.

CHAPTER III THE CARNARVON LEGEND The news of the Queen’s landing reached the King on September 27 Capgrave says – “This herd the King, and stuffed the Toure with vitaile and armoure, and set there his yonger son, John Eltham, and his nece, wedded to Hew Spenser the yonger. And he rod onto the West partyes, to reyse puple ageyn the qween. He ded crye in London, that alle men schuld rise, and distroye the qweens power; but thei schuld save the lyves of hir and hir son, and his brothir Edmund: and he that bringeth the hed of Roger Mortimere to the Kyng schal have a thousand pound. On the queen side was cried ‘No man take the valew of III d. but if he pay, up peyn of lesing of a fynger; ne the valew of VI d. up peyn of his hed; ne the valew of XII d. up peyn of his hed; And who bryng the hed of Hew Spenser the yonger schuld have II thousand pound.”

On the 28th the King issued three writs bearing directly on his westward flight. First, he wanted a bodyguard, and Simon de Redyng, the King’s serjeant-at-arms, was ordered to select a detachment of one hundred foot soldiers out of the forces directed to be raised by the counties of Oxford and Berks to proceed with the King. The King lost no time in determining upon the westward move. It was on his westward flight he reckoned upon the assistance of the Berks and Oxford men.

Simon de Redyng did not fail him. He accompanied his King to the very end.

Professor Tout says that the King fled from London, “doubtless, with the intention of taking refuge on his favourite’s estates in South Wales.” But he certainly tried, as Capgrave says, “to reyse puple ageyn the qween.” He issued on the 28th two orders, which, as on a former occasion, should have provided him with at least 4,000 Welshmen. Commissions were issued to Rhys ap Griffith, for West Wales and South Wales, and to Griffith ap Rhys, for North Wales, empowering them to assemble and array all the forces to proceed against the traitors of their country. In these commissions we have the King’s own view of the invasion. It is described as the rebellious invasion of “Rogerus de Mortuo Mari de Wyggemore” (Rogor Mortimer, of Wigmore), in company of the

Queen and of Edward, the King’s son. As noticed by Capgrave, it was a war between Mortimer and the Despensers, for whose respective heads rewards were offered.

Rhys and Griffith were in charge of the King’s own lands in Wales. While the King, with his chancellor, Baldock, the two Despensers, and Simon de Redyng and his footmen are travelling to Gloucester, by Acton, Wycombe, Westbury, and Wallingford, spending altogether seven days on the journey from Westminster, with the Queen’s army pressing on their heels, let us discuss that first and foremost fact or fiction, partly both, which in popular estimation connects the unfortunate King with Wales. While the King is fleeing for refuge to his native land, let us refresh our patriotic souls by recounting the story of the famous presentation of the Carnarvon baby, which could “speak never a word of English,” to the Welsh chieftains, and how the sight of that wonderful baby extinguished the last spark of rebellion in their stout hearts.

But someone may ask, why waste space in recounting a tale which every schoolboy knows, especially as it is the only thing commonly known in connection with the concise primer statement, “Conquest of Wales, 1282” ? Quite so. If the primers had put it, “Conquest of Wales by a Baby, 1284,” the common stock of English knowledge of the subject would have been put into a most attractive form for small boys and girls.

Well, there are strong reasons why this tale should be dealt with in this narrative. The first is, that it is not true; but that is neither here nor there. A man who dares assail a popular fiction “Will never grow rich, He will live as a beggar, and die in a ditch.”

The whole subject is hardly worth a martyrdom. There is, however, a stronger reason than that of the transparent fiction of the baby tableau, which, doubtless, will at least secure a patient reading of the rest of this digression. It is the widely-prevalent impression, for which the tale is responsible, that the Welsh nation, as a whole, is still but a big baby. The truth of history in this

instance is herein set forth by way of appealing to Welshmen’s self-respect. The writer is not aware that such an appeal has ever failed.

A LONDON SCENE About ten years ago the famous tale was represented in a tableau for the delight of London town at the inauguration to the mayoralty of a Welshman, who is a credit to us a Longshanks appeared on a wagon, with some Welsh chieftains, dangling before their enraptured visages the Carnarvon baby, to make a holiday for a London crowd. Nothing in the procession excited so much merriment; nothing in connection with his nation seemed so humiliating to a Welshman who was forced to listen to the comments of the crowd. But on further reflection it appeared to him that such a tableau on such an occasion was in accordance with the fitness of things, though the actors must have I obeyed that law in innocent ignorance. The distinguished Welshman in whose honour the tableau was arranged deserved a more fitting Welsh tribute. But the fitness of things demanded the tableau. It reflected about all that Cockneys know respecting the annexation of Wales to England.

There is reason to believe that the whole tale is of Cockney origin. It altogether reflects English views of the Edwardian exploits in Wales, and nothing historical or legendary seems so derisory to reflecting Welshmen than lending a hand to a Cockney jester to perpetuate such a legend.

POWEL AND STOW The Carnarvon legend was first published in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, three hundred years after the alleged event. It was then published in two works which have since obtained great vogue - one by a Welshman, and the other by an Englishman: The Historie of Cambria,” by Dr. David Powel, and “The Annales of England,” by John Stow. Stow published in 1580 his first edition of “The Chronicles of England from Brute unto this present yeare of Christ, 1580.” Four years later the same work was published under the more familiar title of “The Annales of England,” constantly referred to as Stow’s “Annals.” The “locus classicus” of the baby tale is in this edition. The same year which saw Stow’s Annales – 1584 - saw also Powel’s work, which contains the baby tale almost word

for word as given by Stow. Did Powel borrow it of Stow, or Stew of Powel, or both from a common source?

The work which Powel was requested and engaged to do in 1583 was to prepare for the press the manuscript translation of “The Chronicles of the Princes” (“Brut y Tywysogion”) made by Humphrey Llwyd. But it is stated in a biographical notice of Powel that, though Llwyd’s translation was the basis, Powel’s corrections and additions, founded, as they were, on independent research, made the ‘Historie’ practically new work.” On the title-page of Powel’s book are these words: “Corrected, augmented, and continued out of Records and best approoved Authors by Dauid Powel Doctor in diuinitie.”

Now, no Welsh chronicle gives an inkling of the baby tale, nor any English chronicle prior to Powel’s and Stow’s. Powel gives a list of works from which he copied materials for augmenting Llwyd’s work, which “in written hand” “remaine in the custody of I. Stow citizen of London.” It seems very likely that the story was first discovered in Stow’s collection.

A CROP OF FABLES The legend is as rounded and polished as a Mabinogi, and for that very reason it is open to the gravest suspicion as history. The later chroniclers were much given to the elaboration and polishing of all sorts of stories. Llwyd and Powel have given us a crop of them. It was they that foisted upon the credulity of the Welsh people a legend which has taken three hundred years to die, and it still lingers among us - the legend of the discovery of America by Madog and his men. A complete, bibliography of that legend would form, perhaps, the largest monument of misdirected energy in either Welsh or English literature.

It should not be forgotten, also, that we are indebted to Powel for first publishing Sir Edward Stradling’s Mabinogi” relating to the winning of Glamorgan by the Normans. So neatly put together is that fable that the shrewd Freeman was captivated by it, but he lived to record his deliverance

from its spell. It still counts its slaves by thousands. It passes as history in scores of popular books.

Mr. O. M. Edwards calls it “Rhamant Morgannwg” (“Glamorgan’s Romance”), but Mr. A. E. Bradley, in his “Owen Glyndwr,” has given the legend a new lease of life in a very attractive and popular form.

He says: - “The story of the conquest and settlement of Glamorgan is such a luminous and significant incident in Welsh history, and was of such great future importance, that it must be briefly related,” and the Stradling fable is given without a word that its truth has ever been questioned.

CHAPTER AND VERSE The title of the section of Powel’s book where the Carnarvon legend is given shows clearly that the legend is of English origin:The Princes of Wales of the blood royall of England: collected for the most part out of the Records in the Towre. [Edward of Caernaruon is placed at the head of the list.]

King Edward, abeit hee had brought al Wales under his subjection … yet he could neuer winne the good will of the common people of the countrie to accept him for their Prince, and to be obedient unto such officers as he should appoint to gouerne them, unlesse he would remaine himselfe in the countrie among them. Neither could he bring them to yeeld their obedience to anie other Prince, except he were of their own nation: for the Welshmen hauing experience of the gouernment of the English officers, and knowing that the king would rule the countrie by his deputies, cold not abide to haue anie Englishman to be their ruler: who oftentimes upon the kings motion answered, that they were content to take for their Prince anie man, whom his Maiestie would name, so that he were a Welshman, and none other answer could he euer get of them, by anie meanes. Whereupon the king sent for Queene Elianor out of England in the deepe of winter being then great with child, to the castell of Caernaruon: and when she was nigh to be brought to bed, the king went to Ruthlan, and sent for all the Barons and best men in all Wales, to come to him, to consult concerning the weale publike of their countrie. And when they were come, he differred the consultation, untill he was certified that the Queene was deliuered of a sonne: then (sending

certeine lords to the christning of his child, and informing them how he would haue him named) he called the Welshmen togither, declaring unto them, that whereas they were offentimes suters unto him to appoint them a Prince, he now hauing occasion to depart out of the countrie, would name them a Prince, if they would allow and obey him whom he should name. To the which motion they answered that they would so doo, if he would appoint one of their owne nation to be their Prince: wherunto the king replied, that he would name one that was borne in Wales, and could speake neuer a word of English, whose life and conuersation no man was able to staine. And when they all had granted that such a one they would obey, he named his owne sonne Edward borne in Caernaruon castell a few daies before. - Powel’s “Cambria,” 1584 (pp. 376, 377).

That readers may judge for themselves how closely Powel and Stow’s versions agree, the latter’s version is appended. It should be remembered that English spelling in the sixteenth century was in its Wellerian stage when it depended on the taste and fancy of the writer, as Welsh still seems to be:On Saint Mark’s daie, or the fiue and twentieth daie of Aprill, at Cairnaruon in Wales was borne the kings sonne named Edward upon this occasion: K. Ed. albeit he had brought all Wales under his subiection, and a statute made at Ruthland, in the twelth yeer of his raigne, incorporated & united ye same unto England; yet could he neuer win the goodwills of ye common people of the country to accept him for their Prince, unlesse he would remaine him selfe in that country among them, neither could he bring the to yeeld obedience to any Prince, except he were of their own nation. For the Welchmen hauine experience of the gouernment of the English officers, and knowing that the king would rule the countrey by his deputies, could not abide to haue any Englishman to bee their ruler; wherefore oftentimes, upon the kings motion they answered, that they were contented to take for their Prince any man, whom hee would name, so he were a Welchman, & other answere coulde he neuer get of them by any meanes. Whereupon, hauing secretly sent for the Queene being then great with childe, caused her to remaine at Carnaruon; and when she was nigh

her time of deliuerance, the king being at Ruthland, sent for all the Barons and best men of Wales, to come to him to consult concerning the weale publike of their country; and when they were come, he deferred the consultation, until he were certified that the Queene were deliuered of a sonne: Then sending certaine Lords to the christening, he called the Welchmen together, declaring unto them, that where as they were oftentimes suiters unto him to appoint them a Prince he now hauing occasion to depart out of the countrey would name them a Prince, if they would allow and obey him whom hee should name. To the which they answered, that they would doe, if hee would appoint one of their nation. Where- unto the king replied, that he would name one that was borne in Wales, and could speake neuer a word of English, whose life and conuersation no man was able to detect.

And when they hadde graunted, that such a one they would obey, he named his owne sonne Edward borne in Carnaruon Castle a fewe daies before. Then the king hauing the country at his will, gave Lordships and townes in the middest of Wales unto English Lords, as the Lordship of Denbigh to Henry Lacy Earl of Lincolne, the Lordship or Ruthven to the Lord Reginald Grey, second sonne to John Grey of Wilton, &c.

Stow, “Annales,” 202, 203.

To give this nursery tale the fairest possible chance to vindicate itself, Sir John Doddridge’s version, in his “Principality of Wales” (1630), is added:The king thereupon purposing a pretty policie sendeth for the Queene, then being greate with Child, to come unto him into Wales, who being deliuered of a sonne in the castle of Carnarvon in Wales, called by reason thereof Edward of Carnarvon, the king thereupon sent for all the Barons of Wales, tooke their assurance and submission according to their offers formerly made, if they should have a gouernour of their owne nation, affirming unto them that he was then ready to name unto them a Gouernour borne in their Countrey, and who could not speake any word of English, whose life and conuersation no man was ab’e to staine, and required their promise of obedience; whereupon they yeelding, the king thereupon named unto them his said sonne borne at Carnaruon

Castle a few dayes before, unto whom the Barons of Wales afterwards made their homage, as appeareth Anne (Anno) 29 E 1. at Chester. Neither Powel nor Stow had the judicial shrewdness of Doddridge, and, though the latter faithfully follows the earlier versions, he feels compelled to give away the whole show in his last sentence, as will appear later on.

DYNAMICAL FACTS Let us now proceed to pulverise this infantile invention. It has a grain of fact for its core, but the whole tale must be pulverised in order to get at it, as you must break a flint to get at the organic object which formed its nucleus. That core fact, borrowed from another incident, Welshmen can treasure with their self-respect.

For blasting purposes there is nothing like established facts. It takes a lot of facts to make a single piece of mediaeval history luminous, but a single fact plays havoc with many a luminous and significant incident in Welsh history, and other histories as well.

The birth of Edward the Second in the newly-erected castle of Carnarvon was the result of an accident. “In the year of grace 1284, upon the Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist (April 25), at Karneruan in Wallia, was born to the lord king of Anglia a son, who was named Edward.” (B. de Cotton, “Hist. Angl. p. 165.) This paragraph is typical of the notices of the event in the chronicles, and some chroniclers, who notice Longshanks’ campaign against Llywelyn omit the crowning event of that campaign, the debut of the enfant prodigieux!

His parents had spent the greater part of two years previous to his birth in Wales and the borders, so that common humanity is spared the further contemplation of an august lady in a delicate condition being conveyed post-haste from London to Carnarvon, “in the depth of winter,” along roads which were next to no roads, in order to arrive at the latter place on schedule time. If the King sent for the Queen at all with such a contingency in view, it was two years before the birth

of Edward of Carnarvon, and, if the King had “purposed a pretty policie” on the preceding occasion, his attempt at playing the part of Providence was naturally a failure.

“Alienora, the queen of Anglia, gave birth to a daughter at Rotelan, who was called (or nicknamed) Walkiniana.” (B de Cotton, “Hist. Angl. 163.) This event took place at Rhuddlan in 1282. The name of the daughter was Elizabeth, called, from the accident of her birth in Wales, “The Welshwoman.” The birth of Elizabeth coincided with the annexation of Wales. She could not speak a word of English, but, on the theory that Welsh is the language of Eden, it is to be presumed that the first babblings of every baby, especially of a Welsh baby, is Welsh undefiled. Might not Longshanks’ “pretty policie” have appeared to the Welsh chieftains still prettier and a far more effective appeal to their chivalrous hearts had the Walkiniana been presented to them?

But, setting aside the Welshwoman’s claim for the honour, Longshanks’ heir was alive, and ten years old, at the time of the annexation of Wales. Death had already claimed his eldest and second son, John and Henry. Alphonso, who was nearly twelve years old when Edward of Carnarvon was born, was his father’s heir. Henry III had already established a kind of precedent for conferring the Principality of Wales on the heir apparent, by giving his eldest son, Edward, both the right and a free hand to do as he liked with it. Had Alphonso lived, he would have been created the first Prince of Wales and Alphonso I. of England. Not until he died was it possible for Edward of Carnarvon, as his father’s heir, to become Prince of Wales. Alphonso lived for five months after Edward’s birth. He was recognised as the heir to the throne. Matthew of Westminster strains the actual facts in order to give prominence to Alphonso’s claim. He calls him the King’s first-born.” This young Prince, he tells us, on his going to Westminster, presented the aureola which once belonged to Llywelyn, Prince of Wales, to adorn the bier of the blessed King Edward. Was he not already recognised, in a way, as the successor of that ill-fated Prince? September 14, 1284, Alphonso was buried among his brothers and sisters at Westminster. It was his death that gave a reflex significance to the birth of Edward of Carnarvon. If it is true, as is stated, that there was a great rejoicing over the birth of the latter, it had

little to do with the reconciliation of the Welsh, and it was not the Welsh, as such, that did rejoice.

Five months after Edward’s birth the whole realm had cause to rejoice that the great Edward had still one son, the fourth, remaining to become his father s heir.

LONDON SHOUTS Matthew of Westminster, when recording the birth of Edward, adding the remark, “in whose nativity many, and especially Londoners, rejoiced.” He gives no reason why the people rejoiced, and in the next sentence he shows that Alphonso lived five months after that event. Why was it the Londoners chiefly rejoiced? ‘Twas ever thus: London always does the shouting, while the poor provincials pay for the noise. London is out shouting often without rhyme or reason. Nothing is easier than organising a loud London shout. It would be utterly preposterous to suppose that London rejoiced because a number of rebellious Welsh chiefs were doting over the Carnarvon baby, and by way of celebrating the final reconciliation effected by that baby peace-maker. No; if London shouted at all for the benefit of the Welsh, it was most likely as they gathered in crowds before the gate of the Tower to study the craniology of defunct Welsh princes.

It may be that the health of the heir apparent, Alphonso, was already causing general anxiety, and that there was a general rejoicing over the news of the birth, in far-away Wales, of another possible King. But how, later, Londoners have managed to twist the monk’s statement so as to attribute their own rejoicing to the Welshmen, for a reason that had no existence, passes all comprehension.

In that excellent handbook of early Welsh history, Stephens’ “Welshmen,” p. 193, it is said: “The Principality was designed to form a separate appanage for a younger son of the English King; but, as Edward, the first English Prince, succeeded to the Crown by the death of his elder brother, the title of Prince of Wales has since commonly been borne by the eldest son of the English King.”

This means that Edward of Carnarvon would become Prince of Wales even if his elder brother lived to become King of England. It is a pity that the author has omitted the evidence upon which this

interesting piece of information is based. We are left to conjecture that there is no evidence for the statement but the Carnarvon legend. Sir John Doddridge, who accepts the legend, says that “King Henry the Third upon those often reuolts of the Welsh indeuored to resume the territory of Wales as forfeit unto himselfe, and conferred the same upon Edward the Longshanckes his heir apparant, yet nevertheless rather in title than in possession or upon any profit obteyned thereby. For the former Prince of Wales continued his government, notwithstanding this, between whome and the said Edward, warres were continued.” Then he goes on to show, as will be quoted later on, how the Principality became the customary appanage of the heir apparent. As there is no evidence forthcoming that Edward I. made any arrangement whatever regarding the disposition of the Principality previous to the death of Alphonso, his heir apparent, one is inclined to accept Doddridge’s reading of the history of the matter.

THE TRUTH APPLIED While paying our last respects to the remains of the Cockney creation, let us consider how thoroughly discreditable it is to all parties concerned. Longshanks is alleged to have conciliated the Welsh, who had a clear notion of what they had fought so hard for and of how to fight for it, by a buffoon’s trick, which, had it been actually performed, would have been taken at the time by the Welsh as an affront of the meanest type, while the heads of their lamented Llywelyn and of his brother, David, were still dangling on the walls of the Tower, to the delight of London. Mr. Bradley, an Englishman, regards it as a traditional “grim joke.” We are requested to believe that the Welsh chiefs were pacified at the sight of a baby face - and if must be confessed that babies, like music, have a wonderful power to soothe savage breasts - while looking on at the pitchforking of Longshanks’ favourite barons into the fattest lands and the strategic points of the annexed territories. But neither a baby’s prattle nor Edward’s baronial police could pacify the Welsh, and Edward was too much of a statesman to throw a wanton insult in the faces of the Welsh chiefs. He was compelled to resort to policy, as well as arms, to pacify the Welsh, and that policy, as we know,

included something more substantial than the baby tableau. When the leading men of Wales petitioned Henry VIII for final deliverance from the iniquitous rule of the Lords Marchers, they simply spoke the truth of history when they said: - “When Edward I made more equal laws than his predecessors, we submitted to him, and not before.”

Again, London’s juvenile jest represents the Welsh chieftains as primitive savages, exulting over a toy, the gift of a white man, and that, to a large extent, is the lasting impression which the jest has produced; and when one considers how slowly even Welshmen welcome any revised versions of their popular legends, it is not to be wondered at that Englishmen, whose knowledge of Welsh history, speaking generally, is less than their knowledge of the latest barbaric British settlement, should see no reason to disbelieve a fable of long-standing and wide publicity, a fable so thoroughly consonant with English views of Longshanks’ exploits in patching Snowdon and Dinevor on to that crazy quilt of petty sovereignties which was then England. Last of all, Edward I., neither by a buffoon’s trick nor by a more reasonable policy, effectually pacified Wales. He simply annexed the lands of a race that was not united as a people to the English throne until the time of Henry VIII. If the Carnarvon legend were true in fact and in details, one would still regard it, in view of the preTudor history of Wales, as a piece of consummate hypocrisy.

THE RESCUED FACT In bidding a long farewell to the masterpiece of tom- foolery on which so much paper and ink have been wasted, let us rescue the pleasant truth which some nameless wag borrowed from another episode to give consistency to his pulpy-invention. Welshmen extended a very warm welcome to the first Prince of Wales, because, for one thing, he was a native of Wales, and, for a greater reason, because his father had granted them “more equal laws than his predecessors” had granted. “For that,” the men of Wales told their countryman, Henry VIII., “we defended his son, Edward II., when he was not only rejected by the English, but when we might, had we wished, have recovered our former liberty.”

It was nineteen years after the annexation of Wales when Edward of Carnarvon was created Prince of Wales. “February 7, 1301, when the boy was nearing seventeen years of age, he was made Prince of Wales. A golden coronet was placed on his head, a golden ring on his finger, and a silver sceptre in his hand.” (O. M. E.) The act had little connection with the reconciliation of the Welsh, but a people now peaceably disposed gave a most enthusiastic welcome to the young Prince. Doddridge, by referring to this event, gives the whole baby show away, but not without attempting to connect the Chester ceremony with the Carnarvon tableau.

A couple of centuries before the baby trick tale was published, the Monk of St. Alban’s wrote, or copied from an earlier source, the following passage:This year (1301) Edward, king of England, made lord Edward, his son and heir, Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. When this was heard among the Welsh, they rejoiced exceedingly, regarding him as their rightful lord, because he was born in those parts. And when Scotland would openly rebel against him, and all England would rid herself of him, then the Welsh, in a wonderful manner, cherished and esteemed him, and as far as they were able stood by him, grieving over his adversities both in life and in his death, and composing mournful songs about him in the language of the country; the memory of which lingers to the present time, which neither the dread of punishment nor the change of times has destroyed.

-Walsingham, “Hist. Angl.” 82.

This chronicler writes with sympathy. He neither exaggerates nor caricatures the feeling of the Welsh towards their Prince. The passage is a strictly historical summary of the whole relation between the Welsh and that Prince. It fairly serves as a text of which this narrative is a sort of exposition. About the only point in the passage upon which further information is lacking is a copy of some of the mournful songs which the Welsh bards composed after him. A searcher into the hidden treasures of Welsh literature might yet happen upon them. Some bardic references to Edward are

known to Mr. O. M. Edwards, for he says that the Welsh bard speaks of his learning as he spoke formerly of the learning of the old princes of Wales. What a gross travesty of the monk’s account is the old wives’ fable of London town! For the chivalrous allegiance of the Welsh to a Prince forced upon them, and for their brave stand for him when both Scotland and England turned against him, they must be buffooned for their pains by the descendants of those who hunted their King from shire to shire as an outlaw, and who allowed him to be murdered with a finesse of cruelty that might have excited the envy of an Iroquois chief.

CHAPTER IV THE KING’S OWN The King was at Gloucester from the 10th to the 12th of October. His path is strewn, with writs and proclamations. If all England and Wales did not rise for the King, it was not through the negligence of the King’s scribe. But these multifarious orders, issued at the eleventh hour, remind one of the handbills of a travelling show, which are strewn along the streets just before the performance begins. Few of the orders could have been transmitted in time to produce any favourable results, and those almost exclusively relating to South Wales.

By this time the Queen’s army was following the track of the fugitives. “Isabella,” Stubbs tells us, marched towards London, expecting to find her husband still there, and being joined by all classes as she proceeded. At Bury St. Edmunds she borrowed 800 marks of the king’s money deposited in the abbey; she went on to Cambridge, and stayed a day or two at Barnwell, then to Baldock, in Hertfordshire, where she enjoyed the pleasure of plundering the chancellor’s property, and then to Dunstable. At Dunstable the earl of Leicester joined her.

On the way she must have heard that Edward had left London. She then turned westward, and passed on to Oxford, where she laid her cause before the University in a sermon preached by bishop Orlton, on the text, “Caput meum doleo.” From Oxford she went to Wallingford, where she was on the 15th of October, thence to Gloucester, where she was joined by Percy, and other northern lords.

On the north and east his enemies were closing in upon the King. On the borders of Wales he had to reckon with Mortimer’s numerous adherents, the “Rosseryeit” (Rogerites) of the Welsh chronicle. Still, there were doors of hope open in the West of England and in South Wales.

The King was now on the soil, not only of ancient Wales, but also of ancient Morganwg. It is said that the latter once extended from the mouth of the Tawe to Gloucester Bridge (Pont Caerloyw). The land between the Severn and the Wye was also once a distinct Welsh lordship or principality. A large part of that land was lost to the Welsh in King Offa’s time, but until the reign of Henry VIII the lordships of Ewyas Lacy, Ewyas Harold, Eardisley, Wigmore, and others now in Herefordshire, and the lordships of Wollaston and Tidenham, now in Gloucestershire, were included in the Welsh Marches.

The part of this ancient Welsh lordship between Gloucester and Chepstow was called Cantrev Coch (Red Hundred), or the Cantrev Coch yn y Ddena (in the Dene, or Dean), counted as the seventh cantrev of Morganwg. But in the list of “Cantreds and Commotes of Wales” in the “Red Book of Hergest” there is no mention of Welsh land east of the Wye at that point. The Cantrev Coch had probably become thoroughly English at the time of Edward II. Now, as the King, whose boast it was that he was a Welshman (0. M. E.), pays his native land the double compliment of seeking a refuge within it and of inviting his fellow-countrymen to fight for him, let us take a few minutes from watching this royal race for power and pelf, which has now fairly started, to consider the chances of the royal Welshman in the land of his birth.

Setting aside the vain verbiage of Edward’s commands for Welsh forces to be brought to his aid, the son of the dictator of Rhuddlan was now reduced into an abject suppliant, and that miserable fact was more likely to have a more speedy distribution throughout Wales than the King’s summons.

A SMALL PRINCIPALITY Again, it was a very small Wales which Edward could actually command, either as Prince of Wales or as King at the height of his power. A brief review of some preceding events will help to explain this.

CONQUEST OF WALES, 1282 Such is the beautifully concise statement of the primers of English history, which the average schoolboy and schoolgirl accepts as conclusive information on the subject. The affair is at once docketed in the same pigeon-hole in their memory as the exploits of Alexander, Caesar, William the Conqueror, and Napoleon. Such is the glamour with which the annexation of a remnant of the ancient Principality of Wales has been invested.

Longshanks’ chief exploit in Wales was in organising his campaign according to the numerous lessons in the art of war which the Welsh had taught the Anglo-Norman kings, and which those kings spent two centuries in learning. His chief exploit as a statesman was in staying long enough in the country to ascertain its true state and to contrive remedial measures on the spot.

The previous “conquests” of Wales are almost too numerous to mention. One king after another came, saw, and conquered, with the invariable result of the conquered Welsh marking time in the rear of the London-ward triumphal march, and often accelerating the pace of the returning victorious host. Edward’s predecessors never liked to stay long in Wales, and not one of his successors has stayed as long there as king. After the country submitted, mainly through the accidental loss of the guiding spirit of the revolt, Edward took a leisurely look around. He kept his Court in Wales for about three years; Queen Eleanor presented him with two Welsh-born children; and he took a fancy for building some magnificent residences at Conway, Carnarvon, and Harlech.

He meant business, and the so-called “conquest” was accomplished on a business basis. When at last, apparently with regret, he returned to England, he did not, like his predecessors, seek the quickest way out of Wales. He returned in state from Snowdon along the west coast, through Carmarthenshire into Glamorgan, to pay a friendly visit to his bosom friend, Gilbert de Clare, who had fought side by side with him in Palestine, and who, while the King was struggling against Llywelyn, had been striving to win all Glamorgan for himself.

Although Edward was reminded, soon after his return to England, by a spirited little rebellion, that his “conquest” was not a very thorough one, yet, on the whole, he had a good reason for shaking hands with himself over the Welsh business, as he sat down to look over his accounts with the canny Scots.

The lands annexed in 1282, the lands which the barons had failed to gobble up piecemeal, and which Edward won for himself, formed the new Principality of Wales, which was given to the second Edward to maintain the dignity of a newly-created title. More strictly speaking, Snowdon, Llywelyn’s lands, and some parts of Dyfed, subject to the South Wales princely house of Dinevor, were annexed and added to the lands which Longshanks had already acquired for himself in Wales in true baronial fashion. Altogether it was but a small principality. Almost the whole of Wales, certainly the best part, was already divided among semi-independent English lords, and these independent lordships were not included in the new principality. The new was but a parcel of the old, and it is described in the records as “Parcella Principalitatis Walliae.”

THE TITLE “PRINCE OF WALES” It was to the few scattered estates annexed in 1282 that Edward II. could look for aid, with any confidence, in his dire need at the end 1326. Edward had retained the Principality all along, and, as this subject is of perennial interest to Welshmen, a few words on the peculiar nature of the title to the Principality will be appreciated.

Sir John Doddridge says that he is perswaded some mystery of good policy lies hidden therein, which as I conceauve may be this or such like. The Kings of England thought to conferre upon their prince and heir apparant an estate in fee simple in the lands that they bestowed upon him; for a lesser than an inheritance had not been answerable to so greate a dignitie. And yet they were not willing to give him any larger estate, then such as should extinguish again in the Crowne

when he came to be king or dyed; for he being king should also have the like power to create the Prince of his Heir apparant, and to inuest him into that dignitie as he being the father was inuested by his pro genitor. For the wisdome of the Kings of England was such, as that they would not deprive themselves of that honour but that every of them might make new creations and investures of the Principalitie to their eldest sonne, or next succeeding Heire Apparant; and that those lands so given unto the Prince, might when he was King be annexed, knit and united againe to the Crowne, and out of the Crowne to be of new conferred; which could not so have been, if those lands had been given to the Prince and his Heirs generalls, for then the lands so given would have rested in the natural person of the Princes, after they came to the Kingdome distinct from the Crown Lands, and might, as the case should happen discend to others then those which were his Heires apparant to the Crowne. And herein I do observe a difference between the Principalitie of Wales given to the Prince and the Dutchie of Cornwall given unto him. For every Prince needeth and soe hath had a new creation and investure. But he is Duke of Cornwall as soon as he is born, if his Auncestor be then King of England; and if not, he is Duke of Cornwall, eo instante, that his father is King of England, as shall be more euidently proued hereafter, by matter of record, when I shall come to speak of the Dutchy of Cornwall ...

How is it possible that the Kings of England can inherit the Principalitie, sithence the Principalitie being the lesser dignitie is extinguished in the kingly estate, being the greater; for in Praesentia maioris cessat, id quod minus est.

There is the logic, the Latin, and the locus classicus respecting the nature of the title, “Prince of Wales.� Sir John Doddridge was a Welsh judge, distinguished for the trouble he took to learn the history of the people he had to judge, upon whose nerves in court the mellifluous sounds of the language of Eden did not produce as disastrous effect as upon the nerves of some modern dispensers of justice in Wales.

PETTY WELSH SOVEREIGNTIES In course of time the parts of Wales which originally constituted the estates of the first Prince of Wales were augmented by some baronial estates, which, for various reasons, fell into the King’s hands. When Edward III. bestowed the Principality upon the Black Prince it included the following estates:All the King’s lordships and lands in North Wales, West Wales, and South Wales, namely:Carnarvon,

lordship,

castle, town, and county.

Anglesey,

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Merioneth,

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Carmarthen,

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Cardigan,

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Conway,

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Criccieth,

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Harlech,

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Llanbadara Vawr,

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Emlyn,

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Builth,

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Haverfordwest,

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Montgomery,

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Cantrev Mawr, stewardship.

A muster-roll of Welsh forces ordered to be raised for the Scotch war of 1315 gives a fair idea of the relative war strength of the separate lordships in Wales at that time. It shows how many men suitably armed the King could muster on his own lands in Wales, and how many he could get from the semi-independent barons. The writer is responsible for the place-names in brackets:From Wales the following footmen suitably armed: from the King’s lands between North and South Wales, 4,000; from the lands of Edmund, earl of Arundel, of Kery (Ceri), Kedewy (Cydewain), Clon, Oswaldestre (Oswestry, Croesoswallt), and Chirk, 500; from the lands of Edmund, earl of Kent, of Melenyth (Maelienydd), 300; from John de Grey’s land of Dryffycloyt (Dyffryn Clwyd), 200; from Henry de Lancastre’s land of Menemowe (Mynwy, Monmouth), Kedewelly (Cidweli), and Carwathlan (Carnwyllion), 300; from the lands of Thomas, earl of Norfolk, of Strogoyl (Chepstow) and Netherwent (Gwent is Coed), 100; from John de Hastyngs lands of Bergaveny and Went (Gwent uch Coed), 300; from Robert de Monte Alto’s lands at Estradlon (Ystrad Alun) and Hawardin (Hawarden, Penarlag), 100; from Fulk son of Warin’s lands of Whitynton, 50; from the lands of William la Zousche of Assheby, of Elvayl Ughmenyth (Elvael uch Mynydd) and Elvayl Ismenyth (Elvael is Mynydd), 200; from the lands of Hugh le Despenser, the younger, of Morgannou (Morganwg) and Glamorgan, 1,000; from the land of queen Isabella of Mellorseisenek (Maelor Seisneg), 100; from Elizabeth de Burgo’s lands of Gower, 200; from the lands of Hugh le Despenser, earl of Winchester, of’ Dynebegh (Dinbych, Denbigh) and Rowynnok (Rhuvoniog) and Kemmerich (Crymeirch, Cevn Meirch), 500; from the lands of John de Warenna, earl of Surrey, of Bromfeld (Bromfield) and Yale (lal), 400; from John de Charleton’s land of Powys, 500; from the lands of Audele and Cantrebaghan (Cantrev Bychan), in the marches, 100; from the lands of Bregheneu (Brycheiniog, Brecknock), 200; from the lands of Buel (Builth), 100; from the lands of Penkethely (Pencelli), BlenIeveny (Blaenllyfni), Bolkedynas (Bwlch y Dinas), and Brentles (Bronllys), 400; and from the land of Hope (Estyn), 50. (Cal. Close Rolls.)

This muster-roll might have served the King as a basis to calculate his chances for aid in 1326, were it not that great changes had taken place, affecting the Welsh baronial estates, since the Scotch war referred to, and that the appeal for Welsh aid in 1326 put a much heavier strain on the allegiance of the Welsh themselves than the appeal of 1315.

THE KING-MAKING WELSH If the King, on his road to ruin, could command the services of some twenty or more independent barons in Wales, his chances for a final victory would be encouraging. But of the lords named in the muster-roll there were now only the two Despensers and the Earl of Arundel available, and only Hugh the younger, of the three, had any assistance within reach.

If the King, again, had put his case fairly and squarely before the Welsh people as such, giving an honest undertaking to rule justly and dispense with his Despensers, he might have got the Welsh to stand by him to a man, as they had supported their own Llywelyn, and as they had marched with Edward against the Scots, and as their descendants in later times proved themselves veritable king- makers. But Edward had no common cause with the Welsh except a sentimental one.

There was in the nature of things not a whit more reason why the Welsh should have stood by the King than the people of England, who were hunting for him. If all England chose to rid herself of the hated Despensers, had Wales any duty but to hasten that consummation? How could the King expect trusty allies within the very preserves of Hugh the younger, whose iron heel had trodden on every Naboth’s vineyard he could approach, where many proud cheeks were burning under the smart of his mailed fist, and where the blood of a martyred chieftain cried aloud for vengeance upon both father and son? Yet, sentimental as was the strongest tie between the Welsh and Edward, he might, had he wished, have got the full benefit of that sentiment which latterly placed a Tudor on the English throne. But with all his regard for the Welsh and his knowledge of them, he did not proceed in the right way to enlist the support of a people whose hospitality has usually been unstinted towards English Kings in difficulties.

As already stated, the King had given sufficient instructions on the 28th of September to his two bailiffs in Wales to gather together all the men available from the King’s own lands - lands which furnished 4,000 footmen for the Scotch war. At the same time, concurrent writs of assistance had been issued to the earls, barons, knights, freemen, and other lieges of the King. Under ordinary circumstances, no further orders would be necessary. But when he reached Gloucester, the King began to issue minor orders affecting the districts nearest to him.

Just as Hugh the younger was drawing the King with him to his Glamorgan stronghold, Mortimer, the guiding spirit of the Queen’s war, was drawing the pursuing army towards his own stronghold on the Mid-Wales border. The King, in his orders to his Welsh bailiffs, had declared Mortimer the real enemy. On the 10th, he issued orders respecting the lands contiguous to Mortimer’s sphere of influence to John Daniel, custodian of Radnor, Luggerness, and Pembroke; to Cadogan ap Howel and Davy Waghan (David Vychan), custodians of Maelienydd; and to William ap Rees, custodian of Elvael. Thus the eastern side of the upper Wye was attended to. On the same day similar orders were issued for raising forces on the west of the same district, in the lordships of Brennock (Brecknock), Talgarth, and Hay. It should be noted that the districts named in these and following orders to the leaders of the Welsh refer to cantreds and commotes, and are to be identified by reference to the ancient divisions of Wales. Each district formed a separate “gwlad,” called “patria” in the charters, a distinct Welsh community. One still often hears such expressions as “Gwlad Buallt,” “Gwlad Gwyr” (Gower), and especially “Gwlad Vorgan,” of which “Glamorgan” is a corruption.

LLYWELYN’S ORPHAN One order issued at Gloucester is worthy of special note. It is an order, for the payment of 10l to Wenthliana (Gwenllian), daughter of Llywelyn, “late Prince of Wales, being her pension for six months.” Llywelyn nearly bartered his country in order to secure Eleanor de Montford for his wife, but she died at Gwenllian’s birth. After her father’s fall Gwenllian was taken into England, and “when

under age she was made a nun against her will.� It seems as if the sight of the Welsh hills had reminded the King of his duty towards Llywelyn’s daughter. Though we cannot make the subject of our narrative a very consistent hero, still every item in his favour shall be duly noted. There are many things to show that the King improved as a man the more he was stripped of his kingly trappings.

Our Welsh hearts warm towards him as we contemplate him, amidst, his frantic efforts to save his kingdom and his life, taking five minutes to dictate an order for the benefit of Llewelyn’s orphan.

CHAPTER V THE LAND OF REFUGE The King fled from London to Gloucester with his favourites, so to speak, under his wings. At the latter place, we might expect the favourites to turn protectors. Hugh the younger is sometimes called Earl of Gloucester. He certainly owned, or held, at that time most, if not all, of the land between Gloucester and the Wye, through which the King travelled to Glamorgan. But important as Gloucester was as a rendezvous for either the defenders or the invaders of South Wales, the King remained there only three days. On the 13th he was at Westbury-on-the-Severn. The evening or the morrow of that day he crossed our “pocket edition of the Rhine,” Gwy, Vaga, Waia, now called Wye, the “river Egg” of a certain Richard John Davies.

When the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart, How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! Thou wand’rer through the woods, How often has my spirit turn’d to thee!

Did ever a man visit Tintern in a more suitable mood to appreciate Wordsworth’s “Lines, composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey,” than our Royal fugitive? Distracted King! Why didst thou not turn monk on the spot and seek, not a, meal and a bed, but a tranquil sanctuary to the end of thy days in the glorious Cistercian abbey of Walter de Clare?

GWENT Mr. Dryasdust, at any rate, must turn sentimentalist here. The King is now in Wales, in Morganwg, in Gwent, that is to say, Gwent is the inmost and most precious box in the Welsh casket of jewels. Fronted by the lordly Severn, flanked by the Wye and the Usk and the loveliest vales in

Wales, and protected on the north by the eternal hills in echelon formation, it is the paradise of the artist the joy of the angler, and was the coveted pivot of every invader for the conquest of Morganwg.

“I tell you, captain,” Fluellen (Llewelyn) tells Gower if you look in the maps of the ‘orld, I warrant, you shall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth that the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river at Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth; it is called Wye at Monmouth; but it is out of my brains what is the name of the other river; but ‘tis all one, ‘tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both.”

Shakspeare knew also that there is “salmons” in the Usk. Tradition has it that the scene of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is laid in the valley of the Usk. There, at a place called Cwmpwcca, they say, Puck was caught or sketched for the delight of Englishmen. Puck represents probably the race of dwarfs which is the substratum of our population, and the survival of our prehistoric Rip Van Winkle in Gwent is not surprising.

While thinking of Gwent as the home of Puck, Mr. O. M. Edwards’ s, “Wales” comes to hand, in time to exercise a restraining influence over our pen from this to the end of our tale. In one of Mr. Edwards’ maps, “Islwvn’s Home” is writ large for Gwent. That is Siluria brought up to date by a stroke of genius. The Iberian, like the poor, is always with us in Gwent. He broke the heart of the Roman general, Ostorius. If the secrets of all hearts were made known to us here and now, we might learn of some coal-kings who have suffered the fate of Ostorius at the hand of the persistent Iberian of Gwent and Morganwg. But he has a better record in Welsh literature, and Gwent’s new name enshrines the memory of our greatest modern bard, who, in body, mind, and song, was an embodiment of the traditional traits of the Iberian. “I’ll tell you, there is goot men porn at Monmouth.”

But no invidious distinction between Gwent and Morganwg is hardly possible. They must be regarded: historically and sentimentally as one. Listen to a Cowbridge “youngster” praising the western end of Siluria:Let foreigners boast of their country and beauty, Italians and Germans their flattering tales; Can Frenchmen, with all their congees and courtesy, Now equal Glamorgan, the Garden of Wales?

Our lasses with lustre all others excelling, So modest and artless, so neat in their dwelling, The muses of Cambria their praises are swelling, Their beauty adorning the Garden of Wales.

Ye bards of the North, if ye now can deny it, Pray sing of your mountains and desolate dales, The youth that doth challenge will constantly term it, “Glamorgan the beauty, and Garden of Wales.”

In Cowbridge fair village this youngster doth flourish, The Garden’s sweet centre this flower did nourish, And on her fair bosom he’ll sing till he perish, Glamorgan’s the beauty and Garden of Wales.”

STRANDED MONARCHS But the King, poor man, did not come to Glamorgan in quest of beauty, though a tradition tells us that he was so enamoured of the “youngster’s” Garden that he would climb a tree at Gelli Lenor in order to enjoy a good view of it. He was seeking safety, and Glamorgan is proud of her record as a land of refuge to distinguished fugitives. A wandering priest, it is said, was befriended for a long time by the Stradlings, of St. Donat’s. His name was Nicholas Breakspear, or Brekspere, the only Englishman who ever became Pope. Pope Adrian IV., in 1145, confirmed the right of the Normans to Glamorgan for the succour given him by them when he was a fugitive there.” (“Iolo MSS.” 64.).

The procession of fugitive monarchs to Glamorgan was headed by John, with Charles I. in the rear. John found, a refuge for half a year with his divorced wife, it is said, at the palace of Tref Befared (Boverton), and passed under the name of Gerald Fitzalan. The “lolo MSS.” however, to which we are indebted for most Glamorgan tales of general currency, cannot be fully trusted beyond a sentence at a time. It states that John’s divorced wife was Yspel (Isabella), daughter of William of Gloucester. Isabella was John’s second and French wife. His divorced wife was Avisa, daughter and heiress of the renowned Robert of Gloucester.

John’s first queen was not the only queen to find a retreat in that neighbourhood. The inhabitants of Llantwit Major point with a sad pride to a house there which was for a time inhabited

by Anne Boleyn, one of the queens of Henry Owen, vulgarly called Henry VIII., but known in heraldry as Harri ap Harri ap Emwnt ap Owen ap Meredydd ap Tudur ap Gronw ap Tudur ap Gronw ap Ednyfed Vychan. From, this point his pedigree runs along the grand trunk line back to Brutus and the Trojans.

Archbishop Ussher, in 1646, found a retreat at St. Donat’s. For a time he found a refuge at Cardiff Castle. On his journey to St. Donat’s, he and his fell into the hands of the Parliamentary

forces. But he was rescued, his MSS., books, and property were nearly all restored, and he found peace to pursue his studies as the guest of Lady Elizabeth Stradling.

Perhaps this list of distinguished fugitives in Glamorgan is too brief. It is somewhat remarkable that the neighbourhood of Llantwit Major, already groaning under the weight of its pristine greatness, should have been the most favoured city of refuge. Hoary Llantwit! The Oxford of Britain before Alfred burnt the cakes! Its labyrinthine streets - and it is said that the man who can drive a horse and cart through those streets could afford to crack his whip at mid-day in crowded Cheapside - are haunted, gentle summer tourist, by the trembling shades of fugitive kings and queens, an archbishop, and a pope.

CLOSING IN But we have left the King on the threshold of Gwent, and we must hasten thither to do him homage. He was at Tintern on the 14th and 15th. The monks everywhere seem to have befriended him, though the bishops, and even the Pope, were against him, and for the Queen. The very last friendly service was offered to him by the Preaching Friars.

For a whole week more, from the 14th to the 21st, he continued to issue orders to raise and mass forces in various parts of England. He was either unaware or heedless of the rapidity with which the Queen’s army followed him like a flood. During his stay at Tintern, that army was approaching Gloucester. Still, we read an order dated at Tintern to the bailiff of Great Yarmouth, to release nine prisoners by name; another to the sheriff of Dorset, to release a parson from prison.

The sheriff of Sussex is ordered to pay the wages of men-at-arms. Matthew Broun, escheator of the counties of Lincoln, Northampton, and Rutland, is ordered to straighten matters connected with the priory of Torkeseye, which had been in the King’s hands. Well-meant orders these appear to be.

They suggest an awakened sense of duty. Perhaps the abbot of Tintern had something to do with some of them. They suggest also the usual resort of kings hard pressed, an appeal to Newgate. But the Queen had managed that peculiar line of business better. Her army was generalled by an

escaped traitor, and she had already released from the Tower the King’s worst Welsh enemy, Rhys ap Howel, who tracked him down. But the poor King was too late even in his appeal to gaol-birds.

With the Queen’s army only a good day’s march behind him, the King was at Tintern in imminent peril of being captured, and, if he knew all about the composition of the pursuing army at Gloucester, his feelings of isolation must have become poignant to an extreme. Not only his wife and heir were pursuing him, but his two brothers also, Thomas of Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk, and Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent, had joined the pursuers. A Northern army also, under lords Percy and Wake, joined the Queen at Gloucester, and, more ominous still for the King’s hopes in Wales, a strong force from the Welsh marches also joined the Queen there. Many, doubtless, of the followers of Mortimer hastened to welcome at Gloucester their self-exiled lord, traitor though he was. An order of the King to Rhys ap Griffith, respecting the lands of Mortimer, is stamped with the general futility of all the King’s writs in Glamorgan. Rhys was to take and seize into the King’s hands the lands of the enemy and rebel Roger Mortimer, namely, Kery, Kedewyn, Melenyth, Powytz (Powys), and Wyggemore (Wigmore), and punish “in bodies and in goods” all who adhered to him.

Rhys was the King’s best Welsh friend, faithful and true to the end, but the King seems to have expected him to be able to command and control a divided and distracted country, and to bring all the forces he could muster to the King, with the ease with which Rhys had formerly mustered his countrymen for a parade on the Scottish border.

Before leaving Tintern the King bethought him to issue an order respecting the defence of the Forest of Dean. John de Felton, “Douenaldus de Mar,” “Hugo de Turpliton.” and “Gregorius de Castro” were ordered to remain at their posts in the marches.

CHEPSTOW From the 16th to the 21st, the King was at “Strogoill.” This is the almost invariable form of the name in the documents of the period. In the Domesday Book it is Estrighoiel. In a Welsh chronicle it is Ystreigl and Ystrigyl. Richard de Clare, who led an army of Welshmen to Ireland in

1172, is called Iarll (Earl) Ystrigyl. His father, Gilbert de Clare, had probably got possession of Chepstow before 1114. Richard was the ancestor of the earls of Gloucester. (Edwards, “Wales,” 96.).

It was at Chepstow that the wedge of conquest was always driven in. On the opposite shore of the Severn is a place called Aust Cliff, probably the Penrhyn (Headland) Awstin or Hawstin of the Triads. This name, it is said, commemorates the advent of the Romans, who had their Trajectus (Passage) into Wales at this spot. Opposite Chepstow they established a stipendiaria, Venta Silurum, Caerwent. In the heart of Gwent they planted a colonia, Isca Silurum, Caerleon, the Camp of the Legion, where the second Augustan legion was permanently posted.

Chepstow is the Aber Gwy, the Mouth of the Wye, of Welsh mythology. Close by is supposed to be the mysterious Oper Linn Liguan, Liuan, Aber Llyn Lliwan. The Twrch Trwyth of the Mabinogi of Kulhwch and Olwen, a king transformed into a formidable boar on account of his sins, was hunted, with his offspring, by Arthur’s men from Ireland, across South Wales, and out into Cornwall at Aber Gwy. The Twrch carried between his ears a comb, a razor, and a pair of shears. Kulhwch could not marry Olwen until these precious articles should be procured - the comb, we may suppose, for the bride, the razor for the bridegroom, and the pair of shears for both as a useful reminder of the state of matrimony. After a furious conflict between Aber Gwy and Llyn Lliwan (which is somewhere on the Severn), Arthur’s men got hold of the razor and the pair of shears, but the Twrch, with the comb, escaped to Cornwall, thence to the sea, and nothing has ever been heard of him from that time to this.

“The Twrch,” says Dr. Rhys, “would seem to have crossed somewhere opposite the mouth of the Wye, let us say not very far from Aust.” It looks as if Cornwall at that time, whatever time it was, extended to Aust. Henwen, also, Dallweir Dallben’s sow, a Triad relates, went burrowing as far as the Headland of Awstin in Kernyw, Cornwall. There she took to the sea, and landed at Aber Torogir or Tarogi, now called Troggy, or Caldicot Pill, Coll, the son of Collfrewi, her keeper, keeping his grip on her bristles whatever way she went by sea or land. Thence she burrowed her way throughout Wales,

dropping place-names along her track, of which Maes Gwenith in Gwent is one. (Rhys, “Celt. Folk.”

503-543.).

A PIVOT FOR CONQUEST The Saxon, Angle, and Dane strove to obtain possession of this pivot for conquest. Harold, earl of Wessex, obtained a footing here. His name, they say, is commemorated in Ewyas Harold.

After subjugating the Welsh borders, Harold set about erecting a magnificent building at Portskewet, where “he could have a little quiet hunting in Wales.” But Cradoc, son of Griffin, says Matthew of Westminster, “an outlawed descendant,” says Mr. O. M. Edwards, of the old princes of Glamorgan, came and carried everything away. Harold, however, could pay no further attention to Wales. The revolt of the lawless Northumbrians, the death of Edward the Confessor, and his own fall at Senlac followed each other in quick succession.” (“Wales,” 43.).

The Domesday Book, as the reader knows, touches only upon the fringes of Wales, but it contains, as Freeman says, “a sort of an appendix, or, rather, preface, to Gloucestershire, the account of a district which has no more definite name than ‘Wales,’ but which pretty well answers to the part of Monmouthshire between the Wye and the Usk.” “In one case only do we find any possession beyond the Usk. Toustain, the son of Rou, he who bore the banner at Senlac, had seventeen carucates ‘intra Huscham et Waiam’ and seven carucates ‘ultra Huscham. (“Norman Conquest,” II. 709.).

Students of English history are familiar with the picture, copied from the Bayeux Tapestry, representing Toustain bearing the Consecrated Banner before the Conqueror. He seems to have been one of the first of the Conqueror’s followers to obtain possession of parts of ancient Morganwg. The Domesday Book was finished in 1086. Toustain by that time had lands between the Usk and the Wye, and beyond the Usk. He seems also to have penetrated into the heart of Breconshire. Does not the name of an old mansion between Talgarth and Llangorse, Tredwstan, commemorate the Senlac standard-bearer? As that place is also situate between the Wye and the

Usk, all of Toustain’s lands should be looked for, perhaps, in that direction. He might have found his way thither through Hereford.

HUGH THE BARGAINER It is not to be supposed that Hugh the younger, lord of Glamorgan, who had no inherited right to Chepstow, could have been for long happy without it. We have in connection with Chepstow a glimpse of Hugh as bargainer. The mouse of the bargain was the King’s brother, Thomas of Norfolk, Marshal of England. It looks like a bargain struck in drink, and the mouse is now at Gloucester, if not nearer, bent on reclaiming its own again from the cat.

Hugh had been two years in possession of the district. On August 17, 1324, Thomas granted to Hugh, for life, the castle of “Strogoill” and the manors and towns of “Chepstowe” and “Tudenham,” and all his other lands beyond the “Severne” between that water and the water of “Weye,” and in the marches of Wales outside the counties of England, except the office of the marshalsea as it appertained to the said castle and land. Note that Strogoill is distinguished from Chepstow. All the aforesaid land, with all knights’ fees, advowsons, franchises, etc., were granted to Hugh at the yearly rent of £200 sterling. But in consideration of 1,200 marks paid to him beforehand

by Hugh, Thomas released the said rent to Hugh for life and all action for waste. As it happened, Thomas did not lose much money, and he had the strongest of motives for joining the hunt for Hugh.

LANCASTER’S LANDS A popular element in the Queen’s war-cry was the avenging of Thomas of Lancaster. Thomas headed the barons, in 1312, in their revolt against the favourite Gaveston, whom they beheaded.

Against the King’s will, Thomas afterwards openly assumed the government of the Kingdom in the interests of the barons. The King chose a new favourite, Hugh the younger. Thomas and the barons seized London, held a Parliament, and banished the Despensers, father and son. The King roused himself at this insult, gathered an army, re-called the Despensers, and at the Battle of

Boroughbridge, March 16, 1322, Thomas was taken prisoner, and “was beheaded with every mark of indignity in sight of his own castle of Pontefract.” Such was the fate of the man who pushed forward during the reign of Edward II. the cause for which Simon de Montfort fought so well during the reign of Henry III., and Humphrey Bohun and Roger Bigod during the reign of Edward I. “Henry of Lancaster,” Stubbs remarks, “now known as Earl of Leicester, was a man of noble character, but Edward might well distrust him, as, having his brother’s wrongs to avenge, and a claim, as yet unsatisfied, on his brother’s inheritance.” Henry was a kinsman of the King’s, and the latter might, had he wished it, made him a trusted counsellor and faithful ally. If there was a man living at the time capable of sacrificing the sweetness of revenge to the welfare of the kingdom, he was Henry of Lancaster. When there was no alternate for him to choose but to join in the Queen’s campaign of revenge, he certainly had no design against the King.

Henry owned lands in upper Gwent between Abergavenny and Monmouth. To block the advance of the Queen’s forces to Glamorgan along Henry’s lands, the King at Chepstow on the 20th, ordered “Hugh, son of Hugh, the King’s nephew,” called also “Hugolinus,” son of Hugh the younger; Edmund Hacluyt, and “Bogo de Knouyll” to seize the castles and lands of “Henricus de Lancastria,” namely, Grosmound (Grosmont), Kenfrith (Ynys Cynwreid, Ynys Cynfrie, Ysgynvraith, Scynffridd, now called Skenfrith), and White Castle. They were empowered to use all forcible means to obtain possession, except by setting’ fire to the castles, “which they were not to do.” It seems that Henry’s castles were well defended. The half-hearted order as to “forcible means” seems characteristic of Edward the man. He could not, perhaps, screw that conscience upon which the death of Thomas of Lancaster must have weighed heavily at such a time of solemn heart-searching for the King, to plan a deliberate injury to the only man, perhaps, who, of all the leaders of the campaign of revenge, could honestly regard it as a campaign of Righteous retribution. Besides, a, deliberate injury to Henry would have exasperated beyond measure the people who had joined the Queen to avenge the earl who was more honoured in his death than in his life.

If we are justified in reading so much between the lines of the King’s writ referred to, such leniency towards Henry was nobly responded to by the latter when he had the King in his power. But the writ seems to have been only so much parchment wasted. It was supplemented by an order to Richard and John Wroth, a name honoured in the annals of Monmouth Nonconformity, to seize Grosmont, and another to John Beneyt (Benet) to be custodian of the castle of Monemowe (Monmouth), another castle of Henry’s. The Queen’s soldiers seem to have had their way to Glamorgan, with Henry and through his lands, practically unimpeded. Hugolinus did not win his spurs in that quarter, and we shall meet with him a week hence defending his father’s castle of Caerphilly.

While the King’s appeals were scattered abroad seemingly altogether in vain, Mortimer, pressing onward to “his own,” had already indulged his revenge upon three of the King’s friends.

Edmund Earl of Arundel, was one of the lords marchers who sided with the King. “He was faithful,” says Stubbs, but carried “little weight.” He was sometime justiciary of Wales. His lands, according to a document quoted already, were in Ceri, Cydewain, Clon, Oswestry, and Chirk. He was, apparently, a too close neighbour of the Mortimers. On the Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, states a Peniarth “continuation” of a Welsh chronicle, he was caught by the burgesses of Shrewsbury in the monastery.” In this case, as well as in the case of John Daniel, whom the King had sent to seize a portion of Mortimer’s possessions, we see the people, the Rogerites and their sympathisers, anticipating the wishes of their lord before he could have actually reached his lordship. At any rate, on the 17th, at Hereford, the Earl of Arundel, John Daniel, and Thomas de Micheldevere (also Michildevere) were, says Walsingham, through the instrumentality of Lord Roger de Mortuo Mari, who hated them, beheaded.”

THE THREE HUGHS It is quite possible that there were with the King at Chepstow three generations of the famous and notorious Despensers. Note both epithets. As the reader is aware, there were four successive generations of Hughs; what is more remarkable is the continuity of administrative ability of the highest order in that family. The first Hugh was justiciary of England; the second, the Earl of Winchester, was eminently qualified to act as the King’s counsellor; the third, the first Despenser lord of Glamorgan, was as eminently fitted to be the King’s companion. Of the fourth we shall have more to say later. Suffice it to say here that, after two fierce attempts, in which practically all England was combined, to destroy the family, Hugh the fourth regained the lordship of Glamorgan, and handed it on to other Despensers.

But an acquisitive statesman is far worse than a contradiction in terms. History has but one verdict on the abuse of delegated power for selfish ends, be the instance as old as a tomb-building Cheops, or as recent as the latest triumph of Tammany. That the Despensers should have incurred the wrath of their peers is but natural. The jealousy of rivals is a flattering compliment to a statesman. The two Hughs, the counsellor and the companion of Edward II., were destroyed not so much by the wrath of their peers as by the curse of the peasant.

From Chepstow Hugh the elder was sent to his doom at Bristol. On the 16th he was appointed “Captain and Chief Leader of all the forces, as well horse and foot, in Somerset, Dorset, Wilts, Southampton, Cornwall and Devon, for the defence of the country against the enemies, aliens, and rebels” who had invaded the same. A large order, too large even as an expression of the King’s confidence at Chepstow, for on the 20th Hugh was given a briefer order, to go to Bristol and place that city in a state for defence.

The three Hughs were never to meet again. Charity must preside over the solemn parting of such a father, a son, and a grandson, in the presence of such a King, all drinking as they part from the same bitter cup. Let Shakespeare’s Regan point the moral;

“O, sir, to wilful men, The injuries that they themselves procure Must be their schoolmasters.�

CHAPTER VI LUNDY - THE FORTRESS OF THE FAIRIES From Chepstow, on the 21st, the King put out to sea, and so must we do for particulars of the cruise. For five days the official recorder is silent. It seems tolerably certain that the King took ship in order to make for Lundy Island. One chronicler says that he took with him Hugh the Younger, Chancellor Baldock, and “two other knights,” one of which, doubtless, was Simon de Redyng.

The earlier chroniclers differ from the later in the explicitness with which they speak of the King putting out to sea at Chepstow. Thence (the King), moving on to Chepstow … entered a vessel with the intention of making for Londay” (Moor). The continuator of Murimuth and the “Flores” connect the sea voyage with the King’s stay at Chepstow.

Walsingham goes further. In one place he says that the King had resolved to flee to Ireland, and in another place he says: “The King … putting out to sea, determined to flee, first to the impregnable isle of Londay, and also eventually to Ireland.” Ireland is thus represented to have been the pre-determined ulterior objective of the flight, with Lundy as a provision depot and a refuge from impending dangers. Walsingham’s words express absolute certainty on this point. Moreover, the continuator of Murimuth’s chronicle says that the King, while on the sea, “was bent upon crossing over, if he could, to distant parts,” according to one version, “to parts over the sea.” This essential agreement on the main fact points to information which was common knowledge to both chroniclers. The ports of his wife’s country offered to the King no friendly retreat. Ireland seems to have been the only refuge open for him.

The Lord of Glamorgan was not likely to have overlooked the strategic value of Lundy. He had induced the King to give him its custody. It is said also that the place had been specially provisioned for a possible refuge for the King. The inventory of the supplies kept at Lundy corresponds almost exactly with the King’s order, a few weeks previously, for provisioning the castle

of Conway. It seems likely, also, that Hugh the Younger had his own ship at Chepstow ready to convey the party to Lundy or to Ireland.

As Lundy is very little known, even to many who live in sight of it, a few particulars about it, more or less connected with our narrative, may be tolerated here.

Lundy is a small precipitous island lying off the north coast of Devonshire, in the Bristol Channel, opposite Bideford Bay, and about nine miles north-west of Hartland Head. It contains an area of 920 acres. Its population is about fifty persons, “chiefly employed in shooting rabbits and sea-fowl for their skins and feathers.”

Let us now peruse Stow’s quaint translation of a passage from Moor, repeated by Le Baker: The King, Hugh Spencer, the younger, and Robert Baldocke determined to flee into the Ile of Londay, which is in the mouth of the river Severne, two miles in length everie way, abounding with pasture grounds and oates, very pleasant: it bringeth forth conies verie plentifull; it hath pigeons and other fowles, which Alexander Necham calleth Ganimedes birdes, having great nestes. Also it ministoreth to the inhabitants fresh springing water flowing out of fountains, although it be on everie side environed with the salt sea; it hath onelie one entrance into it in the which two men together can scarce go in afront; on all other partes there is an high hanging over of a great rocke, which letteth the passage to this island, as we have said: it aboundeth altogether with victualles, and is very full of wines, oile, hony, corne, bragget, salt-fish, flesh, and sea or earth coales.

The reader will bear in mind that the above description was written not long after the events of our story, but the good old monk who wrote it paid more attention to Lundy’s larder than to the facts of the King’s cruise.

When the chronicler fails it is the turn of the poet. Westcote, in his “History of Devonshire,” quotes a poet whom he does not name: -

To Londi, which in Sabrin’s mouth doth stand, Carried with hope (still hoping to find ease), Imagining it were his native land, England itself; Severn, the narrow seas, With this conceit (poor soul ?) himself doth please.

And sith his rule is over-ruled by men, On birds and beasts, he’ll king it o’er again.

‘Tis treble death a freezing death to feel, For him on whom the sun hath ever shone; Who hath been kneeled unto, can hardly kneel.

Nor hardly beg which once hath been his own.

A fearful thing to tumble from a throne!

Fain would he be King of a little isle; All were his empire bounded in a mile.

The poet quoted was either Drayton or one who was on borrowing terms with him. Drayton, whose history of the events is deplorable, is worth quoting: Who seeking refuge, offered next at hand, At last for Wales he takes him to the seas, And seeing Lundy that so fair did stand,

Thither would steer to give his sorrows ease; That little model of his greater land, As in a dream his fancy seemed to please: For fain he would be King yet of an isle, Although his empire bounded in a mile.

CAER SIDI “Lundy,” Drayton says, “like ally’d to Wales and England is.” The island, in fact, deserves, if not a chapter, at least a long footnote in a complete history of Wales. It is mentioned in the Triads, with Anglesey and Man, as one of the “outpost islands” of Britain. Not long before the Norman era Cornwall and Devon was “West Wales,” a sufficient indication of the importance of Lundy as a Welsh island. Prof. Rhys has recently drawn the attention of Welsh students to the history, or, rather, the pre-history, of the island, the hazy history of the purely Welsh (or Goidelic) Mabinogion.

In his “Celtic Folklore,” pp. 678, 679, Prof. Rhys shows that it is not improbable that Lundy is the Caer Sidi of the “Book of Taliessin.” Omitting the Welsh extracts, we take the liberty of quoting the translations and remarks of Prof. Rhys on this interesting point. The text is taken from Skene’s “Four Ancient Books of Wales,” ii. 153-5, 181-2. Noticing that the fairies in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland take their designation chiefly from a word “sid” or “sith,” Prof. Rhys says:- “Borrowed from this, or suggested by it, we have in Welsh ‘Caer Sidi,’ the ‘Fortress of the Fairies,’ which is mentioned twice in the ‘Book of Taliessin.’ It first occurs at the end of poem XIV, where we have the following lines, which recall Irish descriptions of Tir nan Og, or the Land of the Young: Perfect is my seat in the fort of Sidi, Nor pest nor age plagues him who dwells therein: Manawyddan and Pryderi know it.

Three organs play before it about a fire.

Around its corners Ocean’s currents flow, And above it is the fertile fountain, And sweeter than white wine is the drink therein.

The wine is elsewhere mentioned, but the arrangement of the organs around a fire requires explanation which I cannot give. The fortress is on an island, and in poem XXX of the ‘Book of Taliessin’ we read of Arthur and his men sailing thither in his ship Prydwen: the poem is usually called the ‘Spoils of Annwn,’ and the lines in point run thus:Perfect was the prison of Gwair in Caer Sidi, Thanks to Pwyll and Pryderi’s emissary.

Before him no one entered into it, To the heavy, dark chain held by a faithful youth; And before the spoils of Annwn sorely he sang, And thenceforth remains he till doom a bard.

Three freights of Prydwen went we thither, But only seven returned from Caer Sidi.

The incidents in these lines are mostly unintelligible to me, but the incarceration of Gweir or Gwair, together with other imprisonments, including that of Arthur in Caer Oeth and Anoeth (p.

619), are mentioned also in the Triads (see i. 50, ii. 7, 49, iii. 61). It is not improbable that the legend about Gwair located his prison on Lundy, as the Welsh name of that island appears to have been Ynys Wair, ‘Gwair’s Isle.’ Pwyll and Pryderi did not belong to Annwn, nor did Pryderi’s friend Manawyddan; but the Mabinogi of Pwyll relates how for a whole year Pwyll exchanged crown and

kingdom with Arawn king of Annwn, from whom he obtained the first breed of domestic pigs for his own people (pp. 69, 525).”

Respecting the connection of “sid” with the Welsh “Sidi,” Prof. Rhys adds in a note:- “The Welsh passages, unfortunately, fail to show whether it was pronounced ‘sidi’ or ‘siddi’: should it prove the latter, I should regard it as the Irish word borrowed.” (The common Welsh “dd” has been here used for the mediaeval form of the text, represented in English by soft “th.”)

The writer has collected some particulars which confirm Prof. Rhys’ cautious “not improbable,” and which may induce further research on the island itself. The excursion boats leave the island severely alone. The writer has been informed that the islanders manage to communicate with the main-land with tolerable regularity once a fortnight. Expert archaeologists, to the writer’s knowledge, steadily avoid objects of interest much more accessible. Lundy defies the bravest of the tribe. But a few have succeeded in extracting some of its secrets. We are indebted to Mr. J. R. Chanter for a fairly complete history of the island. But our up-to-date “Cambrians” should be banished to the island for a whole week instead of rolling in carriages about places which almost everybody knows fairly well.

“Perfect is my seat in the fort of Sidi.”

The officer in charge of the district wrote to the Admiralty, June 21, 1667. “A dozen good men could secure it from the world.” (Chanter’s Lundy Island,” 90).

“Nor pest nor age plagues him who dwells therein.”

There is evidence to show that the island is a very healthy place. It was a fortress and a prison. As primitive camps or fortresses were undoubtedly very unhealthy, the archaeologist will note a special significance in the bard’s allusion to pest.

“Around its corners Ocean’s currents flow.”

The chroniclers describe the island to be square. By actual survey it is not so. “It is about three-and-a-half miles long from north to south, but very irregular in breadth, which may be said to average half a mile” (Chanter’s, L. I. 167). Still, to the passing voyager, it may have the appearance of a four-cornered island. But if its corners do not quite fit the ancient bards “banneu,” its peaks do.

Indeed, one would hazard the opinion that the word should be translated, not “comers,” but by its common meaning, “peaks” or beacons,” as in Bannau Brycheiniog, the Brecknock Beacons. The word may be used for the precipitous extremities of Lundy, but it seems still more applicable to its peaks.

As the word is applicable to both, the bard’s description is strikingly accurate. “As seen nearer, the Island shows itself a lofty table-headed rock, rising to the average height of 500 feet, surrounded by steep and occasionally perpendicular rocks, storm-beaten, riven, and scarred over with grisly seams and clefts, and hollowed out here and there along the shore into fantastic caves and grottoes, with huge piles of granite thrown in wild disorder (Ibid, 10). “The massive granite rocks are piled in blocks, often resembling the work of human hands, or jut up into pinnacles.” (Ibid, 24). Beacon Hill is 525 feet high, Tibbet’s Hill, 515. There is also a Sugar Loaf Rock.

“OCEAN’S CURRENTS” The currents round the “corners” of Lundy are the despair of the local navigator and the terror of the tourist. From the swell occasioned by its exposed situation in the tidal stream running round the south coast of Wales and up the Bristol Channel, and the great prevalence of wind, it is generally surrounded by surf, and there is always more or less of a race at the north end and off the S.W. and S.E. angles.” (Ibid, 18).

“And above it is the fertile fountain.”

Lundy is not destitute of fresh water, which is in general soft and pure. Springs abound in many parts, and there is evidence of two or three artificial ponds having formerly existed. Several small streamlets ooze out of the upland, and find their way through narrow valleys or gulleys to the sea. The spongy nature of the soil causes the course of these streams to form bogs in most places.

Grose, writing in 1775, gives a full account of these streamlets. ‘In the south division are St. Helen’s, St. John’s, and Parson’s Wells, from the two first of which flow rivulets discharging themselves down two valleys on the east side of the Island. In the middle division there is a spring called Golden Well, and two rivulets towards the north end of the division, one discharging on the east side and the other on the west, down Punch-bowl valley. The north Island has no springs, but is very dry and barren. (Ibid, 27, 28.).

The above description seems satisfactory enough for our purpose. It may be difficult to decide now which was the “fertile fountain” of the bard. Spongy bogs now represent many famous wells. The words, “Several streamlets ooze out of the uplands,” form a striking comment on the bard’s words, “And above it is the fertile fountain.” The soft and pure “fresh water” of Lundy may be “sweeter than white wine,” if properly tested by one who is not a wine drinker.

“Before him no one entered into it, To the heavy, dark chain held by a faithful youth.”

It would take a stout heart to court, the “lusty black- brow’d girl, with forehead broad and high,” as Drayton calls Lundy. As an old author describes it, “So immured with rocks and impaled with beetle-browed cliffs, that there is no entrance but for friends.” (Ibid, 10). It affords only one narrow landing place on the S.E. side, near Rat Island. Here, however, there is a safe anchorage in from two to twelve fathoms of water.” (“Encyc. Brit.”).

From the landing-place a good carriage-road winds up through a little valley or ravine, forming the only access to the summit of the Island. This road was made some years since by the present proprietor of the Island, the Trinity House paying him an annual sum for permission to use it, and towards keeping it in repairs. In olden time the only ascent was by a steep, narrow path through the ravine, just wide enough for a horse to pass, which led up to a platform, where two roads met, one conducting to the castle and the other to the Island

generally; and at this point are traces of an ancient wall, at each side of the way, built to guard the entrance, where, it is said, there was a gate and heavy chains formerly fixed. (Chant, p. 24.)

Those “heavy chains” certainly dispose of Prof. Rhys’ “not improbable.” Not only the identity of Lundy with Caer Sidi has been fairly established, but we have also preserved to us a most accurate primitive guide to the island. It describes an island which must be Lundy, and describes it as only one who had seen it could. We are probably taken back by it to those stirring times when the Iberian, Goidel, and the Brython fought for the possession of the Severn sea.

There is another feature of Lundy which may further help in identifying it in some obscure passages of our bards. The grey cliffs rise perpendicular from the sea to a height of from one to two hundred feet. Then a broad, steep slope, green or russet brown, according to the season (being over-grown with ferns), very even and regular, loyally called the ‘Sidelands’ or ‘Sidings,’ carries up the elevation to four or five hundred feet, when the flat summit commences.” (Ibid, 25).

Beside Caer Sidi and Ynys Wair, as names for Lundy, there is a Caer Weir mentioned in an elegy on Cunedda (Myv. Arch. 60). The name Lundy, Mr. Chanter thinks, has a “Danish ring.”

Lundy was for ages a stronghold for pirates, who seem also to have had a particular liking for the harbour now known as Penarth Dock. A pirate named Morisco or Marisco held the island at the beginning of the thirteenth century, who erected a fortress on it. The fortress was in later times garrisoned by Lord Say for Charles I. Capgrave has preserved a curious tale about Marisco: In the XIX. yere of the Kyng (Henry III.), at Wodstok, cam in a clerk, whech feyned him a prophete, and sumtyme feyned him frentik, whech had upon him to scharp knyves, with whech he had slayn the Kyng, had not a holy woman sent him warnyng. So was he taken and sent to Coventre, there drawen and hanged. Men sey that he was sent be on William Marys

that was outlawed, and dwelled in a ylde betwix Cornwayle and Wales. Thei that dwelle there clepe it Lundy. - Capgrave’s Chronicle of England, 154.)

Relating to the connection of Lundy with Wales, a statement by Malkin should not be omitted: – “The island of Lundy was also given to him (to Mr. Bushel, Sir Hugh Middleton’s successor at the mines of Cardiganshire) for the purpose of landing his produce, till he had an opportunity of exporting it. For the further convenience of his trade, he constructed a harbour at Lundy, where his vessels might lie in safety, till they could venture their passage up the Bristol Channel to the mouth of the Severn.” (Malkin’s “South Wales,” II. 13).

Though this long digression may seem foreign to our purpose, the reader will find it all useful in attempting to realise the sad plight of the fugitive mariners, as further related in the next chapter.

CHAPTER VII THE KING AT SEA Relying on the substantial agreement of the chroniclers as to the fact, the King, by putting out to sea at Chepstow, struck a fatal blow at his own cause. He had spent eleven days between Gloucester and Chepstow, issuing commands all the time to bring forces to his aid. He must have ascertained, with the aid of the lord of Glamorgan, that there was little hope of gathering an army in Gwent. But by placing himself at sea, he extinguished the last spark of hope in the hearts of is wavering supporters. By the time he turned up in Wales again, the agents of the Queen and of Mortimer had done their work so well among the people that there was little more to do but to give his cause an indecent burial.

Cancelling all his hastily-formed plans by the flight from Chepstow, the poor King was sadly deceived by Hugh’s shrewd plan for the personal safety of the party. It was October, when the customary gales swept the Bristol Channel. The elements completed the discomfiture of the miserable fugitives.

They failed to land at Lundy. We have learnt that there is only one entrance into the island, and that only for friends. So strong is the race round its corners that a North Devon skipper will not consent to take you over to Lundy, in calm weather, without many preliminary head- shakings. The gales of October, 1326, were on time. The fugitives seem to have spent five days in a continuous storm. “The King, being desirous to saile thither (to Lundy), a contrary wind did altogether/withstand him.” Drayton follows the chroniclers.

But when he thought to strike his prosperous sail, As under lee, past dangers of the flood, A sudden storm of mixed sleet and hail, Not suffereth him to rule that piece of wood;

What doeth his labour, what his toil avail, That is by the Celestial Powers withstood?

And all his hopes him vainly to delude.

The King now could not “rule that piece of wood.” In trying to dove-tail these humiliating details, it requires an effort of imagination to bear in mind that the subject of our story is a King of England. Here beginneth a series of the keenest checks and disappointments which a proud man could bear. But this is only a prelude, so to speak, to keener pangs and worse plights. There is a steady gradation observable in this King’s trials, reaching an artistically fitting climax.

The King, it seems, did not spend all his time at sea trying to reach Lundy. Murimuth and the “Flores” state significantly that he had “placed himself on the sea,” as if he were escaping to a safe distance from a foe at his heels. Both also say “The King was all the time hiding on the Severn Sea.” His faithful followers were now wondering where he was, and his enemies, doubtless, were out on an otter hunt after him on both sides of the Channel. It seems safe to say that, whatever was the intermediate or ultimate design of the King’s sea-flight, he had been forced to take to the sea, to the fatal disarrangement of the plans outlined in his writs, by the nearness and strength of his enemies.

The poor King was now as much “at sea” as the common phrase is capable of expressing. He had with him his Chancellor, and the resourceful and mighty lord of one side of the Channel. But though a whole kingdom with its acting cabinet was in one boat, it could not “rule that piece of wood.” Almost within hailing distance of the distinguished mariners was the still abler father of the lord of Glamorgan, in special charge of all the King’s forces on the other side of the same Channel.

Rare, indeed, are such instances of so much power paralysed, and such far-reaching projects and comprehensive plans frustrated, in such a short time and simple way.

Walsingham says: “Brought to a standstill (or anchored) amidst the dangers of the sea, he (the King) vacillated miserably for a week.” This remark goes far to prove that the traditional

accounts of the sea-flight are substantially true. The time practically corresponds with the gap in the official records. A radical flaw in the King’s character is revealed. We are assured that he had much of the courage of his family, but in this, as well as in other crises in his life, he lacked decision and resolution in working out deliberate plans. Some would have it that he was a coward in battle, and his strange conduct in many a field gives colouring to the assertion. But he was a man of great, almost prodigious strength, and that he was personally courageous seems to be beyond doubt.

There is a total absence in his actions of the meanness which is the invariable companion of cowardice. But a Samson in body and heart might be found incapable of commanding a corporal’s squad. Our King, who loved to play with his tame lion on the way to battle, had certainly not the ability to command an army. He lacked the persistence, with the slow-burning vindictiveness, of his father. He preferred running away to fight another day. He fled from London to fight with his back to his native land. Disappointed in Wales, he tried to make for Ireland, a still safer retreat.

Notwithstanding that miserable “skedaddle” from Chepstow, it is a badly-advised King, not a coward, whose vicissitudes appeal to our sympathy to-day as they evoked the “mournful songs” of contemporary Welsh bards. If there was a coward in that “piece of wood,” he was Hugh the younger, whose conscience told him that even with the King at his side he could not honestly appeal for support to the Welshmen of Morganwg whom he had so deeply wronged. He was prepared at the time to yield to his enemies his much vaunted power in that quarter and the land of refuge to which he had enticed the King, doubtless, under false pretences. The inner meaning of the flight from London becomes very clear. It was the flight of the Despensers for their very lives, dragging the poor King with them. Little recked they what would have become of the King if his body could shield them from the inevitable blow. For the second time, Hugh was seeing his vast possessions vanishing from his grasp like a dream, and it is impossible to credit him with sincerity in leading the King to expect support from Hugh’s oppressed people.

CHRONICLERS AT SEA But let us proceed to dove-tail further particulars of the sea-trip. Henry of Knighton says that the King, fleeing from London, “directed his course towards Bristol.” That is true enough, but he did not actually visit Bristol on his westward flight. Henry is provokingly vague in other statements of his.

The later chroniclers have compiled a marvellous tale of how the King sought refuge in the castle of Bristol, how he escaped from the castle at the time it was taken by the Queen’s soldiers, and how the Almighty performed, a miracle to frustrate the King’s design. We notice that the earlier chroniclers have tempered the severest censures of the King with evident kindliness, but the later annalists and historians do not hesitate to claim for the cruel, adulterous Queen the exclusive protection of Heaven. The verdict of our greatest modern authority agrees with that of the chroniclers who were, to some extent, contemporaries of Edward.

It is an article in the creed of the folklorist that the benefit of the doubt should be given to every time-honoured legend. He is compelled to shatter many a popular idol, but it is in order to secure, like other iconoclasts, some precious relic, to have it re-set in a more commendable form.

What the people believe the folklorist must believe also. He cannot obtain many a folklore secret unless he professes to believe in such things. His belief may differ from that of his informant, but no folklorist has learnt his business until he believes firmly that the floating literature of the people is as essentially true and as valuable as the literature that has been gathered into books. It looks as if the iconoclast has as much to do with the old world’s books as he has to do with the old world’s folklore.

These remarks, whatever their value may be, are here in point, for we are just beginning tackling with our local legends about Edward the Second.

It is likely that the later chroniclers have utilised some local traditions of the King’s sea-flight.

It is not likely that they borrowed the core fact, as was done with the Carnarvon legend, from the incident of the King’s previous visit to Bristol. Four years previously the King did visit the place on precisely the same business as the one he entrusted at Chepstow to Hugh the elder, namely, to put

the castle and town in a state of defence for the impending revolt of the barons, but he was then in no sore straits; he kept Easter quietly and undisturbed there. Although the previous visit, the length and occasion of the King’s stay, must have been deeply impressed on the minds of the inhabitants, it would reflect too badly on the stupidity of the legend-monger in this case to regard him as having confounded the two series of events.

Still less probable is the supposition that the King proceeded straight to Bristol from Chepstow. On that supposition, the appointment of Hugh the elder to be custodian of Bristol was a useless formality. Hugh did go to Bristol, and kept that place for the King during the time the latter was at sea. During that time, or, strictly speaking, up to the last day of the cruise, the King would have no difficulty in finding a refuge at Bristol. Further, we have no reason to doubt that Lundy was the immediate objective of the sea-flight.

BRISTOL The truth appears to be that the King, having failed to reach Lundy, was compelled to seek a refuge at Bristol, in the confident hope that Hugh the elder had succeeded in his mission. Our chief authority for this view is a French chronicler, Le Bel, whom Froissart copies. Out of that cruel October storm, Le Bel creates a miracle. “God would not permit them (the King and his party) to have their will, for they were overtaken by their sins. So a great marvel and a great miracle came to pass, for they were nine days in a small open boat, and they exerted themselves to row out (from Bristol) as far as they could; but after putting out some distance every day, an adverse wind, by the will of God, would drive them back again, and once or twice they were forced to row up close to the castle, so near they kept to the castle that they could see and recognise well those of the Queen’s host.”

This story needs a big pinch of salt. But after setting aside Le Bel’s miracle, with his chronology and geography, we may accept the grim skeleton of the tale. While the King was at sea he must have remained in uneasy ignorance of the rapid movements of the Queen’s army. It was the

rapidity and superior generalship of that army which, doubtless, caused him to lose his head at Chepstow. He had confidence in Hugh the elder’s ability to hold Bristol, and, his boat or ship drifting in that direction, it is quite possible that, in his ignorance of events, the King sought a refuge there.

It was on the 26th, probably, for on that day Bristol was taken, and Hugh the elder was brutally done to death by the Queen’s soldiers. What he might have learnt on approaching Bristol, from fleeing the Queen’s soldiers in possession and other means, was enough to stagger the strongest man. Additional elements enter to deepen the pathos and pity of the poor King’s plight.

The army which Hugh the elder was to gather in the West of England had no existence except on the King’s writ. Hugh, Earl of Winchester, the King’s counsellor, the ablest man in the realm, had paid his instalment of the penalty for the death of Thomas of Lancaster. When the news reached “that piece of wood,” Hugh the younger heard his own death knell. But even this was not to the King “the most unkindest cut of all.” He further learnt, or might have learnt, that at the moment, perhaps, that he intended to land there, he was being virtually stripped of his kingly authority, and his fourteen-yearold son proclaimed guardian of the realm. Yet even at this news his mighty heart did not burst, not because there was nothing to burst. He yearned for his heir’s company, even for his cruel wife. In his strength, as in his weakness, he was very human. But never surely was a King of England so hard to kill as our royal Welshman. He was throughout his life a sportsman pure and simple. In his end he imitated the career of the wildest and wiliest of big game, which never die naturally. It taxed the sporting resources of his enemies to the utmost to kill him. Bearish as the comparison may appear, one, cannot help thinking of an old roving Canadian bear, which, laden at last with too much lead, lays himself down to die, leaving to his enemies a skin rendered worthless by ancient and modern bullet scars.

THE KING HAS FLED. LONG LIVE THE KING! Let us now ourselves, for a few minutes, step out of the sea of traditions into the terra firma of history.

From Gloucester, where the lords of the north and of the marches joined her, the Queen, according to Stubbs, proceeded to Berkeley, “where she secured the alliance of the heir of the castle by restoring to him the estate which Hugh le Despenser had seized on the ground, probably, of his father’s treason. From Berkeley she went on with a constantly increasing host of retainers to Bristol, where on the 26th of October the carnage of the revolution began.” The last statement, as we have already seen, is not strictly accurate.

Hugh the elder had failed in his mission. He might have been able to hold Bristol for the King had the Queen’s army marched in some other direction. But he could not win the citizens. They not only shared with the commons of England a deep-rooted hatred of the Despensers, but the spirit of revolt in them had been nourished on local superstition. They were waiting for the chance to avenge the death, not of Thomas of Lancaster only, but also of Henry de Montford and Henry Wylyngton, who had been hanged at Bristol, and who were said to be working miracles by way of nursing the wrath of the citizens.

The carnage of the Queen’s war seems to have been committed all on one side. Bristol was taken with little or no struggle. Hugh the elder was given but the shortest shrift, and was done to death in the most approved fiendishly brutal fashion, which, we have reason to thank God, never stains the annals of the Welsh princes. It was duly introduced into Wales as one of the innumerable blessings in disguise which were enjoyed by our ancestors during the period of the Anglo-Welsh makeshift union, and which good historians tell us we ought to acknowledge with thanks.

Earl Thomas was avenged by hanging the Earl of Winchester. The most popular demand in the Queen’s war-cry, one would think, was now satisfied. But the Despensers, if possible, were to be extirpated, root and branch. Henry of Lancaster, noble man as we are told he was, did not consider his personal task as ended. As to the Queen, few, if anybody, believed in the sincerity of her declared mission. Her true purpose, after a signal success, was revealed at Bristol.

“While the King,” Walsingham tells us, “was fleeing and wandering outside his kingdom, public proclamation were made daily in the Queen’s army, in which the King was called, by the common voice, to return and resume his government,” if, in plain English, he would allow himself to be ruled by his subjects. The proclamations, probably, never reached the King, and, had they done so, it is less probable that he would have swallowed the bait. Still, it was a clever device to blind the people until their support was assured.

We turn now to Hallam for some light on the Bristol proceedings. He says that a record in the matter recites that the King having left his kingdom without government, and gone away with notorious enemies of the Queen, prince, and realm; divers prelates, earls, barons, and knights, then being at Bristol, in the presence of the said queen and duke (Prince Edward, duke of Cornwall), by the assent of the whole commonalty of the realm there being, unanimously elected the said duke to be guardian of the said kingdom; so that the said duke and guardian should rule and govern the said realm, in the name and by the authority of the King his father, he being thus absent” (Hallam’s Europe, etc. II. 174). At the time the heir was more frequently called Duke of Aquitaine.

The magnates who thus formally endorsed “the ultimate purpose of the invasion” were the Archbishop of Dublin, the Bishops of Winchester, Ely, Lincoln, Hereford, and Norwich, the earls of Norfolk and Kent, the King’s brothers, the earl of Leicester, Thomas Wake, Henry de Morle, and Robert de Wateville, “with others.”

With the favour of the Pope and the consent, of the lords, spiritual and temporal, assembled at Bristol, young Edward’s banner was now consecrated to the Queen’s nefarious designs, as the banner which Toustain bore before the Conqueror at Senlac. The remainder of her task was easy and simple. Hugh the younger must follow his father. The King must be captured. There was still one ceremony to be observed before the Queen and her paramour could attain the height of their ambition. Thomas de la Moor says that “the Queen, already most powerful under her son’s

standard, who was moved to pursue his father not from a malicious intent, but by wicked advice, ordered the army to move forward in pursuit of the King.”

Let us turn away from high-handed treason, to be followed from this to the end by a train of treacheries, to join once more the King, whom we left battling with the muddy waves of the Severn Sea. BACK TO WALES A record in the Fine Roll is dated at Cardiff on Oct. 26. Though the historians say the King reached Cardiff on the 27th, he must have arrived there, say, towards evening of the eventful day of the Bristol proceedings. He hastened away to make another appeal to his native land.

In that black tempest long turmoiled and tost, Quite from his course and well he knew not where, ‘Mongst rocks and sands in danger to be lost, Not in more peril than he was in fear; At length perceiving he was near some coast, And that the weather somewhat ‘gan to clear, He found ‘twas Wales; and by the mountains tall That part thereof which we Glamorgan call.

Drayton makes a second Columbus of the King. Fancy Hugh the younger unable to recognise his lordship, out of sight of which his ship probably never drifted!

On the point of the King’s landing in Wales the chroniclers are as confused as Drayton. Not one of them tells us exactly where he landed. “He steered for Wales” (Wals. “Ypodigma”). “He steered for Glamorgan” (Moor, Le Baker, Murimuth, “Flores,” Wals. “Hist. Angl.”) But with

remarkable unanimity, they represent the King as landing somewhere near Neath, making straight for the castle there, where, with equal unanimity, they say he was captured. With like indifference or ignorance, their accounts of the King’s capture, which, one would have expected, should have been as ample and as detailed as that crowning event of the reign demanded, are miserably brief, contradictory, and untrue. Wherever the Rolls guide us, the monks must be dismissed, with ceremony as scant as their information.

Dr. Gwenogfryn Evans has given us an extract, from an unpublished Welsh chronicle at Peniarth, which states that “on Sunday before the feast of Saint Simon and Jude, the King, with Sir Hugh, junior, fled through the Severn to Glamorgan from Bryste,” Bristow, Bristol. Here we have two definite statements, the first unquestionable, for the feast referred to falls on the 28th, the second in perfect accord with what can be ascertained of the truth about the Bristol visit. This is not the first nor the last instance we shall use of the light which some unpublished Welsh chronicles throw on points upon which historians have been all along in darkness. Still one meets frequently with instances of a more or less guarded contempt of Welsh chronicles. The other day, a writer, in the “Athenaeum,” frankly took Geoffrey of Monmouth as a true measure of “Celtic veracity.”

Stupendous ignorance! Why did he not select our Mabinogion as the measure of our veracity?

Everyone who knows anything of our Bruts, the chronicles upon which such a book as Edwards’ “Wales” is largely based, knows that Geoffrey’s work is classed with our Mabinogion, and Geoffrey, on his own pedestal, will out-last all the opprobrium heaped on his shoulders. As to the veracity of English chronicles, it is to be feared, before our tale is ended, that the enthusiastic reader may wish to have a big bonfire made of them. But we do not share our neighbours’ contempt of any ancient chronicles, and have no wish to imitate our neighbours example so far as to set up a bibliographical Smithfield. Defective as they are, the English chronicles, nevertheless, are indispensable for our present purpose. The old Welsh chronicles our English reader will observe - and we have absolutely no quarrel with any decent Englishmen, and we are the loyallest English subjects the sun shines upon - do not come down to the reign of Edward II. There is one chronicle, it is true, which has been

amplified and tinkered so as to include events of a later period in a chronological chaos. The additions, too, relate mainly to the history of Glamorgan. It is of some value, and the facts jumbled together may yet be restored to their proper setting. But even as it is, it throws no light upon the King’s itinerary.

HUGH’S SHIP After steering our small boat, the best we can, through the sudd of traditions in quest of the King’s track at sea, it is a relief to be able to find good anchorage at the end of the chapter in an interesting piece of record, so useful to our purpose that we take the liberty of copying the full translation of it from the “Cardiff Records,” III. p. 18.

After the man-hunt was all over, the King in prison, the Queen in power, and the new King, under her, signing writs and cheques for her, Edward III. issued the following order:For Walter Cote and others. The King unto all to whom, & know ye that whereas the Lady Isabel, Queen of England, Our most dear mother, and We Ourselves before we took up the reins of government of Our kingdom, granted of Our gift unto Our beloved Walter Cote.

Thomas Balchier, Thomas do Chiselbergh, and John le Longe, mariners of Bristol, for their gratuitous service, the ship which was of Hugh le Despenser the younger, Our late enemy and rebel, in which he the said Hugh put in to Kerdif, with all the gear of the same, as in Our letters patent unto them thereof made is more fully contained. We accepting the gift aforesaid, will and grant that they the said Walter, Thomas, Thomas, and John shall have the aforesaid ship with the gear thereof, according to the tenour of the letters aforesaid. In witness, and Witness the King at Westminster on the 7th day of February, (I Edw. III. 1327.).

So, it was a ship, and not Le Bel’s small boat. Hugh the younger owned it; and it was probably at Chepstow ready to be chartered for Lundy, which Hugh held, and which he had stocked and garrisoned for a King’s refuge. The Bristol mariners named were probably the crew. They

probably remained with the ship at Cardiff until they knew that the owner had been despatched.

What the “gratuitous service” was they rendered to the Queen’s cause one can hardly guess.

Perhaps it was the handing over of the ship to the Queen. When the Despensers were no more, there was a Klondike rush from every quarter for a share in their vast possessions, especially of persons who wanted to reclaim their own, for much of the Despensers’ property belonged by right to other people. The Queen, after destroying both father and son, issued orders right and left to try to stop the looting of the Despenser property. An abbot was strictly enjoined to keep some cash which had been banked with him. Some Glamorgan chieftains simply re-entered their own lands, and asked for leave to do so afterwards. The Bristol mariners were not likely let go their ship without a reward. They saw a chance to earn it by a “gratuitous service,” aye, the service of the poorer folk at the time was gratuitous enough. Little was their share of the spoils. But four stout mariners in a tight ship that had weathered the Channel at its worst could parley for terms as well as a lord from his castle. They thoroughly deserved the ship by not turning pirates on the spot. As it is expressly said that the Queen granted them the ship, the suggestion that the action was prompted by the filial affection of the young King, and by a desire to reward the men who had suffered with his father the trials and terrors of the sea-flight, though it forces itself for notice, can hardly be entertained.

CHAPTER VIII RAISING THE SILURES “I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.”

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“Henry V.”

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“King John.”

“O, let me have no subject enemies, When adverse foreigners affright my towns With dreadful pomp of stout occasion!”

Perhaps these quotations express in a measure the complex feelings of the King, as he stepped out of Hugh’s ship at Cardiff to make a final appeal right to the hearts of his countrymen.

Wales shares with Oxford the honour of being the home of lost causes, with this great difference - that, while Oxford seems incapable of entertaining more than one great cause at a time, and that for a short time, we in Wales, while we welcome every good new cause, crowd the dear, decrepit old causes to the warmest corners of the hearth. We may have not actually, certainly not willingly, let one of them die. We who have changed so little since the time Gerald the Welshman portrayed us to the life, do not want either to change or to lose anything we have treasured, in thought, traditions, customs, and manners. Everything distinctively Welsh has the life of a snake a thousandfold. Scotch it, cut it up into mincemeat with your hyper-critical sword, the severed fragments will re-unite almost as surely as by a natural law. The reader knows that we have dared to assail some popular fictions in this tale. But nobody and nothing Welsh can be seriously hurt that way. One, at least, of the fictions referred to has since re-appeared as hale and as hearty as ever, namely, the Madog mabinogi. But it matters little what any cold-blooded critic may think and say.

English critics will please take note of this, as some of them are apt to treat the subject as seriously

as they take themselves. Our traditions and legends, in rolling down the slopes of centuries, are too much encrusted with most valuable accretions to warrant the total destruction of a single one of them. To us, to Britain, and to the world, our heritage grows apace with the credit of the British Empire.

THE UNKNOWN WELSH QUANTITY “Wales - Wales, where the past still lives, where every place has its tradition, every home its poetry, and where the people, the genuine people, still know this past, this tradition, this poetry, and live with it, and cling to it.” Thus wrote Matthew Arnold at a time when Wales was known in current English literature little better than as a small Thibet near the heart of the Anglo-Celtic world.

Few have seen Wales as Arnold saw her. The vision laid upon him a strong vocation. The Celtic Chair at Oxford, founded chiefly through his efforts, was his gift to his beloved Wales, and, to us, his monument. It is the best thing even he could do for Wales, for he felt, as all cultured foreigners must, after sojourning in this little country “round the corner,” that if ever her secrets are to be made fully known, she must be induced to speak for herself. The learned occupant of that Oxford Chair has said (we are quoting from memory) that Arnold must have been a man of genius, inasmuch as his judgments on Celtic matters, and his estimate of the wealth of Celtia, were so accurate and so much in advance of his knowledge as a Celtic scholar. Whatever was lacking in Arnold’s knowledge in that respect has been amply supplied through his wise provision for our needs.

What Arnold thought of Wales thirty or forty years ago, George Meredith has repeated in his latest novel, “The Amazing Marriage.” “Now to the Cymry and to the pure Kelt, the past is at their elbows continually. The past of their lives has lost neither face nor voice behind the shroud nor are passions of the flesh, nor is the animate soul, wanting to it. Other races forfeit infancy, forfeit youth and man-hood with their progression to the wisdom age may bestow. These have each stage always alive, quick at a word, a scent, a sound, to conjure up scenes, in spirit and flame. Historically, they still march with Cadwallader, with Llewelyn, with Glendower; sing with Aneurin, Taliesin, old

Llywarch: individually, they are in the heart of the injury done them thirty years back, or thrilling to the glorious deed which strikes an empty buckler for most of the sons of Time. An old sea rises in them, rolling no phantom billows to break to spray against existing rocks of the shore. That is why, and even if they have a dose of the Teuton in them, they have often to feel themselves exiles when still in amicable community among the preponderating Saxon English.” “‘Mr. Woodseer says they have the three-stringed harp in their breasts, and one string is always humming, whether you pull it or no.’

‘That’s love of country! That’s their love of wild Wales, Carinthia!”

The author who says “there is human nature and Welsh nature may be expected to be at his best when describing a Welsh girl. Only a Welsh girl would be so quick and all in it, with a voice intimating a heated cauldron under her mouth. None but a Welsh-blooded girl, risking her good name to follow and nurse the man she considered a hero, would carry her head to look virgin eyes as she did.”

No English girl who can understand such a Welsh girl needs feel a bit jealous of her, for, ten to one, she is Welsh-blooded herself. The pioneers of every conquest of Britain were mostly bachelors and wife-deserters, and raising wives for Englishmen has been for the last millenium the most flourishing Welsh home industry.

An author who spells Celt with a K has sufficient courage of his convictions for anything.

George Meredith has all the fitness, except, alas! advanced age to be the devoutly wished-for Welsh Walter Scott. The “Amazing Marriage” is a Welsh story. Although, instead of elaborate delineations, we are to be content with snapshots at us, still his Kodak performs wonders. A dozen sentences of Meredith’s are more interpretative of the true inwardness of Welsh life than a score or two of stories evolved from guide-books and the inner consciousness of the strangers who have foisted upon the English reading public stories of Welsh life.”

We want someone to write about us as we would write of our mothers and sweethearts.

Few of us can exactly express our noble thoughts in English. A Welshman who tries to write in English has one advantage over the average Englishman, as he has to think twice over what he has got to say. But the gain in thinking is at the expense of style. Now, goodly tomes have been written about us, but where can one find a book where the real life of the people is described? A novel, again, worthy of being wedged in between Edwards’ “Wales” and Rhys and Jones’ “Welsh People” might do. We are a very elusive people, very polite to the curious stranger, and willing to answer reasonable questions; but we hold our love-strings very tight. The curious stranger puts all we tell him, and all he can learn, in his book, but the half has never been told him. The New Zealanders who come to sketch our ruins amuse us greatly, but, really now, the best that has ever been written about us is not half as good as we think it ought to be.

We may not read much of even a good book written about us. We don’t need, in fact, to have anybody to tell us what sort of people we are, but we want others to know. We contemplate with rare magnanimity the periodical diatribes on our failings. A fortnight’s flurry in our newspapers, and we are ready for the next. A certain Welsh periodical started on its career with something like a symposium by representative Welshmen on the failings of the Welsh people. That periodical still lives, and it gathers strength every month. We know now all our failings by heart, and foreign reformers need not apply. We are now a nation of reformers, who hate to be reformed.

The novel as a cinematograph of a nation’s life has not as yet obtained much favour in Wales. The supply is as meagre as the demand. A young ministerial student, precluded from exercising his ministry by ill-health, bethought him of the novel as a pulpit. Although his output was comparatively small, all in his native language, he fulfilled his ministry so well that his grateful countrymen have erected a monument to his memory. But when Daniel Owen died, it was stated that the total sale of his books did not exceed 30,000, a very moderate success from an English point of view.

It is widely believed among us that a deep-rooted Puritanical prejudice against the novel is the cause of our barrenness in fiction. The writer is convinced that this is not the truth. It is, rather, the aversion of the undefiled Welsh mind to a tissue of pure lies. How well has this instinct for truth served us against a flood of English stories of “Welsh life”! Our legendary lore is a source of constant delight to us, for we believe, and many of us they say know, that our legends are true. It is the profound truth of Daniel Owen’s stories, so true that almost every reader is ready to swear that he knows every character and almost every incident, that has won for the novel an abiding home in Welsh literature.

But a successor to Daniel Owen has not yet been discovered. The drama has still to obtain a footing on our soil. We would much prefer to have a native Tolstoi than even a versatile Walter Scott. The barrier of language no longer remains insurmountable. A native Tolstoi or Sienkewicz cannot fail elsewhere in finding good translators. If Wales were a part of Russia, “lslwyn” would have become known in England with Klopstock, and Daniel Owen with Tolstoi, pairs and peers as they are.

Welsh idiom and dialect will, of course, remain hermetically sealed to the English public. We certainly must disclaim responsibility for the jargon of illiterate Englishmen which does duty in many an English novel for Welsh dialect. The only thing approaching to an English dialect in Wales can only be found where the Welsh language is dead. Every reading Welshman takes a pride in his mastery of his native tongue, and almost every other man you meet has a small or large collection of wonderful specimens of his skill in alliteration and rhyme. Fancy with what disgust such men throw away a book which attributes to them the vulgarisms and barbarisms of an English Hodge!

MORGANWG AND WALES. But what has all this to do with the poor King stranded at Cardiff? Well, in the absence of skill to paint a good, picture, and with such a miserable plight to depict, the next best thing one could do is to use a picturesque canvas. May one assume as much as to call it the background of the picture? The King is back once more in Morganwg. Morganwg is the firmly-planted foot of the old

lady, delineated in the maps, whose Welsh capped-head is Anglesey, whose strong arm is Carnarvonshire, with Lleyn an angrily-pointed finger, as to an Armada in St. George’s Channel, and whose other foot, Pembrokeshire, is half lifted in a kick to the Atlantic. You do not want to contemplate her foot only, under the arras of the Brecknock Beacons. You cannot understand Morganwg without viewing the whole of Wales. In very important senses, Morganwg is Wales, and Wales is Morganwg. At the time of our tale, Morganwg was Wales at her best, and we need no better witness than Davydd ab Gwilym. Hardly anyone has to learn that the Wales of the present is at her best in Morganwg. If the present drift of Wales into Morganwg will continue another hundred years, the rest will become only a fine residential district, a suburban area, with ideal situations for palaces, colleges, and other asylums, with vast wildernesses and boundless contiguities of shade.

Again, Wales is but an enlarged Morganwg. Although the history of a people is now taught as very much a matter of geography, and though a range of hills has always kept Morganwe a distinct province of Wales, and was, besides largely prevented, through its early conquest by the Normans, to participate, with a free hand, in the struggles of the two Llywelyns for independence based on union, still everything typically Welsh has always been preserved in Morganwg. Like Dyfed, Ceredigion, Powys, and Gwynedd, it has a certain preponderating type of inhabitant, a character, a dialect, customs, and manners. But it has, and always has had, all the elements of Welsh life and thought which have found tunnels through our mountains, and bridges across our rivers, and have spurned all geographical limits, yea, political limits, too, and have made the Welsh people one.

SILURIA. From his landing at Cardiff on the 26th of October to the end of his tether, the King wisely confined his scribe’s labours to issuing writs to the men of Gwent and Morganwg, including Gower, the south-western half, in fact, of ancient Siluria.

As to the meaning of the name Silures. Prof. Rhys says:- “The origin and meaning of this word, are utterly unknown, but it is worth while noting that the name of the chief man connected

with the temple of Nodens at Lydney Park, on the western bank of the Severn, in the country of the Silures, has been read SILVLANVS (Berlin, ‘Corpus Inscr. Brit. Lat.,’ No. 140), and that there is no need to make it into ‘Silvianus’ or ‘Silvanus’: it should rather be read ‘Silulanus,’ ‘silul’ - being equated with the ‘silur’ - of the word Silures.” (See further on Solinus’ “Silura”; Sulp. Severus’ “Sylinancis,” the Danish “Syllingar” or “Syllings,” and the English “The Isles of Sorlingues,” “The Sillies,” the Scilly Isles, Rhys, “Celt. Brit.” 307.)

NUDONS. By the way, there are two fine old heathen gods specially associated with Siluria, or ancient Gwent and Morganwg. The King, on his journey from Gloucester to Gwent, passed by Lydney, where, many years ago, the remains of a sanctuary built by the Romans, about the third century, A.D., to “the greatest divinity of these islands,” were discovered. In the mosaic floor of the temple is a coloured inscription beginning with “D. M. Nodonti,” “to the great god Nudons.” The equipment of the god, as delineated, on various objects, consists of a chariot, horses, tritons, oars shell trumpets, etc., and “compels us,” says Professor Rhys “to assimilate Nudons more closely with Neptune than any other god of classical mythology.”

Neptune is known in Wales as Neifion. Mor Neifion, Sea of Neifion, “seems to have signified the ocean, high seas.” The ship of Nefydd Naf Neifion is mentioned in a Triad. Nefydd may be the Irish Nemed, genitive Nemid, a rover who is represented as one of the colonizers of Erin. Modern Welshmen, those of Glamorgan in particular, have learnt to honour the name in the person of a pioneer of the modern Eisteddfod, modern in form and dimension. We mean Nefydd, the author of “Mari Lwyd,” a work on local folklore. The name of the modem litterateur, together with the name borne by his step-son, Mr. Urien Rheged Edwards, a well-known and respected Rhondda gentleman, besides being a healthy anti-Semitism, unite strangely the old world with the new. It is a case typical of our unbroken union with the nebulous past.

Although the Lydney temple was not built probably before the third century, A.D., “the place was, doubtless sacred to the god long before.” He was the god of the sea, of commerce, indeed, on sea and land, the owner and giver of flocks and ships. A fitting home for such a god was the estuary of the Severn! Is he not devoutly worshipped still on both sides of the Channel? Our sailors never cross the line without paying their respects to him.

This Nudons or Nodens is the Irish Nuadu and the Welsh Nudd. He is called in Irish legend Nuadu Arget- lam, Nuadu of the Silver Hand. He is called also in Welsh Lludd Llawereint, Lud of the Silver Hand. The change in Welsh is only the play of the alliterative instinct. Nudd occurs in the pedigrees as a man’s name. One of our Brythonicized Goidelic Mabinogion is the story of the adventure of Lludd and Llevelys. The change from Nudd to Lludd was made early enough to be stamped on several notable place-names, such as Lydney, Lydstep in Pembrokeshire, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Porthludd for Ludesgate or Ludgate, in London, and London Welshmen flourish Caer Ludd, the Camp of Lud, as a name for the world’s metropolis. The great water-god had probably a sanctuary near the present site of St. Paul’s Cathedral, a fitting duplicate site of Lydney. If Britain, the mistress of the sea, were to change her sex, Lud’s Empire would have been a happy substitute. Every English lackey has learnt to pronounce “My Lud”!

Here the writer must succumb to a very common temptation, namely, advancing a pet theory with his eyes shut lest more light should dispel the pleasant illusion. It is all in the interest of the third port of the world, near to Lud’s Silurian temple, where, if at all, his name should be specially honoured.

The curious reader will recollect that when Thomas of Norfolk, Marshal of England, bartered to Hugh the younger the land on which Lydney is situate, he granted Hugh “everything except the office of the marshalsea, as it appertains to the said castle and land” (of Strogoill or Chepstow). The writer has not at hand any expert information about the origin and original meaning of the office referred to. Marshalsea was the name of a prison, which was abolished by Queen Victoria as a public

nuisance, and which formerly belonged to the marshal of the royal household. He is in denser ignorance as to the attachment of an office and a title still held by the Duke of Norfolk to the castle and land of Chepstow. Although such an office may be traced to something like an historical origin, it is equally likely that its real origin remains a mystery. It has been said that the land on which the Roman camp of Gelligaer is situate has remained up to the present a separate and distinct property, and the present Rector, with justifiable pride, has stated his belief that his title is the same as that of the Roman custodian of the camp, also called “rector.” These statements should prepare the reader to entertain the daring assumption, or presumption, that the Most Noble Duke of Norfolk may still be in possession of some of the appanages, if not the attributes, of the Lydney god. Certainly, the Bute branch of the family holds in Cardiff a large measure of the sway of the god of the sea.

MABON. Another Romano-Celtic god, which Welsh legend associates with Siluria, is Apollo Maponos, whose monument has been discovered at Hexham, and, in other places, two inscriptions referring to him. His name, Maponos or Mabon, “mapo-s,” is the Welsh map or mab, meaning “a boy, a youth, a son.” He is on the Hexham monument equated with Apollo. He turns up in Welsh hagiology as a Welsh saint. He is now represented in the Imperial Parliament. Like his name-sake, the honourable member for Siluria, in the sense Henry Richard, who also represented Siluria, was the honourable member for Wales, Maponos was deeply concerned about the health and safety of his worshippers.

Maponos would have thoroughly inspected every coal-mine, not after, but before an explosion. He would have stamped out diphtheria, typhoid, and all the demons of neglect from our teeming mining valleys. We shall always deplore his departure, with the Romans, from Siluria as long as we need his services. In the name of the martyrs of our modern industries, whom we hope have found even a better Friend, we hail the good, though dead, Silurian god. Until a better theology shall permeate our economics, we cannot afford to despise the god who forced the builders of Gelligaer to construct an excellent sewerage system, and whose temple may yet be discovered, either at that

place or close to it at Llanfabon, which name very likely preserves his memory. The geographer of Ravenna gives the name Maponi to a place in Britain.

The curious may note that the ancient form of the name, Mapon, is still preserved in the Gwentian dialect, as, indeed, the accented “b” in literary and common Welsh is converted into “p” in Gwent and Morganwg. The “p” is powerfully present when the true Silurian temper is ruffled. It pierces to the marrow, like the arrows of Gwent, which won many a victory for England. The Gwentian “p” performed wonders at Agincourt, at any rate, in Shakspeare’s paper-battle. The Gwentian “p” also points an expression of strong, pacific emotion, as, for instance, when the honourable member for the Rhondda emerges from the office of the receiving-officer with a renewed ticket for St. Stephen’s, and is greeted by his supporters with their rallying cry, “O’r Mapon ag ê!” which is as absolutely untranslatable as “Siluria” is incomprehensible.

The mabinogi (a word of the same root as Maponos) of Kulhwch and Olwen connects Mapon or Mabon with Siluria. Arthur must have the assistance of Mabon ab Modron in the hunt for Twrch Trwyth. A “fabulously” long time before the birth of Arthur, Mabon had been kidnapped, when only three nights old, from between his mother Modron and the wall. To find his hiding-place was considered by Olwen’s father as an impossibility. Arthur, with his warriors, however, set out on his track. They must find, first, Eidoel ab Aer. Then they visited one by one the most ancient and wisest of oracles, the Thrush of Cilgwri, the Stag of Rhedynfre, the Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd, and the Eagle of Gwernabwy.

The Eagle, however, happened to remember that once during the period of the slow wearing away of a large stone, from the top of which, at first, he used to peck at the stars every night, now only a foot high, he took a fancy to visit Llyn Llyw (Llyn Lliwan?). There he got his claws into a Salmon, who (not which) dragged him into the deep, where he was almost drowned. The Eagle afterwards gathered his people against the Salmon, but the latter sued for peace, and entreated the Eagle to extract ten and forty gaffs from his back. The Eagle now led Arthur and his

men to the Salmon of Llyn Llyw, the chief, probably, of all the salmon of the Taff, Rhumney, Usk, Wye, and the Severn. His lordship said that he was in the habit of visiting, with each tide, the walls of Caerloyw (Gloucester). Nowhere had he seen so much evil as at that place. He undertook to bear Cai and Gwrhyr Gwalstawt leithoedd on his shoulders to Gloucester. From the dungeon of the castle heart-rending groans reached their ears. ”Who is groaning in this stone house (maendy)?” asked Gwrhyr.

“Mabon ab Modron is in prison,” was the reply, “and the imprisonment of Lludd Llawereint (Lud of the Silver Hand, he of Lydney) and Greid ab Eri was not nearly as trying as mine is.”

“Is there any hope of being able to release you by means of gold, silver, and ‘cyfoeth’ (power or dominion), or by fights and battles?”

“If I shall ever be liberated, it must be by fighting.”

No sooner said, of course, than done. Mabon joined the hunt after Twrch Trwyth. He, with two others, overtook the Twrch between Llyn Lliwan and Aber Gwy, and it was he who snatched the razor, while others held the Twrch by the feet. Gelydr Wyllt snatched the shears, but before anyone could reach the comb, the Twrch regained his feet, made for the opposite land, and neither man, hound, nor steed could afterwards overtake him.

But the reader may ask, How do you connect such an ordinary-looking Welsh name as Mabon ab Modron with Apollo Maponos? First, there is the name Mabon, “a youth,” and Apollo is represented as a beardless youth Mabon is said to have been stolen from his mother when he was three days old. Some particulars about Apollo’s mother may have been known to the mabinogi-man.

She was Latona, and a native of the isle of Britain, the island referred to by Hecataeus of Abdera, probably, who lived in the fourth century B.C., “and for that reason the inhabitants honour Apollo more than any other deity.” Our heathen ancestors do not seem to have cared much for even a god who was not British-born. As to Latona’s son, the Sun, in fact, “a sacred enclosure is dedicated to

him in the island, as well as a magnificent circular temple adorned with many rich offerings.” We are told by competent authorities that “Stonehenge alone can by any probability be referred to.” Now, Mabon is described as the son of his mother, a fact worth noting in connection with a curious primitive custom, “which is another tale.” Prof. Rhys says: - “Now, Modron implies a stem ‘modr,’ the reflex of the Latin ‘mater,’ Eng. ‘mother’; moreover, it is the exact equivalent of the Gaulish word Matrona, the name of the river (more correctly perhaps of the goddess of the river) now called the Marne.” Apollo and Leto or Latona are evidently the “Celtic duad” Mabon and Modron, and it is an interesting fact that the ancients referred to by Hecataeus represent Latona as a native of an island which is evidently Britain.

One of the attributes of Apollo, especially under the name of Phoebus, was swiftness of motion, fleetness of foot. Now, the very reason why Arthur wanted the aid of Mabon ab Modron to catch the Twrch Trwyth is stated to be because no other hunter in the world could hunt with the hound Cilydd Canhastyr. For such a hunter as Mabon, Gwynn Mygdwn, “march gweddw,” which was as fleet as the wave, must be secured, and, as the reader knows, it was the youth Mabon, on his ”bachelor steed,” who took the razor at Chepstow. Last of all. Fancy will insist upon it that the fame of the archers of Gwent, whose shafts dealt death through deal doors and flights of stairs, is, perhaps, due to centuries of devotion to Apollo Maponos, who was a terrible archer.

THE LITTLE PEOPLE. It is but fitting that a sketch of the natives of Morganwg should begin with their ancient gods. We come now to beings second in rank, rather, indeed, the beings who still occupy, to some extent, the place of the old heathen aristocracy.

Our fairies are humble folks; nevertheless, they are a power in the land. The time has arrived when a notice of our Little People should not be omitted from a history of Wales. It is a great thing to be able to say that we mean to conclude a long chapter just at the point where Edwards’ Wales begins. Mr. Edwards fights shy of the Little People, the first inhabitants of Britain. Those who believe

most firmly in them are slow to tell us what they know. It may be that the conclusions and generalisations of anthropolists, philologists, and archaeologists are not yet ripe enough to suit the taste of a fastidious historian. But the diet of Wales is generous enough. The author beats the specialists in tracing our ancestry to our mountains. He spurns not, on occasion, the kind of evidence which is being used to reconstruct the pre-history of Britain. The author begins with the Iberian, a term which now commits one to nothing. This is a golden opportunity, even for a humble retail agent, to summarise what is common knowledge on this subject among men who have spent precious lives, with a single eye to the interests of truth and religion, to investigate and explain our folklore beliefs.

Prof. Rhys winds up his presidential address to the Anthropologic Section of the British Association, which met in Bradford, 1900, with these words: - “I have endeavoured to substitute for the rabble of divinities and demons, of fairies and phantoms, that disport themselves at large in Celtic legend, a possible succession of peoples, to each of which should be ascribed its proper attributes.” A truly Christian endeavour! We must clear the deck of our dummy demons before we can ever successfully attack real ones. And why should not our theological students, who are compelled to study “classical mythology” and the mummy beliefs of Greece and Rome, also be compelled to learn “Celtic Heathendom” by heart, and be specially trained to attack the lurking superstitions of our Christian pews? Granting that the subject-matter cannot pass muster as yet as history, hardly any historian can be found more fastidious in the matters of historical evidence and exact statement than the men to whom, we are indebted for light on our folklore beliefs.

AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL CREED By way of taking the shortest jump from the top of this subject to its Morganwg fringe, a recital here of the new British Anthropological Creed, as recited by Prof. Rhys at Bradford, will serve an excellent purpose.

“The first race we have found in possession of the British isles consisted of a small, swarthy population of mound-dwellers, of an unwarlike disposition, much given to magic and wizardry, and living underground its attributes have been exaggerated or otherwise distorted in the evolution of the Little People of our fairy tales.

The next race consisted of a blue-eyed, taller, and blonder people, who tattooed themselves and fought battles. These tattooed or Pictish people made their Mound Folk their slaves, and in the long run their language may be supposed to have been modified by habits of speech introduced by those slaves of theirs from their own idiom. The affinities of these Picts may be called Libyan, and possibly Iberian.

Next came the Celts in two great waves of immigration, the first of which may have arrived as early as the seventh century before our era, and consisted of the real ancestors of some of our Goidels of the Milesian stock, and the linguistic ancestors of all the peoples who have spoken Goidelic. That language may be defined as Celtican so modified by the idioms of the population which the earlier Celts found in possession, that its syntax is no longer Aryan.

Then, about the third century B.C., came from Belgica the linguistic ancestors of the peoples who have spoken Brythonic; but most of our modern Brythons are to be regarded as descended from Goidels who adopted Brythonic speech, and in so doing brought into that language their Goidelic idioms, with the result that the syntax of insular Brythonic is no less non-Aryan than that of Goidelic, as may be readily seen by comparing the thoroughly Aryan structure of the few sentences of old Gaulish extant.”

Some volumes must be read between the few lines quoted, but an ordinary duo-glot Welsh Sunday School teacher, as well as a monoglot Englishman, can obtain a fair grasp of the whole subject in “Celtic Britain,” “Celtic Folklore,” and “The Welsh People,” the three certainly as easy to understand as any first-rate Sunday School manual.

We want, with the reconstruction of our mythology, new terms, in discussing that mythology, for god, devil, and ghost. These terms have to us too high and sacred associations to throw them indiscriminately among the swine, sometimes, of our folklore “rabble.” For instance, the magnificent Devil of the Bible and of Milton has been reduced at Devil’s Bridge into a goblin with a turn for tinkering. True religion would be greatly advanced by a deep, permanent lodgment in the people’s mind of the broad fact that the ancient spooks they dread, and the uncanny crew whom they secretly believe, to the dishonour of their Christian faith, rule over their destiny, and are allowed the supremacy in their heart of hearts over the purest and sublimest religion, are only exaggerated dummies of the pigmies whom Stanley found in darkest Africa, who flourish still in nooks and corners of India, who once covered these islands of ours, who built our mounds and barrows, who may be regarded as the substratum of our population, whose very mischievous, vengeful tricks the races which subjugated them exaggerated into miracles, which rabble possibly rank next, in the scale of human beings, to the pithecanthropus erectus, the erect monkey-man, which the scientific imagination of Ernest Haeckel projected in 1866, which has since pointed many a diatribe and joke from pulpit and platform under the name of the Missing Link, but whose veritable fossil skull-cap, thigh-bone, and some teeth were discovered in Java in 1894 by Eugene Dubois, of which remains a dozen of the most competent authorities have opined as follows:- three, that they are the remains of man three, the remains of an ape and six, that they form exactly what Haeckel, twenty-eight years before, inserted in his table of primates, a passage-form between man and ape.

“Natura nihil fit per saltum.” Let us, however, readily grant to the cave-man or mound-builder a unique superiority over the erect monkey man. We should also train ourselves to look upon the ugliest specimen of humanity as our brother. But were you to meet a surviving mound-builder on a dark night in a creepingly solitary situation, would you, “foremost in the files of time,” fall down and worship him?

Now, all the specimens in Prof. Rhys’ Mound-Picto-Celt museum are still with us in Morganwg. The four races he mentions were in Britain before the Romans. The Silurians, with which

our history proper, or conventional, begins, were a Mound-Pictish-Goidelic- brotherhood. Morganwg is now a Mound-Pictish-Goidelic- Brythonic-Cymric-Saxon-Danish-Anglo-Norman-Wales beyond the Beacons-West of England agglomeration. Draw a line after Norman, and you have the people appealed to by the King from Cardiff and Caerphilly.

BACK TO PUCK Mr. Edwards’ new name for Gwent, “Islwyns Home,” caused us to drop our prankish old friend Puck with scant ceremony. But one should not be carried away by every wind of doctrine. We must return to Puck, the oldest native of Gwent and Morganwg. How far back does Puck take us? He carries us back as far, perhaps, as the time when Glamorgan was asleep under an ice-cap. He was here, perhaps, when the glaciated surface of the highest hill in Ystradyfodwg was being grooved and polished, as it is seen to-day, by masses of ice as they scooped their way down the valleys. The fashionable resorts of the people, of Glamorgan at one time were the caves of Ystradfelite. Dr. Hicks has found the implements of primitive man in the Vale of Clwyd, “in an accumulation clearly proved to be older than the glacial deposits of the district.” Other evidence from the valley of the Thames has led competent authorities to conclude that man was in this country before the glacial period.

But we will confine ourselves to the opinion of Prof. Boyd Dawkins, which is as cut-and-dried as truth, that man “was, probably, in Britain while glaciers still crowned the Highlands of Scotland and the higher hills of England, Wales, and Ireland.”

Whether or no the glacial man was the direct ancestor of the British people, it will suffice here to draw a line at the Mound man. We in Gwent and Morganwg have a peculiar name for that race, Bendith y Mamau, “the Blessings of the Mothers.” In the local dialect, they are sometimes called “Bendith i Mama” (Bendith eu Mamau), “as if,” Prof. Rhys remarks, each fairy were such a delightful offspring as to constitute himself or herself a blessing to his or her mother.” But the first form seems to be the correct current one. “On the whole, therefore, perhaps one may regard the name as pointing back to the Celtic goddesses known in Gaul in Roman times as the Mothers.” The

novelist, Mr. Craigfryn Hughes, of Quaker’s Yard, knows all about these “Blessings.” The Vale of Neath is still alive with them.

They are commonly known through Wales as Y Tylwyth Teg, the Fair or Beautiful Family; in South Cardiganshire they are known as Plant Rhys Ddwfn, the Children of Rhys the Deep. All such names are the exaggerated representations of the Mound people by Celtic fancy. Side by side with the fancy names, there has come down to us a name which is realistic enough. There is the Welsh word “corr, cor,” in the sense of a dwarf, and “corres” for a she dwarf. The word occurs also in old Cornish and Breton, but in the latter, besides “korr” and” korrez,” one finds the derivatives “korrik,” “a dwarf, a fairy, a wee little sorcerer,” and korrigez” or “korrigan,” “a she dwarf, a fairy woman, a diminutive sorceress.” We have also in Welsh “corrach” “a dwarf,” plural “corachod,” and “corryn,” “a male dwarf,” plural “corrynnod.” A spider is called “corryn,” and a spider’s web, “gwe’r cor” of “gwe’r corryn,” perhaps in allusion to the fairies, who are frequently represented as engaged in spinning.

Prof. Rhys finds references to the dwarf race in Cwm Corryn, near Llaenaelhaearn, and Corwen for Cor-waen, “the Fairies’ Meadow.” He finds also Cwm Corryn, which drains into the Vale of Neath, where the corrs still lurk. The writer suggests two Glamorgan additions to the list. One is Coed y Gorres, the Wood of the She Dwarf, in the parish of Llanedern, the birthplace, by the way, of David Morgan, “the Welsh Jacobite.” The other is a name which has haunted the writer’s memory for twenty-five years or so. He remembers hearing the people of Cwmaman, Aberdare, frequently referring to a Castell Corryn, a Dwarf’s Castle. The name was usually brought in to sharpen the point of a blunt joke. He is informed by one who used to play about the “castle” that it was a small house with one door and one small window. He has heard from another quarter that there is, or was, a house in Aberdare bearing the same name. It seems that the expression, “Castell Corryn,” is a proverbial one in that district for a conspicuously diminutive dwelling. One finds in every parish in

Wales a type of dwelling which re-calls to the spectator the Aberdare name. One would like to know if the name is in other parishes.

Tracing our “corynnod” may not be an attractive subject for the local genealogist. It is but justice, however, to the pioneering race to acknowledge its presence in our romances, perhaps, also, in the nebulous sections of our pedigrees. But not even a bard, who does so much to preserve the names, as well as the traditions, of our ancients, would hardly like to respond to the name of Rhuddlwm or Eiddilig.

The dwarf race may be further identified with the Welsh “Corannians,” and the “Coritani,” which Pliny locates between the river Trent and Norfolk. In parts of Scotland the place of the fairies is occupied by the Pechts, which, though the name may be the same, are to be distinguished from the historical Picts.

On a second search for Glamorgan dwarfs, the writer has come across Puck’s genuine Gwentian abode. It is situate between Coed yr Helygos and Castell y Bwch, in the parish cf Henllys, Mon. It is called Ty Pwca, Puck’s House. What a name for a gentleman’s seat! Except in Gwent, Old Bag of Tricks is called Bwci, Bwci Bo, Bwgan, and Bwbach. The latter should net be confounded with the Vale of Glamorgan “bôpa” a pet name for “auntie.” The Welsh dialect known to William Griffith, commonly known as Shakespeare (he is said to have descended from the Griffins of Braybrook or Baybrock, Northamptonshire), was the Gwentian, the speech which Puck bequeathed to Fluellen.

In the neighbourhood of Coed y Gorres, there are three other names suggestive of a dwarf race. It is curious that the four names are found on the western bank of the Rhymney, between Machen and Cardiff. Nant y Cor, the Dwarf’s Brock, runs into the Rhymney from the direction of Ruperra. Ty y Crwca, the Hump-back’s House, is close by Coed y Gorres. Gwern yr Eiddil, the Weakling’s Meadow, is situate near Cwrt y Llacca, in the same parish, apparently, of LIanedern.

Eiddilig Gorr, mentioned in the Triads, may literally mean, the Weakling Dwarf. We want, again, to

find place-names referring to the “crimbil,” the name in local folklore of the ugly, weak brat which Bendith y Mamau were wont to board out in exchange for the fine baby stolen by them.

Dirdishefoni’n brudd ac yn deilwng! The word has been past round the “circles” of the Little People of Glamorgan that we are writing about them, and they simply crowd our den clamouring for recognition. One of them says that he lives at Ty Pwca, in Cwm Bran, east of Mynydd Maen, Mon. Another lives in Llwyn y Bwbach, the Bogie’s Bush, between the Sirhowy river and Cefn Bedwellty.

Another lives at a place in St. Bride’s Minor, Glam., called Llwydrew Bwbach, the Bogie’s Hoar-frost!

Bwbach, therefore, is also a Glamorgan word. It seems that Pwca is also called Bwca. Mr. Craigfryn Hughes tells a weird tale about Bwca’r Trwyn, the Bogie of the Nose. Patience, Little People! We would like to write a whole book about you, but we must pass on now to your conquerors.

PICTISH MORGANWG The last remark brings us to the second race in Morganwg. Is Morganwg or Gwlad Forgan a Pictish name? Our extensive, sea-board was an easy prey to every invader. There is every probability for supposing that the roving Picts had as easy an entrance into Glamorgan as the roving Norsemen.

We call the former now either “Picts or Scots” or “Picts and Scots.” This dual name is suggestive of a comparatively late period, when the people referred to re-visited a country like Glamorgan, where they once ruled supreme until driven westwards and northwards by the late Celts, the Belgic Gauls, Brythons, whose linguistic descendants call themselves now, Cymry. A Pictish or Scottish chief figures in the life of St. David. He is called Boya. A place-name in Pembrokeshire, Clegyr Foya, Boya’s Rock, it is said, commemorates him. But the same man, probably, is commemorated in the parish of Llanwonno., in the name Abercwmboy, which some say means Abercwmbwci, the Mouth of Puck’s Combe, an explanation which is a tribute to our ancestral dwarf. A local antiquary says that the right form of the name is Abercwnibwa, the Mouth of the Bow-shaped Combe, which is true of almost every blessed combe in Glamorgan. We find, however, that the name, as late as 1547, is spelt in a local charter, Ab’ken’Voye,” and in 1551, “Abkon-voye” (“Cardiff Records,” I., 247, 464). We must

ask our local antiquaries, first, to explain how “bwci” or “bwa” has become “boi” or “boy,” and, secondly, to explain away the roving Boya from Llanwonno. Perhaps it was a common Pictish proper name. We are assured that it is not a Welsh name.

Morganwg evidently was named after some Morgan. In Brut y Tywysogion, under the date A.D. 990, we find “gwlat uorgan (“u” for “v”). In the oldest Welsh MSS. book, the Black Book of Carmarthen, we find “gulad morgant,” “hil morgant” (Morgan’s, descendants), and “morccanhve.” It is “morganhwc” in the mabinogi of Math ab Mathonwy.

Now, it was long ago said, and it has been sedulously repeated by the historians of Glamorgan, that a certain Morgan Mwynfawr (the Greatly Courteous Morgan),) after having acquired several cantreds which seem not to have been parts of his patrimony, called all that he owned after his own name, Morganwg. It is simplicity itself, though where Morgan’s great courtesy enters into the arrangement is hard to see. Even Edward I. did not go so far as to call his Welsh acquisitions Edwardia. The name of Morgan Mwynfawr has exercised a marked influence on the manners of the people of Glamorgan, whose courtesy is as indisputable as it has long been proverbial in the phrase, “Mwyn-der Morganwg” (Glamorgan’s Courtesy). But it is difficult to reconcile Morgan’s proverbial courtesy with the acquisitive instincts of a ruthless Norman. Is it necessary to do so?

It is to be feared that we are now calling spirits from the vasty deep, which we may not be able to lay again with established facts. Meilir, the prophet of Caerleon, who could not read, could see a false spirit perched on every book which contained a false statement. “When the evil spirits crowded about him, the Gospel of St. John was placed on his bosom, and they disappeared like birds; but if Geoffrey of Monmouth’s British History’ was substituted they immediately swarmed back in great numbers, and sat on the book as well, and remained longer than before.” (“Wales,” 113.) Such is the story of Gerald the Welshman.

The writer has already risked the worst of the potent Little People. He must now sweep away a swarm of Liliputians from off the cover of Geoffrey’s history. Geoffrey says Morgan, son of Maglawn, prince of Alban (Scotland), brought a host against Cunedda, son of Henwyn, prince of Cernyw (Cornwall), and devastated Cunedda with fire and sword. Cunedda came against him, and pursued him to every place, until he came to Wales; and on the Maes Mawr they met, and there Morgan was slain, and after him the name is called Maes Morgan, where now is the monastery of Morgan (manachlog vorgan).”

The Gwyddyl Ffichti, the Goidelic Picts or Pictish Goidels, came to Wales, we are told, in the time of Meirig ab Meirchion, who held his court at Boverton. He is said to have conquered them.

Prof. Rhys quotes a curious extract from a Jesus College MS. on this point. “‘O enw Morgant vchot y gelwir Morgannwe Ereill a dyweit. Mae o enw Mochteyrn Predein.’ (It is from the name of the above Morgan that Morganwg is called. Others say that it is from the name of the mechdeyrn of Pictland).” Prof. Rhys adds:- “The mochteyrn must have been a Pictish king or mormaer called Morgan. The name occurs in the charters from the Book of Deer in Stokes’ ‘Goidelica,’ pp. 109, 111, as Morcunt, Morcunn, and Morgunn undeclined, also with Morgainn for genitive; and so in Skene’s ‘Chronicles of the Picts and Scots,’ pp. 77, 317. where it is printed Morgaind; see also Stokes’ Tigernach, in the ‘Revue Celtique,’ xvii. 198. Compare Geoffrey’s story, ii. 15, which introduces a northern Marganus to account for the name Margan, now Margain, in Morgannwg.” (“Celt. Folk.

374.).

Shadowy as Morgan Mwynfawr is - for a Morgan Mud Mwynfawr is associated with the more shadowy Myrddin - we do not want to unseat him in Morganwg, but we have learnt enough to regard Morgan as a suspiciously Pictish name. Before leaving the subject, it would be well to remind the reader that the Welsh for Britain is Ynys Prydain, the Island of the Picts. An old form of the name is Priten, then Prydyn, now Prydain. Another name for the island, of Pictish significance, is Ynys y

Ceuri, the Island of the Fine Men, tattooed men, in fact. The Scottish name, Pentland Firth, is of like origin, from Pettaland, the Land of the Picts.

P’S AND Q’S The Irish or Goidelic equivalent of Prydyn is Cruithne, meaning “a Pict,” and the latter word brings us to the third and fourth races or peoples, who were here before the Romans. Here we must mind our P’s and Q’s. We must distinguish between the P-Celts and Q-Celts. Compare Prydyn with Cruithne. R and N remain the same, D and Th almost the same, but the P of the one has been changed to the C of the other, a very peculiar change. The vowels have changed considerably, but consonants are almost as hard and inflexible as skulls. The first swarm of British Celts lost a load of p’s on its journey hither from central France. Those who remained longer on the Continent, the Belgic Gauls, whose language is the Welsh, brought their p’s with them undamaged, at least to Gwent and Morganwg.

The Irish, for a wonder, have not turned Paddy into Caddy, but they have turned the Welsh “pump” (five) into coic,” Mod. Irish “foive”, which agrees with the Latin “quinque” and the French” cinq.” A more interesting question is - Where did the Welsh get their “p”? which is another tale.”

The most familiar example of the radical distinction between the P and Q Celts is the Irish and Scottish “mac” for the Welsh “map” or “mab,” “a son,” abbreviated in the pedigrees into “ap” or “ab.” The Welsh word for “a forehead,” “talcen,” which in a purely Welsh form should be “talpen,” is an instance of a P-Q compromise.

Now, Prof. Rhys, in his map of Britain in his “Celtic Britain,” showing the relative populations of its chief peoples during the Roman occupation, paints the whole of South Wales, west and south of a line from the river Wyre in Cardiganshire, and along the course of the Severn to the Worcestershire Avon, in Irish or Goidelic green. A blue bow is also painted from Pembrokeshire to Pontypridd (?), with a straight dash from the centre of the drawn bow reaching to Llanelly, to indicate the “Ivernians, or traces of them.” Siluria is all green, with a dash of blue. The Brythons, or

P-Celts, however, occupy the opposite bank of the Severn to below the Mendip hills. The green QCelts occupy Cornwall and Devon, with a dash of blue along the centre of the south-western half of that district. The Brythons, therefore, were not included among the Silures. Probably many of them were driven hither by the Romans, but it is to the conflict with the Saxons that we are to trace the chief migration of the Brythons into Siluria. They, however, possessed the whole land to such an extent as to enforce their language on whatever races inhabited Wales. Thence arose, with the loss of their land east of the Dee and Severn, the Brythonic confederation known now as Cymry. The defenders of Siluria against the Romans wore Mound-Picto- Goidelic warriors, with the Iberian thrown in.

CHAPTER IX THE FIVE DAYS’ RAID OF GLAMORGAN After all that has been said about the winning of Glamorgan by the Normans, perhaps there is still room for remarking that probably every scrap of our traditional account is true in fact, with hardly one of the facts in its proper place.

As to the rest, let us grant, for the sake of peace to go on with our tale, that the men of Glamorgan went to bed as usual one night and woke up next morning to find, not fame, but their fair land nicely divided between Fitzhamon and his twelve knights, like a show flower-garden. Sir Edward Stradling, however, when he sat down on a rainy day to write down the story, which the antiquary, Miss Blanche Parry, Queen Elizabeth’s nurse, companion, and I virtually Prime Minister, got hold of and handed to Dr. David Powel, who rushed into print with it, which story was afterwards squeezed into a “Brut y Tywysogion,” the most popular “Brut” in Glamorgan, Sir Edward, we say, forgot to mention the undoubted fact that, two hundred years after the Fitzhamon “coup,” the Glamorgan hills badly needed conquering. It was somewhat natural for Sir Edward, of a Norman family, to write a story which represents the Welshmen of Glamorgan as a flock of sheep, hardly able to cry bah at the Norman wolves, but it is difficult to understand why Glamorgan people should so fondly and tenaciously cherish such a humiliating version. We take leave to assert boldly that the traditional history of the Norman conquest of Glamorgan is not the history of the defence of Morganwg by the Welshmen.

“We know little for certain, though there is romance in plenty, about the conquest of Morganwg, beyond the fact that it was exceedingly rapid, and that the conquered land soon became thickly dotted with Norman castles. Soon after the death of Rees ap Tudor, the whole of the vale of Glamorgan was Fitzhamon’s, from Cardiff Castle in the east to the new castle of Cenfig in the west. Subject to him were the Welsh who still held Miscin and Senghenydd, and the Normans whose castles rose in the rich vale - Pain of Turberville at

Coyty, in the west of the vale, and Robert St Quentin, whose castle of Llanbleddian and walled Cowbridge held the southern part. Subject to him also were the castle-builders who pushed westwards - the Richard of Granville who built Neath Castle in the vale of Neath, and the William of London who built the castle of Kidwelly on a hillock rising out of the valley of the Gwendraeth.” (“Wales,” 59, 60.)

The reader must not think that the little we know for certain is limited to the contents of the paragraph quoted. There is an ever-accumulating stock of isolated facts waiting for another Freeman to put together the story of the Glamorgan conquest. The conquest of what of Glamorgan that was conquered by Fitzhamon and his knights may have been “exceedingly rapid” but it is only partially true to say “that the conquered land soon became thickly dotted with Norman castles.”

In the interesting map which accompanies the chapter on “The Norman Conquest,” (“Wales,” 60), there are only six castles marked in Glamorgan, namely, Cardiff Coyty, Llanblethian, Cenffig, Neath, and Swansea; and there are only four castles in Monmouth, namely, Chepstow Newport, Usk, and Abergavenny. Inside of a circle drawn with Cardiff, Neath, and Brecon as points on the line, there is only one Norman castle which may be regarded as an inland castle, and that is Coyty, and the well-known story of how that lordship was acquired by a Norman explains why, at that period, a Norman castle was erected so far inland. Llanblethian is close to the sea, and so is Kenfig. The rest are on the sea-board. The imaginary circle referred to includes the western half of Monmouthshire and Breconshire south of Brecon.

A PALATINE COUNTY Let us, however, regard the conquest of Glamorgan as nominally complete, with the unconquered Welsh of the hills acknowledging in one form or another allegiance to the lord of Cardiff. Glamorgan, under the Normans, became a palatine county like Pembroke, the Premier County, as the Little Englanders beyond Wales love to call it. Glamorgan became, in fact, a, petty sovereignty, its lord exercising the power and authority of royalty within his bounds. He held a sort

of parliament, and his courts of justice, where he sat with one eye closed. He held his land of the Crown “by the sword,” as the saying was. His allegiance to the king was based on his own selfinterest. The Norman barons, as Mr. O. M. Edwards says, “would conquer Wales for their own interest and obey the king for fear of the Welsh.” The lord of Glamorgan, like all the early adventurers called lords marchers, was not in the ordinary sense a subject of the King of England. In passing judgment upon these lords for their greed, rapacity, and ruthlessness, one should always remember that they carried a license to do just as they liked. They were neither out-laws nor lawbreakers. They became the champions of law and order as against the king himself.

It is said that the lords marchers never had charters defining the extent of their powers and possessions. The king could not grant a charter to a baron who had all his lands to win and, after winning some lands, the baron was in no hurry to go to the king for a charter. Such a charter could not add an acre to what he owned already, but it might inconveniently curtail the power he already possessed in Wales. We all know how the British Empire has been greatly expanded by means of charters couched in terms delightfully vague.

It was for their greater safety that the lords marchers sought a close alliance with the king of England. To make them proper subjects of the Crown was a long and terrible process. While the king was fighting for his royal rights over the barons, the latter, in fighting for their own, established the British Parliament and built up the British Constitution. The grand result to us is what neither king nor baron really wanted. When the struggle ended, the people of England entered into the common heritage.

By degrees, the estates of the lords marchers became more and more defined. There were too many of them afflicted with the same disease, an insatiable earth-hunger. Just as at a newlydiscovered gold-field mob-law enforces the sub-division of “claims” with the increase in the number of claimants so when a Norman “prospector” died, a post-mortem inquisition into his possessions became a necessity, and the king stepped in to see that justice was done to the heirs of the

deceased and to neighbouring lords. The extentae or inquisitions thus made became virtually charters. Further acquisitions of property must be made on the strength of a decent legal excuse.

For this end, the barons became expert legal casuists, and some of them could buy the king’s blind eye to some particularly shady business. The barons were further taught to respect each others’ rights by the nearness of their common foe, the real owners of the soil. It is very instructive to watch the conversion of a gang of robbers let loose on the Welsh borders into law-makers and dutiful subjects, doubly interesting as history as modern conditions in England do not permit a repetition of the experiment.

The king himself in those days was not much more than a mere baron, first among equals.

Often he had neither the power nor the conscience to rebuke an inhuman lord. Edward I., however, after winning his spurs as a ruthless baron in Wales, turned on his brother freebooters after showing them the way to improve their tactics. When he ended his career he had subjugated the whole gang to his will, to the extent, at least, that not one baron could give him serious trouble. That is, the king became for the time the strongest baron. But as baron more than king he became too strong. It was the baron in him that made him refuse, as long as he could, to sign the charters of English liberty, without having a clause inserted subjecting the charters to his will. Such a baron as king became at that early date impossible. Strange to say, it was a blessing to England that the strong Edward died when he did, and it was another blessing that his son had no will of his own. The barons, it is true, continued for some generations longer to do very much as they liked, but they took good care of their own charters, until kings arose who learnt to respect those charters above their own royal will.

LIMITS OF CONQUEST The division of Glamorgan between a number of barons constituted a check on the acquisitive ambition of the lord paramount. Payne Turberville (“Paen Twrbwrfil” or “Twrbil”) won the royal lordship of Coity by marrying the heiress of Morgan ab Meuryg. He became not only independent of the lord of Cardiff, but he actually led an army of Welshmen against the latter, and

frightened him into conceding to the Welshmen of Glamorgan their ancient customs and privileges.

The allegiance of the lesser barons to Fitzhamon appears to have been of the same nature as that which the greater barons, like himself, owed to the king. United action against the Welsh would have been impossible without a lord paramount, but the very extent of Fitzhamon’s sway along the South Wales sea-board, for he seems to have been practically a sort of Count of the South Wales Shores from Monmouth to Pembroke, is more suggestive of a nominal suzerainty than of a thorough personal conquest. At any rate, the lord of Coity sat on the fence which limited Fitzhamon’s conquest of the hills.

We must come down two hundred years or so before we can find the whole of Glamorgan subjugated to its lord. Three passages from the Cardiff Records will light our way through this subject.

“The Lordship of Glamorgan, after the death of Fitzhamon, passed to Robert, ‘Consul,’ or Earl, of Gloucester, who was natural son of Henry I., and married Mabel, a daughter of Fitzhamon. From her descendants the Lordship came by marriage to the de Clares, Earls of Gloucester and Hertford; then to the Despensers, Beauchamps and Nevills successively.” (“Cardiff Records,” II. 4.)

“The hill lordships, the boundaries of which no doubt corresponded with those of Welsh commotes, remained in the hands of Welsh chieftains, whose allegiance to the Lords of Glamorgan was of a very precarious character, and who frequently rose in rebellion.

Senghenydd, Glynrhondda, and Avan (or Baglan) were, at the date of an Extent attributed by Mr. Clark to the year 1262, in the hands of Welsh lords, who are recorded as owing no service save a heriot of a horse and arms at death. As to Miscyn, there is some doubt whether it was under a Welsh lord at that time.” (Ibid, II. 2, 3.)

“By the time of the death of Gilbert de Clare in 1295, the lordships of Senghenydd, Miscyn and Glynrhondda had all come into the immediate possession of the Lord of Glamorgan, and

were administered by his officers; but they still retained their separate courts and, it seems, their old Welsh laws and customs. These great lordships, founded upon old Welsh territorial divisions, became the manors of those names.” (Ibid, II. 3.)

CONQUEST BY FUSION The real conqueror of Glamorgan seems to have been the Gilbert de Clare, called Gilbert Goch, Red Gilbert, who died in 1295. His son, the Gilbert who died gallantly in 1314 at Bannockburn, stung into recklessness by a foolish remark of Edward II. that he had not the courage to fight the Scots, though the king himself had only courage to run away, brought to the management of the blood-stained acquisitions of the Red Gilbert the astuteness of the statesman and much of the considerateness of the model landlord. The acquisitions of the two Gilberts were not limited to territories which the Normans failed to conquer. More remarkable is the acquisition of lordships and parts of lordships which had been held for generations by independent lords. The Gilbertian conquest was largely a fusion of separate estates into the lordship of Glamorgan, and it was under the pacific rule of the hero of Bannockburn that the greatest fusion was effected. The son seems to have had a greater respect than his father had for the terms upon which the Welsh chieftains and the mesne, or lesser lords, held their land of the lord paramount. These terms were light as between lord and tenant. Later, the lord’s bailiffs and tax-gatherers made them too heavy to be borne without a protest in blood. But a lord who won the goodwill of his tenants and subjects by fair and honest dealing, could with equal fairness and honesty take advantage of any failure on the part of the tenant in the performance of his duty to his lord. One might judge from the records that such was one of the ways by which the estates of the lord of Glamorgan were greatly expanded during the twenty-one years between the respective deaths of the two Gilberts.

TWO SURVEYS The records called Inquisitiones Post Mortem, Inquisitions after Death, “were taken,” says Thomas Astle, Esq., who edited a calendar of such records, by virtue of Writs, directed to the

Escheators of each County or District, to summon a Jury on Oath, who were to enquire what Lands any Person died seized of, and by what Rents or Services the same were held, and who was the next Heir, and of what Age the Heir was, that the King might be informed of his Right of Escheat or Wardship: They also shew whether the Tenant was attainted of Treason, or was an Alien, in either of which Cases they were seized into the King’s Hands; and they likewise shew the Quantity, Quality, and Value of the Lands of which each Tenant died seized, etc., and they are the best Evidences of the Descents of Families and of Property.”

The Inquisitions are sometimes called Escheats. Surveys is the term generally preferred, and the one we shall use.

The lordship of Glamorgan was held by four de Clares, namely, Gilbert (1), 1217-1230; Richard, 1230-1262; Gilbert (2), the Red, 1262-1295; and Gilbert. (3), 1307 -1314. From 1297-8 to 1307, the lordship was held by Ralph de Monthenner and his wife Joan, widow of the Red Gilbert, daughter of Edward I., and mother of Gilbert the third.

For the purpose we have in view, we must confine ourselves to the two surveys made in 1295 and 1314 respectively, the one made after the death of the strenuous aggressor, Red Gilbert, and the other at a period when the estates of the de Clares seem to have reached their greatest dimensions, when they were divided. It will be shown how that division engendered a strife which first resulted in the banishment of the Despensers, then in their destruction. It will be shown also how the King, in the exercise of his right to seize, under certain conditions, such estates into his own hands, so abused his trusteeship as to procure his own downfall.

Both the Gilberts we refer to were Earls of Gloucester and Hertford. The survey of the Welsh estates in 1295 is entitled “Wallia,” though included in Monmouth and Glamorgan; in 1314, the survey is entitled “Glamorgan in Wallia,” including Monmouth. There are ninety-four items of property in the survey of 1295; the list is just doubled in 1314, 190 properties. An analysis of these surveys will be appended to this narrative. Suffice it here to note that both surveys include two

“counties,” Glamorgan and Gwaunllwg or Wentloog. Red Gilbert held 2 castles (?), 5 towns, 20 manors, 1 abbey, 7 churches, 5 granges, 47 items of lands, 3 mills, 1 rent, 3 woods, and one barony, Talyvan. His son held 14 castles, 9 towns, 26 manors, 3 abbeys, 27 churches, 91 items of lands, 3 mills, 9 rents, 5 fisheries, 2 patriae, (Welsh “gwledydd,” meaning distinct Welsh districts), 9 pastures, 2 woods, and 4 tenements. The estates are pretty evenly distributed from Wye to the Tawe, But several places in the districts the Neath and the Tawe are omitted in the survey of 1314. Many of the additional names in that survey are near the coast, suggesting the reversion to or fusion with the lordship of old baronial estates. Altogether, we have in 1314 the district between the Wye and the Tawe completely subjugated to a paramount lord, who seems to have merited the good-will of his subjects. That lord, also, had a personal interest in almost every parish of his dominion. Glamorgan, chief of all, had cause to deplore the untimely death of the hero of Bannockburn.

The estates of Gilbert (3) were to be divided between his three sisters, but the King, on Dec. 3, 1314, assigned in dower a substantial portion to Gilbert’s widow, Matilda. Matilda was given the castle, town, and manor of “Kaerlion”; the manor of “Lyswyri” with ‘‘Lebennyth”; lands in “Edelegan,” “Pantek,” and “Little Tynterne”; the castle and town of Usk; the manor of Usk called “Nova Grangia” (New Barn); the manor of “Llantrissan’’ (Mon.); the town and manor of “Trillek”; the manor of “Troye”; lands in “Cumcarvan” and “Laydarth”; and the manor of “Treygruk.” “To make good what is lacking of her dower in Wales, the King has assigned to her the manor of Great Merlawe, in the county of Buckingham, of the yearly value of £64 12s. 0½ d.” The yearly value of Matilda’s dowry was something over £500, a sum which represents, perhaps, £5,000 in our money.

Eleanor, the eldest of Gilbert’s sisters and co-heiresses, was married to Hugh the younger.

That gentleman had taken Gaveston’s place in the King’s regard, and neither father nor son had shown any caution or moderation in using the advantages of the position” (Stubbs). Hugh obtained by the marriage the lordship of Glamorgan. As husband of the eldest daughter of the Red Gilbert, he is sometimes called Earl of Gloucester. He endeavoured to qualify himself for that title by acquiring,

by hook or by crook, the estates of the other co-heiresses. His aggressiveness, however, was resented by the husbands of the other sisters, and by his rival lords of the marches.

THE DESPENSERS IN GLAMORGAN There are materials sufficiently ample and important to form a large volume on the history of the Despensers in Glamorgan. The connection of the family with Glamorgan began, strictly speaking, in 1317, when the estates of the de Clares were divided. But Hugh the younger had married Eleanor de Clare in 1309.

The family, like many other families now ennobled, seems to have arisen by sheer merit and push. The first Hugh le Despenser was a mediaeval William Cecil. The surname, Despenser, which may be translated, Steward, might have originally meant any sort of stewardship. One of the most stubborn popular fictions is that which represents the rabble of a continent, called Normans, as all noblemen. The Normans themselves knew better. They were not ashamed to respond to their names as Guillaume le Charretier, William the Waggoner; Hugues le Tailleur, Hugh the Tailor: Guillaume le Tambour, William the Drummer; and Hugh the Steward.

There may be as many different spellings of the name Despenser as of different pronunciations of the name Chicago. Someone made out at the time of the World’s Fair there, that the latter name is pronounced in 149 different ways. Our authority probably knew that round numbers are always false. The form “Dispensator’’ occurs, which is Latin for “a steward, a bailiff, a treasurer.” Other forms are Dispenser, Dispensariis, Despensier, Dispencer, Despensariis, Despencer, and Speusariis. There was a Henry le Despencer, Archdeacon of Llandaff. “Hugh le” is sometimes written “Hugh de,” evidently a scribal error. The most approved form is Despenser.

Hugh the younger, with his wife, held the lordship of Glamorgan from 1317 to 1326; Hugh, his son, held it from 1328 to 1349; Edward le Despenser, from 1349 to 1375; Thomas le Despenser, from 1375 to 1400. Richard le Despenser died under age.

In 1317, the de Clares estates were divided between the husbands, in fact, of the three sisters, Hugh the younger, Hugh of Audley, and Roger d’Amory, the second the husband of Margaret, widow of the favourite Gaveston, and the third the husband of Elizabeth, widow of John de Burgh (?). Hugh the younger received as his share almost the whole of Glamorgan. Hugh of Audley obtained the county of Gwaunllwg, with Newport and Machen. The writer has not at hand a description of Roger d’Amory’s share.

Hugh, says Stubbs, set himself to add to his possessions at the cost of his neighbours. As soon, as he heard that the estates of the de Clares were to be divided, he used his influence with the King in the matter for all it was worth. After receiving his proper share, he kept adding to his possessions to the end, the King apparently sanctioning or winking at everything Hugh did, a slave in fact to Hugh’s slightest wish.

GAVESTON The fate of Gaveston should have taught him moderation, but he seemed to have presumed upon his good connections more than Gaveston could do. The favourite he succeeded was an alien adventurer, who came from nowhere, wrought much evil, sent as much as he could of the earnings of infamy out of England, and went to his own place, without disturbing the social order of things much more than a mere pebble disturbs the Atlantic.

Hugh was just another Gaveston plus his father and good English connections. The whole country learnt to respect the family name before it learnt to hate it. Hugh’s mother was, Stubbs thinks, Isabella, daughter of William Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. His father had been created Earl of Winchester. He rose and fell with his father, and, allied with his father, the lord of Glamorgan withstood fiercer attacks than those directed against Gaveston.

BREWING A QUARREL The barons’ quarrel with the two Despensers is a complicated affair. But, with a passage of Stubbs’, we must pass on to the Glamorgan end of the quarrel. Of the period that intervenes between the death of Gaveston and the attack on the Despensers, he says that “the natural history may be summed up as a series of attempts made by the party of the earl of Lancaster to reduce the king to impotence, on the pretext of compelling him to observe the Ordinances; interrupted from time to time by renewals of the Scottish war, which constrained the conflicting parties to a show of reconciliation and joint action; and by the series of intrigues and counter intrigues to obtain for a party independent of the earl of Lancaster a hold on the royal administration. The king all the time, whether working underhand against Lancaster, or acting overtly against him under the influence of a body of allies in whom he has no confidence, is gradually being thrown more and more completely and helplessly on the support of the Despensers, who finally get him entirely under their hands.’

When the Despensers got the King entirely under their hands the quarrel became much simplified. The wrangling barons found a common enemy to unite against. It was not so easy, however, to devise a decent war-cry, but Hugh the younger helped them out of the difficulty. Hugh knew well how to furnish war-cries to his enemies. Having resolved upon the destruction of both Despensers, the barons took the readiest war-cry at hand, and kept the real one in reserve.

The barons’ raid of Glamorgan has been dignified with the title, “The Barons’ War in Glamorgan.” But it was a raid pure and simple into a strong man’s lands when he was away and where, in his absence, there was very little organised resistance. The whole of Hugh’s lordship, which at the time extended from Newport, Mon., to Gower, was thoroughly raided in five days.

There was great damage done at the cost of some fifteen lives. A fairly complete account of the raid may be gleaned from the subsequent indictment of the Despensers brought before the King by the barons, and Hugh the younger’s answer and counter-charges to the same, when he had returned from his banishment and been re-instated in the King’s favour. Both documents must be allowed a

liberal discount. The barons concocted an indictment after they had succeeded in an object not mentioned by them, when the King was in their power, and when the accused had no chance to clear themselves in court. Hugh, again, presented his version of the affair when he was able to demand his own from his enemies. Still there is little reason for doubting the alleged facts in both documents. The barons’ presentment is hypocritical on the face of it, as will be pointed out later.

Hugh, on the other hand, had good notions of constitutional law, and was a, great stickler for his legal rights. As the task he set before himself was truly herculean, winning back both his position and possessions is inclined to place more reliance on his state than on those of his enemies. The documents fit well into each other. The barons tell us why they attacked the Despensers, and Hugh tells as how thoroughly they accomplished their task.

DESPOTISM AND ROBBERY The quarrel came to a head in Gower. Even the Gower side-issue is complicated enough. This much, however, is clear that the King was guilty of an unwarranted act of despotism in aiding and abetting a daring robber.

Capgrave, who always speaks straight in a quaint East-Anglian dialect, must have his say first. “In the XIII. yere of Edward felle a grete distauns betwix many lordis: end this was the cause.

There was a knyte thei cleped Ser William Brews, a gret wastoure of good, whech had baronye in the March of Wales; thei clepe it Gowere Londis. He seld this baronie to dyvers lordis, and took his mony. First to Humfrey Bown, erl of Herford; next seld he the same to to (two) lordis, both hite Roger and eke Mortimere: the on was uncle on the othir cosin. Thanne was there anothir lord thei cleped Sere Jon Mounbray. He had weddid the doutyr of this William Brews, whech was sole eyir onto him: wherfor he chalenged this lond be heritage. Last of aIle, and werst, Hugo Spenser the younger, he desired these londes and boute hem; and, because he was the Kyngis chambirleyn, that sale was moost alowed and approved; in so mech that he entered the londis. At this dede the othir

lordes had gret indignacion. The erle of Hereforth, whech was the first, biere, compleyned onto Thomas of Lancaster; and thei gadered many barones to lyve and deye on thoo tretoures that were about the Kyng, specialy on the too Spenseris, the fadir and the son, for they reuled the Kyng as thei wold; and there was no barn no bischop schuld stand in the Kyngis grace, but if they wolde.”

What a lordly foot-ball match! Poor Gower! To this day she has never known exactly to whom she belongs. Neither Welsh nor English, neither Gwentian nor Dimetian, neither this nor that, still with Welsh, English, Dimetian, and Gwentian affinities.

Mr. O. M. Edwards seems to have mastered the Gower tangle. Hugh the younger “wanted to take Gower from the husband of the heiress of William de Braose, because he had taken possession of it without the King’s license - a robber’s reason that was enough to band all the feudal lords of the kingdom in opposition to the King.” (“Wales,” 229).

William de Braose (you might spell the name any way you like, and be able probably to find a parallel spelling,) had settled the seigniory on his son-in-law, John de Moubray, or Mowbray, without obtaining license to do so. (Dillwyn’s “Swansea,” 3.). Gower, Stubbs remarks, “John Mowbary as heir had entered without the King’s leave, which Hugh le Despenser asserted necessary in Wales as well as in England; M. Malmesb. p. 205. The other marchers took occasion of the quarrel to attack Hugh. Lancaster had his ‘antiquum odium’ against the father, and involved him in it; ibid, p.

209; Trokelowe, p. 107.”

Here we find the elements of a national free fight. The King insists on his royal right in the interests of a favourite who wants another Naboth’s vineyard to the many he had already secured.

The powerful Lancaster, Thomas, becomes involved in the quarrel through his long-standing hatred of Hugh the elder. But the deadliest enemies of the lord of Glamorgan were the Mortimers. “The Mortimers and the Despensers - now neighbours - were at deadly feud. Despenser remembered his grandfather’s death (Hugh, justiciary of England, J.G.) at Evesham through the treachery of the

Mortimers; the Mortimers remembered how Despenser’s machinations had robbed them of land.” (“Wales,” 230). The old scores of two generations were now to be wiped clean off.

The King, by a despotic act, opened the fight. He attempted to take possession of Gower from Mowbray by force. Richard de Foxcote was sent thither for that purpose, but at the chapel of St. Thomas in Kilneye (Kilvey), without the town of Swaynesaye (Swansea), he found a great multitude of Welshmen unknown to him and armed, who altogether resisted the execution of our (the King’s) mandate by force and arms, so that without risk of life he could proceed no further in the said execution of his orders.” Richard de Rodeneye was directed to go in person to Gower, and imprison those who offered resistance, taking with him a sufficient body of men. The oddest clause in the charter quoted (see Dillwyn’s “Swansea,” 3) is that which states that Roger de Mortimer, our justice of Wales, and Hugh le Despencer the younger, Lord of Glamorgan, are also ordered to raise forces for the same purpose.”

“On Dec. 13, 1320, Guy Almavini, serjeant-at-arms of the King’s, household, was sent to the parts of Gower in Wales for maintaining the King’s seizin there, together with others of the King’s household appointed to this office,” Guy was made prisoner by the barons exactly six months later, May 13, 1321. He was paid for his services for six months, 7l. 10s. (“Archaeologia,” xxvi. 334, 335).

For six months, at least, the King seems to have formally held Gower in his own hands, that is to say, it took six months for the quarrel to develop into a war. Guy Almavini was taken prisoner in Gower almost on the very day the barons opened their attack on Hugh the younger at Newport, Mon. The attack seems to have been begun practically simultaneously at both ends of Hugh’s great lordship. The men of Gower had for long been nursing their wrath against Hugh. Even the King, two years before, was compelled to restrain, as far as he could, Hugh’s meddling in Gower. He was ordered not to do anything in breach of the King’s peace by reason of the dissensions between him and his men of Glamorgan, on the one side, and William de Brewosa and his men of Gower, on the other, and to cause his ministers and men to desist from so doing.” (Aug. 3, 1318).

A like order was issued to Brewosa. The King, who saw the storm gathering, busied himself in preparing for it. “In March (1321) the King found it necessary to repair in person to Gloucester, and take precautions against the coming storm. He strengthened the garrison of the castle of Newport, caused St. Briavels’ in, the forest of Dean to be victualled, whither he also went in person on the sixth of April, seized the castle of Montgomery into his own hands, and repaired that of Gloucester. From Gloucester he went to Bristol, where he kept Easter, and having carefully provisioned the castle, returned by Bath, Devizes, Marlborough, and Wallingford to his capital, where he arrived on the fifth of May. The departure of the King was the signal for the rising of the barons; and before the middle of the month Newport had been taken, and the King’s custos of the land of Gower made prisoner.” (“Arch.” xxvi. 334).

HUGH’S ACCOUNT An extract from a MS. at Penarth sums up the whole story. “The barons came upon Sire Hyw’s estates and conquered (goresgyn) all Morganwe.” According to Hugh’s account, the attack was begun at Newport on Wednesday after the Invention of the Holy Cross in the 14th year of the King’s reign.” While Hugh was with the King in his service in the office of chamberlain by appointment in full parliament, the Earl of Hereford, Sir Roger de Mortimer, the nephew, Sir Roger de Mortimer, the uncle, Sir Roger Damory, Sir Roger de Moubray, Sir Hugh Daudele (of Audley), the father, Sir Hugh Daudele, the son, Sir Roger de Clifford, Sir John Giffard of Brymmesfeld, Sir Maurice de Berkele, Sir Henry le Tyes, Sir John Maltravers, and many others allied themselves together by oath and writings to pursue and destroy” Hugh. “Upon this their accord they all came with their retinues (retenaunces) to Newport in Wales in force and arms, to wit, with eight hundred men-atarms, with the Kings banner of his arms displayed, and with five hundred hobelers, and 10,000 footmen, in order to enter the lands that the said Hugh le Despenser the son had in Wales to destroy them.” “With the same power and force they besieged the towns and castles, and took them by force, and slew part of his men, ‘o wit, Sir John Iwayn, Matthew (Mahu) de Gorges, and others to the

number of fifteen Welshmen, and wounded and maimed part of his men such as Sir Philip Joce, and took and imprisoned part of them such as Sir Ralph de Gorges, who is still in prison, Sir Philip Joce, Sir John de Fresyngfeld, Sir John de Donestaple, William de Donestaple, and many others who were afterwards released by ransom, and took and carried away the goods and chattels of the said Hugh, the son, found in the said towns and castles, to wit, forty destriers and armour for two hundred men suitably (nettements) armed, and other garnistures in the said towns and castles, such as engines, springalds, cross-bows, lances, quarrels, and other necessaries, and victuals, such as corn, wine, honey, rye (seel), meat, fish and divers other necessary (bosoinables) victuals, amounting to the value of £2,000.” They took and burnt all the charters, remembrances, and muniments of the said Hugh there found, to his damage of £2,000.” They “burnt part of the gates and houses in the said castles, and took out and carried away the windows, iron-work (ferures) and lead, and committed many other damages, to the damage of the castles of £2,000. The names of the castles thus taken and destroyed are: Neuport, Kaerdif, Kerfilli, Lantrissane, Talvan, Lamblethian, Kenefeg, Neath, Drusselan, and Dinevor.” Dryslwyn and Dinevor, it seems, belonged at the time to Hugh.

“With the said power and force they stayed there in his lands for five days in order to destroy the lands completely (nettement)” “within which time they made by force all the greater part of all the country swear to be of their accord, and they imprisoned and held to ransom all those who refused, and burnt their homes and goods.”

“During the same time they wasted (estreperent) all his manors there, and robbed him of his moveables therein, to wit, of 60 great bearing mares (jumentz portauntz) with their issue of two years, two stallions (estalouns),) 160 plough-cattle (affres), 400 oxen, 500 cows with their issue of two years, 10,000 sheep and 400 swine and of all other necessary things there found, such as waggons (chars), carts, ploughs vessels, without leaving anything, to his damage of £2,000 and burnt some of his barns there at Newport and elsewhere.”

The names of the manors thus destroyed are: Newport Maghai, Dyueles, Ponkarn, Rempny, Rethery, Kerftlfi, Blankmoster, Kerdif, Raath, Lyquith, Cogan, Cloun, Radour, Talvan, Lamblethian, Laneltwyt, Bonyerton, Kenefeg, Lanhari, Neoth, Drusselan, and Dynevor.”

For about a year, “they have since retained all these lands and lordships, such as Cantresmaur (Cantrev Mawr), Glamorgan, and Wenlck, with all the commotes of the Welsh, spoiling and destroying and in levying therefrom as much as they could do, to wit, they sowed and carried away their crop (croup) in the land, to the damage of £2,000., and they have levied the debts there due to him by coercion, amounting to £3,000 together with the rents, fermes, and other customs amounting to £1,000., and destroyed the woods and have since retained them, doing damage all the time.”

“From there with the same power and force they came into England against the castles, towns, manors, of the said Hugh, the son, and took and destroyed them, by felling the wood, chasing wild cats (chat) and parks, throwing down horses, robbing and spoiling (rifauntz) what they could find of his, to the damage of £10,000. And they afterwards sought out (susquistrent) all his friends and men, and took some and put some to ransom, spoiling some and imprisoning some. And afterwards by the same severities they raised the greater part of the people against their will to be of their accord and to be sworn to them, and so with all their force and power they came to the King’s parliament at Westminster, and there upon feigned and untrue reasons erroneously awarded that the said Hugh should be disinherited and exiled from the realm, without calling him to answer against reason and right and the law of the land. Wherefore Hugh prays the King, as he is bound by right of his crown and by his coronation oath to maintain all men in their rights, to cause the process of this award to come before him, and to cause it to be examined, and that Hugh may be received to shew the errors therein, and that it may please the King to repeal and redress the errors found

therein, and to do moreover what right and reason shall demand, and Hugh will afterwards be ready to stand to right and to answer every plaint according to reason.”

Such was Hugh’s case, and no King worthy of the name could have ignored such a petition.

The barons’ indictment of the Despensers must form part of the next chapter.

CHAPTER X THE TRIUMPH OF LLEWELYN BREN The chief note of Glamorgan’s history is independence. It was always independent of the war-kings of Wales. The Welsh of Glamorgan continued independent as long as any other part of Wales did. Under its own lord it remained independent of the war-kings of England. Glamorgan is still a stronghold of whatever independence can be locally claimed within a maternal empire. Hardly a decade passes without witnessing a fit of true Silurian stubbornness. The people have never been crushed and never will. You may send dragoons to frighten them into - treating the visitors to pots of beer. Ay, an empire knows the breed. The Silurian spirit has annihilated every force that was ever intended to destroy it.

But like fire, literally and metaphorically latent in abundance in Siluria, the spirit of the people is a good servant. It is a most valuable asset of an empire, and the second note in Glamorgan’s history is compromise based on mutual self-respect. That makes all the difference between an enlightened sense of independence and unreasoning obstinacy. The people have always accommodated themselves to reasonable demands from strong invaders. They would as readily make terms of peace with the Anglo-Saxons as with the wrangling princes of Dyfed, Powys, or Gwynedd. Glamorgan Welshmen swelled the army of Edward I against Llywelyn. They early learnt how to secure the best local advantages out of the inevitable tide of Anglo-Norman conquest. They could not defend the long coastline, and the Vale which spreads itself out as if to tempt every passing invader. Their castles were the eternal hills, impregnable fortresses. Men could not live on rocks only, but the hill fastnesses enabled the Welshmen to insist upon reasonable terms with the invaders. There was no peace possible in the Vale as long as it was war on the hills. Thus while their countrymen over the Beacons were largely irreconcilables, the men of Morganwg, dreaming no more of absolute independence, were enjoying privileges that would have been hardly possible then in an ideally independent Wales.

It was for rights and privileges accorded to them by the Normans that the Welshmen of Morganwg rose in rebellion of old, almost as often as they “strike” now. They have always insisted on a “sliding scale,” a “minimum wage,” and all that is meant by such tentative applications of the Golden Rule in business. Abject slaves only would have done otherwise.

LOCAL REVOLTS The true story of the Norman conquest of Morganwg is the story of a succession of local revolts for constitutional rights, so to speak, within the bounds of a petty sovereignty. These revolts are commemorated in the names of local heroes. The true inwardness of the struggle can only be inferred from the official records extant, and there is a tendency more or less evident to ignore any other evidence, but such a bad reading of history is now in favour only among Normanophiles and Cambrophobes.

The revolts referred to are too numerous to mention here, but there are three or four which form links in a chain of evidence, showing how the final collapse of the cause of Edward II in Glamorgan was directly caused by a series of events covering at least two centuries. The reader will bear in mind that the ancient Welsh had a tremendously long memory, as people who kept their pedigrees straight to the ninth generation were apt to have. Besides, a series of stirring events of exactly the same character could not fail to impress itself deeply on the people’s mind.

The seat of disaffection was the unconquered districts, chiefly upper Senghenydd and Glynrhondda. Here was kept a fire where the Welsh of the other districts could at any time light their torches of revolt.

IVOR BACH After the conquest, according to the popular legend, was completed, we find Ivor Bach of Senghenydd giving the lie to the pretensions of the lord of Cardiff. As Ivor’s revolt has yielded a crop

of romances, it will serve a useful purpose to quote all the definite information known as given by a contemporary, Gerald the Welshman.

“There has happened in our days in the castle of Caerdyf (Cardiff) a thing not unworthy of remembrance. For Gulielmus (William), Earl of Claudiocestria (Gloucester), son of Earl Robert, who, with the said castle, owned all the province of Gwladuorgan, i.e. Terra. Morgani, by hereditary right, was at war with one within his lordship of the name of Yvorus (Ivor), surnained Modicus (lit. moderate, middling, of medium size), as he was a man of short stature, but of immense courage.

This man owned some mountainous and woody lands, such lands as the Welsh held then, which lands, however, the Earl tried to take from him either altogether or in parts. So it came to pass that, though the castle of Caerdyf was surrounded by strong walls, resounding with the din of its numerous defenders, and though there were in the town one hundred and twenty men-at-arms and many archers, and was also full of hired soldiers, one night, in the midst of such force and means of security, the said Yvorus set up ladders and secretly climbed over the walls, seized and brought out the Earl and Countess and their only child, a baby boy, and took them with him into the forest region (silvestria); and he did not release them until he was given back all that had been unjustly taken from him, and more.”

In the Brut we have such a serious quarrel with this exploit is inserted under the date 1110, but with the usual suspicious introduction, “About this time.” To preserve an appearance of truth Robert, and not William, of Gloucester, is named as the aggressor on Ivor’s lands. Gerald was born in 1150. His account, is so circumstantial on other points that we cannot believe he meant, by “our days,” some fifty years before he could have learnt much of anything.

Ivor seems to have been the chieftain of all Senghenydd from Castell Coch to Morlais. His northern stronghold may have been near a place called Cader Ivor, Ivor’s Chair, near Morlais Castle.

A little eastward there are some ruins called Madoc’s Castle.

A grandson of Ivor Bach, Howel Velyn, Yellow Howel, it is said, successfully repeated the exploit of his grandfather, minus the kidnapping. He recovered the lands of his family from the Normans, from Morlais to Cibwyy.”

HOWEL OF MISKIN Howel of Miskin was not so fortunate. Red Gilbert, in that case, won, not by force of arms, but by an ingenious abuse of his prerogative as paramount lord. It is an illustration of his unscrupulous method of extending his estates. Howel was lord of Miskin and had some quarrel with the earl. The latter endeavoured to make him prisoner at Llantrisant, but Howel escaped to Brecon.

The earl took his lordship. He further accused Howel’s cousin, Sir Richard Syward, of Talyvan and Rhuthyn, of having assisted Howel to escape, by lighting a beacon on his castle at Talyvan at night.

Sir Richard was consequently judged guilty of felony, and was outlawed in the Lord’s Court at Cardiff.

Miskin, Talyvan, and Rhuthyn were added to the estates of the earls of Gloucester, three commotes, out of four of the cantrev of Penychen, but Glynrhondda remained defiant, a nursery of rebels to the end.

MORGAN AB MEREDYDD The next revolt carried forward the cause of Ivor Bach, Howel Velyn, and Howel of Miscin, as regards the lord of Glamorgan, and united it to a still more popular cause, namely, resisting the heavy taxes which the imperious Edward I added to the burden of the local lords dues. In 1294, “Morgan, the dispossessed son of a freeman, led the men of hill and dale in Glamorgan, and Red Gilbert fled for his life.” (“Wales,” 212). Morgan ab Meredydd was Gilbert’s most stubborn opponent, and he eventually prevailed. Gilbert died the following year, and in 1297, we find Morgan a trusty ally of Edward I. He was ordered, with Walter Hakelutel, to choose 900 men from Glamorgan to go with the King and fight his battles in “parts over the sea.”

To the revolt of Morgan we are indebted, it is believed, for a spirited battle-song, a battlesong of the men of Glamorgan. It is called “Rhyfelgyrch Cadpen Morgan,” Captain Morgan’s March.

It ranks with the “March of the Men of HarIech.” It is included in Brinley Richards’ “Songs of Wales,” where the following passage from Williams’ “History of Wales” has been inserted as a footnote. “In consequence of taxes levied by command of King Edward I toward defraying the charges of his wars in Gascony, formidable insurrections took place throughout Wales under several provincial leaders in the year 1294. Morgan, a chieftain of Morganwg, put himself at the head of the oppressed Cymry in that district, drove out the Earl of Gloucester, and regained possession of the territory of which that nobleman’s predecessors had formerly deprived his ancestors. One of the finest of the Welsh martial airs ‘Rhyfelgyrch Cadpen Morgan,’ was probably composed, or selected, by this prince to animate the march of his followers.”

The English words in “Songs of Wales” are in line with the original Welsh, but they are not a translation. The writer has tried to translate, at least, the sentiments of the original. As in the song, “I Bias Gogerddan,” a, mother urges her son to fight for his father’s cause. The reference to Moel y Don suggests that the Welsh words commemorate a famous battle on the Menai.

Rhwym wrth dy wregys gleddyf gwyn dy dad; Atynt fy machgen! tros dy wlad!

Mwg y pent efydd gyfyd gyda’r gwynt, Draw dy gymrodyr ant yn gynt.

Sych dy ddagrau, i dy gyfrwy naid, Gwrando’r saethau’n suo fel seirph dibaid; Wrth dy fwa, hyn wna’th fraich yn gref, Cofia am dy dad, fel bu farw ef.

Marchog i’w canol! dangos dy arf-bais, Cyfod goch-faner Dychryn Sais!

Cmwyth yr hen udgorn a ferwina’i glust, Byw o’i enciliad bydd yn dyst.

Swn gorfoledd clyw yr enyd hon, Bloeddio “Buddugoliaeth” tros Foel y don; Dondith arnat, dos yn enw’r n f!

Cofia am dy dad, fel bu farw ef!

Gird on the gleaming sword thy father bore, For native land, my boy, once more; The smoke of the hamlets rises with the wind, See! there thy comrades leave thee behind; Mount thy charger, dry thy weeping eye, Thick like hissing serpents the arrows fly; Arm for freedom, ply thy trusty bow, As thy father died go and fight his foe.

Ride to the centre! show thy colours bright, Wave the red banner the Saxon’s Fright;

Blow the old trumpet, his ear hates the sound, Live to record his flight from thy ground; Hear the sound of joy ere thou art gone, Shouts of “Victory” over Moel y Don; Blessing on thee! go in Heaven’s name, As thy father died go and guard his fame.

The reader must not think, because the writer makes round, general statements about matters of obscure history, that he is competing for the Nobel prize for idealistic literature.

Throughout this digression he keeps his eye on large facts, which rise like mountain peaks above the details of written records. If any have ever exaggerated the valour of the Welsh, they were the Normans and Anglo-Norman lords, and no part of Wales has been more highly complimented by them than Gwent and Morganwg. It is in Glamorgan that the tourist will find the ruins of the second castle in the United Kingdom, a castle built to restrain Ivor Bach’s men. What noble keepsakes, testimonies of the highest respect, which foreigners have left to the people of Glamorgan! The highest compliment of all is the fact that these keepsakes are now of only pin-money value. The Normans proper presented us with a ring of coast castles. By the time the conquest was completed, an inner cordon of castles had arisen along the broad base of the hilly half or two-thirds of Glamorgan. Catch the “Cambrians” looking for Norman castles in the strongholds of the hill-men, except ill-fated Morlais!

Such compliments the Romans paid to the Silures, and especially to the Picts and Scots. Offa left a mark of his respect to the Cymry in his dyke, which the Cymry have so highly appreciated that they have converted that dyke into a mystery and a myth. The block-house system has been, is, and ever shall be a genuine compliment. In using the last combustible figure of speech, the writer claims the licence of the historian, about the only thing in the latter’s outfit he can properly use.

Looked at from a pro-Welsh point of view, the struggle of the Welshmen of Glamorgan, not for mere land so much as for simple right, becomes almost day-light. The castles are a fair measure of the bounding vitality of a subject race. After the iron age of baronial oppression set in, the golden age of Welsh literature also began. This is history, for the author of “Wales” has said it. We must read into the blanks left in official records, written by and for Anglo-Normans, the history of a people at their racial best.

As the British Empire is now broad-based upon the people’s will, it is time we should have histories of the people, pure and simple, of every period of our history. These are now forthcoming.

Strings of Norman names and high-sounding pedigrees are not history. The history of slavery is not that of slave-drivers only. The descendants of the slaves who actually built our castles now want to study history, and will have histories to suit their fancy.

The Welshmen of Morganwg, we take it, did not materially help building the castles, for one reason, because they were novices in architecture, and for another reason, because they were pretty fully employed in pulling the castles down. The Norman hod-carriers mostly belonged to a race which William the Conqueror politically wiped out in four years, William did nothing in Wales, as the reader knows, except seeking absolution for his crimes at St. David’s.

LONG-STANDING TRAITS There is some reason for believing that every race, or people, progresses forward, and not backward, as the negro preacher put it. Regeneration, so to speak, is a process slightly more potent than degeneration. Great advances are followed by sorry retrogressions. Reformations and counterreformations have their day and cease to be. But we believe that there is, after all, a substantial balance on the credit side of progress.

But students of heredity aver that the evolution of the human is very slow. At any rate, when you are able to trace, by means of reliable data, a family or a race, for centuries, you cannot fail to

discover certain traits of character which seem to partake of the fixity and permanency of physical features. We are merely touching on a large subject by way of introducing a few illustrations of Welsh characteristics to show what sort of people were the Welshmen of Glamorgan in the thirteenth century. If the Welsh of to-day are very much like those of two hundred and fifty years ago, who were much like those of the twelfth century, it should not be difficult to make out the outstanding of the people who fought with Llewelyn Bren, ten years before the fall of Edward II. GERALD AND “WALLOGRAPHY” We will assume that the reader knows Welsh, which one must know before one can know much of us. Gerald the Welshman painted our portrait towards the end of the twelfth century. He was enough of a Welshman to write with sympathy, and enough of a Norman and ecclesiastical reformer to paint our weaknesses in loud colours.

Sometime in the third quarter of the seventeenth century, a clergyman of the decadent type of Charles the Second’s time, a type since rendered impossible, visited Wales, and wrote a designedly funny account of the Welsh people, for the amusement of an English country gentleman.

The author’s surname, Richards, is suspiciously Welsh. In all his fooling, there is no marked unkindliness, though there is a lot of nonsense which no reputable firm would now republish. He applied the test of ridicule to the Welsh people. He did not visit Wales to curse it. He was neither a Balaam nor an inspired ass, but an extinct sort of an English clergyman. We should feel truly grateful to him for so much of the truth in caricature which he has handed down to us. A caricature is never a true portrait, but it usually presents truth which a conventional portrait is intended to conceal.

Gerald notes “the fondness of the Welsh for high birth and long pedigrees. They love above everything else high birth and splendour of lineage. They desire gentle marriages above wealthy marriages. Every one of the common people preserves the pedigree of his family, and the people are ever ready to recite from memory, not only the names of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, but even to the sixth and seventh generations and beyond.” He also notes the boldness with which

the lowest of the people approach and speak before princes and nobles, which quality he cannot find among the English, though it was found among the Romans and the French.

The author of “Wallography,” the seventeenth century book we have referred to, says: “The whole Nation (like a German Family) is of one Quality; for as every Lords Son is a Lord here, so every one is crown’d with the Title of Gentleman there; so that her Countrey is a good Pasture for an Herald to bite in. Who can’t choose but grow fat among such worshipful Genealogies. We were much surprised at the thought of their Rank, and did not suspect so much Gentility among such a people; when we saw so many Coats without Arms, we could not imagine they had any with them, but fancy’d they had more need of a Taylor than of Clarentius ... They appeared to us to be very ill accoutred Gentry: But however vileness of Equipage is no blot in Scutcheon; as may be easily made out from this following Narrative. When King James commanded all that were Gentlemen in an army to pass by him, he observing a Rag-a-muffin to hobble in the Rear of the Train, commanded him to be stopt, because he look’d not like a Gentleman; but Taphy cry’d out that hur was as good a Shentleman as the best, only her Cattle was not so good.”

Yet that musty institution, the College of Heralds, which Mr. Horace Round has revealed to us tottering on its last legs, as authority on history, will deny that Wales has any Arms at all. With the bestowal of that dubious Norman blessing upon Wales, which makes the eldest son only worthy of a pedigree, the Welsh people ceased gradually to amuse themselves with pedigrees. But though the study to most of us has been robbed of any practical personal interest, we still like to spend our spare time in talking about our relatives. There are old bodies among us who can tell the pedigrees of a whole parish. We are still a people “of one quality. We still hold that one man is not necessarily less entitled to respect than another simply because “her Cattle is not so good.” George Meredith says of one of his Welsh characters: - “He had the Cymric and Celtic respect of character, which puts aside the person’s environment to face the soul.” Our village herald, however, has given way to the place-name fiend.

For the sake of brevity, we quote the next note of Gerald’s as summarised in “Wales.” 101.

“The proficiency of the Welsh of the twelfth century in music and alliterative poetry is enthusiastically described by Gerald. The three instruments of music were the harp, the ‘crwth,’ and the pipe. There was a harp in every house, and it was the chief feature in the entertainments of guests. It was played delightfully; most of the airs being in the minor key.” “There was a national passion for singing; the children being taught to sing from their infancy.”

The author of “Wallography” says:- “The musick he plays upon, is a Tool stil’d an Harp, that is a Triangular stick bed-corded with variety of extended Catlings; which he tickles with as much dexterity, as if prentice to Amphion, and draws as many Boys after him, as he did Stones ... He puts his Instrument to one use more than the Ancients did theirs, i.e., he purveys with it for maintenance; so that when sustenance fails him, he strikes tip for a Morsel, and so lives by Sounds, and (Camaeleon-like) hath Alimony from Air. He serenades Victuals in every Village, as the Pide-piper did Rats at Hamel, and he allures Luncheons after him, as much as the other did Vermin: Here a knob of Bacon wags after him, for one strain, and there a Crust follows him as the Reward of another, one hits him in the Mouth with a payment of Pottage, another pops him in the pocket with the gratuity of a Carrot; he is laden sometime with such plenty of Beverage, that he can’t jog for his Fraught; all which variety of Fragments is the most ample In-come, and wonderful Revenue of his skill in Musick.” Alas! the harp has long ceased to be the national Welsh instrument of music, in the sense it was in the times of Gerald and of the author of “Wallography,” but the main thing we wish illustrated here is the permanency of national traits irrespective of the changing conditions of time.

Since the rise of the modern Eisteddfod, music has been more cultivated in Wales probably than ever it was before.

Gerald tells us that the Welsh were a people wholly given to arms. “When the war-trumpet sounds, the farmer leaves his plough, and rushes to arm himself, with as much alacrity as the nobleman hurries to his hall.” “For their country they fight, and for their freedom they strive. For

these, it seems to them sweet, not only to fight with the sword, but to give up their lives even, so much so that they consider it a shameful thing to die in their beds but glory to fall in battle, according to the saying of the bard – ‘Far hence with peace! In peace honour dies.’”

When the author of “Wallography” visited Wales, the sword had been laid aside with the submission of Harlech a few years before, the last place where any decent fighting has taken place in South Britain. We have changed the weapon, but the fighting spirit is as evident as ever. Our author remarks:- “They are much inclin’d to Choler; for hur Welch Plood is soon mov’d, and then hur stamp and stare, and scrat her Pole, and vent hur fury in ud-plutter-a- nails, and will fight for her life in battle at Fisty-cuffs.”

In another paragraph, the author unquestionably establishes our identity with Gerald’s countrymen. The Cambro-Brittons are great admirers of Heroick Actions, and much honour the Memory of Famous Atchievements, in so much so, that rather than a Deed-doing Man shall perish in Oblivion, they will Eternize his Name by the Monument of a Straw, or some such inconsiderable trifle; as appears by the Famous Example of that Saint of their Countrey, Bishop David, who being a pert fighter and having soundly basted and swadled their Foes, is at this day consecrated to Posterity by the Trophy of a Leek ... Their Hats are set with this Anniversary Badge and the Emblem of Honour, and triumph on the first of March; which Day hath been christen’d by his Name, and being Dub’d an Holy-day, hath worn yearly in the Almanach a Scarlet Letter.”

We can stand all such fooling. Our heroes live with us. Their monuments in trimmed stone are conspicuous by their absence. The graves of Llywelyn and Glyndwr are unknown. Not a single monument has been erected to their memory. Now we hurry to erect monuments to men whose fame is hardly ripe enough for it. A good thing, doubtless. But we simply do not need to have monuments to remind us of our heroes. The Sphinx has become meaningless, Stonehenge an antiquarian “pons asinoram,” but monuments erected in the very heart and consciousness of a race

are as lasting as itself. Little have the ruthless vandals of Welsh sentiments ever considered that by their conduct they have actually secured to us our most precious treasures.

Gerald notices the extreme fondness of the Welsh for literary exercises. A striking comment on his note is the fact that the Welsh language had attained perfection of literary form in his days.

There were no Dic Shon Davyddion in those days. A man who was guilty of acquiring an English twang was marked as Cain, though not with the same mark. He became Howel Seis or Sais, Einion Sais, and so forth. As such they lost caste, and some of them had been so well educated in England as to betray their countrymen into the hands of the English.

But the author of “Wallography” found some of that ilk in Wales, and his contempt of them is undisguised, Englishman though he was himself. “Whether the Welch Tongue be a Splinter of that universal one that was shatter’d at Babel, we have some reason to doubt, in regard ‘tis unlike the Dialects that were crumbled there. However, whether it be kin or no to other Countrey Speeches, it matters not, but this we are assured of, it is near and dear to the Folk that utter it, who are so passionately fond of it that they will scarce admit another into the Embraces of their Lips, which sputter forth a kind of loathing of our English Language; wherein, if a question be asked them, they will with somewhat of disdain and choler make answer Dim Saisonick, i.e., no English.” Their Native Gibberish is usually prattled throughout the whole Taphydome, except in their Market-Towns, whose Inhabitants being a little rais’d, and (as it were) pufft up into Bubbles above the ordinary Scum, do begin to despise it. Some of these being elevated above the common Level, and perhaps refin’d into the quality of having two Suits, are apt to fancy themselves above their Tongue, and when in their other Cloathes are quite ashamed on’t.”

Since the sword has been laid aside, their language has been the chief weapon of the Welsh in defending their integrity as a nation. English kings and statesmen of the past were well aware of that fact. We rejoice to hear their successors acknowledging the futility of coercion in that respect.

We shall rejoice still more when such a policy shall be eliminated forever and a day from the imperial programme, and will present a claim for the lion’s share of the credit.

HOW WALES SAVED ENGLAND The subjugation of Wales was unquestionably a great blessing to the English people. Until the latter, at a belated hour, stirred themselves, the Welsh only in South Britain had kept alive anything like a sense of patriotism. The division of England both before and during the Norman domination into petty sovereignties precluded any unity among the people, such as they were, before they became sufficiently Celticised and Normanised to produce a Shakespeare. There are many who boast themselves to be Anglo-Saxons who have never read the Domesday Book, to them a truly humiliating book. Almost every item ends with a phrase like this: - “Godric tenuit de rege E.” (Godric held it of king Edward). So of Alured, Eastan, Lestan, good Anglo-Saxon names. After the four years the Conqueror took to walk over the land, no Ivor Bach breaks the dull round of servitude to which the Anglo-Saxons submitted themselves for centuries. Even the baronial builders of Parliament and Constitution invariably fought with their backs to Wales. The Samson’s foxes which ignited servile England were the thousands upon thousands of Welsh Fluellens, who found themselves one morning without regular work, and listed as mercenaries for England. Then followed materials for battle-ballads and epics and modern English, which is as unlike the language of the Conqueror’s slaves as the modern Englishman is unlike the Anglo-Saxon. But the people who now make themselves hoarse in shouting a borrowed Welsh sentiment – “Britons never, never shall be slaves” - could tolerate Shakespeare’s pitiless portrait of Jack Cade and his rabble.

Such, however, is the triumph of sound over sense that Englishmen will have a world-wide empire, even federated empires, stamped “Anglo-Saxon.” The Anglo-Saxon race, we are told, is to rule the world. An abnormal vanity triumphs over a decent sense of self-respect. The pedigrees are overwhelmingly Normano-Celtic, and the Norman element is the weaker of the two. Are there many “Anglo-Saxons” who care to go back beyond the Domesday Book, that tomb of the race? “Anglo-

Celtic,” however, is an epithet both true and sufficiently comprehensive. Outside of the eastern corner of South Britain, the epithet Anglo-Saxon will always, to a large extent, defeat the purpose in view in flourishing it. There are no less loyal British subjects who treat it as a bull does a red rag.

Perhaps in times gone by, it may have been flourished for the very purpose of picking quarrels. But that is no longer a safe policy, as non-Anglo-Saxons must now invariably be called to rescue your muddling “Anglo-Saxons” from every scrape. It is bad enough to speak of a world-wide empire as a race affair at all, without dubbing it with the name of an extinct species. Why, that representative Englishman, Mr. Punch, when he visited the World’s Fair in Chicago, made a sketch and wrote underneath it: “The Powers that be in Chicago.” Who were they? An Irishman and a German, sitting at a round table and discussing a pot of beer! If Mr. Punch cared to visit Toronto or Montreal, he might with equal truth portray a Scotchman and a Frenchman over the same legend. Let the honest Hodges in smockfrock treasure, if they like, that family badge, “Anglo-Saxon,” but no self- respecting Briton will have it.

Let us further explain ourselves in saying that the Welsh, as the result of their long struggle for their freedom, understood the true meaning of patriotism, and that the descendants of the doomed Domesday Anglo-Saxons did not understand that meaning until Welsh soldiers were let loose over Europe to give brilliancy ,to the exploits of English arms. Such patriotism cannot, of course, be explained in words, nor understood by anybody who is not conscious of it, as he is conscious of his own being. Let a fact illustrate it. Welsh patriotism has lived exactly 619 years upon nothing. It is an intensely spiritual thing - spiritual in the sense Matthew Arnold speaks of the something spiritual - something Greek,” which he detected in the Welsh nature. It is infinitely removed from the patriotism that rises and falls with the stock market. A fat government jobber has no idea of it. It is sacred like religion, and is strongest where its possessor talks least about it. A Welshman does not brag his patriotism at the corner of every street. He hates a professional patriot as he does the man who brags his religion. They live next door to each other. We are not bragging, but writing history with a Welsh licence.

To the man who measures his patriotism by hemispheres, Welsh patriotism will ever be a mystery. As he cannot understand it, he thinks it a thing to “put down,” as Alderman Cute would say.

How absolutely silly to him must be the following aspiration of a home-sick Welshman?

O rhowch i mi fwth A thelyn a chrwth Yn rhywle yng Nghymru fynyddig.

He wants very little, A harp and a fiddle, And a home on a hillside in Wales.

This is the ever-prevailing Welsh sentiment, after a subjugation of six centuries to a throne we have no serious quarrel against, and after blessed primogeniture has deprived the mass of freemen of their original earth-patches! When will that anachronism, “The Anglo-Saxon,” cease to dream that the English language is capable of making “Anglo-Saxons”? Is not this tolerable English?

THE LAST RAID Now that we are fairly mounted on our high Welsh charger, we will join Llewelyn Bren and his men in a raid for home and honour, the last of a long series of Glamorgan revolts which must ever appeal to the highest instincts of man.

It was twenty years after the rise of Morgan ab Meredydd against his lord and the King’s taxgatherer. Llewelyn, like Morgan, united to his personal grievances the common rights of the people into one cause.

Here we must ask the author of “Wales” to guide us through a labyrinth of traditions. When the hero of Bannockburn died in 1314, and “while it was yet uncertain whether Gilbert would have a son, Glamorgan fell to the custody of the King. Edward appointed one of the lords of the Vale of

Glamorgan, Payn Turberville, steward. No more unfortunate choice could be made, for Turberville immediately took advantage of his position to oust the Welsh chiefs from the north, and to replace them with Englishmen. Among those removed was Llywelyn Bren, the popular Welsh chief of Senghenydd. Llywelyn’s heated protest was reported to the King as a threat of rebellion. He went to the King in person, and his reception by the hasty Edward was such that he returned to Glamorgan, and the Welsh of Glamorgan again rose in widespread revolt. Thousands of aggrieved freemen joined him. His first attack was on Caerphilly, the most elaborate of all the new castles, which overlooked the western plains of Glamorgan from a spur of Senghenydd. At the other end of Glamorgan the officials and English settlers fled to a man. Turberville looked helplessly from his castle at Coyty on the storm he had created. The rich vale was devastated, and the spirit of rebellion was embittered by memories of lost land and violated privilege.” (“Wales,” 227).

Without any concerted plan, Sir Gruffydd Llwyd with the men of Anglesey revolted about the same time and for the same cause, the faithful observance of the rights of Welshmen under the Statute of Rhuddlan. Only the year before, the King had appeared as the champion of the Welshmen’s rights. Note, therefore, the extreme folly of his action in slighting Llewelyn Bren, who, like an honest subject and a brave man, bearded the lion in his den. Whatever were the good intentions of the King towards the people of Wales, he seems to have done his very best at times to belie them.

“Every political trouble among a people,” says Chateaubriand, is founded on a truth which survives the trouble.” The barons, who were adepts at inventing legal excuses for their high-handed actions, could inaugurate a campaign on a lie. The truth that actuated them in their attempt to destroy Hugh was assiduously concealed by themselves, and was revealed afterwards by Hugh, and stands self-revealed to us. Not so with the people, who never believe a lie, and never act upon it.

The truth has been, is, and ever shall be their one and only weapon, the truth as understood and believed by them. The hapless King might have learnt the truth which led the people to side with the

Queen and Mortimer, before he set out on his flight from London, but few, if any, knew at the time the full reach of the ambitions of his enemies. The whole truth did not appear until Mortimer was practically King of England. A popular movement must always be weak on the side of diplomacy, and weakest in chicanery.

It was the fate of Edward II. to be the unwitting cat’s-paw of his more clever favourites. To twist the metaphor a little, it was the King himself, as a rule, by some overt act, who applied the torch to the chief political bonfires of his reign. As in the Gower quarrel so in Llewelyn Bren’s. On the 1st of December, 1315, he issued an order to “his well-beloved and faithful” “Payn de Turberuill,” to whom he had committed the custody of the castles and all of the lands and tenements in “Glamorgan and Morganno,” an order concerning bailiffs to be amoved. Trusting to his faithfulness and industry, the King gave Turberville power of amoving baliffs and other ministers within the King’s bailey, and of constituting others in their place; for whom Turberville was to answer at his peril, and as he saw best to be done in the King’s interest. (“Card. Rec,” iii. 14, 15.)

It was like placing a razor in a child’s hand. Turberville hastened to cut his throat with it. That order of the King’s was, we believe, the immediate cause of Llewelyn’s revolt. That revolt was a popular movement. Llewelyn, it is said, was one of the officers removed, but that fact cannot account for the terrific avalanche from the hills which, we are told, swept Glamorgan clean of Englishmen.

The King ordered the suppression of Llewelyn Bren on a mis-representation of the facts, a lie, in fact, in anybody but a king. He preferred to regard Llewelyn’s revolt as a war against himself.

The King had learnt better from the man who led the rebels. One day, the King says that “Lewelin ap Rees” perpetrates and desists not from perpetrating many murders, depredations, burnings and other felonies by himself and his accomplices in the said land (Morganno) from day to day, in contempt of Us and to Our no little cost, and to the manifest terror of the people of those parts, and against Our peace.” A truth-diluted lie which is worse than the real article! The very day following, in

another order, the King makes a practical confession of the real truth. It was at the height of the revolt when he became sufficiently alarmed to speak the truth. He appointed a commission to inquire concerning the treatment of the tenants of the seneschal of Builth, who ignored the tribal customs of “Amobrage,” “Blodwyte,” and Westera.” It was for the preservation of these customs and others rights, and not against the King, that Llewelyn Bren fought. It is the miserable chicanery which is betrayed in the official records that leads us to shove into the back-ground the sorry details of the flight and fall of a disgraced King, in order to make room for as much of that truth as we can learn which will survive as long and as wide-spread as the sense of freedom.

It often appears that the smaller the war the greater are the issues involved. The few battles that are sacred to humanity were small affairs. It is related of a certain statesman that, when he was approached to give his support to some needy individual, he remarked that he was too busy with the welfare of the race to give his time to individuals. But it is the individual who must forever remain the most important element in statesmanship and empire.

CASUS BELLI. If anything in this world is entitled to the epithet eternal, it is the cause of Llewelyn Bren’s war. It is the case of two human beings trying to make a living on the same patch of earth, which has not yet been found possible without the one interfering with the personal rights and liberties of the other. Hence war, war, war from the time the first human family found one cave too small for it down to the latest abnormal dividend of a “sweat-shop.”

Throughout a struggle of two centuries with unscrupulous enemies, the Welshmen of Glamorgan had succeeded to preserve everything they deemed inalienable as their personal and national customs and rights. That they were all freemen is not literally true, for the Welsh had their slaves as well as the Normans. But even a Welsh slave became in time a freeman, by the same Welsh

code which regulated the conduct and standing of all freemen.1 As freemen, the Welshmen of Glamorgan insisted all along on a thorough understanding of their relationships to the lord of Cardiff.

“During the whole of his reign a struggle was going on in Wales between the new official class and the conquered people. When the King interfered it was in the interest of the Welsh freemen.” (“Wales,” 221). Yes, but how ineffectual was his interference? However, we have thrown a pile of notes into the waste basket to make room for the following paragraphs.

“Fines were levied harshly and unjustly. The amobr was the money due to a lord when a freeman’s daughter was given in marriage, and it was also a fine for incontinence. The amount was defined by custom. In some parts it was very heavy, in other parts light, in Arvon it was not taken at all. No fine was so capable of abuse on the part of the officials, and no abuse was so bitterly resented. It was forced from those who had never paid it; it was made the excuse for extortion after a long time, when the accused could not prove his innocence. One of the ordinances of Edward II. enacted that the ‘amobr’ claimed must be the customary sum, and that it must be claimed within a year.

“Freemen were placed under burdens which were due only from villeins and outlanders. The villein paid a hereditary tribute, the stranger a fine in exchange for the prince’s protection. The tendency now was to break down the distinction between freemen and strangers, and even between freemen and their own villeins. The levying of a tax by the sheriff from a freeman was, from the Welsh point of view, to put the burden of a serf on a free man. Edward ordained that the customary taxes due from villeins and strangers were to be taken as they were taken by the princes of Wales, and that freemen were not to be taxed unless the ordinary revenue was insufficient.

1

Just as Wales has always been the home of the free, Welsh law favoured the conversion of slaves into freemen. Hence a nation of “one quality,” to whom the English division, copied by the railway companies, into first, second, and third classes is still hardly intelligible. Wales is not guilty of that ignoble distinction between the “classes” and the “masses.”

“Welshmen were denied justice in civil matters, because the jury was English and ignorant of the customs of Wales. Edward II. ordained that suits between Welshmen must be decided by a Welsh jury and according to Welsh law suits between Welshmen and Englishmen by a jury composed of an equal number of Welshmen and Englishmen; and suits between Englishmen as before.

“The ‘gwestva’ - the freeman’s commuted obligation to maintain his lord when on progress was made excessive. The bailiffs took, not what was offered, but what they thought ought to be offered. Edward II. enacted that the bailiff must either take what was offered or a fixed sum of five shillings.

“The superabundance of bailiffs was a very heavy and a very unwelcome burden. Edward II. ordained that their number was to be lessened, and that the justiciar should fix upon the number of bailiffs that would be of most service to King and subject.

“The disqualifications of English villeins were applied to Welsh freemen - their sons were not allowed to take orders without a licence. Edward ordains that any freeman having more than one son, can allow one of them to take orders without licence from King or justiciar.

“It is clear that the work of the King’s officers in Wales was difficult, and that it opened up innumerable possibilities of abuse - from ignorance, want of tact, or dishonesty. The conquered people were exceedingly sensitive in their conservatism the officials despised what they did not understand. In spite of all his follies, the Welsh of the principality remembered that Edward II., as Prince of Wales and as King of England, had tried to get justice done.

“Between the conquest and the reign of Henry VIII., Edward is the only King who summoned members from Wales to his Parliaments. In 1322, when he was at the height of his power, twentyfour representatives were summoned from South Wales and twenty-four from North Wales. In his

last Parliament in 1326, the three counties of North Wales were represented by eighteen Welshmen, and their boroughs by six. Englishmen.” (“Wales,” 221-224).

It is such a record of legislation on behalf of the people of Wales that gives substance to the abiding interest of Welshmen in the story of the unfortunate Edward. Neither must the King be deprived of the credit for such legislation on account of his incapacity to give effect to his good wishes. But as the story of the people who demanded such legislation is of a more vital interest to us to-day, it must be pointed out that the King, by such writs as the one he gave Turberville, lent his authority for the practical annulment of the acts cited, for the evils complained of were largely a matter of restraining bailiffs. Why did Turberville ask for such an instrument if not to place bailiffs in Glamorgan who could more effectively bleed the Welshmen? Why should a King so well-disposed towards Welshmen treat a powerful Welsh chieftain as a nobody? While one would rather cover all the follies of the King with the mantle of charity and paint a Welsh halo over his portrait, it is more to the point in this tale to show that in spite of all he did for Wales, he did not do enough for the Welshmen of Glamorgan to earn their gratitude and the undying fidelity which, in common with their fellows in Wales, they were undoubtedly ready to show towards an English King whose cause deserved their support.

With their back, metaphorically speaking, to the King’s enactments in their favour, and with such insult thrown in their teeth by the King’s apathy and Turberville’s aggressiveness, Llewelyn Bren and his men, as freemen, had nothing to do but fight the everlasting “good fight.” It is not to the point here to discuss the customs and rights for which the Welshmen contended from the points of morality or civilisation, but simply to say that the lords through their bailiffs endeavoured to deprive the Welshmen of all the protection the law gave them. The Anglo-Normans who are supposed to have brought with them a higher civilisation seemed to have contented themselves in Wales with the low standard of certain political organisations which derive their support from the wages of infamy.

A CYCLONIC REVOLT. The chieftain’s name - Llewelyn Bren - is peculiar. In modern Welsh, it means Llewelyn the Wooden. In “Cymru Fu,” he is called “Mr. Pren,” or Mr. Stick. But Bren, as a surname, is not so easily explained. We find also “Heilin Bren,” and Llewelyn ab Howel “Bren” of Cwmmwd Selyf, Brycheiniog.

One of the rolls gives both his proper and his fighting names, “Llewellyn ap Rees (Lewelin Bren).” In “Iolo MSS.” a work requiring the frequent use of the cruet-stand, he is described as “LIywelyn Brenn Hen (the Ancient), who is called also LIywelyn Hagr (the Ugly), Lord of Sainghenydd, ab Gruffydd, ab Llywelyn, ab Ifor, ab Einion, ab Rhiallon, ab Selyf, ab Dafydd, ab Morgan, ab Maglawn, Prince of Alban.” A typical old-fashioned pedigree, slightly more modest than the average, for instead of tracing the pedigree to Brutus and the Trojans, through Jupiter and Saturn to Adam, it ends with the probably Pictish father of the Morgan after whom perhaps Morganwg is called. It is not likely that the official scribe who gave two names to Llewelyn in one document, names repeated in other official documents, erred in naming Rhys, and not Gruffydd, as Llewelyn’s father. As to Llewelyn the Ugly, another pedigree gives that name to the Llewelyn mentioned in the pedigree cited as Llewelyn Bren’s grandfather.

The leading facts about the chieftain are given by Prof. Tout in the “Dictionary of National Biography.” Llewelyn Bren was a “man of large possessions and great influence in Glamorgan, where he held lands in Senghenydd and Miscyn (Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1327-30, p. 30).” He held high office under Gilbert de Clare, the last earl of Gloucester of his house. Payn Turberville, one of the lords of the Vale, removed Llewelyn and others of the old officials to make room for his friends. Llewelyn “angrily denounced Turberville, who thereupon accused him before the King of sedition.” Llewelyn went to court, hoping to excuse himself, but the “foolish Edward” despised his complaints, and called him a “son of death.” The latter was formally summoned to appear before the Parliament of Lincoln, which assembled 27 Jan. 1316 (Parl. Writs., II. i. 152), but on receiving the summons he secretly returned to

his own country, and, having taken counsel with his friends, rose in revolt. “No doubt, however, there was a national element in the rising.”

Though the statements in “Iolo MSS.” cannot be trusted it is true that the rising was cyclonic in character. Llewelyn “demolished many castles of chieftains, namely, the castles of St. Georges, Sully, Tregoyan, that of Foulke Fitzwarine, Barry, St. Athan, Beaupre, Kenffig, Ruthyn, Gelli Cam, and Flemingston; and he killed such numbers of English and Normans, that no Englishman could be found who would so much as entertain, for a moment, the idea of remaining in Glamorgan.” (.”Iolo MSS. 481).

At this period, there was in each town and village a sort of land stewards, called preventive mayors (Meiri Gwared), but Llywelyn the Ugly had them all hanged; and the chieftains were obliged to discontinue such appointments, because no person whatever could be found to undertake the office, either for money or goods.” (ibid, 481).

Perhaps the account cited has been under-estimated, for it omits mentioning Llewelyn’s most daring feat, namely, the attack on huge Caerphilly. Fancy an ex-bailiff summoning that place to surrender! But he had with him six stalwart sons for aides-de-camp, and, says the Monk of Malmesbury, ten thousand Welshmen from the hills, a force equal to that of the barons when they raided Glamorgan. Llewelyn began by attempting to surprise Caerphilly, while the constable was holding his court outside the walls. He took the constable prisoner, and burnt the outer works, but failed to capture the main works of the castle. Turberville could do nothing but viewing from the walls of Coity the devastation of the Vale, and he was speedily superseded by a wiser custodian of Glamorgan.

It was at a time when Glamorgan was really thickly dotted with castles, say, about thirty, as many probably as there are of ruins to-day. Here Llewelyn Bren ruled supreme for the time, until the castles were relieved by an overwhelming force from outside the lordship. The wholesale hanging is probably referred to in the King’s expression “to the manifest terror of the people of these parts.” So

powerless was the probably best Anglo-Norman “block-house system” in Britain to withstand the hill-men of Glamorgan in a fighting “hwyl!”

THE CHURCH. Here we should note that the Church, as distinguished from some bishops who, like Orleton, could teach the lords a few points in chicanery, made a common cause with the Welsh people in their opposition to the wrong-doings of the lords and their bailiffs. More especially was this the case with the monks, then at the zenith of their usefulness and honour. The abbots were really the model landlords of the time. The priests and monks have never been anything but champions of the people. It is with the higher dignitaries of the Church that history has a quarrel for winking at, if not abetting, deeds of inhumanity for the attainment of an ideal political supremacy for the Church.

It should be borne in mind that Llewelyn Bren’s revolt was but a symptom of a disease that had become already chronic, and the cure applied, if cure indeed, was only local. Not until the abolition of the lordships marchers by a Tudor that anything like a cure was effected. The monks like the people, suffered from the barons’ aggressions. In 1290 the prior of Brecon lodged a complaint against John Giffard of Brymmesfeld, custodian of Builth, a strenuous baron and the successor of the blundering Turberville in Glamorgan, and his ministers that “he was greatly wronged, touching tithes belonging to him and his church of Brecon and his free court and prises of ale which he claimed from his men and tenants in Buelt; and also by a toll exacted from him, his men and tenants when coming to the land and town of Buelt to trade.” A commission of oyer and terminer was appointed to inquire into the prior’s grievances.

The disease referred to was sporadic in character throughout the land. Every freeman naturally resented the exactions of the bailiffs, and there was much lawlessness as a result. Some of the exactions were of a nature to blow the very last spark of honour in man into a flame. It should not appear strange, therefore, that the Church, the poor man’s motherland, adopted her own view of this sporadic lawlessness, and chose to shield those whom the barons wished to have punished

for resisting illegal exactions. Possibly the right of sanctuary was abused now and then, but it was in most cases very likely the only right remaining in the land for persons whom the Church could not withhold her protection.

At the time of Llewelyn Bren’s revolt, the King, as temporary lord of Glamorgan, saw it necessary to give special instructions to the bishop of Llandaff on this matter of sanctuary. “The King hears that many outlaws and other malefactors go to his church of Llandaff and dwell there, and are harboured there, and that they leave it and return to it at their will, committing robberies and other damages in these parts, principally because no guard is placed upon them when they have entered the church as ought to be done; the King orders the bishop to have consideration to the fact that these proceedings are to the breach of the King’s peace, and that the malefactors turn his church into a den of thieves, and to cause a sufficient guard of his men to be put upon the said malefactors when they have once entered the church to enjoy its immunity.” Fortunately, bishops and abbots were then practically independent, fortunately for the King by the time he sought church sanctuary in Glamorgan.

THE COLLAPSE. It is difficult to find out the date of the actual rising of Llewelyn Bren. The sporadic lawlessness became epidemic. As an epidemic of revolt, it seems to have lasted for the most part of a year. It is very likely that Turborville exercised what he deemed his right in amoving bailiffs before he sought a special authority to do so. Llewelyn early in the proceedings committed himself in some way which Turberville construed as an act of sedition. It seems that after Dec. 1st, 1315, when the “well-beloved” Turberville received the King’s order, which was probably a sort of absolution for his previous wrong-doings more than a necessary warrant for his aggressions, that the revolt assumed the dimensions of a war. For three months, we may say, Llewelyn had very much of his own way in Glamorgan. Up to Sept. 18, 1316, some of Llewelyn’s men were still on the war-path.

The primary charge of quelling the rebellion was entrusted to Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, who was assisted by Mortimer, lord of Wygemor,” Mortimer of Chirk, Henry of Lancaster, Hugh of Audley, William de Monte Acuto (Montague), and Rhys ab Griffith, and others.

Owing to the revolt, few lords could attend the Lincoln Parliament in January. Soon an overwhelming force from the marches, including Rhys ab Griffith’s Welsh forces from West Wales, caused Llewelyn to call a halt and to hold a council of war. Llewelyn, says Prof. Tout, “despairing of further result, offered to submit if his life, limbs, and property were spared.” But the earl of Hereford would accept nothing but unconditional surrender. Thereupon the brave Senghenydd chieftain roused himself and, touched the highest record of heroism. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” It is not a mere ex-bailiff avenging the loss of his job that we see facing fearful odds now. Prof. Tout, who has carefully sifted the evidence, and who is by no means overenthusiastic over Llewelyn’s revolt, says: - “When the English army approached the mountain fastnesses of the rebels, Llewelyn told his followers that he had been the cause of the revolt, and that it was right, therefore, that he should perish rather than they. He, therefore, went down from the hills, and surrendered himself unconditionally to Hereford, who sent him to the King.”

Hereford treated his prisoner with respect. It was to the interest of Hereford, and especially his neighbour Mortimer, to obtain the favour of Llewelyn and the men of Senghenydd. They were watching Hugh Despenser, who was at the time working for the possession of Glamorgan. Prof. Tout thinks that it is probable that Hereford and the Mortimers promised informally that Llewelyn should not be too severely dealt with, and it was afterwards alleged that the King had agreed to act upon their promise. What is stated in the barons’ indictment of the Despensers is that Llewelyn surrendered “at the King’s will” and that the lords to whom he gave himself up promised him grace.”

But it is not clear that Llewelyn was offered, before his surrender, any promise or pledge whatever.

But it is clear enough that from the date of his surrender, and as long as he was in the King’s power, the King made it a matter of his royal honour to protect Llewelyn. There is evidence also that

the King at last became convinced of the righteousness of Llewelyn’s cause. This is shown by his leniency towards the offenders as a whole, and by at least a show of suppressing the evils complained of.

March 26, 1316, the earl of Hereford was ordered to cause Llewelyn, with his wife, children, and others, to be taken under safe custody at the King’s expense to the Tower, there to be delivered by indenture to the constable. The latter, John de Crumbwell (is this an early form of Cromwell”?), was ordered on the same date to receive the same and to keep them safely in the Tower. On the same day, William de Monte Acuto, Henry de Pembrugge, and Robert de Grendon were ordered “not to take fines or ransoms from any of the chief promoters of the late insurrection in Glomorgan and Morgannou, by virtue of their appointment to take fines and ransoms from all who rebelled and afterwards surrendered themselves to the King’s will, but to cause the bodies of such promoters to be taken under safe custody to the Tower of London.” This order is evidently a rider to the one given to Hereford, as the men named were captains of forces under the earl.

Llewelyn was not conveyed to London until the following July. He remained in the Tower from July 27, 1316, to June 17, 1317. On Sept. 18, 1316, John Giffard of Brymmesfeld, now custodian of Glamorgan and Morganwg, John Giffard of Weston, his lieutenant, and Robert de Grendon, the King’s sheriff there, were empowered to receive into the peace and good will of the King certain men of the parts aforesaid who adhered to “Lewelin Brenne” there against the King and are still against him.” (“Card. Rec. iii. 16, 17). John Odyn, burgess of Cardiff, who had been captured, detained in Cardiff, and tried for causing corn, wine, and divers other victuals to be carried to “Lewelin Bren, the Welshman, and his accomplices,” was ordered to be delivered from prison. (Card.

Rec. iii. 17, 18). A conditional general amnesty to Llewelyn’s imprisoned followers was issued on Nov. 15, 1316, when John Giffard was ordered “to cause all those persons of those parts who lately rose in war against the King with Lewelin Bren, and who are imprisoned on that account, and who

made fines and ransoms therefor before William de Monte Acuto, to be released from prison upon payment of the said ransoms and fines.”

MORTIMER’S HAND The next item from the records is at this point of special significance. On Nov. 12, 1316, Llewelyn (Thewelinus) ap Maddock ap Howel received protection against being aggrieved “for anything pertaining to the King by reason of the trespass committed by him against the King.” The King had pardoned him at the request of “Mortuo Mari of Wyggemor.” It seems clear that the men of Senghenydd, together with their chief, were greatly indebted to both Mortimer and Bohun for their intervention. Such a course was part of the design of these lords in circumventing the aggressive Hugh Despenser. But the people as such, as we have opined already, could only see straight before them. These lords’ intervention touched their hearts. They remembered it at the time of the barons’ raid of Glamorgan. They learnt that they could rely on Mortimer in their struggle against Hugh. Hugh, however, could see through these lords’ seeming generosity. It was still more damaging to the cause of Llewelyn Bren, and fatal to himself, that Mortimer should have shown his hand in the affair. But be it noted from this on that the men of Senghenydd, with all the hillmen in touch with them, had sufficient reason, as subsequent affairs appeared to them and affected them, to side with Mortimer, even as against the King himself.

As soon as Hugh obtained the lordship of Glamorgan, which was about the time Llewelyn Bren was liberated from the Tower, he lost no time in ridding himself of a powerful chief, with a leaning towards Mortimer and Hereford, a chief who was too dangerous a neighbour for the furtherance of Hugh’s aggressive designs. By a mad act of folly, when Glamorgan had become his in 1317, he fell upon Llywelyn, through whom the Welsh could have been easily conciliated, took possession of his estates, and dragged him through the streets of Cardiff as Dafydd had been dragged through the streets of Shrewsbury to an equally horrible death.” (“Wales,” 233). How the

men of Senghenydd must have rejoiced when, nine years later, Hugh paid the penalty for the murder of their chief on a gallows fifty-feet high!

Hugh helped the Senghenydd men to keep green the memory of their martyr-chief.

Llewelyn’s sons, Gruffydd, John, Meurig, Roger, William, and Llewelyn, were excluded from their inheritance until the destruction of Hugh. The reader will remember that the law of primogeniture had not been introduced as yet to the “commotes of the Welsh.” Many other disinherited hillmen made it a matter of supreme importance to help bringing about the downfall of Hugh. A strong sentimental attachment to a King who was a Welshman could not heal hearts lacerated through the apathy and incompetency of that King, by the loss of privileges, lands, and father of a tribe, possibly the bravest of the long line of Glamorgan heroes.

THE SHADOW OF THE MURDER The murder of Llewelyn Bren, we maintain, was a leading factor in procuring the downfall of the Despensers, and, with them, the King. When, four years later, the barons after raiding Glamorgan concocted a decent excuse for their treason, by a happy inspiration they fixed upon the murder of Llewelyn Bren. They went to Parliament in force to over-awe the King and to demand the banishment of the Despensers. On Aug. 18, 1821, a process was enrolled at Westminster against both Despensers, “for the honour of God and of Holy Church and of the King, and for the profit of him and of his realm, and to maintain peace and quietness among his people, and to maintain the estate of the crown.” Paragons of piety and loyalty! The prelates, earls, barons, and other peers of the land, and the commune of the realm,” charged the two Hughs, in reference to Glamorgan, that whereas the earl of Hereford and the lord of Wygemor were assigned by the King’s order to go in war against Thlewelyn Bren, who had risen against the King in Glamargon, whilst the lands were in the King’s hands by the death of the earl of Gloucester, the said Thlewelyn rendered himself to the said lords at. the King’s will, and the said lords promised him grace, and received him under such condition and delivered him to the King, and the King received him in such form, and afterwards,

whilst the said lords were out of the land, the said Hugh and Hugh, who had accroched royal power as is aforesaid, took the said Thlewelyn and sent him to Kaerdif, after Sir Hugh, the son, was seized of his purparty there, and, seizing jurisdiction by their conspiracy where in this case they could have no jurisdiction according to reason, feloniously caused him to be there drawn, hanged, beheaded, and quartered for a thing done in the King’s time, and so seizing royal power and jurisdiction that pertained to the crown, in disinheritance of the crown, dishonour of the King and of the said lords of Hereford and Mortemer.”

Hugh, in his answer or counter-charge, says nothing about Llewelyn Bren. The barons, for once at least, hit upon an unanswerable excuse for cowardly attacking Hugh in Glamorgan and in Parliament when, on both occasions, he was unable to defend himself in person, but it was an excuse designed to carry the country with them. They seem to have tried to create an impression that they, humane, self-sacrificing barons were championing the cause of the down-trodden hillmen of Glamorgan. It is somewhat strange, however, that the fifteen men killed during the raid of Glamorgan were Welshmen, that the barons who were so anxious to deliver the Welshmen from Hugh’s yoke, made the commotes of the Welsh to swear allegiance to themselves, that they do not seem to have restored their lands and rights to the disinherited Welshmen, and, strangest of all, that the barons who had such tender consciences in the matter of the dignity of the crown, raided Glamorgan, as Hugh tells us, “with the King’s banner of his arms displayed.” Did the barons not “accroche royal power,” seize jurisdiction by their conspiracy,” and royal power and jurisdiction that pertained to the crown, in disinheritance of the crown, and dishonour of the King”? Thus a specious case, based on facts, is false through and through as an explanation of the barons’ motives.

“THE CUSTOM OF THE MARCH.” But, then, it was easy to talk about the honour of the crown before a King who had much to learn on the subject. His father stood in no need for such voluntary interpretations of his own dignity and honour. Longshanks was truly what every king is theoretically, “the fountain of honour.” His task

was not to receive lessons from his rebels on nice points of honour, but to give them. As an illustration of how the father could teach lessons to his barons which his son was content to learn from them, the following episode is too good to omit. It will help to clear some confused notions as to what has been called, “the custom of the march,” a right which the barons are represented as claiming to wage private wars at will.

It would be worth while for someone to spend a rainy week to write the story of the conquest of the Black Mountains and the Brecknock Beacons (if they have ever been conquered), in other words, the story of Morlais Castle and the Red Castle of Y stradfellte. Red Gilbert tried to obtain possession of the watershed of the Taff and a pass into Brycheiniog. The earl of Hereford stood guard over the Roman road, so to speak, from Brecon to Glamorganshire west of Cader Arthur, and tried to obtain command of the watershed of the Neath. The neighbourhood is rife with traditions of bloody border fights.

As far back as 1268, we find Red Gilbert entering into a curious agreement with Llywelyn ab Gruffydd, Prince of Wales, by which the hill districts of Miskin, Glynrhondda, and the upper part of Senghenydd from the Caiach to the borders of Brycheiniog should be left undisturbed by either of the parties. The fact of the matter seems to be that the Welshmen of those parts were independent equally of Llywelyn and of Gilbert. The prince and the earl, therefore, could easily agree to treat as a buffer state a piece of land which neither of them could do anything else with. But Anglo-Norman agreements with the Welsh, like crusts, were meant to be broken. While poor Llywelyn was busy elsewhere fighting a more formidable foe, Red Gilbert worked strenuously to extend his sway in Glamorgan.

But as soon as Edward I could afford to reprimand his bosom friend and powerful rival in ambition, he did it characteristically. The frequent skirmishes between Hereford’s and Gloucester’s men, about Ystradfellte and Merthyr Tydfil, had become a scandal which the King must deal with in the interest of his crown. He first warned Gilbert against molesting the Earl of Hereford. But Gilbert

persisted in his course. The King then appointed a strong commission to inquire into the alleged trespasses upon Bohun’s lands. It seems that one or both earls wished to withdraw from the suit, but the inflexible Longshanks issued a mandate on Jan. 18, 1290, to the judges previously appointed, “that, even should the said earls or either of them withdraw from the prosecution or defence of this matter, the said commissioners are to hold the inquiry nevertheless, and to certify the King thereof within fifteen days after Easter, as it concerns the dignity of his crown, the said trespass having been committed after the King’s inhibition to the earl of Gloucester from molesting the earl of Hereford or his men.” Nine of the lords marchers were commanded to appear before the commissioners, and the sheriffs of Gloucester and Hereford have been commanded to have juries of twenty-four from each county present.” Such was Longshanks’ interpretation of “the custom of the march.”

The final triumph of Llewelyn Bren was terribly complete, as every righteous cause baptised with a brave man’s blood must always prevail. With him ended a long series of revolts against highhanded oppression, exactly two hundred and fifty years after the Battle of Hastings, and two hundred and thirty years after the time we find a record of a Norman possessing land west of the Usk. His story lives to safeguard Morganwg against all who may have designs against her birthrights.

“No more the stamp of armed steed Shall dint Glamorgan’s velvet mead; No trace be there in early spring, Save of the fairies’ emerald ring.”

CHAPTER XI A PARCHMENT ARMY We may have wandered, so far away from the subject that the reader perhaps can hardly recollect where we left it. The King arrived at Cardiff on Oct. 26. At Bristol, “on the same day,” as Prof. Tout says, “the proclamation of the Duke of Aquitaine as guardian of the realm showed the success had given the confederation wider hopes than the destruction of the Despensers and the avenging of earl Thomas.” But as yet, and in spite of the machinations of his enemies, the King had hold of the thick end of the club of authority, though he could not use it with any effect because the Queen had got hold of the other end. Though virtually dethroned, he was still King. He had with him the great seal, without which the Queen’s writs were valueless beyond the reach of her arm. The King had with him also the rolls of chancery, and his movements during the fortnight he spent between Cardiff and Neath can be traced from the records actually written during the flight. The editor of “Parliamentary Writs” finds in the entries made in Glamorgan “great marks of haste and irregularity.” The King, Hugh the acting king, the Chancellor, the Serjeant-at-Arms, the rolls and great seal, a whole kingdom once perambulated the ancient track-ways of Morganwg. Thus it came to pass that the Rhondda Valley became for the nonce the centre of gravity of the British Empire in embryo.

The King spent a solid fortnight between Cardiff and Neath chiefly in pardoning malefactors by way of commanding their services, and in coaxing the “commotes of the Welsh” to take up his cause. The pardons, as one writer remarks, “show to what a hopeless position the King was reduced when robbers and murderers came there and received a welcome and pardon on condition of support.” Only in one case, however, are Welshmen mentioned in the pardons. They must have been either too bad or too good to receive pardons. We are rather inclined to the latter view, because the King specially ordered that a certain clause, in a series of writs, providing for the punishment of those who refused to obey the writs, should be omitted in the writs to the Welshmen

of Morganwg. Could anything be more complimentary? But, alas! it was only another proof of the King’s desperate straits. It may appear a sad waste of time to write the history of an army that never existed except on the Patent Rolls, yet therein lies the chief interest we have in writing this chapter.

That parchment army represents the political division of the district in 1326. The names are given of the recognised chieftains or captains of forces among the Welsh, as well as the names of officers other than those of the “commotes of the Welsh.” It is all straight history, as much so in a sense as if the parchment army had been actually conjured up from the vasty deep. It is specially the sort of information necessary to make pedigrees historical. A charter now and then spoils a fine pedigree, but a pedigree attested by charters is as truly historical as anything on paper.

THE COMMOTES OF THE WELSH The commotes of the Welsh, of course, demand our chief attention. Until the present day, to a large extent, the commotes of the Welsh of Glamorgan have preserved their individuality and integrity, as indeed have all the commotes throughout Wales which were recognised by Edward I. We mean not the division of the district as now fixed for the administration of local government, but the districts recognised by the natives as having a distinct character. Even now the ethnologist and philologist may be able to re-trace the ancient commote’ boundaries. The commote was the unit of the Welsh system of government. Each was self-contained, with its lord, laws, and land for the support of a distinct community. It was a “gwlad,” “patria,” father-land. Within each commote, longstanding tribal feuds were cherished with as much care as Nelson taught his men to hate the French.

The commotes of Glamorgan can be fairly traced by means of the nick-names given to the people of the commotes, names which doubtless represent some tribal distinctions of the remotest origin.

Commote patriotism is strong, deep, ineradicable, the only patriotism worthy of the name. It is that of the Irish and Scottish clans, infinitely removed from that of Johannesburg Jews. If it is narrow, it is deep; if local, classic. Homer knew of no better to sing about. Greece and Wales have much in common, both geographically nurseries of commote independent life, and historically

scenes of immortal small fights for the largest issues affecting mankind. History does repeat itself.

The Welsh farmers whom Gerald describes as rushing from their ploughs to the battle-field are still represented in Britain’s broad field of battle. Serjeant What’s-His-Name has not yet drilled a company to compare with a commote band of equal number fighting around their chieftain. How useful small patriotic communities have been in reminding large empires of the first principles of warfare! “Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.” Cattle for catapults, six thousand strong! (History of South Africa).

The songs of the commote bard have never a false note. He does not one day compose a “Recessional,” and the next day “forget” it and sing “Pay, Pay, Pay!” Commote poetry is all honest jingo. It is to commote life that our Barries, Maclarens, Hardies, and Caines must go for inspiration to revivify a people growing prematurely old in a vain attempt to make the world “Anglo-Saxon.” Poor imperial race! It will never again enjoy what it pretends to despise, a mere commote or parochial zest of life, which compared with a vain-glorious pride of conquest is as youth to decrepid age.

What must heighten the reader’s interest in the commotes of Morganwg is the fact that these unities of political life may be traced with tolerable completeness for at least two thousand years. Prof. Rhys observes, in reference to the Silures: - “It is, however, very remarkable that this people should have been able to resist the Roman arms with more or less success for so many years, and it may be regarded as certain that a very considerable force was left to occupy their country; for afterwards the second Augustan legion is found permanently posted at Isca Silurum, called later Caerleon.” (“Celt. Brit. 86). It is very remarkable that, at the dawn of the Christian era, a tribe of “barbarians” inhabiting our Black Mountains should have been able to defy the might of Rome. But were they “barbarians”? What is civilisation? A nursery of homely virtues, or a hot-bed of vice? Is it a box-hat? That most ridiculous of inventions is represented on the barbaric totem-posts of British Columbia. Is it clothes? When savages are made to wear clothes, they die in hundreds as a consequence of throwing off their clothes to indulge in hunting. Those of them who wish to live

must stick to their clothes, cease to be “nature’s noblemen,” and become mere clothes-pegs like Piccadilly dandies. How is it that highly-civilised people are regularly conquered by barbarians? The captive general of the Silures, Caradog, gave his captors one good reason. Had Rome learnt it she might have remained to this day mistress of the world. You are determined to rule the whole world; but does it follow that all the world will welcome servitude?” A genuine Glamorgan sentiment!

Morien will have it that Caradog was a countryman of his and everybody who knows Morien knows where he comes from, and those who do not know Morien know nothing of Glamorgan.

The Creator has made Celts incapable of uniting together on a large scale, in order to make the Celtic unit more efficient. That is how the principle of natural selection works in Celtia, the principle according to which higher organisms are less prolific than lower, horses than rabbits. The “cities of the plain,” the seats of empire, soon degenerate and must be burnt out periodically. Celtic commote life is like that of a commote river which retains its purity by perpetual motion. The commote system, which prevented the Welsh from uniting among themselves, saved Wales from the fate of Anglia. While the “Anglo-Saxon” of to-day swaggers in a borrowed suit, shouts borrowed sentiments, and boasts of a crazy-quilt language, patched of rags of speech from the world’s Babel, so much swathed in borrowed drapery that he really does not know who he is, the natives of Welsh commotes have the past at their “elbows continually.” They shake hands with Caradog, nod to Julius Frontinus, who probably taught them how to make Welsh broth. Their diet is that of the Romans.

Their language is largely that of the Roman legions. “They still march with Cadwallader, with Llewelyn, with Glendower.” They have a most lively sense of identity with the remote past. Hence an “old sea rises in them,” impelling them to work out their destiny on commote lines, dreaming dreams for a witless world, sharpening their wits with subtle dialectics, by nature sectaries of a most pronounced type, “Y Gwir yn erbyn y Byd,” faith and truth above filthy lucre, the spiritual always before the material, too much engaged in attending church, chapel, and eisteddfod to grow rich, contented with natural limitations, quick to detect and merciless to repress personal ambition, and recognising Cwstwm Gwlad, the Custom of the Land, as absolute sovereign of the commote. At such

local gymnasiums of character are developed the muscles of empire. Imperial expansion at the expense of the destruction of these can only be an unhealthy, useless acquisition of adipose tissue.

It is with the gravest possible sense of our mission as a people that we prefer to remain “barbarians,” so much so that we bend all our energies to preserve an uncouth language. We are barbarians enough to apprise at our own valuation the blessings of Anglo-Saxon civilisation, and we believe most seriously that with the undoubted advantages which that civilisation has brought us, there is in religion and morals to us a loss proportionate to the gain. Perhaps we are blind, but we do see that English influences inevitably bring about a deterioration in habits which we have been trained to regard as the bulwarks of good manners and good morals. As it happens, the portions of Wales which have been thoroughly Anglicised are no convincing examples of the superiority of the new regime, individuals and families, of course, excepted. We rather look upon them as convincing examples of the sterility of hybrids. But our commote pride is not allowed to dull our sense of loyalty to the British Throne, and our very commote ideas and ideals enable us, we claim, to love and sympathise with the contents, individually and collectively, of the large Joppa-sheet of subject species, all in due course to evolve into fine “Anglo-Saxons,” the corner of which sheet His Majesty King Edward the Seventh holds in his deft hand.

Welsh commote life, like everything Welsh, is strangely bound up with the use of the Welsh language. They live and die together. There is a virtue in the mother tongue, the tongue which we have sucked in with our mother’s milk, which has grown with our growth, become strong with our strength, and interwoven with the whole tissue of our existence, that in the nature of things can belong to no acquired language. Its commonest phrases are rich in the most pleasing associations, and its words possess a hue, a fragrance, and an expressiveness that belong to them only, as the hue and scent of the rose belong to the rose. The man who disowns his native tongue and adopts another one does so always with the loss of an essential part of his vitality, for which no adequate substitute can be found. (Prof. J. Stuart Blackie, “An Gaidheal,” iii. 225).

It was the aim of the English to destroy the commote system, and with it everything Welsh.

Around each Norman castle, an English town grew up, “and, by Henry IV. c. 32, it is enacted that castles and walled towns in Wales should be possessed by valiant “Englishmen, strangers to the seigniories. The charters of those towns give great liberty to the English; but no Welshman might be a burgess, or purchase any land therein; see 2 Henry IV. c. 12 and 20. It is also enacted, that no Welshman should have any castle or fortress, saving such as was in the time of Edward I. except bishops and temporal lords.”

ENGLISH FREEDOM But, fair play to the Normans, they seem not to have pursued a definite policy of suppressing the Welsh language as such. On the contrary, they had an undoubted genius, such as tramps and vagabonds still have, for accommodating themselves to new conditions. They married Welsh heiresses. They indirectly caused Welsh literature to be brought to the notice of Europe. But it was a prime necessity to have their castles garrisoned by the enslaved Anglo-Saxons. The invidious distinction made between English and Welsh had its basis on the superiority of the Welsh in moral stamina and fighting qualities. After a slavish service for a couple of centuries in building and defending the castles of Glamorgan, the English subjects of the barons were dubbed burgesses. They received charters and were formally declared freemen. These burgesses made a great fuss, as their descendants still do, when conferring the freedom of their towns. It was to them a new toy, which they were never tired of exhibiting. But who ever heard of the freedom of Glynrhondda, Senghenydd, and the other commotes of the Welsh being solemnly conferred upon them? How could that be conferred upon a people which no power on earth could hinder them to enjoy? But it was with the upstart burgesses of the newly, though belated, chartered English towns of Glamorgan, as elsewhere in Wales, that the policy became fixed and permanent that the bugbear of English nationality should thenceforth constitute the chief defence of those English towns. It was a perfectly reasonable policy. English nationality in Glamorgan sadly needed such a safeguard, but it proved as

futile as every precaution of the kind must prove in the end. The Welsh of Glamorgan re-conquered the Anglicised districts and towns. English burgesses became thorough Welshmen, retaining only their English surnames. English place-names became Welsh again, like Whitton Fawr and Whitton Fach, and everybody knows that the “freedom of our towns” is now very much an archaeological curiosity, now and then presented in a small box to some distinguished stranger. We must, however, distinguish between the burgesses of Llantrisant, and, to a large extent, those of Aberavon, and burgesses of other English towns in Glamorgan. The former, being mostly Welshmen, were both Heaven-made and English-made freemen.

Our commotes have been so many moulds for shaping the character of the many brilliant men which shine as stars in the Welsh firmament. The breaking up of such a system, by depopulation and the massing of our millions into town warrens, must be so much levelling down of individuality and character. So far as the change is forced by the exigencies of an increasing population and the industrial development of the country, we must acknowledge the might of forces over which we have no control, but so far as it is within the power of men of wealth to destroy whole commotes for personal reasons, we must repeat and apply to Welsh landlords words uttered

by Prof. Blackie on behalf of the Highland Celts, in a speech before the General Council of Edinburgh University, April 21, 1874. “It was a great pity that there were such vulgar ideas about the Celtic language and people, and that some people should follow the Roman maxim – ‘ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant’ - when they make it a solitude they call it a civilisation. The best thing they could do for the Highlanders - whom they looked upon as a parcel of barbarians, forgetting what they had done for them not a thousand years ago - was to do away with them altogether, and let the Highlands be a place for grouse and deer, and for sheep, leaving the mountains and the waterfalls for silly Cockneys to stare at! But to do anything to encourage the patriotic feelings of the people by cherishing their ancient traditions and their language never occurred to them, especially to those who called themselves the nobility and gentry, forsooth.” This is a matter that should not be mixed up with any party politics. It is fair and square Welsh economics. No two Welshmen, for a wonder,

can seriously differ on this point. There are some Welsh commotes now submerged by immigration.

There are others with hardly any organised existence, owing largely to causes that operate in the Highlands, where the squire enjoys a Robinson Crusoe isolation, and where the parson hungers for a congregation. The upshot of the laborious Welsh Land Commission seems to be the information that farming in Wales now can hardly be made to pay and yield to the landlord a certain minimum of income proportionate to his social standing, which minimum was made out to be about one thousand pounds. The landlord must have his thousand pounds, whatever comes of the tillers of the soil. The ancient Welsh nobility were nothing without and apart from their people. The modern notion seems to be that a landlord is under no obligation what-ever to the people of his commote, and if he can make his thousand pounds better by turning the happy home of a whole community into a park and a warren, he is perfectly free to do so. But it is a freedom of the same nature as that which he has taken in converting to his own uses the common lands of the people, an interpretation of freedom very slightly removed from that of the Anglo-Normans. However, it is to be hoped that, with the increasing difficulty to make farming in Wales pay, and with the increasing opportunities for our landlords to make money in developing South Africa and “partes infidelium” generally, the Welsh Eden will once more, at some future date, be thrown open to the people to re-enter on less prohibitive terms. However remote that period may be, there will be Welsh-speaking people on hand to respond to the invitation, and perhaps to supply “adequate pressure” in hurrying the opening of the gate of their lost paradise.

A passage on Welsh commotes in general, copied by Pennant from a MS. treatise, will be useful here. The lords marchers “executed the English laws, for the most part, within their lordships; and brought them to be of English tenure; and to pass the same according to the laws of England, by fine, recovery, feoffment, and livery of seisin. But such parts as they left to the antient inhabitants to possess, were by some lords suffered to be held after the old Welsh custom, the laws of Howel Dda; which was, to pass the same by surrender in court (which they called Côf Lys, and Ystyn Wialen, whereof the word Ystynnol was derived); and when that custom was permitted, there is no deed to

be found of any lands before the 27th Henry VIII., when Wales was made shire-ground; but, for such lands as were turned to English tenures, you may find deeds of two, three, or four hundred years past, written in Latin, or French, as was used in England in those days.

The laws of England were brought in by the lords marchers, because the laws of the land were unknown to the English; but they suffered the antient tenants to retain some part of the old Welsh laws; such as the use of gavelkind, for parting lands between the brothers, and the passing of lands by surrender in court. And for this in many lordships, there is a Welsh court for the Welshmen, called Welchrie; and another for the English, called Englishrie. In some lordships the lands were divided by gavelkind, but passed by feoffments; from which comes English tenure, and Welsh dole; in Welsh, Cyfraith Saesnig, a Rhan-Cymraig. And the lords had the ward-ships of all the brethren, as if they had been sisters.�

CĂ´f Llys, literally, the Memory of the Court, may be translated, Record of Court; Ystyn Wialen, the Extending of the Rod, Investiture. Rhodd ac Estyn, gift and investiture. Cyfraith Saesnig, English law; Rhan Gymreig, Welsh Share.

The dual-court system seems to have obtained only in districts where Welsh and English communities were contiguous to each other, and English courts were held only where the English were the preponderating element, in towns under the shelter of castles.

HISTORIO-GEOGRAPHY If anywhere in Wales, geography supplies the key to the history of Morganwg. A district more favourable for the growth of commote or sept life and independence can hardly be found in Wales. At the same time, the commotes were so arranged by nature as to make union from within exceptionally easy against a common enemy from without, and where the united commote chieftains could easily command both Gwent and Morganwg.

The commotes of Glamorgan have their heads literally put together, with a commote foot extended to every point of the long sea-board. It is a long tramp from Newport to Neath along the sea-coast, but Mr. Gladstone, within ten years of the end of his long life, would have been delighted with a walk from Brynmawr to Hirwain, across the heads, so to speak, of the commotes with which we deal. Fancy the ordinary camping-out sleeping order reversed, and a number of men extended on the ground like the spokes of a cart wheel, with their heads rather than their feet placed near the fire, and their feet extended to every point of the compass. Pull down a curtain so as to divide the sleepers into two groups, which curtain will represent the Brecknock Beacons, and you have the arrangement of the commotes of Glamorgan. A stout leader, on good terms with his fellow chieftains, stationed, say, at Morlais, with his back to the Beacons, could muster the commotes together and mass them at a vulnerable point with great ease, and, in vigorous non-Anglo-Saxon English, he “would’ have the drop on” every mail-clad Norman who wished to dispute his rights and authority.

The hills and valleys of Glamorgan exhibit a remarkable uniformity of formation. Each is just like the other, and like nothing else. When you ascend to the highest point of Glamorgan in Ystradyfodwg, the first thing that strikes you is the glorious view of the coast from Bristol to Pembroke. Then you notice the Vale. “The northern part is rough with mountains, which as they decline south-ward gradually grow more improveable, at whose foot a plain extends open to the south sun in such a situation as Cato preferred to all others, and for which Pliny so much commends Italy. For this is the richest part of the county, and thick set with towns.” (Gough’s “Camden,” ii.

493). When you look northwards, Cader Arthur, alias Banuwchdeni, the chief of the Brecknock Beacons overawes you. Truly it is Arthur’s Chair, proper seat for that divinity, and to excite your enthusiasm further, a charter of seven hundred years ago states that close to the spot on which you stand, namely, Carn Moisin, Cam Moesen, Carn Moesau, Carn y Moesau, or according to the latest information received, Y Gam Foisol, the Moral Cairn, there was a Ffynnon Arthur, Arthur’s Well, which the writer has not succeeded in identifying.

A place associated with Arthur and Good Manners, and both are always associated, should not be trodden irreverently, nor be passed over lightly in this sketch. The place is practically the centre of present Glamorgan, as well as the highest point. One must say more. As the centre of gravity of present Wales is in Glamorgan, and as Carn Moesau is the centre of that centre, if Cardiff cease from troubling and Swansea be at rest, there is no more fitting site in the county for a National Museum, University, and a Provincial Parliament House than on Carn Moesau. To heighten the charm of the situation, the awe-inspiring precipitous side of the hill over-looking the Vale of Neath is called Talcen y Byd, the World’s Forehead. The gently sloping surface is already polished by glaciers.

The distance to Swansea and Cardiff is about the same, and railways reach the foot of the hill from the Neath, Avon, Llyfni, Ogmore, Rhondda, Aberdare, and Merthyr Valleys. Thousands of the business men of London travel a longer distance back and fore every day. A system of electric railways would overcome all the physical difficulties, and nature would supply a sufficient compensation in bodily vigour to the anaemic denizens of our towns for all the trouble and cost.

When the Yankees set about selecting a site for their capital, they set about it as only Yankees could, and selected a piece of neutral ground, not to be compared with Carn Moesau. A .word to the wise, who are not confined to town councillors.

But one of the features of the Glamorgan hills which the visitor cannot fail to notice is their remarkable level- headedness, a feature which also distinguish the natives, who are largely dolichocephalic, which is about all one who loves a quiet life among them can say with impunity. The hills vary but little in height. There is no upstart hill popping up a brainless, serpent head above the rest, tapering into a vanishing point, nearer than the Sugar Loaf of Abergavenny, always excepting from this characterisation the range which forms the back-bone of our hill System, the Brecknock Beacons.

The hills and valleys of Glamorgan may be said to have been formed to a special degree by a process of gradual denudation, by which a plateau formed by fairly horizontal strata has been gradually grooved into glens, as if according to a fixed plan.

And they are glens, and not valleys. The Rhondda Valley was never called Dyffryn Rhondda, but Glynrhondda, the Glen of the Rhondda. Aberdare, being wide, is called Dyffryn, Valley. As some of the glens spread out towards the Vale, they become valleys. A glen is a deep, narrow valley, or a valley is an expanded glen. Cwm is different from both, which is like half a wine-glass cut in twain, widest at the top and narrowest at the bottom. A valley is narrowest at the top and widest at the bottom.

The way to make a Glamorgan glen on the sand of the sea-shore is this. Make a groove more or less straight; press-a cup at a dozen spots on each side of the groove, so as to leave a sharp point between each cup-hole, but in such a way as that each sharp point or escarpment points to the cuphole on the opposite side, so that should your sand glen be disturbed by an earthquake, the escarpments on one side would fall into the cwm-holes on the other side, and your glen would shut to like a rat-trap. And man-traps these glens were. Comparisons, of course, do not always walk on all fours, and our sole authority is Mr. Observation.

Ancient Morganwg may be compared to a bee, or a wasp, with outspread wings larger than the area of its body. The right wing is Gwent east of the Usk, the left, Morganwg west of the Rhondda and the Taff. Its head points to the Beacons, and its sting - of old, Welsh resistance - is somewhere about Caerphilly.

The wings were, comparatively speaking, easily conquered, reserving credit for resistance to the men of the upper reaches of the Ogmore, Avan, and Neath Valleys. The district west of Neath does not count, and Swansea was a mere adjunct to Gower. Changing the figure again, the district between the Rhondda-Taff and the Usk is a historic parallelogram. Any, railway map of the district describes something like a string of herrings, pierced through the eyes by a wire, which used to grace

the chimney-mantle of the homes of our youth. A railway running fairly strait from Bryn-mawr to Hirwain represents the wire, and the almost parallel round dozen lines running down the valleys represent the herrings. It is the “difficult country” of South African despatches. In invading one glen, you would have to reckon with the others.

Morganwg, Gwent, Glywysig - these three names seem to have been applied at different times to the district which includes the counties of Monmouth and Glamorgan. The Welsh chronicles usually divide the district into Morganwg, Gwent, and Gwaunllwg, a division which is practically identical with that of the estates of the de Clares as divided between the daughters of the Red Gilbert, with Chepstow, Newport, and Cardiff as capitals of the three districts. But the chroniclers have a way of jumbling the territorial names at their will. “Lloegr and Brecheinawc and Morganuc and Gwent and Buellt Gwnllwc.” Gwaunllwg is attached to Builth, as if we were to read “Builth of Gwaunllwg.” Lloegr, now the Welsh name for England, may have been originally applied to a district on the Welsh borders. At any rate, until someone can ten us what that name means, a guess of the kind may be wedged in here in passing.

Some will have it that the Welsh fashion of dividing lands was an exceedingly simple one.

10 houses, 1 trev (town), 10 trevs, 1 commote, 10 commotes, 1 cantred.

10 cantreds, 1 gwlad, cyfoeth arglwydd (lordship).)

A very happy decimal system, but the figures are too round to be true. The writer has no clear vision at all of this intricate subject; nevertheless, some particulars are indispensable to illustrate the political division indicated in the King’s writs.

One record (“Myv. Arch.” 739) gives seven cantreds “to Morganwg. Cantrev Bychan and Cantrev Eginawg, including Gower, Kidwelly, and Carawyllion (Carn y Williawn), formed with Cantrev

Mawr the lordship of Ystrad Tywi, but, in the record referred to, these districts are included in Morganwg. But all those parts were outside the lordship of Glamorgan. So were the districts named Ystrad Yw, now in Breconshire, Euas (Ewyas), Erging, and Anerging, in Herefordshire, which are stated to be in the cantred of Upper Gwent - they were outside the Gwent of the beginning of the fourteenth century. If there ever obtained such an extensive division of Morganwg it must be dated before the advent of the Normans. It is safe perhaps to take the boundaries of the diocese of Llandaff as the boundaries also of ancient Morganwg.

The King issued two series of writs to the commotes of the Welsh. The King’s scribe had not a very clear idea of the distribution of the tribe-lands, but by putting together the two series, with the division given in the “Red Book of Hergest,” which, one may say, was not compiled much later than the time of Edward II., the studious reader will find the following jumble of curious names helpful in forming an idea of the lay of the land in 1326. In both series, the district was divided into seven commandoes, so to speak. On Oct. 27, fifteen districts were placed under thirteen leaders; on Oct. 30, thirteen districts under thirteen leaders - an ominous number! Only in one case, that of Machen and Gwaunllwg, the names of districts and leaders remain quite the same. First, the writer has put the “Red Book” description of the cantred, with its commotes, and further notes in illustration; then, the names of commotes and leaders follow, as copied out of the King’s writs, with the dates of the commissions.

I. Cantref gorfynyd - Gorlynydd. “Gro Nedd,” “Cronarth,” “Gorwonit,” (“Myv. Arch.” 737, 739). It is called also Gorwennydd and Groneath.

1. Kymwt rwng neth a thawy (Commote between Nedd and Tawy).

2. Kymwt tir yr hwndrwyt. “Cymwd Tir yr Hwndrwd (M.A.).

3. Kymwt rwng neth ac avyn. (Nedd and Avyn - Afan).

4. Kymwt tir yr Iarll (Commote of the Earl’s Land, the same as “Llangunyth” - Llangynwyd).

5. Kymwt y coety. “Cymwd y Coetty” (M.A.).

6. Kymwt maenawr glyn ogwr.

Oct. 27, 1326. Nedeslonde (Neath-land) and Kilneye (Kilvey).

Captains: Yeuanus ap Meuryk, Yeuanus ap Morgan.

Oct. 27. Tiriarth (Tir Iarll) and Aveneslonde (Aven - Avan).

Captain - Maddok Vaghan.

Oct. 30. Wigemore, Tawe, and Cottislond.

Captains: - Madocus Vaghan, Ynianus ap Meuric Vaghan.

(To make the second commission co-extensive with the first, we have to read: Ogmore, Tawe, and Coity. But Wigmore, in Herefordshire, stands for Y Wig Fawr, the Large Forest, and Wick of the Vale of Glamorgan, once a chartered town, they say, is sometimes called Y Wig Fawr. The Ddaw or Ddawen is named Thawe in a survey of the period. We may, therefore, regard Wick, Cowbridge, and Coity, as an additional division, for which no provision was made in the first commission. But Wigemore may mean the lower part of the Ogmore Valley. Glyn Ogwr has been, in the writs, attached to another cantred).

II. Cantref penn ychen - Penychen. Penuchen (M.A.).

1. Kymwt meisgyn - Miskin.

2. Kymwt glyn rodne - Glyn Rhoddne, Glynrhondda, Rhondda Valley. “Glyn Rhoddni, Rhoddnei, Rhoddne” (M.A.).

3. Kymwt maenawr tal y vann -Talyvan, “Maenor Dal y Vann” (M.A.).

4. Kymwt maenawr ruthyn. “Manner Rhythyn, Rhythun” (M.A.).

Oct. 27. Meskyn, Glenrotheneye, Talenan, Rythyn, and Glenogour (Glynogwr).

Captains: -Thlewelyn ap Kenwreyk, Dauid ap Meuryk.

Oct. 30. Meiskyn and Glynrotheney (called “dominium,” lordship, while the other places named are “terrae,” lands).

Captain: - Dauid ap Meuric ap HoweL Oct. 30. Tainan, Ruchyn, and Glynogor.

Captains: - Thomas ap Kenewrek, Wills ap Phe (William ap Philip).

III. Cantref breinyawl. “Breiniawl, Brenhinawl” (M.A.). The Royal or Privileged Cantred.

1. Kymwt is caech. “Caeach, Cayach, Caeth” (M.A.). The Commote below Caiach.

2. Kymwt vch caech. The Commote above Caiach.

3. Kymot Kibwr. “Cibwr, Cibwrn, Cibwyr” (M.A.). (“Seinghenydd, Saint Henydd (M.A.) is mentioned as a commote additional to the above, but Uwch-Caiach and Is-Caiach are the same as Upper and Lower Senghenydd.)

Oct. 27. Seint Genyth.

Captains: Thlewelyn ap Maddock ap Howel, Howel ap Yoreward ap Thlewath.

Oct. 30. Sengheneth and Kybor.

Captains: -Howelus ap Yeruard ap Thlowarth, Yeuan ap Ruyn, Thlewelyn ap Madok ap Howel.

IV. Cantref gwynllwc. (In the text, the letter “e” is placed over “y,” but in the index the spelling “Gwynllwc” is adopted.) “Gwaenlluc, Gwaunllwg, Gwentllwch” (M.A.). Wentloog.

1. Kymwt yr heid. “Cymwdyr Haidd” (M.A.).

2. Kymwt y dref berued. (Cymwd) “Canawl,” Cymwd y dref Bervedd (M.A.).

3. Kymwt edelygion. “Cymwd Edelygion, Edlygion, Edlyglon” (M.A.).

4. Kymwt eithyaf. “Cymwd Eithav” (M.A.). “Eithias Elogion, Eithav Edlygion” (M.A.).

5. Kymwt y mynydd. “Cymwd y Mynydd” (M.A.).

Oct. 27. Maghay and Wenthelok (Machen and Gwaunllwg).

Captains: -Howel ap Yoreward ap Griffith, Howel ap Dauid.

Oct. 30. Maghay and Wenthlok.

Captains: - Howelus ap Yereward ap Griffith, Howelus ap Dauid ap Adam.

Oct. 27 Usk, Tregruk, and Edelogon.

Captains: - Johes (John) Beneyt, Yeuanus ap Phelip.

Oct. 30. Usk. Captain:- John Beneyt.

Oct. 27. Bergeueny (Abergavenny).

Captains: -Howell ap Vaghan ap Howel ap Eynon, Howel ap Yoreward Vaghan.

V. Cantref gwent. In other lists, Gwent is divided into two cantreds, “Cantrev Gwent Uwch Coed,” “Gwent- uch-coed,” and “Cantrev Iscoed,” “Gwent-is-coed,” or “Iscoed Gwent” (M.A.); the former with four commotes, the latter with five. The “Red Book” specifies one cantred only and four commotes.

1. Kymwt is coet. “Cymwd Iscoed” (M.A.). The commote below the Forest.

2. Kymwt llemynydd. “Cymwd Lle Mynydd,” Llevnydd, Llevynydd” (M.A.).

3. Kymwt tref y gruc. “Cymwd Trev y Grug, Trev Grug” (M.A.).

4. Kymwt vch coet. The commote above the Forest.

The commotes in other lists are – “Bryn Buga,” Bryn- bugaf” (Usk), “Y Teirtrev” (The Three Towns - White Castle, Grosmont, and Skenfrith), “Erging,” “Euas,” Cymwd Bach (the Small Commote), and “Cantrev Coch yn y Ddena,” between the Wye and the Severn.

No writs were issued to Welsh tribe-lands east of the Usk, except so far as the district was included in the Usk and Abergavenny commands.

The Welshmen of Gwent and Morganwg we choose to regard as one. But if it were necessary to distinguish between them, we may say that the men of Gwent have a fine record of their own of heroes and revolts. We have seen how Caradog ab Gruffydd ousted Harold from Gwent.

About the time Fitzhamon and his twelve freebooters are supposed to have worked their will on Morganwg, the men of Gwent, sometime between 1094 and 1097, anticipated the exploits of Ivor Bach and Llewelyn Bren, in the following manner, as related in the Red Book “Brut y Tywyssogyon.”

“And then the Brytanyeit (Britons) of Brecheinawc and Gwent and Gwenllwc resisted the domination of the Ffreinc (Frenchmen- Normans). And then the Ffreinc raised a host against Gwent, but empty they returned without winning anything. And in returning they were killed at a place called Kelli Carnant.”

The Normans were again driven back by the sons of Idnerth ab Kadwgan, Gruffudd and Ivor, at a place called Aber Llech. Afterwards, we are told, the tribesmen dwelt in their houses without fear, though the castles were un-broken and their defenders within them, which is a way of saying that the Welsh could hold their own without castles, and that the Nonnans were of little use outside their castles.

But the trail of the Normans in Gwent is marked by inhumanities unspeakable. The massacre of Gwentian chieftains at Abergavenny was not solely the work of a Braose fiend; it was the rotten ripeness of Norman policy unhampered. Its very fiendishness did not prevent a repetition of the experiment in the same district. The lord of Caerleon and his men were butchered by the earl of

Bristol as they were going to Cardiff to pay homage to the King of England. The men of Gwent had many a Llewelyn Bren to avenge. They remembered their assassinated chiefs in 1326. They sided with Hugh of Audley, and Roger D’Amory, as the men of Senghenydd did with Mortimer, in the attempt to destroy Hugh the younger.

The reader cannot fail to notice that considerable portions of Glamorgan are omitted both from the Red Book list as well as from the Kings writs. In those parts, on the sea-board, the AngloNormans had succeeded in destroying the commote system. Possibly those parts had been largely Anglicised very early. Mr. Clark has noted that English names of parishes and hamlets are almost all in the Vale and towards the sea, and the English place-names have an ancient look, even at the time of our narrative. Some of them, like Leckwith, “Lykuith,” were early changed beyond recognition to suit the glottological limitations of the invaders. It is curious that the place-name cited contains what we may call the three English unpronounceables. It stands for Llechwedd, a Slope, and it is the three letters, “ll,” “ch,” and “dd,” which seem to make the Welsh language an “uncouth” one to “AngloSaxons” who cannot pronounce them. Perhaps “dd” is to them easier to pronounce than the other two, but they can’t bear it at the end of a word. They must turn it into hard “th.”

Roundly speaking, the English place-names of Glamorgan had been invented, and the Welsh names of the Vale tortured, before the time of our tale. All the district below the main road from Llandaff to Cowbridge, Bridgend, and Kenfig was thoroughly Anglicised. Also, a bulwark of English place-names may be traced on the north side of the same road, but close to it; so that great highway of conquest was flanked by law-abiding, baron-loving Englishmen. But a class of peculiar placenames clearly mark the “ne plus ultra” of the English in the direction of the hills. These names roughly represent a line drawn along the base of the hilly part from Usk to Margam. The first is Craig y Saeson, the Rock of the English, near Tredegar Park; then Pont y Saeson, the Bridge of the English, between Gelligaer and Nelson; then Rhiw y Saeson, the Slope or Ascent of the English, near Llantrisant; then Tresaeson, the Town of the English, near St Mary Hill; and another Rhiw y Saeson,

in the parish of Margam. Rice Merrick supplies two other links, to the Saeson chain: - “Rhyd y Saysson,” (The Ford of the English) in Miskin, and “Keven Saysson,” (The Ridge of the English), in the parish of Pendeulwyn. A Neath charter gives the name” Keven Saeson” as being near that place.

(Birch, “Neath Abbey,” 248). All these Saeson names and perhaps more might be cited, follow the natural boundary between the Hills and the Vale. The strata, which are fairly horizontal up the Hills, rise almost perpendicularly as they reach the Vale, as may be seen at Castell Coch. Nature has thrown up a line of fortifications which is curiously co-terminous with the Saeson line. Natural selection again! Until very recently the hills north of the Saeson- line enjoyed a healthy immunity from such barbarism as Tylorstown, Edmundstown, Ferndale, Mountain Ash, and all the outlandish, “uncouth” names which are fast destroying the poetry of our maps. Why should we be deprived of a name which is a slice of history in order to immortalise a man who may be compelled for his own interest to build rows of dismal houses for the convenience of his workmen, but who would not care himself to live a week in his “town?” If the English language is superior to our uncouth speech, why should it be argued that we must be inflicted with English place-names in order to suit the linguistic deficiencies of Englishmen?

Y WENHWYSEG. The right place-name is the one which has made itself. It is always the best. It is surprising how the old Welsh parish, names of the Vale have survived alongside of the English fancy names. We look to the remarkable vitality of the Gwentian dialect for a sedative to the present craze for English place-names. The Gwentian recovered the portions once thoroughly Anglicised, and the tourist will come across English names in the Vale, like Hamston Fawr, illustrative of the re-conquest. The writer is indebted to Mr. J. H. Westyr-Evans, of Cardiff, for information showing that the parish of Sully alone has escaped the recoil, so to speak, of the Gwentian dialect. It seems also that this parish has been inhabited all along by non-Welsh people, the descendants, perhaps, of some Norsemen who may have settled there.

When the Gwentian speech re-invaded the Vale the people, both Welsh and English, had become one. The Normans did their very best, and succeeded to a large extent, more by diplomacy than by force, in pulling down the wall of partition. But there was no real peace and good-will until the Gwentian was once more spoken along the long coast-line, by people flourishing Norman and English surnames. The earlier charters of Glamorgan, which concerned the people, are addressed to three classes, French, English, and Welsh. Both Latin and French were used officially. The Welsh language, as has been noticed, was recognised in the Welsh commote courts. Hence a number of dual names for districts where there were both English and Welsh communities, such as Coity Anglicana and Coity Wallicana; Avan Anglicana and Avan Wallicana; Kidwelly Anglicana and Kidwelly Wallicana, just as there were in Breconshire a Welsh and an English Talgarth, Hay, and Pencelli.

There are noble Norman precedents for the establishment of Welsh courts throughout Wales.

A hundred years from now not only Glamorgan but South Wales also will be overwhelmingly Gwentian in speech. Every Welsh dialect is now spoken here, but the children of the immigrants talk and play in Y Wenhwyscg, the Gwentian dialect. The speech of the English settlers in Welsh communities becomes also Gwentian in pronunciation. No other dialect survives one generation here. The ruined conditions of former hives of industry in some parts of Glamorgan and Monmouth remind us that the limit of our industrial development will be reached sooner or later. With the inevitable ebbing of the tide of immigration, and with any stand-still-ness in our communal life, the Gwentian will re-assert itself. You can put any insurance both on the people and the speech of Siluria. The latter has a remarkable power for borrowing and giving a classic touch to English words.

The Gwentian of the future will be something like the following specimen spoken at a certain meeting a short time ago. “I ni weti grondo acha speech dda iawn. Fe exposws y sharatwr ffalasi argiwment yr ochor arath, a fe explodws i bubble hi.” Whether such a dialect deserves to live is a question which is nobody’s business to decide. The Gwentian lives, and will live, for one thing protest against every political meddling with a people’s speech. Even a hole-and-corner dialect will

survive dynasties of Bismarcks. Little Malta on such a question makes her voice heard at Westminster. The flowing tide of scholarship is strongly in favour of such survivals.

For some generations, the hillmen looked upon the English settlements in the Vale as their fair game whenever they chose to go on the war-path. But a force stronger than even the Gwentian dialect gradually united them. The hills became represented in the Norman castles and English towns of the Vale by the fair daughters of Welsh freemen.

An old “triban” records the chief commodities which exchanged between Bro and Blaenau, the Vale and Uplands.

“Dywedir er’s peth oesa’ Taw buwch o’r Fro yw’r gora’, Ond cyn boddlorri’r cyflawn serch Rhaid yw cael merch o’r Blaena’.”

For ages it has been said That a cow from the Vale is the best, But for the full satisfaction of love, You must go to the Uplands for a wife.

The bard was either a Blaenau man or a love-sick Bro bachelor. “Gwartheg Morganwg,” Glamorgan cattle, were once famous. Equally historical is the fact that the Blaenau, where the natives have enjoyed a continuity of tenure for a fabulous time, have yielded an inexhaustible supply of fair women to grace the goodlier homesteads of the Bro. It is one of a few commodities which can be without impoverishing the Hills.

CARDIFF. The chroniclers are silent as to the King’s stay at Cardiff. They have all got on the wrong track by the reiterated statement that the King landed at Neath.

It was at Cardiff, on the 26th, that the King issued a writ, already noticed, enjoining all his faithful ministers in Wales to assist Rhys ab Griffith, who had been assigned to seize the lands of Roger Mortimer, a week or more after Mortimer had reclaimed his own lands, and had wreaked his vengeance upon three of the King’s friends.

At the same place, on the 27th, the first series of writs were issued to the King’s ministers in the commotes of the Welsh. The names of the leaders or captains have been given already. Local bailiffs and other officers were enjoined to assist the captains in raising “all the people of the lands” against the “enemies, rebels, and aliens who had invaded the kingdom,” to “pursue, arrest, annoy, and destroy” the same. The officers were further enjoined to consult with and in every possible way assist the captains appointed, the latter being fully empowered to punish any of the parts mentioned who were contumacious or rebellious.

On the 28th, at Cardiff, Roger Graunt, the constable of the castle, was directed not to deliver that castle up to anyone without a special command from the King or Hugh the Younger. The surname Graunt is commemorated in Llwyn y Grant, the Grant’s Bush, near Cardiff.

At the same time and place, Adam Ie Walsh was ordered to raise in the land of “Glomorgan” four hundred able footmen, to be brought to the castle and town of “Kaerdif,” with all the men-atarms which Adam could muster. Adam’s recruiting ground was probably the Anglicised Vale.

On the same day, the last of the King’s stay at Cardiff, he pardoned Peter, son of Henry Passem - for the murder of John Wilky. The name “John de Beek” is written at the close of this record, apparently as the person who interceded on Peter’s behalf.

CAERPHILLY. The King was at Caerphilly on the next day, the 29th, when a warrant was issued to Henry de Umfreuill (Umfreville) and Adam Ie Walsh for provisioning the castle of Caerphilly. They were ordered to make proclamation throughout “Gloumorgan” and adjacent parts that those who had “blada” (Welsh “blawd”? flour), bread, cheese, meat, fish, and other victuals to sell should bring them with all haste to Caerphilly, for the sustenance of the King and those who were with him.

Henry and Adam were empowered to compel the people to assist in the way described, and to punish as rebels those who disobeyed the order. It is said that the goods of the people of Glamorgan usually found their way to Caerphilly without the conscious and voluntary cooperation of the people themselves. “It is gone to Caerphilly” they would say when anything was missing.

On the same day, at Caerphilly, a series of writs were issued respecting forces which Rhys ab Griffith had been ordered to raise in the West. The officers of the county of “Pembroch” were ordered to give Rhys all possible assistance, to enable the latter to bring forces with all haste to the aid of the King. Rhys had power of punishing all who might be contumacious.

Similar orders were sent to Robert de Penres (Penrice, Penrhys), to muster forces in the “Villa de Hauford” (Haverfordwest) and adjoining parts; and, “together and singly” with Robert de Pembrugg, he was to do the same in the land of Gower and adjoining parts.

A brief but comprehensive order was issued also to Owen ap Maddok and Dauid ap Meurik to give Rhys ab Griffith like assistance in the land of “Morgannok,” with the expressed omission of the clause empowering the commissioners to punish the contumacious.

On the same day, Bogo de Knouill, who had been fined 1,000 marcs, of 500 of which he had already been acquitted, received an acquittance for the remaining 500.

On the 30th, at the same place, a second series of writs were issued relating to forces to be raised in the commotes of the Welsh, as already particularised in the list of commotes. Caerleon is added to the list, and it is expressly stated that the district was in the King’s hands at the time.

On the same day, a pardon was issued to Roger de St. Maur, Meuric de Kemmeys, William de Derneford, John de la More, Philip Vaghan, and to all other men of whatever states and conditions in the parts of Netherwent, for breaking the peace, adhering to the enemies, as well as for homicides, robberies, and felonies, from the 12th day of October to the date of the pardon. They were, however, expected not to give any aid to the enemies, but to do all they could to aid the King and to drive the rebels out of the country.

On the same day, the King committed what must have appeared to the barons a gross irregularity. He placed a castle in the custody of Welshmen. He appointed Dauid ap Meuric, Howel Seys, and Griffith ap Yeuan Tate, custodians of the castle of “Llantrissan,” Glam., and the constable was ordered to place the castle and everything within it at the command of the custodians.

Doubtless, the Welshmen of Miskin and Glynrhondda had that castle already very much under their control.

On the 31st, at the same place, Rhys ab Griffith was appointed custodian of “Lampadern” Castle. There is no record dated on Nov. 1.

On Nov. 2, at Caerphilly, Henry de Kaerdif was specially pardoned for breaking the King’s peace and adhering to his enemies. He was not to be molested on that account, and his lands and tenements were restored to him.

On the same day, Richard Cokeman was pardoned in the matter of the murder of Hugh Wicland; John Cole de Licham, for homicides, etc.; William Ie Baker de Heslarton, for the murder of Thomas le Barbour; and Eustachius of the Lode for homicides, etc.

One would have expected the King and his party to have made their final stand against their enemies at Caerphilly. He spent five days there, and his order for the provisioning of the castle shows that he meant to stay in what Mr. Clark describes as the “earliest and the most complete example of the Edwardian, or concentric, castle in the kingdom,” where Red Gilbert had converted a swamp into a lake and had built the castle on an island of his own invention, which castle Ralph de Monthermer greatly strengthened, doubtless under the instructions of his father-in-law, Edward I. Hugh the younger, says Malkin, “added considerably to the strength and magnitude of the castle.”

There is evidence that he made considerable alterations in the structure. Hugh deserves some credit for having done something towards developing the mineral resources of the district. In 1319, he got the King to order several of his officers to supply him with iron-miners. Roger D’Amory, keeper of the forest of “Dene,” and the sheriffs of Somerset and of Devon, were separately ordered to “deliver to Hugh Ie Despenser, the younger, lord of Gloumorgan in Wales, twelve of the King’s iron-miners in his bailiwick fit for the works of iron-mines in Gloumorgan at Hugh’s expense.” The reader will remember that Hugh mentions “iron-work (ferures) and lead” which the barons annexed during their raid of Glamorgan.

What happened during the King’s stay at Caerphilly, and why was he compelled to leave such a stronghold and expose himself to the insecurity and discomforts of a tramp to Margan and Neath, is difficult to know. Malkin has filled the blank in the official records with some interesting traditions, but as his informant for the most part seems to have been lolo Morganwg, the information must be of a character with the contents of the “lolo MSS.” substantially true, perhaps, but formally inaccurate.

The King “was enabled to get into Caerphilly Castle. But after a long siege the castle was taken, in consequence of a breach having been effected by means, which it requires some faith to credit on the testimony of local traditions and manuscripts. According to such accounts, a battering ram was worked by one thousand men, and suspended to a frame, composed of twenty large oaks.

The breach was made in the depth of a dark night, and King Edward escaped in the habit of a Welsh peasant.” “Local authorities assert, probably with some degree of poetical amplification, that one hundred teams were employed to supply wood for these vast fires” (to light the besiegers by night).

The Spencers were taken in their castle, where prodigious quantities of salt and fresh provisions were found. In one of the towers, every apartment was crammed full of salt. Under this tower was a furnace for smelting iron, hot masses of which had been thrown by engines on the besiegers, who, when they had got possession of the castle, let out the fused iron from the furnace, and threw water upon it. This occasioned a most dreadful explosion, that rent the tower in two, and destroyed the salt. What stands of the tower at present is that which overhangs its base.”

“Hugh Spencer, the grandson, however, with his faithful garrison, found means to destroy, very unexpectedly, a considerable number of the besiegers, and, leading his men to the breach, was able to prevent others from entering. Presuming on this success, young Spencer succeeded in destroying his enemies within, and procuring tolerable terms, by which he was permitted to remain in possession of the castle and his estates, together with the lordship of Glamorgan.” (Malkin’s South Wales,” i. 237 39).

“The Welsh,” says Malkin, “are said to have assisted the besiegers from all quarters, at a proper opportunity.” It is interesting to note, as corroboration of Malkin’s statement, that among the hundreds of persons afterwards pardoned for defending Caerphilly against the Queen, only one bears a distinctive Welsh name, “Yevan Gogh,” Ieuan Goch, or Red John. He was probably not a Senghenydd man at all.

The “Spencers” were not taken in their castle. The father, Hugh the younger, managed to escape with the King, and his son remained in the castle of Caerphilly and held it in the King’s name for months afterwards. Let us now step on the firmer ground of the records.

When the King was at Tintern, he appointed John de Felton to be custodian of Caerphilly. He was strictly enjoined not to deliver the castle into the hands of either the Queen or the King’s son.

Felton proved faithful, and succeeded in his task until he was formally and legally relieved of it. He defended it so well that the new king considered it necessary to pardon him. The King himself, after his capture, and while he was still king, transferred the custody of Caerphilly to Roger de Chaundos, who was appointed custodian also of “Glomorgan and Morganno,” which was in the King’s hands after the execution of Hugh the younger, and Thomas de London was appointed King’s Treasurer at Caerphilly.

During January, 1327, Roger de Chaundos was ordered to provide wages “for the men besieging the castle of Kerfily,” and Mathew de Crauthorn, “receiver of the issues; of the lands of Morganno, in the King’s hands,” received several orders to pay out of the treasury at Neath sums of £100, £200, and £300 as wages for the same men.

On Feb. 5th, the siege of Caerphilly was conducted by William la Zousche. On the 10th, a pardon for John de Felton was issued for holding the castle against Queen Isabella. On the 16th, a general pardon was issued to all who were in Caerphilly Castle when it was held against the Queen, except Hugh, son of Hugh the younger. On March 20th, another pardon was issued to John de Felton, and some hundreds besides, and on the same day Hugh was pardoned of the forfeiture of his life, without restitution of his lands. Four years later, March 20, 1331, he received a full pardon with restitution of his lands, for “the transgression he made in holding Castrum de Kaerfilly against Isabella, Queen of England, and our most dear Mother.”

It may be that either on, or shortly after, the 20th of March, 1327, Hugh, with his adherents, gave up the castle to the new king. The records bear out the statement of Walsingham that “Hugolimus, son of the son of Hugh Dispensator, successfully held the castle of Kerfill during that time against the soldiers of the queen and her son the Duke of Aquitaine until Easter. At last, security for life and limbs and all things concerning the siege of that castle having been accepted, the castle was restored into the hands of the soldiers of the queen and her son Edward.”

“Blood will tell.” The youngster, Hugolimus, after his grandfather and his father were destroyed, his mother with her other children a prisoner in the Tower, and his King also a prisoner, holding for nearly four months his father’s stronghold, and yielding at last upon honourable terms, is a figure well worthy of the artist’s brush and the poet’s pen.

CHAPTER XII THE ROYAL RUSTIC The holding of Caerphilly for the King was about the only success which attended the King’s military plans. Caerphilly also was a place where the Welsh of the commotes might be concentrated for an effective resistance to the Queen’s forces. Perhaps it was the indifference, or even active hostility of the Welsh of Senghenydd, and a partial success of the besiegers, that caused him to leave Caerphilly. He seems to have had great confidence in Rhys ap Griffith’s ability to marshal the King’s own forces in West Wales.

The local traditions represent the King as a miserable fugitive. So do the chroniclers for the most part. As traditions they should at least have the same respectful treatment as traditions in general.

“Of stubborn fact is here no question, The pearl of every fable is its thought The truth of every old tradition Is in its hidden spirit wrought.”

The people, though they accept in good faith some marvellous legends concocted by placename interpreters, are not much given to cherish traditions which they know to be false. It so happens that two of the local traditions about the King are place-name stories, and are, therefore, subject to the usual criticism of such stories. Even as place-name stories they deserve the benefit of the doubt, for the reason that the actual events were sufficiently dramatic to be enshrined in our local topography.

There is a tradition, Malkin says, that the King escaped from Caerphilly in the habit of a Welsh peasant. “The more effectually to disguise himself, he assisted with great eagerness to pile

wood on the tremendously large fires which lighted the besiegers in battering the castle.” So, the Welsh were besieging the castle. It was not safe for a man to appear among them in the habit of an English peasant.

“Edward made his escape (from Caerphilly) from every danger, and through the dark and stormy night went on, till he came to the parish of Langonoyd, twenty-miles west-ward, where he hired himself as a cow-herd or shepherd, at a farm still known by so singular a circumstance. After having been there some time, but how long is not precisely ascertained, the farmer, finding him but an awkward fellow, dismissed him. Such is the colouring of one account: but another story in manuscript relates, that the farmer knew who he was, and befriended him as long as he could.”

(Malkin, “South Wales,” i. 237. 238).

It is something to know that the more probable of the two accounts was extant in manuscript a hundred years ago. Malkin (Ibid, ii. 515) further says of Llangynwyd that it is famous for having afforded a retreat to Edward the Second for a short time in his adversity. We are informed by tradition, that he concealed himself at Gelli Lenore, or Scholars Grove, a large farm house, now standing alone, about two miles from the village.”

Let us now consult Cadrawd’s History of Llangynwyd,” p.132. He says of “Gelly Lenor” – “This farm-house is very ancient, and the name literally rendered into English would be, ‘The learned man’s grove.’ It is said that Edward II., after his escape from Caerffili Castle, remained here in disguise for several weeks, when he was pursued, and in danger of his life, at the hands of his Queen and her favourite, Earl Mortimer, in the year 1327. The King is said to have hid by day in the branches of an oak-tree on a spot below the house, and to have retired to the farm-house at night.

The trunk of the oak-tree thus honoured stood until within the last twenty years, when it was removed, and was known as Cadair Edward (Edward’s Chair).”

Gelli Lenor, or, as it is spelt sometimes, Lenwr, may have no connection with “llenor,” litterateur, and it has been suggested that it commemorates a certain Leonarius, who is also

associated with Llantwit Major. With Cadair Edward should be compared Llwyn Edward, Edward’s Bush near Aberpergwm, but the writer has heard of no Edwardian legend attached to the latter place.

But the Gelli Lenor tradition is too circumstantial to be regarded as an invention to explain a place-name. There is evidently a confusion of time and circumstances, owing to the ignorance of chroniclers and historians of the true itinerary of the King in Glamorgan. But there is something in the Gelli Lenor story.

The tale may have been much older than the King’s time - a tramp tale, a transmigrating tale, like some legends which probably take us back to the dawn of man’s history, which, like squirrels jump from man to man, age to age, and will probably manage to live as long as man himself on this globe.

When the people turned against the King, a tale was either invented or revived to the effect that he was a changeling, and not the true son of Edward I. The tale is given in Fabyan’s “Chronicles,” pp. 420, 421.

“In this viii yere of King Edwarde, a vylayn callyd John Tanner, yode about in dyuerse placys of Englande, & mamyd hym selfe to be the sone of Edwarde ye firste, and sayde that by meane of a falce noryce, he was stollen out of his cradell, and Edwarde which was a carter’s sone was layde in the same cradell for hym, and he hymselfe was after hardly fostred and brought vp in the north partyes of Walis; but whan this vylayne was layed for to be takyn, for feere he fled to the churche of ye frere Carmys, of the Whyte Freris of Oxynforde, where he, thynkyng to bei a suretye because kynge Edwarde the firste was theyr fouder, rehersyd agayne the former saying, addyng more there vnto, that it apperyd well that the kyng was a carter’s sone, for his condycions were accordynge to the same, as by many famylyer examples and customer in hym dayly were apparent. Wha he had thus contynued a season, not without some rumoure in the lande, lastelye he was takyn out of that place and caryed as a felon vnto Northampton, and there reygned and iudged for his falsenes and

soo drawen and hangyd; the whiche at the howro of dethe confessyd that he had a feende in his house in the symylytude of a catte, the whiche, amonge other promessys to hym made, had assuryd him yt he shuld be kyng of Englade; and Guydo sayth yt he confessyd yt he had seruyd the feende iii yeres before, to bryng his pt uerse purpose about.”

Polewhele, in his “History of Cornwall,” iv. 23, gives the tale as a Cornish or Devon one. He calls the “vylayn” John Powdras, a tanner, and a native of Cornwall. A hundred of Cornwall is called Powdre.

Our next extract is from Wilkins’ “Wales, Past and Present,” p. 227.

“The first Prince, Edward of Carnarvon, was naturalised by his astute sire as much as possible; but as Edward was not a descendant of Hywel Dda, and his fair wife was equally destitute of old Welsh blood in her veins, he did the next thing that could be done, got him a Welsh nurse or foster mother, Mary of Carnarvon, a genuine Pedoula (Pedolau, Howel of the Horse-shoes, J.G.), from Welsh woman, who faithfully acted her good part. His foster brother was Howel, afterwards called Howel y his great strength, which he was accustomed to display in straightening horse shoes with his hands.”

We have, then, all the materials for the manufacture of a changeling tale, especially the foster brother, who plays the leading part in such tales. The story which was invented to damage the King’s reputation was concocted on the same soil and with a modicum of truth to give it consistency, as the baby tableau tale, Cockney creations out of the slenderest of Welsh facts, and both created for the express purpose of ridiculing the King’s Welsh connections.

The custom obtained among the Welsh gentry until a hundred years ago, at least, up to the time of Pennant, the great Welsh antiquary and naturalist, to put their children to be nursed in peasant families. The custom is still kept up in some parts to board out the squire’s hounds on the same principle. It was an excellent plan for both lord and tenants. The peasant-nursed lordling was

taught to respect his inferiors, between whom a mutual, undying attachment was formed. How strong such an attachment must have been may be judged from an incident which was related to the writer some time ago. It is a step, perhaps, from the sublime to the ridiculous, but the ridiculous, in this case, only emphasises the truth. An old woman of Cwmdu, Breconshire, kept a hound for the squire. The hound one day was fetched to join the hunting pack. The old woman was as elated as if her son had been dubbed a knight that morning. She stood on the doorstep, with some neighbours, watching the pack howling their way along the breast of the opposite hill. “Dyco nhw, y rhai bach anwl! Duw fyddo gyda nhw, weta i!” “There they are,” she exclaimed, “the dear little darlings God be with them, say I.” There was not the slightest God be with them, say I.” There was not the slightest thought of irreverence in the mind of the pious old soul. The moral is plain. If nursing a squire’s dog produced such a fond attachment, how much more nursing the squire’s or lord’s heir?

There is not the slightest ground for thinking that the English tale about the King being a changeling is based on any breach of trust so far as his Welsh nurse or foster-brother is concerned.

But everybody knows that such a custom was a prolific source of impostures in all countries and ages, and it required but little skill to tag the facts about the King’s fosterage to some handy old tale that had done similar duty over and over again. It is, however, cunningly stated that the pretender, who was probably a Cornishman, was brought up in North Wales, and the King’s name, Edward of Carnarvon, kept that region well fixed in the people’s mind. We can easily imagine what a powerful weapon the legend must have been when turned against an unpopular King on a shaky throne.

The King’s personal habits and hobbies lent an effective support to the tale. “It apperyd well,” says Fabyan, “that the King was a carter’s sone, for his condycions were accordinge to the same, as by many famylyar examples and customes in hym dayly were apparent.”

Kings have usually been keen sportsmen, but our King was more of a sportsman than king.

“He was a trifler,” observes Stubbs, “an amateur farmer, a breeder of horses, a patron of playwrights, a contriver of masques, a smatterer in mechanical arts; he was, it may be, an adept in

rowing, and a practised whip; he could dig a pit or thatch a barn; somewhat varied and inconsistent accomplishments, but all testifying to the skilful hand rather than the thoughtful head, and in some respects reminding us of the tastes of more modern and scarcely less unfortunate princes, such as Lewis XVI. He had a certain skill in the arts and the tournament, but no credit for the serious pursuit of arms; a love of the pomp and expense of military show, no taste for discipline or manoeuvre or the sustained conception of a siege or campaign.”

“He writes to the Archbishop of Canterbury for stallions, to the abbot of Shrewsbury for a fiddler, and to Walter Reynolds, then keeper of his wardrobe, for trumpets for his little players.” He was passionately fond of “res rustica,” country life, a “devoted hunter and breeder of horses and trainer of dogs.” Just as these lines are penned, a London daily publishes some notes on the Irish wolf-hounds. “The Irish wolfhound is the largest hunting dog in the world, standing nearly a yard high at the shoulder, and measuring over 7ft. from nose to tip of tail. It is an affectionate and docile animal in private life, but very terrible when roused, and if called on to fight does so to a finish, and no stopping it! The old description, ‘Gentle when stroked, fierce if provoked,’ is as true of the breed now as it was when first applied in the time of the second Edward, a great patron of these magnificent and royal hounds.” He shared with Fitzsimmons, of fisty-cuff fame, a liking for a pet lion.

His father was sorely troubled over his son’s rustic bent. He tried hard to train him to a life of business, and the son complains bitterly of his father’s severity in depriving him of his toys and playmates, such as Gilbert of Bannockburn and Perot de Gaveston. There is a record of his father punishing him severely and making him an example to the court.

But many a man with equal delight in country life and lowly pursuits have made excellent kings, the best of all, in fact. All the particulars mentioned above only endear him the more to the average man. His good looks, manly bearing - vir elegans corpore (Knighton) - and great strength would recommend him for a night’s lodging anywhere. It is very stupid of Dame Tradition to say that

the farmer of Gelli Lenor refused him a job on account of his awkwardness in digging a pit or thatching a barn. He must have been a visitor who delighted the heart of the farmer.

The story of John Powdras shows that people at that early date dabbled in the study of heredity, a subject little knowledge of which is most dangerous. The student of heredity will note for future reference the following problem. Suppose a carter’s son brought up to be a king in ignorance of his parentage, would he interlard his conversation with involuntary ejaculations like “Come here,” “Gee,” “Get up,” and “A-ha-way”? Or suppose a digger’s son in like circumstances. Would he suffer all his life from an uncontrollable desire to dig into every turnip-patch he might come across?

It may be that in Wales he indulged freely in his strange caprices. He knew he was loved there, and could trust the Welsh. “It was his life-long boast,” says Mr. O. M. Edwards, in “Cymru,” “that he was a Welshman. He was very fond of the games (campau) of the old Welsh gentry. He loved the harp, he liked hunting. He liked the bards, and he would sometimes compose a song himself.” His sympathy was with the Welsh, and with the common people. His enemies were the magnates of his realm.” “In sending Lewis of Evreux,” says Mr. Edwards, in “Wales,” p. 221, “a fine trotting palfrey and harriers that could discover a hare sleeping, he offers to send him anything out of Wales, some of its wild people if he likes, who can well teach the management of horse and hound to the young sons of great lords. They played the crowth, they sang well, one of them was said to be so strong that he could straighten a horse-shoe,” who was probably Howel y Pedolau.

The people of Glamorgan were given a most painful choice, either to welcome a noble sportsman, or to let an incompetent King to be destroyed for their own temporal salvation. Had such a King appeared alone amongst them, the result might have been much different.

And what a pity it is that we must leave romancing and tread once more the, hard, deadlevel road of the official records. We find the King at Margam, the guest of the abbot there, the very next day after he left Caerphilly. He might have spent the night at Gelli Lenor, but he could not have been alone, and the farmer would most likely know him, if only from his companions in adversity.

Such statements as that of John of Bridlington, that the King during his flight was “in a desperate condition as to protection,” are the exaggerations of ignorance. We always find the King in good company, whenever we have definite information, and in his worst extremity in Glamorgan he must have had a strong company both in quality and number. Still his party on the way from Caerphilly to Margam might have been small enough to be accommodated for the night at Gelli Lenor. If the King was alone, he must have taxed his great strength to the utmost in carrying four bags of the Rolls of Chancery on his back across half a county in twenty-four hours. That he once upon a time sought employment as a farm servant is quite in keeping with his indulgence in curious rustic fancies. Has there ever been a king who even for a change of scene would not now and then seek the shades below the throne?

MARGAM The King was at Margam on Nov. 3rd and 4th. On the 3rd he granted letters of protection for one year to John Joseph, master of the King’s ship called the Godyer (Goodyer) of Kaerdif, and seven mariners of the same ship, namely, John Bursy, Richard de Shlo (Sully?), John Dineuras (Dinevras?), William Dauy (Davy), Nicholas Aufey, John Moriz, and John Payn.

Mr. R. W. Banks notes that “if this was the vessel in which he reached Cardiff, he would probably have granted them an earlier protection.” Certainly it was not the same ship. By the bye, the name Goodyer still survives as a surname in Cardiff.

“The date,” continues Mr. Banks, “suggests that he may, on the 3rd of November, have again entertained a hope of escape seaward, and that the vessel was at a neighbouring port waiting for his commands.” The port, we may guess, was Aberavon. It is something to learn that the King was taking matters pretty coolly at Margam. He not only seems to have a tight ship at his command in case of an emergency, but he seems to have regarded the coast of Glamorgan as yet clear of his enemies. On the 4th, at Margam, a notice was issued to the King’s Ministers of Glamorgan and parts

adjoining, that the King had assigned the custody of all ports on the sea-coast, between the rivers “Teffe” and “Thawe,” to John Juyl, Thomas Somery, Philip Goul, and Walter Cady.

At the same time and place, the King pardoned David ap Codogan for the murder of Howel ap Kydenor (Kydevor) also, Robert ap Meuric and Ynian ap Meuric, for the murder of Ynian ap Gwillim. These are the instances of offences other than political for which Welshmen were pardoned, on the understanding that they should assist the King.

At the same time, Thomas Brown received an acquitance of £50 of his yearly rent for the farm of the Manor of Driffield.

CHAPTER XIII NEATH From the sea, says Henry of Knighton, “they made their way towards Wales to the castle of Noeth, wandering hither and thither like convicts, fugitives, and daft persons.” Henry seems fond of giving a dramatic touch to his statements. “Wonderful,” he says, “it was that, while the land on all sides was tranquil, free from bloodshed and tumult, the King fled deliberately from London towards West Wales, fast as his feet could take him.”

It was not from the sea, but from Margam that the King proceeded to Neath, unless we may suppose that he set out for the latter place in a boat, say, from Aberavon.

One of the first things that occupied the attention of the King at Neath was to order payment for his lodgings at Margam. On the 5th, at that place, he made a grant to the Abbot and Convent of Margam, of the Manor of Kenton, Devonshire.

A similar token of gratitude the King gave to Tintern Abbey. On Oct. 16, at Chepstow, he made a grant to that abbey of half of the Pool of “Bithekes” Weir, with the fishery. In both cases the grants were made immediately after leaving the abbeys.

The writs issued at Neath betray little lack of confidence in a final triumph. Thither he hastened probably in order to meet Rhys ap Griffith with his forces from West Wales.

While at Neath, the King made appeals to the men of Gower to come to his aid, but, with the men of Glamorgan, they had a long score to settle with Hugh, and, as a people, they were not too ready at any time to co-operate with the men of Glamorgan. Gower has a place in Welsh history as one of the barriers to a national union, a buffer lordship between Dyfed and Morganwg inhabited by people of decided English sympathies. The inhabitants of this peninsula (Gower) were probably of the same people, whether Fleming or English, as those who had settled in Pembrokeshire. The English has been the language of the district from a very remote period, and the communication

with the Welsh is to this day reserved and jealous, though not, according to the exaggerated representations of travellers, absolutely interdicted.” (Malkin’s “South Wales,” ii. 478).

But Gower, like the Vale of Glamorgan, has been always more or less under the influence of the predominant partner of her uplands. Somehow our Anglicised districts have lost caste of late.

They hardly count at all as forces in the abounding Welsh renascence. One would rather rejoice than otherwise to know that our loss is a gain to the predominant partner over the border. There is certainly some dead loss all round when individuals and districts have only a hazy notion of who they are, whose they are, and whom they serve. It is better in Wales to be a professed Welshman than a grumbling, discontented, martyr-posing Englishman, wearying himself fat about the blessings he left behind him in England. He hardly ever speaks of the “girl he left behind him.” The better half of him is usually Welsh.

On the 5th, at Neath, Robert de Penres, Robert de Pembrugge, John de Langeton, and Richard Wulf were empowered “to raise all the forces of the lordship of Gower, horse and foot, who were to proceed to the King for the purpose of marching, at his wages, against the enemies and rebels.” The reference to wages reminds us that there was considerable treasure kept at Neath, welcome “sinews of war.”

On the 6th, at Neath, he bestowed another favour on John, Abbot of “Morgan,” in the form of letters of protection against molestation in goods and chattels for one year.

On the 6th, a notification was made to the men of Gower that John de Langeton, Peter de la Bere, and William de Othyngoure? were empowered to see to the defence of the town of “Swaneseye,” and that they should be given every facility to provide the same with victuals, etc. On the same day, a commission was issued to John de Langton, as seneschal of the land of Gower.

John de Langeton and Richard Wolf were also ordered to take and seize into the King’s hands all lands and tenements of the late Hugh le Despenser, earl of Winchester, which he held of the King in Gower.

On the 7th, at Neath, commissions were issued re “Lewelinus Du ap Griffith ap Rees,” and “Wills ap Bron” (?). The former is named also “Lewelin Du ap Griffith ap Rees.” and was appointed seneschal and custodian of the castles of “Drosselan” and “Dynevor,” and of the King’s lands of “Cantremaur,” which Hugh le Despenser, the elder, held.

On the 10th, the King sent a notification to all bailiffs and faithful subjects, stating that he had sent Rhys ap Griffith, Edward de Bonn (Bohun), “our nephew,” Oliver de Burdeg, and John de Harsik, to Isabella, Queen of England, “our very dear Consort,” and Edward, “our eldest son,” and to others who are in their company, to conduct negotiations specially touching “ourselves and our kingdom.” The persons named were taken under “our protection and defence,” and a safe-conduct was assured to them and the King’s subjects were commanded to see that his wish was carried out not only in protecting the negotiators against molestation, but also in furthering their mission in all possible ways. The safe-conduct was to last till Christmas.

When the King met, Rhys ap Griffith at Neath, he was doubtless told the truth about his chances of success, it was by the advice of Rhys probably that he decided to open negotiations with the Queen, an act which was a virtual surrender.

There is now a gap of five days to fill in with guesses, conjectures, and the very ghosts of traditions. Did the King, who, at Margam, made arrangements about the Cardiff ship “Goodyer” and the protection of the coast, set out once more on a sea-trip, to be driven back to Neath again, to suit the chroniclers? Or, what is of more local interest, did he visit Swansea Castle? We have seen that he had ordered that the town should be provisioned and defended.

Twelve days later, Nov. 22, William la Zousche, John de Sco, Johanne (of St. John), and Edward of St. John, Knights, “caused to be conveyed to the chamber of Queen Isabel, in the palace of the bishop of Hereford, four bags, containing the rolls, inquisitions, and other memoranda of the Chancery, which they had taken in the castle of Swansea, the same being under the seal of William la Zousche, and the bags, thus sealed, were forthwith delivered to Henricus de Clif, Keeper of the rolls of the Chancery, who received the same, and carried them to his Hospitium.”

The King had the great seal with him when he was captured. He would have most likely sealed the bags himself if he meant to deposit them for safety at Swansea or anywhere else. Perhaps the men of Gower got hold of the King’s belongings at Neath, and were removed without the King’s sanction to Swansea. It is probable that the King left Neath hurriedly, and could not take the bags with him further, being, as Drayton states, threatened with a siege.

That the King’s papers fell as a booty into the hands of common soldiers, or rebels, or got astray, is partly evidenced by the belated discovery in Swansea of an important document, in the second quarter of the last century. There is preserved in a frame, under glass, in the Museum of the Royal Institution of South Wales, at Swansea, the original of the Marriage Contract of King Edward II. and Isabella of France. Mr. R. W. Banks, in his account of the find in the “Archaeologia Cambrensis,” 5th ser. iv. 53-57, takes for granted that the King made a short stay at Swansea. There can be little doubt that the King, in his flight from London, carried it with him; and that in his anxiety to escape he left it behind in the castle, with whatever else he could not readily carry away with him ... The marriage contract was either over-looked or left behind. Into whose custody it fell, or continued to be, until the present century, we have no account. All that is known is that rather more than fifty years ago a poor patient of the late Dr. Nicholl, of Swansea, unable to give him a pecuniary remuneration for his services, begged his acceptance of a small box containing old deeds and papers, among which was the marriage contract. Soon after the opening of the Royal Institution, in 1835, Dr. Nicholl, at the instance of Colonel Francis, presented it to the Museum.”

The King, we are told, was captured at the castle of Neath in West Wales (“Annales de Oseneia,” Luard’s “Ann. Mon,” iv. 347; Hearne’s “Annales Edwardi II.” p. 244; Henry of Knighton’s “Chronica,” p. 433).

Le Baker says the King proceeded to “the abbey and castle of Neth”; so also Walsingham and Murimuth.

Drayton puts the King in the castle.

“In Neath, a castle next at hand, and strong, Where he commandeth entrance with his crew, The Earl of Gloucester, worker of much wrong, His Chancellor Baldock, which much evil knew, Reding his Marshal, other friends among.”

Le Baker says that the King, when captured at Neath, had been “deserted by his guard.” On the margin of Henry of Knighton’s account is written: - “The King was captured, having been betrayed at the castle of Neyz” (Neath). Le Baker tells us that “he transferred himself to the abbey and castle of Neath, where, relying too much on the false promise of the Welsh, who had assured him that they were willing to share life and death with him, he concealed himself,” or as Stow translates it, “he did privilie lurke.” Walsingham and Murimuth say substantially the same. Drayton, who does fail to elaborate the mistakes of the chroniclers, bewails – “The wretched King unnaturally betray’d By too much trusting to his native land.”

It is evident that the King did confide in the local Welshmen, but it remains to be proved that their “promise” was a “false” one. Drayton gives a poetical expression to a partisan statement of the English chroniclers made, for one thing, to hide their ignorance.

SOME WELSH TWO-POINT-NINERS For ways that are dark and thoughts that are vain, commend us to that great WalhaIla of British celebrities, “The Dictionary of National Biography.” We have tried hard to discover some rational basis upon which the compilers decided who are celebrities and who are not. Sometimes one would think that the writing of a book, with or without anything in it, constituted a claim for a place in the dictionary. But many of the persons honoured were not guilty of such a folly. The wisest of all never write, and the happiest don’t know how. Again, a Welsh clergyman or a Nonconformist minister, a leader of men in the best sense, gets but a small space by the side of a playwright of a very questionable taste. But one would not like to write anything in disparagement of such a grand monument of literary industry were it not that an attempt has been made to deduct from a work so mysteriously, yea, loosely put together, some specious conclusions and generalisations respecting the “distribution of British ability.”

Mr. Havelock Ellis and others have recently given us figures - decimals and vulgar fractions setting forth the precise quantity of ability or genius which Wales has contributed to the sum total of English civilisation and empire, as indicated in the biographies compiled for the great dictionary.

According to the figures, the Welsh portion of genius is just 2.9 per cent. The writer does not dispute the figures, which may be as accurate as any figures can be of such an elusive thing as genius, and as worthless. What makes the 2.9 quota simply ridiculous is the conspicuous inadequacy of the data respecting Welshmen in the work in question, and the assumption that genius, to be noticed by Mr. Havelock Ellis, must have been manifested in building the empire. Thus the data and the point of view are of a piece, the one as worthless as the other. Many a Welshman has still to learn that the chief end of man in Britain is to build the British Empire according to plans and specifications drawn up by the statisticians of the “Dictionary of National Biography.”

When will it be recognised that those who are always “agin the Government” rank with the best empire-builders? With the faithful pioneer empire-builder abroad must be classed the man who

prevents official stagnation and corruption at home. But all the credit must be given to the official empire-builder. And what about the long centuries during which Welshmen were designedly prevented from having a share in building the empire?

The unsoundness of the basis fixed by Mr. Havelock Ells betrays itself in some curiously inconsistent statements. There can be no doubt as to the mental bias which is reflected in the phrase, “the so-called ‘Celtic’ elements.” He speaks with warmth of the “enormous preponderance of the English contingent.” He pretends to be shocked over the preponderance of pirates on the south-western “Celtic fringe,” forgetting that they were, to a large extent, chartered empirebuilders. He is compelled to say that the “worst of Englishmen” have had their home in East Anglia, but he slily hints that the strain of villainy found there is an importation from the western “Celtic fringe.” But he is forced to acknowledge part of the truth about the absence of Welshmen from the specious roll of British heroes. “Here (in Wales) we have to bear in mind the difficulty of language not recognised as a medium of civilisation.” A very lame, ungenerous confession of a palpable truth.

It is in vain we boast of a language which was a medium of civilisation ages before modern English was born. It is nothing that a reading Welshman can read a twelfth-century poem with greater ease than a reading Englishman can read Chaucer, Spenser, and even the “folios” of Shakespeare. It is absolutely silly to say that the anaemic literature of Europe was enriched by the romances which the Normans found preserved in our uncivilised speech. A “medium of civilisation,” indeed! By the bye, Mr. Havelock Ellis does not commit himself to any definition of either civilisation or genius, but he makes of the former something very exclusive, and of the latter something very common, thus reversing the usual order.

He is on firmer ground in his statistics on “cross-breeding.” The English 76.8 per cent drops to 50 per cent., the Scotch 15 rises to 20, the Irish 5.3 reaches 17, and the Welsh 2.9 goes up with a bounce to 13. The history of the English people is a history of cross-breeding.

Mr. Ellis enlarges on the “homogeneousness” of East Anglia, and one result of that homogeneousness is, “the people there have no aptitude for abstract thinking, for metaphysics.”

East Anglians are perfectly welcome to such homogeneousness. It is “homo” (man) without the genius. A Welsh student once presented himself before the late metaphysician, Dr. M’Cosh. “What books on philosophy have you read?” asked the professor; “but then,” he added, “you Welshmen are born metaphysicians.” The glory of man, as distinguished from irrational animals, is “aptitude for abstract thinking, for metaphysics.” People who dream of a homogeneous British empire will please study a little natural history.

Mr. Ellis, judging by his name, is half a Welshman, and when he deals with the southwestern focus of British genius, he approaches a Welsh “hwyl.” That focus embraces Devon and Cornwall. It is the land of “brilliant personalities.” “They are innovators, daring free-thinkers, pioneers in the physical and intellectual worlds.” “In the arts of peace this south-western focus shows especially well in painting.” Whatever may be Mr. Ellis’s definition of genius or civilisation, he makes it clear that the chief productive centre of that genius or civilisation, in its bearing on empirebuilding, is in the south-west.

Now the counties of the south-western focus are over-whelmingly Celtic. There the Celt is unmistakably strong. It has been pointed out that the Celts of ancient West Wales, Devon and Cornwall, are the most pronounced survivals in spite of the loss of their ancient speech.

But Mr. Ellis does not seem to have much faith in his own statistics, when he says: - “A survey of the racial elements of British genius, it may be pointed out, when conducted on a broad and impartial basis, effectually puts out of court those who contend that the intellectual ability of Great Britain belongs exclusively, or even in some proportionately high degree, to one racial element only.” Let us add a rider to his sound remark: the littlest Little Englander on British soil, and the only one to whom the title may be seriously applied, is the man who prides himself upon being an

Englishman, as a being distinct and separate from the other contributory races which have formed that grand compound, John Bull.

But we refuse to be “put out of court” by specious statistics. Mr. Ellis has said but a part of the truth in saying that “the difficulty of language not recognised as a medium of civilisation has kept a large part of Welsh genius out of the reach of his measuring line. We have little to complain of our limitation in that respect. Fortunately, a verdict on our language and literature by the statisticians of the “Dictionary of National Biography” is, at the worst, a matter of indifference to us, and at the best, somewhat superfluous. The European scholars who read the Gododin and the “Black Book of Carmarthen” have exhausted that field of criticism.

Mr. Ellis and those who apportion to Wales the minimum share in building the Empire overlook, or evade, the most material fact, namely, the long centuries during which a policy of repressing Welsh genius was steadily pursued. Mr. Ellis casually admits that “the expansive Elizabethan age gave the men of these parts (the south-western counties) their supreme chance, and they availed themselves of it to the utmost.” In the case of Wales, it was the only fair chance she ever had up to the present time. The Welsh sovereigns alone favoured the Welsh. Listen to George Owen speaking of William, Lord Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. He was the “first that was by name and by discente a Brittaine that ever was advanced to title of honour and as yett to this tyme (1603) there hath none which was a Welshman or Brittaine by name and discent that hath ben advanced to anye degree or title of Honor saveinge the saied lord Herbert and certaine of his issue the Herbertes.”

How Welshmen stepped to the forefront and availed themselves, of the “supreme chance,” when, as Dr. Henry Owen says with becoming family pride, “that stout old Welshwoman, Elizabeth Owen - wrongly called Tudor - reigned and ruled in England”! The revival of learning had extended in a marked degree to Wales; Welshmen were everywhere coming to the front. It was no longer a

disgrace to be a Welshman, when Welshmen held the throne; and perhaps never, before or since, could the Principality show such a list of men who had made their mark.”

“There were statesmen like Sir John Perrot and Sir Edward Carne; soldiers like Sir Gelly Meyrick; merchant princes of London like Sir Hugh Myddelton and Sir Richard Clough; and lawyers like Sir William Jones, Lord Chief Justice of Ireland. Among ecclesiastics were John Williams, Dean of Westminster and Archbishop of York, the last Churchman who held the great Seal, whom Dean Stanley calls ‘one of the few eminent Welshmen who have figured in English history’; Hugh Price, the founder of Jesus College, Oxford; William Morgan and Richard Davies, the translators; to say nothing of John Penry (Martin Marprelate). In various departments of literature are to be found the famous names of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and his brother George Herbert; James Howell; Humphrey. Lhwyd; David Powel; Sir John Price; Sir John Wynn of Gwydir; William Salesbury; John Owen, the epigrammatist; Robert Vaughan of Hengwrt. The list could be much prolonged.”

How much bulkier the “Dictionary of National Biography” would have been had the “expansive” policy of Elizabeth Owen obtained from 1282 to the present time? Notwithstanding the ruthless suppression of Welsh genius, that dictionary, with a more catholic selection of Welsh subjects, might contain a couple of volumes of additional Welsh biographies. As a small contribution to that much desired addition, the writer humbly submits to the patient reader some particulars about two men who have been omitted from the work referred to. They were Welshmen who made and unmade kings, men who certainly came up to that extremely narrow conception of British genius - the catchword of the moment – empire-builders.

THE KING’S WELSH FRIEND. Rhys ap Griffith belonged to the great Rhys family par excellence, the Royal House of Dyfed, latterly and still the House of Dynevor. Not only the name survives in the modified family surname, Rice, but the ancient history of the family is chiefly that of individual Rhyses, such as Rhys ap Tewdwr, Rhys ap Gruffydd, called the “Lord Rhys,” Rhys Ieuanc or Rhys Vychan, Rhys Gryg (the

Hoarse), his son Rhys Mechyll and his grandson Rhys Vychan (2), Rhys ap Meredydd, Rhys ap Griffith (2), and who has not heard of Rhys ap Thomas, the hero of Bosworth and the Tudor king-maker? The list doubtless might be extended.

Rhys ap Griffith was probably a grandson of Howel ap Rhys Gryg, and a cousin of Rhys ap Meredith, Lord of Dryslwyn, to whom Lampeter was first granted. “This supposition,” says Mr. R. W. Banks, is supported by the fact that many of the towns, castles, and lands, which by reason of Rhys ap Meredith’s attainder and execution in 1291, fell into the King’s hands, were from time to time granted to Rhys ap Griffith, in accordance with a practice adopted in many previous instances of restoring to a loyal Welshman the lands forfeited by his ancestors.”

His pedigree may run as follows, according to the exceedingly convenient old Welsh fashion: - Rhys ap Griffith ap Howel ap Rhys Gryg ap Rhys ap Gruffydd ap Rhys ap Tewdwr.

There was a “Rhys son of Griffin” in 1272, who witnessed a deed of “Roderic son of Griffin,” brother to the last prince of Wales. If he was the Dynevor Rhys, he must have attained a great age of usefulness.

On Oct. 28, 1308, “Res ap Griffith, king’s yeoman,” was granted during pleasure the stewardship of “Cardigan Shyre,” to hold in the same manner as Yevan ap Molewyn held it.

“Griffith,” and not “Gruffydd,” is the usual form of Rhys’ patronymic, though “Gryffydd” and other variations occur.

He was granted, during pleasure, May 17, 1309, “whatever the King held in the towns of Thanbeder Talbondsteven (Llanbedr Pont Stephan-Lampeter), Trevillan (Trevilan), Suylen, Nyscuman (Is-Cennen), and Lercediaknelond, near Kermardyn,” and Roger Mortimer, “justice of Wales,” received a mandate in pursuance.

On Feb. 7, 1316, he was appointed commissioner to “raise able-bodied men-at-arms in the parts of Kardigan, Kermerdyn, Cantremoure, Emelin and Buelt, in Order to proceed against Llewelyn

Bren and his followers.” May 25, 1317, he received a grant for life of the lands and tenements which he held already in “Thlanpederdalpont Estephne” - what a mouthful? Aug. 19, 1320, we find him in in possession of the bailiwick of the forestry of “Snowedon” (Snowdon), “during pleasure.”

Rhys gave effective aid to the King in his struggle with his barons, and perhaps, as captain of the King’s own men in Wales, his services turned the scale in the King’s favour. On Nov. 30, 1321, Rhys ap Griffith, for the liberties of West Wales and South Wales, and Griffith ap Rhys, Knight, for the part of North Wales, were ordered to attack any of the King’s subjects who might rise against the King, taking with them the “posse” of the districts. They were furthermore enjoined to come to the King - then at “Broken Bridge on Thames” - with horsemen and footmen, to set out against the King’s insurgents.

We find an order sent, Feb. 14, 1322, to “Aymer de Valencia, earl of Pembroke, or his bailiffs in the land of Pembrok and the lordship of Haverford (west) to deliver (a number of Welsh footmen) to Walter de Bello Campo and Rhys ap Griffith.” The following day, the chamberlain of South W ales was ordered to pay wages to the foot- men which were under the command of the persons named.

At the collapse of the King’s cause, Rhys succeeded in thwarting Mortimer’s vengeful designs towards the leading friends of the King, so far as they concerned Rhys’ person.

The next entries about Rhys require some reading between the lines, and it is better to anticipate some matters here in order to obtain as complete an outline as we can of this strenuous Welshman, the truest, most faithful friend and ally of the King, and as capable as any within his jurisdiction.

Notwithstanding his having been the staunch supporter of the King, on Feb., 1327, he was given the custody of the manor of “Penauthlen” in Wales, during pleasure. But it seems that Rhys kept out of Mortimer’s way, for reasons which are explained as follows by Mr. R. W. Banks.

“During the first year of the young King’s reign the kingdom was virtually under the rule of Mortimer, who endeavoured to enrich himself by grants of land after the manner of the young Despenser, and remove everyone who stood in his way. The earl of Kent, the late King’s brother, was the only one who dared to dispute his will. Mortimer succeeded in making him believe the truth of the current rumour that the late King was still alive and confined in Corfe Castle, and acting on this belief, to write a letter to his brother, assuring him of his endeavours to set him at liberty, and restore him to the throne. The earl was arrested on his coming to Parliament at Winchester on the 11th of March, 1330, and his letter having been read in Parliament, he was, although not by general assent, condemned to be beheaded, for designing to set a dead man at liberty. The sentence was immediately carried out. To give more colour to his proceedings and procure credit for the sham plot, proclamations were made to the sheriff of the counties, commanding them to arrest all who should say Edward II. was still alive.

“Alarmed by Mortimer’s proceedings, Rhys ap Griffith left the kingdom. On the 8th August, Mortimer obtained from the King a letter to himself, as justiciar of Wales, stating that Rhys, an adherent of the late Earl of Kent, convicted of sedition, had on that occasion withdrawn himself beyond the sea without licence, and with many other rebels and enemies of the King proposed to invade the kingdom with a large body of armed men, and that there were many in Wales, his relations and confederates, lending themselves to the same end, and directing the justiciar to arrest and imprison all who in Wales were adherents and abettors of Rhys. The forfeiture of Rhys’ land preceded this letter, as appears by the grant of Lampeter to Edward Hakelut. Fortunately the fall and execution of Mortimer in November following rendered the King a free agent, and enabled him to restore Rhys to his estates.”

The foregoing explanation, however, does not cover all the three years during which Mortimer sought the destruction of Rhys. We find the latter, first, an adherent to the Scots, and on Feb. 28. 1328, a pardon was issued to “Rees ap Griffith, Knight, for disobedience to the King’s

summons, his departure from the realm, and adherence to the Scots.” On April 12, a general pardon was issued to the same, “for disobedience of the King’s command to come to him, putting himself beyond the King’s power, and adhering to the Scots; general pardon to him for all other offences in England and Wales; and restoration to him of all the lands and goods seized into the King’s hands by reason of such offences, provided that he answer to the King for any goods which belonged to Hugh Ie Despenser the younger, or other rebels, if such have come into his hands.” On the same date, a general pardon was issued to the following persons, for departing the realm in company of Res ap Griffith, Knight, and for adhering to the Scots”: - Morgan Thloyt ap Rees Kethin, Howelin ap Griffith ap Howel (Rhys’ brother?), Herbert de Ferrers, Griffin Waghan ap Griffith ap Gronou, David Vaghan ap David ap Yevan, Howelin Wachan ap Howel, and William Hire.

The King seems to have been anxious for Rhys to leave the Scots. There was no knowing what mischief that scion of a king-making family might do “beyond the King’s power.”

It was at a later stage, however, that we find Rhys, according to Mortimer, organising an invasion of England beyond the sea, in the interest of Edmund Woodstock, who wished to set a dead king at liberty. The grant of Lampeter to Hakelut was made Aug. 6, 1330. Two days later was issued to Mortimer the letter he himself had inspired, which represents Rhys at the moment as the terror of Mortimer’s realm. Rhys, however, was one of a very few prominent men of the time who managed to ride every wave of fortune and misfortune without, as far as one can learn, sacrificing his honour. Mortimer was hanged at Tyburn on Nov. 29, 1330. Four days previously, the King granted “protection and safe-conduct for Thomas Wake, Henry de Bello Monte, Richard de Arundell, Fulk le Fitz-Waryn, Thomas Rocelyn, and Rees ap Griffith, summoned to the King from beyond the seas.” Dec. 9, 1330, the justice of North Wales, the justice of West Wales, the lord of “Lanymdevery” (Llandovery), and the steward of Pembroke, were severally ordered to make restitution of all lands, goods, and chattels of Rhys ap Griffith, “taken from him upon suspicion of his having adhered to Edmund, late earl of Kent, as the King deems him guiltless and has restored his lands.”

July 28, 1332, we find him again at his congenial task of finding employment for his Welsh braves in settling England’s quarrels. He was appointed with others to “array with all speed six hundred footmen in North Wales.” Honours, additional lands, offices, and privileges were showered upon him, for Edward III. knew a good man, especially a good fighter, after he obtained command of the realm. Rhys was a deputy justiciar of South Wales in 1336. Enough has been cited to show that in him we see a man who proved a worthy right-hand man in Wales of two English Kings, and that when the Anglo-Welsh relations were in a very critical stage.

THE KING’S WELSH ENEMY. Rhys ap Howel was a Welsh clergyman, from the Vale of Glamorgan, says Mr. O. M. Edwards in “Cymru.” The writer has not at hand any information proving that he was a Glamorgan man. He may have had some connection with the district, as he was sent thither by the Queen as one, with others, who knew the district well and had lands there. But such a general statement is not sufficient to make him a Glamorgan man.

In 1307, “Master Reginald ap Houwel” had a “carucate of land in Gunduy” in the neighbourhood of Talgarth, Breconshire. The place is probably Cwmdu, which, we believe, is partly in or adjoining the very large parish of Talgarth. In the second year of Edward III., “Rese ap Howell” held the manor of Talgarth. It should be noted that the Rhys ap Howell we are in search of was a faithful henchman of Mortimer, as well as a man of position and influence on his own account. If he was the Talgarth man, his lands were contiguous to those of Mortimer. There was a Philip ap Howell also, a prominent man at the same time in the same district. Philip was constable of the King’s castle of Builth in 1307. In that year, under Walter de Pederton, “justice of Wales,” Philip had the disagreeable duty of compelling the collectors of the “twentieth” granted to the King’s father, before he gave to Edward II. “the lands of Wales and the debts owing to himself,” “to pay what they have retained in their hands of the said twentieth and to levy art once any arrears of the same,” an order, if just towards the collectors, that did not help to make the young King popular.

Earlier, in 1301, when Edward was created Prince of Wales, both Rhys ap Howell and Philip ap Howell were joint paymasters of the foot soldiers “directed to be raised from South Wales and West Wales.” Later, in 1315, both were on a commission “for the defence of Wales against the threatened invasion of the Scotch rebels who lately attacked Ireland.” One may guess that they were brothers.

Rhys ap Howell was in 1310 on a commission of array “empowered to raise troops in the lordships of the Marches of South Wales, with the assent of the lords thereof.” In 1316, he was on a similar commission in South Wales.

He sided with the barons in 1321, and, as one of the followers of Roger Dammory (D’Amory), he obtained a pardon on Aug. 20. On Nov. 29, of the same year, he was commanded “to abstain from attending the meeting of ‘Good Peers,’ illegally convened by the Earl of Lancaster to be held at Doncaster, on Sunday next after the Quinzaine of St. Martin.”

On June 13, 1322, he was tried “with other disturbers of the peace,” who had “made a forcible entry upon certain of the King’s manors in Glamorgan, Brecknock, etc. by a special commission of oyer and terminer. With Mortimer and others he was imprisoned, but, unlike Mortimer, he remained in prison until the Queen and Mortimer returned triumphantly to the country. He was then liberated by the Queen, and, in gratitude to her, friendship to Mortimer, and hatred towards the King and his friends, he accomplished the feat which alone has preserved his memory outside the musty rolls. Under the new King, he was handsomely rewarded for his services, and he was doubtless a very capable man. He obtained the office which Rhys ap Griffith had so well filled, as deputy, that of justiciar of West and South Wales.

But we must not allot to a man who cuts the sorriest figure in our narrative space to recount all that is accessible in the rolls, but no dictionary of Welsh national biography could be complete without a full account of a leading man of to some extent, the reigns of the three Edwards.

CHAPTER XIV TREASON AND TREACHERY. It is a noteworthy coincidence that the official records should cease with the sending to the Queen a virtual offer of surrender. One cannot but think that the King, after sending a strong deputation to the Queen, consistently with the spirit of his message intermitted all hostile preparations.

It is said that the King was apprehensive of a siege at Neath, and, doubtful of the success of his negotiators, he “exhibited, singularly enough, a trait worthy of royalty, (and) left the Abbey lest the Cistercians should suffer from harbouring him.” (Wilkins, “Wales Past and Present,” 228).

Dr. Birch, noting the abrupt termination of the “Itinerary,” says that it seems to corroborate the statement of another writer, who says that the Abbey was threatened with siege; whereupon the King was induced to retire, under the conduct of a monk, in hope of reaching his adherents in this, however, he was frustrated by the treachery of the guide, who betrayed him at Llantrissant Castle.” (“Neath Abbey,” p. 125).

The English chroniclers who seem to have known, or cared to know, next to nothing of the actual circumstances under which the King was captured, agree in asserting that he was betrayed into the hands of his enemies by the Welsh. Their ignorance of the whole proceedings, and the absolute absence of any positive proof of such a betrayal, lead one to suspect that the chroniclers, like Englishmen generally then, filled the gap in their information by drawing upon their racial antipathy to the Welsh, just as the Carnarvon baby tale was cooked to suit the Cockney taste.

The King was captured “by the fraud of the Welsh (Wals.); “by the Welsh betrayed” (Bridl.); “captured by the Welsh” (“Ann. Paul.”) The very brevity of these statements is suspicious. Fuller information discloses both the motive for the alleged betrayal, and the necessarily limited number of Welshmen implicated. Le Baker, with equal brevity, hits much nearer to the truth in saying that

the King was “discovered by Welsh spies.” Neither history nor tradition points to a single local traitor, except a monk.

The men sent by the Queen were “Welsh spies.” It is expressly said that they were sent because they knew the district thoroughly, had lands there, and were sufficiently powerful and respected to be allowed to search for the fugitives. On the whole, there is no particular necessity for disproving a charge of general treachery brought against the men of Miskin and Glynrhondda, but it is necessary to show how English chroniclers and historians of the past have allowed round charges against the Welsh to be assiduously repeated without a query.

A bribe of £2,000 had been offered a month before for the head of Hugh the younger, an enormous bribe in those days. But Walsingham says that those who conducted to the Queen the aforesaid Lord Hugh Despenser, accepted a reward of two thousand pounds, as promised them.”

There is no reason to doubt that the spies bribed their way to the Rhondda, on the chance of being refunded by winning the prize of Judas themselves, but it is putting the harness on the cart, instead of on the horse, to represent the local Welshmen as striving for “the reward of iniquity.” The spies, says M. of Westminster, were “aided by the Welsh by means of money,” and Walsingham, who says that the large reward was accepted by the spies at Hereford, says also that the spies did not effect the capture “without the distribution of a large sum of money,” which statement is repeated by Le Baker. All that can be ascertained as truth is that “the hiding-place of the other fugitives (the King’s party) was revealed by a sufficient bribe.” (H. A. Tipping, art. “Baldock,” “Dict. Nat. Biog.”)

Better still is the very latest exposition of the matter in Dr. Birch’s “Neath Abbey,” p. 125.

“Their endeavours were so far successful, especially their tampering with the loyalty of the Welsh, that they soon learned where he was.”

We must turn to Froissart, who had no prejudice against the Welsh - when did Frenchmen ever betray such a prejudice? for something definite on this point. He says that the King’s friends told him: - “Sire, send messages to all the people and command them all to come (to your aid)

without delay, and under pain of forfeiting life and goods, and especially send to the Welsh: the Welsh will never fail you.” Inaccurate as Froissart often is, the words cited will bear any criticism.

Apart from the steady loyalty of the Welsh throughout the reign, the King himself sufficiently corroborated the fact of his firm conviction that the Welsh would never fail him. We have already furnished sufficient proof of the uniform loyalty of the Welsh to the King and the great part they acted in the affairs of the kingdom. It is only necessary to point out here that the King himself had forfeited the confidence of the Welsh, but that they would have observed a neutrality, at least, during the King’s flight amongst then, had not the most influential of the King’s enemies, men who were Welshmen themselves, the most influential by birth, the rest by residence and possessions, so tampered with the loyalty of the simple, devoted natives as to furnish the English chroniclers some data for a loose, but handy and agreeable generalisation, to cover both their ignorance and the real Judases. Sir Thomas de la Moor acknowledges as much in his expression “Wallis corruptis,” the Welsh having been corrupted, “And whilst the Queen did in this course proceed, The land lay open to all offered ill; The lawless exile did return with speed, Not to defend his country, but to kill; Then were the prisons dissoluted freed, Both field and town with wretchedness to fill.”

The Queen, whose counsellor was Mortimer, “without whom she did not wish to attempt anything in these affairs,” remained nearly a month at Hereford (Wals.). She divided her army into two parts. With one part she sent Henry of Lancaster, Rhys ap Howel, and William de la Zousche, “to capture the King and his adherents” (Le Baker).

Christopher Marlow, in his drama, “Edward the Second” represents correctly the means and motives of the capture. Following the chroniclers, he places the scene at Neath Abbey, Scene VI. “Enter, with Welsh hooks, Rice ap Howell, a Mower, and the Earl of Leicester.

Mow. Upon my life, there be the men ye seek.

Rice. Fellow, enough - My lord, I pray be short, A fair commission warrants what we do.

Leices. The queen’s commission, urged by Mortimer; What cannot gallant Mortimer with the queen?

Alas! see where he sits, and hopes unseen To escape their hands that seek to reave his life.”

Howel, Souch, and Lancaster are described as “ambassadors” by M. of Westminster.

Walsingham says that they were in those parts (Glamorgan) well-known, and the three had lands and lordships “in Wales,” near the place where the King was in hiding.” But the geography of English chroniclers is shocking. What did they know of “those parts,” where Llantrisant is near Neath “in Wales”? Rhys ap Howel had previously, in his official capacities, acquainted himself thoroughly with the district. Rhys, says Le Baker, was “well known throughout the whole country.”

The Welsh chronicle, “Brut y Saesson,” connects the capture of the King in “morgannwc” with the barons’ raid of Glamorgan in 1321. The Peniarth continuation of Brut y Tywysogion gives no particulars of the King’s capture, beyond stating that he was taken prisoner by the Queen’s adherents. But it records the execution of “sire hyw Jeuwang” (Sir Hugh the younger) and Sym redyges” at “henfort” (Henffordd, Hereford). Though it states that the Earl of Arundel was caught “by the burgesses of Shrewsbury in the monastery” on the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist, it says that he was executed at Hereford on the day after the feast of St. Edmund the Archbishop, that is,

the day after the capture of the King. If the Welsh chronicle is correct, the execution of the earl synchronising with the capture of the King would account for the easy mistake of chroniclers in stating that the earl was captured with the King.

The writer has a decided weakness for Caprave, though a third-rate authority. “In this mene tyme sent the qween into Wales Herri erl of Lancastir, and William lord Souch, and Maistir Keson Uphowell, into Wales; for thei had londis there, and were weel beloved; where, with helpe of Walsch men, thei took the Kyng, and Ser Hewe Spenser the younger, and Robert Baldoc, and Simon Redyng, witz othir mo. This jornay was on Seynt Edmund day, the archbishop.” The passage shows that bad spelling is no barrier to truth.

Of the English chronicles, the “Annales Paulini” contains the most circumstantial account of the capture.

“In the same year, on the XVIth of the Kalends of December (sic), that is, on the feast of Saint Edmund the archbishop, a great storm began in the middle of the night, and continued all day, with horrible thunder, ‘choruscationes,’ lightning, rain, hail, and vehement winds such as was never heard of before.

Hugh Despenser, the son, was captured in some wood close by, and Master Robert de Baldock, the King’s Chancellor, lord Thomas Wyther, J. de Beck, men-at-arms; J. le Blunt, J. le Smale, R. Holdene, Simon de Redyng, and many others were captured and led to Hereford. But the lord the King was committed to the custody of the Earl of Lancaster, who sent him to the castle of Kenelworthe.”

The Rhondda Valley is the storm-centre, literally and metaphorically, of Glamorgan, ancient and modern. The rainfall at Pontypridd, the mouth of the valley, is, we believe, the highest recorded in the local papers. Higher up, rain is so abundant that nobody seems to think it worth while to

watch and gauge the downpours. The King must have had experienced, both physically and mentally, the discomforts of old King Lear under circumstances pathetically similar.

“Alas, sir, are you here? things that love night, Have not such nights as these; the wrathful skies Gallow the very wanderers of the dark, And make them keep their caves: since I was man, Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, Such groans of roaring wind and rain I never Remember to have heard: man’s nature cannot carry Th’ affliction, nor the fear.”

PENRHYS. Dr. J. Gwenogfryn Evans, in his “Report on MSS. in the Welsh Language,” vol. i. Part II., p.

364, gives the following extract from “A Brief Chronicle (in Latin)” at Peniarth.

‘1326 fuit guerre regine Cambrice nero dicta: Reuel eurenines in qua fuit captus Edwardus rex cognomine kairnaruon. cum hugone de spenser et alijs multis magnatibus apud penrese in Glinrothne. qui ducti fuerunt per diuersas partes anglie et ibidem exterminati.”

(In 1326 was the war concerning the Queen, called in Welsh, Rhyfel y Frenhines, in which King Edward, known as Kairnarvon, was captured, together with Hugh de Spenser and many other distinguished men, at Penrhys in Glinrothne, who were taken by divers parts into England and there exterminated.)

The paragraph is a masterly summary of the whole episode.

1. The capable historian is revealed in the description, “Queen’s War.” The King himself, to the end, used no such phrase. The Queen was equally careful in evading such a distinction. But everybody knew that it was the Queen’s war against her husband.

2. That the chronicler was a Welshman is shown in (a) “Cambrice” for “in Welsh.” (b) “kairnarnon,” the correct contemporary Welsh spelling. (c) “Reuel eurenines,” the crystallised Welsh name of the war in an orthography hardly later than the middle of the fourteenth century. (d) “penrese,” the local phonetic spelling of the name to this day. (e) Glinrothne,” an attempt to represent in English the contemporary Welsh pronunciation, represented in Welsh, in the “Red Book,” by “glynn rodne,” also, most likely, a contemporary form. (f) “penrese in Glinrothne” is a careful typographical reference. The castle and family of “Penres,” Penrice, Gower, figure prominently in the local history of the period. The name Penrhys is also a generic place-name. The name has nothing to do with Rhys ap Tewdwr, or with any other Rhys. But the chronicler leaves no room for mistaking the identity of the place.

3. The critic cannot fasten on a single erroneous statement in the paragraph. Such accuracy cannot be found in a single account in the English chronicles.

4. The Peniarth chronicle closes with the year 1404. The compiler, therefore, could have had first-hand information about the King’s capture. Penrhys is situated on a ridge which divides the two Rhonddas, Rhondda Fawr and Rhondda Fach. There are two farm-houses there bearing the names Penrhys Uchaf and Penrhys Isaf. A monastic establishment in connection with the Cistercian abbey of Llantarnam, Mon., once existed at the former place. We also read of a manor of Penrhys, wedged in between that of Glynrhondda and that of Miskin. An image of, and a well-dedicated to, the Virgin

Mary attracted in pre-Reformation times vast pilgrimages to Penrhys. Hugh Latimer caused the image to be taken away, much against the wishes of the people. The alleged virtues of the well, and the interesting associations of the place, still attract partly devout, mostly curious visitors. With commendable taste, the trustees of the Bailey Estate have recently, at the instance of the Rhondda Naturalists’ Society, repaired the quaintly-built well-house and secured it from the depredations of irreverent patrons of antiquities.

The legend which connects the death of Rhys ap Tewdwr, and the battle which led to the conquest of Glamorgan by the Normans, with Penrhys, is perhaps the most widely accepted placename creation in Wales. It is a melancholy coincidence that the place is associated with the downfall of two Kings, the one the last “King” of South Wales, the other the first Welsh King of England. But Rhys was undoubtedly killed near Brecon, and his legendary association with Penrhys is superseded with a no less tragical event, which may reasonably be regarded as historical.

LLANTRISSANT. The fact that the fugitives were taken at once to the nearest castle at hand, namely, Llantrissant, accounts to a large extent for the fixing of the capture at that place, both in the chronicles and in local tradition. But stress must be laid on the prepositions used in the statements made, “apud penrese,” “at Penrhys,” and “juxta castrum de Laturssan,” “near the castle of Llantrissant.” (Wals.) The same chronicler repeats the statement in another work, “juxta castrum de Lantrissan.” Le Baker tries to reconcile the older chronicles by saying that the King was taken to Lantrozin close by Neiz (Neath) in Wales.”

CHAPTER XIV Rice Merrick, in his “Morganise Archaiography” (1578), Corbett’s edition, p. 60, says:- “The King and the others fledd to Wales, to assemble a force; and, being hostily pursued by the Earle of Kent and Sir John Hemande (Heinault) and others, the King was taken upon an Hill in Wales, and Sir Hugh Spencer, the sonn, the other side of the same hill, Sir Simon Redyng past besides them, saith Caxton, not naming where: but I have seen an old Latine Chronicle, written in a Text hand in Parchment, bound together with St. Cadog his booke, that certainly alleadgeth the place to be at Llantrissent, in Myskyn, where the King was taken: And as fame yet remayneth, Sir Hugh Spencer, the sonne, at Gwayn Miskyn, a little by East Llantrissent; and others of the King’s company, in the Parcke of Cloonne, on the south part of the hill whereupon Lantrissent is builded.”

The writer, while he notes several mistakes in Merrick’s account, gladly bears witness to the veracity of the erudite Elizabethan historian of Glamorgan, though at some sacrifice of personal prestige as a Penrhys partisan. The old Latin Chronicle which Merrick saw is probably the same as the manuscript from which the Rev. T. Price (Carnhuanawc) copied the following:“Anno Domini M°CCC°XXVIJ° fuit gwerra regine, Cambrice vero dicta Ryvel yvrenines, in qua captus fuit Edwardus rex cognomine Kairnarvon cum Hugone de Spenser et aliis magnatibus apud Lantressan in meyskyn qui ducti fuerant per diversas partes anglie et ibidem exterminate - Cott.

MSS.” (“Hanes Cymru,” 768).

Judging from the language of other Latin extracts given by the same author, which he refers to “Cott. MSS. Titus D. 22,” that seems to be the MS. where the above account may be found. The extract is practically the same as the one taken from the Peniarth chronicle, but “Ryvel yvrenines” is decidedly a later spelling, though “Lantressan in meyskyn” is a phrase ancient enough. But someone has blundered evidently. The change in place-names cannot be disposed of as a scribal error. Until the writer can learn something more definite about the British Museum copy, he must leave the

matter with the studious reader. There are many anomalies of the kind in Welsh MSS., and we are indebted to the Elizabethan age for quite a museum of literary curiosities, especially in book form.

Morien has given special attention to the incident of the King’s capture. In a note on Pant y Brad in Morgan’s “Hanes Tonyrefail,” p. 69-73, he gives an interesting summary of information he has gathered. Pant y Brad, the Hollow of the Betrayal, is a place on the main road between Tonyrefail and Llantrisant. The place, he says, has been called after the King’s capture there. He solves the Gelli Lenor problem by saying that, when the King “with his three friends” escaped from Caerphilly, they lost each other during the flight, and the King reached Gelli Lenor. “History says that for safety he dressed himself like a rustic Welshman. It appears that he could speak Welsh, which ‘Mari o Gaernarfon’ had taught him at Tre Iorwerth, on the shores of Anglesey.” But Gelli Lenor is a hard nut to crack, and the writer fully appreciates Morien’s courage in attacking it from the Margam side. He thinks the King may have fled from Margam to Gelli Lenor, “as the mountains offered better security than the monasteries.” Let us say that the five days between the 10th and the 16th allowed the King ample time to visit many farmhouses. The suggestion forces itself irresistibly to a Rhondda man that the King, keen sportsman as he was, spent those five days with the Ystrad Hounds, famous before and ever since. How could he resist the temptation to do a little hunting at a place so admirably suited for such pastime, and where doubtless he fancied himself safe from immediate pursuit? Morien thinks that he spent the days between the monasteries, and the nights at Gelli Lenor, a rather poor compliment to the abbots, especially as the King had paid the abbot of Margam handsomely for his keep. Morien has seen it that the King was guided from Neath by a monk of Penrhys, and that the monk informed the spies of the journey. This tradition seems well based, and it fits in well with the straight statement of the Peniarth chronicle. But did the monk take six days to conduct the King from Neath? It seems natural to suppose that on the sixteenth, the King and his party left the monastic establishment at Penrhys for some reason, and were captured on their way to Llantrisant, say for the sake of peace, at Pant y Brad. The highway which passes that place is the old highway to the Rhondda, the only way the King could have proceeded to LIantrisant. The only

point one is inclined to fight a paper duel over with Morien is, that the King did visit Penrhys. As to the rest, let Morien have his say. There is a sudden turn on the road at Pant y Brad, and “it appears,” says Morien, “that the enemies were beyond the turn, and so out of the sight of the King and his escort. Suddenly Edward II. found himself in the trap! While the enemies and a band of soldiers were trying to secure the King, Spenser, the Lord Chancellor, Baldock, and the Earl of Arundel succeeded to gallop away, as it appears, along the road to Gwaun y Pant (the Meadow of the Hollow), and the last two went down the valley of the Elwy; but both were captured on Heol Wrgan (Gwrgan’s Road), near Twyn Ysguboriau (the Hillock of the Barns), below Llantrisant. As to Sir Hugh, he galloped on the left along Heol Melin Trefeirig (Trefeirig’s Mill Road), and reached Gwaun Maesgwyn, called Gwaun Miskin, the Meadow of Miskin. There, according to the history, he was overtaken by Sir Samuel Riding by hard galloping. Sir Hugh’s object was to reach his castle of Llantrisant, and to secure himself inside. I base what is said of the capture at Pant y Brad, on Gwaun Maesgwyn, and on Heol Wrgan, on what is said by Rice Meirick, in a book called ‘A Book of Glamorgan Antiquities,’ which the wrote in the year 1578, and on local tradition.”

In a letter by Morien in the “South Wales Daily News” of Sept. 24, 1901, he further says that “Sir Samuel Burford and Sir John Deverel, both notorious friends of the infamous Sir Roger Mortimer and the infatuated wife of Edward II., Queen Isabella, ‘she wolf of France,’ appear to have brought the troop of cavalry from the Queen at Sir Roger Hereford” (and Sir Roger from Hereford?)

All the Rev. W. Hunt cares to say on the point is that the party surrendered, “perhaps were surprised.” So one has to fall back on such sources as Morien has consulted for anything interesting to write of the event.

But the writer must be allowed to say that, if the name Pant y Brad is the sole evidence that the King’s party was surprised at that spot, there is a name quite as good, for the purpose of our inquiry, close by Penrhys, on the Rhondda Fach side, namely, Cynllwyn Du, the Black Ambuscade.

Both names are equally likely, and equally unlikely, to have been given to occurrences during the King’s flight.

All the chroniclers assert that the King was captured; yet it is more than doubtful that he was actually captured. The evidence is as good, or as bad, as the accounts which the barons and Hugh the younger gave of the raid in Glamorgan. It is the kind of evidence furnished by a man when pleading for his very life, and when his evidence could have been easily corroborated or refuted by eye-witnesses.

One of the leading mischief-makers of the time was Adam Orlton, bishop of Hereford. We find him taking the initiative in many traitorous movements against the King. It was he who first formally declared the Queen’s war to be a war, against the King, not by a plain official declaration, but by public insinuations and by twisting a verse of Scripture according to the method of the ancient higher critic whom Shakspeare refers to as “quoting Scripture for his purpose.”

When the Queen reached Oxford with her forces, Orlton, in a sermon before the University, advocated and justified her campaign. He chose for text a verse which no one could mistake its application at the moment, namely, the cry of the Shunammite’s child, “My head, my head,” or, according to the version used by the bishop, “Caput meum doleo” (I suffer pain in my head). Both text and sermon were the means of creating a popular impression that the chief offender against whom the invasion was directed was the King himself.

Errors But after the King’s ignominious capture, popular feeling seems to have set immediately in the King’s favour, and ‘it was only by dint of chicanery and by committing still greater crimes that his victorious enemies could utilise their victory. It was the flowing tide of this popular ?? that caused his enemies to hurry him out of the ?? Orlton’ sermon was thrown in his face, and the ?? Bishop of Exeter told him that not even the ?? is person was a sufficient protection against ?? It was charged against him that his ?? had caused the people to seize and imprison the King. He wrote an apology

answering the charge, in which he says:- “The charge is notoriously false and malicious, as it is public and notorious that the said lord the King, captured with the said lord Hugh Ie Despenser, who himself was holding the lord King captive, came of his own accord to the earl of Lancaster, his kinsman, who accompanied him with honour to his castle of Kynelworthe.”

Orlton’s testimony, in which the writer cannot discover a flaw, explains many things. We have suspected all along that the King was practically Hugh’s captive. His movements during the flight were doubtless directed by Hugh. Tradition relates that Hugh was captured at some distance from the King. When Hugh was captured, the King of his own accord gave himself up to Lancaster, as Llewelyn Bren submitted to the Earl of Hereford. If it was part of the Queen’s orders to arrest the King, Lancaster plainly disobeyed her orders. The capture of the King may be regarded as an eventuality for which no formal orders or provisions had been made. Lancaster doubtless acted within the powers of his commission, whatever it was, as well as according to the promptings of his noble nature. He certainly did not obey the spirit of the Queen’s instructions, and saved the King from instant destruction at the temporary shambles at Hereford.

What seems to be the truth is that the Cistercian monk from Neath guided the party to the Cistercian monastic establishment at Penrhys; that while there refreshing themselves before proceeding to Llantrissant castle the monk found an opportunity of communicating with the spies; that the spies intercepted the party somewhere on the ancient highway leading from the Rhondda to Llantrissant, or, the spies having appeared near Penrhys, Hugh and some others made for Llantrissant along that highway, the spies chasing them as far as Gwaun Fiscin beyond Llantrissant; that the King, on “an Hill,” which suggests Penrhys, voluntarily gave himself into the custody of Lancaster; that the persons named as having been captured with the King, except Hugh and Redyng, had remained with the King, and were, with the exception of Baldock, allowed to go their way.

Malkin says:- “It is said that the King in his own person was beloved by the Welsh, and would have been safe is his retirement at Lantrisent, had he not trusted himself to the monk in preference to their protection.” (“South Wales,” ii. 508).

While the Welshmen of the hills generally were only too ready to join the King’s enemies, the men of Glynrhondda and Miskin must have remained at least neutral until the capture of the King. It should be noticed that the King had placed much trust in the captains of the district and the Welsh custodians of Llantrisant. With a castle and district now completely in their hands, they had no particular reason for hastening a change of government. David ap Meuric seems to have been then the chief man of the district, and he is given honourable precedence in four separate writs. On the whole, there is not the slightest evidence to show that the men of those parts betrayed the King.

An insinuating monk, leading a scouting party, might have given all the required aid to the Queen’s spies and their escort, without implicating the people of the district in the treachery. On the other hand, the actual capture of the King and his party, with the knowledge of the Queen’s victorious advance, left no choice to the Rhondda and Miskin men but to leave the King to his fate. David ap Meuric and his fellow-custodians of Llantrisant Castle may have been as much surprised as shocked when Henry of Lancaster knocked at the gate for admittance with his string of distinguished captives.

The constable of Llantrissant at the time may have been Robert de Aston. He is referred to in 1327 as “sometime constable of Lantrissen,” and was very active in that year as “taxor, collector, and inquisitor.” On Feb. 26, 1329, he was a “keeper of the lands of alien men of religion and of others of the power of the King of France in co. Gloucester, in the King’s hands for certain causes.”

FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE The destruction of the King’s party was followed by substantial benefit to the people of Glamorgan. The late King’s writs previous to his capture were in many cases honoured by his son.

Matthew de Crauthorn, the King’s treasurer of the issues of the land of “Glomorgan” was ordered on

May 6, 1327, to pay to the constables of castles and other ministers of that land their fees and usual wages, as well for the late King’s time as for the present King’s time.” Andrew de Ralegh, who succeeded Crauthorn, was ordered on Aug. 14, of the same year, to pay to John de Acton, sheriff of “Glanmorgan,” the arrears of his usual feeder the time that he had held that office. Acton may have been the sheriff at the time of the capture of the King. The English system of annual sheriffs was not introduced into Wales till shortly after 1535.

A maddened people drove the King into flight from London, and a maddened people sealed his doom in Glamorgan. John of Bridlington says that the King, hearing of the madness of the Londoners, in numbers of whom he was relying, proceeded towards Wales. Hearing of the madness of the men of Glamorgan, in whom he was relying without taking the trouble to ascertain the truth, he fled from Chepstow, Caerphilly, and Neath, to be caught like a fox in one of the coverts of the Ystrad Hounds.

Though the ruling maxim of the times was Might against Right, or, as it is put in a Welsh adage, “The right is thine, the land is mine,” still every party courted the people. Demos was even then the predominant partner. The King tried to conciliate the people. The Queen succeeded, but only as long as she succeeded to deceive them. “The aristocratic party then combined against the Crown were desirous of conciliating popularity,” Stubbs observes. “In the latter case, the deposition of Edward II., I am satisfied, that the commons’ assent was pretended in order to give more speciousness to the transactions.” It was pretended all along, in the Queen’s proclamations in her army asking the King to return, at Bristol, at Hereford, in Parliament when Edmund of Woodstock, the King’s brother, was summarily despatched.

We have learnt enough of the temper of the Senghenydd people, and the direction in which their interests pointed, to expect that the very least they could afford to do was not to offer any resistance to the Queen’s soldiers. They must have rendered some valuable services to the Queen’s

party. It was to their interest to have Hugh out of their way, and they derived substantial benefits from the Queen’s war.

The attitude of the people of Glamorgan towards the King’s cause is very much revealed in the proceedings after the capture. Measures of reform, reparation, and relief were adopted, and the new King’s party signalised their victory by redressing long-standing grievances of the people as against their late lord. It is very likely that they had pinned their faith on Mortimer long before he could do anything for them. The news of the victorious march of the Queen cancelled all the writs which the King had showered on the commotes.

One of the first acts of the new King was to make reparation to the people of Glamorgan for wrongs done them in his father’s time. The father had punished both the Welsh and English communities of Glamorgan by taking into his own hands some lands “by reason of the riding of the barons in the quarrel of Thomas, late earl of Lancaster.” The people presented a petition before the new King and his council “to restore the lands that were in his hands for the above reason,” and the King “acceded to their petition by the counsel and assent of the prelates, earls and barons and whole community of his realm,” and he ordered the “King’s keeper at Morgannou” (Feb. 12, 1327) “to inform himself concerning the takings into the King’s hands of lands in that land, and to restore those that he shall ascertain to be in the King’s hands” for the reason mentioned, “and to restore the issues and arrears of ferm for which the King or his father have not been satisfied.” Two orders were issued to the keeper, one for the “Welsh community of Morgannou,” the other “for the English community of Glamorgan.”

“Arrears of ferm” may have been considerable. The Welshmen, at any rate, must have striven more to regain their lands than to “satisfy” the King in the matter of the issues.

The men of Senghenydd, the guiding spirits of the commotes, the men who had suffered most from Hugh, and who had the longest account to settle with him, were immediately and substantially benefited by his destruction. They did not wait for any formal restoration of their lands,

but sixteen days after the King’s capture, they are found to have entered lands which they claimed as their inheritance. The reader will rejoice to know that after some nine years of oppression and wrong, the sons of brave Llewelyn Bren came to their own again. On Dec. 2, Roger Chaundos, sheriff of Morganno, was ordered “by the Queen and her eldest son” “to permit the sons of Llywelin Bren and the sons of Rinus Vaghan, the son (fil’) of Griffith ap Howel, the son of Yevan ap Rini, and the son of Howel ap Rees to hold until the next parliament the lands that they have entered as their inheritance, and they assert, so that the King may then cause to be done what shall seem fit by his common counsel.”

This order was followed, six months later, by another respecting the lands of Llewelyn Bren’s sons. On May 10, 1327, “William la Zouche of Assheby, keeper of the land of Glamorgan,” was ordered to ascertain by inquisition and otherwise what lands of the King’s and of others, Griffin, John, Meurik, Roger, and Llewelin, sons and heirs of Llewelin de Bren, have entered, under colour of the King’s grant that they should have all the lands that belonged to their father and the lands that were of their acquisition in the fees of Seigheneth and Meskyn, made in response to their petition, shewing that Hugh le Despenser, the younger, had fraudulently caused them to be disinherited and disseised thereof, and under colour of the King’s order to the late keeper of the land of Glaumorgan to maintain them in possession of the said lands until the last parliament, the King having afterwards ordered the said William to permit them to retain and have the said lands; and to resume into the King’s hands the lands that he shall find that they have entered against the King and his said tenants, and to do further what he shall think fit for the King and the tenants, according to right and the custom of those parts, as the King is given to understand that Griffin, John, Meuric, Roger, William, and Llewelin have entered divers lands of his and of his tenants in those parts under colour of the aforesaid grant and orders, and that they still occupy them.”

It seems that the sons of Llewelyn Bren had entered some lands which others claimed, in addition to their patrimony and “their acquisition.” Perhaps the lands in question are meant by the

latter term. Their own lands had been restored to them. Earth-hunger, like every other passion, grows by what it is fed on.

CHAPTER XV AN HISTORIC DOUBT As the King was everywhere during his flight, accompanied by some of the leading magnates of the realm, he must have had also with him and them a number of personal attendants. Matthew of Westminster states that the King left London with the two Despensers, Baldock, “and private adherents.” Walsingham says that he landed from the sea in Wales “with his familiars.” Matthew of Westminster, after naming those who were captured with the King, says that the captors did “not care about the others,” meaning either the King’s personal attendants, or local adherents. Le Baker also mentions others were allowed to go their own way.

The other distinguished men named in the “Annales Paulini” were probably included in the “other followers of the King” for which the captors “did not care about” (Wals.), “not heeding the other servants of the King” (Murimuth), “the others were allowed to run away” (Le Baker). The party must have been a strong one, and the writer has failed to discover any likely gap in the narrative for the insertion of any local tradition of the King as a Ionely, abject tramp. The party must have kept together during the silent five days between the 10th and the 16th.

BALDOCK The fate of Baldock shows how the more ambitious Christians of the time loved each other.

That Church dignitaries have mightily improved since that time will be seen from the following impartial, judicial estimate of the bishops of Edward’s reign by one of the leading bishops of the Victorian era, the deeply lamented Dr. Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford.

“The relations of the King with the prelates were likewise critical. The archbishop of Canterbury was altogether unable to influence his brethren, and some of the most powerful among them had grievances or ambitions of their own. The weakness of Edward and the policy of the popes, who sometimes played into his hands, sometimes defied him with impunity, had promoted

to the episcopate men of every shade and political opinion and of every grade of morality. Three of these, John Brokensford, bishop of Bath, Henry Burghersh of Lincoln, and Adam Orlton of Hereford, had been implicated in the late rebellion (of the barons.) Burghersh, the nephew of Lord Badlesmere, had under his uncle’s influence been forced by the King, against the wish of the canons and when under canonical age, into the see of Lincoln, Orlton had been placed by the pope at Hereford in opposition to the King’s nominee, and had with difficulty obtained admission to his see.

The former had the wrongs of his uncle to avenge, the latter was attached to the Queen and in league with his neighbours the Mortimers. John Stratford, a clerk of the council, was sent to Avignon by the King in 1322 to complain of their conduct. Whilst Stratford was at Avignon, the see of Winchester fell vacant, and Edward immediately wrote to the pope for the appointment of Robert Baldock, the keeper of the Privy Seal. Instead of carrying out his master’s wishes Stratford obtained Winchester for himself, and although after a year’s resistance Edward admitted him to his temporalities the new bishop let his resentment outweigh both gratitude and honesty.”

Robert de Baldock, Lord Chancellor, Archdeacon of Middlesex, was protected by his “orders” from a legal execution. He was handed over to the bishop of Hereford, a ministerial churchman more able and more unscrupulous than himself (Tipping). He was first imprisoned in the bishop’s house in St. Mary, Mounthaw, London. In Feb., 1327, “the mob was allowed, or even incited, to break in and drag the prisoner with violence and cruelty to Newgate, where he shortly afterwards died of his ill-treatment” (Tipping). “His brother canons of St. Paul’s, notwithstanding the reign of terror under which they were living, gave him an honourable funeral (Stubbs).

Henry, of course, allowed Hugh to be taken to Hereford to his inevitable fate at the hands of the Queen and Mortimer. But he would not allow the King, his cousin, to go to Hereford, where doubtless the Queen and her minions were prepared to despatch him as informally and as speedily as they appointed his son guardian of the realm at Bristol. At least, one cannot help thinking that Henry was actuated by a noble motive in taking the King under his powerful protection. He kept him

the whole winter, and was, as Prof. Tout remarks, treated honourably and generously by his magnanimous captor.”

[The largest part of this chapter, tracing events subsequent to the King’s capture, is here omitted, but will appear in full in book form.]

THE VERDICT “His unhappy reign and miserable death bear witness to the fact so often noticed, that in this world the penalty of weakness is worse than that of wickedness.” A ruthless conqueror once said - “Men of my stamp do not commit crime,” a saying that should be read in the light of the preceding sentence. The great facts of history are to be read in the light of the facts of ordinary human nature. The so-called struggle for existence is largely the continuation of primal scalp hunting. According to a code which may have on its front page the Sermon on the Mount, that grand coda of an idealised humanity, weakness was the crime of crimes of our royal Welshman. Certainly Wales herself felt through the same cause. Simple right, human or divine, never demanded such a sacrifice on the part of Wales to be so unequally yoked with the predominant partner. Though she respects the bond, she will always insist on a decent separation, with the custody of her children.

The predominant partner is too fond of roaming abroad for new loves, and a little too catholic in his taste, to please his “gallant little” first wife. John Bull is a veritable Solomon, and he is apt to bestow more favours on some of his latest captures than on his three recognised wives at home.

The estimate of the King and his reign by the chroniclers who were more or less his contemporaries must be given the first place. Stubbs observes that neither the Bridlington canon (nor) the unknown person whom we must still call the monk of Malmesbury, writes as having any personal hostility to Edward II. or any attachment to his great adversary, or any admiration for the queen. But the silence of the first writer and the criticism of the second alike warn us from the beginning of the reign there was a growing misgiving about the King’s capacity for government or for any serious business. The language of the Malmesbury writer is so moderate that it may almost be

regarded as a proof that the historian lived before the fall of the King and the tyranny of his mortal foes had made him a character for tragedy or had enlisted strong feeling on either side. Edward was not hated, despicable as he might seem, until his wife raised against him the cries of her fabricated wrongs, and won for the moment the support of those who, however deeply they may have felt, had not yet pledged themselves to avenge the death of Lancaster ... He had little self-restraint and could be very provoking. Still England could have forgiven a great deal to his father’s son, and the lamentation of the Malmesbury writer over his uselessness and want of enterprise is very different from a harsh commentary on a hated tyrant. Even the favourites are not spoken of vindictively until it is seen that they are ruining the King.”

As the writer is very much indebted also to Prof. Tout’s writings, a few sentences of his on Edward as a man and as a King must be quoted to complete the King’s portrait. “He had the facile good nature of some thoroughly weak men.” The notion that he neglected the nobility out of settled policy to rely upon the commons is futile.” “He disliked the society of his equals among the youthful nobility, and save for a few attached friends, his favourite companions were men of low origin and vulgar tastes.” “The commons groaned under the exactions of his purveyors and collectors.” Stubbs is judicial, Tout emphatic, but both are substantially of the same mind on this subject. The Welsh reader, however, is heartily recommended to read the estimate of the author of “Wales,” for the final word on the subject should come from a Welshman with the double recommendation of a firstrate scholarly equipment as a historian, and the special degree of sympathy without which no true history can be either written or criticised. But we must consult a very old book for a parallel reign to that of Edward II. After making the necessary changes in names, times, and circumstances, the salient features are surprisingly the same. “Jeroboam and all Israel came and spoke to Rehoboam, saying, Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore ease thou some- what the grievous servitude of thy father, and his heavy yoke that he put upon us, and we will serve thee. And he said unto them, Come again unto me after three days. And the people departed. And King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men that had stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, saying,

What counsel give ye me to return answer to this people? And they spake unto him, saying, If thou be kind to this people, and please them, and speak good words to them, they will be thy servants for ever. But he forsook the counsel which the old men gave him, and took counsel with the young men that were brought up with him, that stood before him. And he said unto them, What advice give ye that we may return answer to this people, which have spoken to me, saying, Ease somewhat the yoke that thy father did put upon us? And the young men that were brought up with him spake unto him, saying, Thus shalt thou answer the people that spake unto thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it somewhat lighter for us: thus shalt thou say unto them, My little finger shall be thicker than my father’s loins. For whereas my father put a heavy yoke upon you, I will put more to your yoke: my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you, with scorpions. So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the King bade, saying, Come again to me on the third day. And the King answered them roughly; and King Rehoboam forsook the counsel of the old men. And answered them after the advice of the young men ... So the King hearkened not unto the people ... And when all Israel saw that the King would not hearken unto them, the people answered the King, saying, What portion have we in David? and we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse: every man to your tents, O Israel: and now, David, see to thine own house. So all Israel went to their tents.” (II. Chron. x.).

Rehoboam deserted by his people was Edward II. in Glamorgan. Here he received “the most unkindest cut of all” at the hands of his whilom friends, but during the interval of excruciating heartsearching between his capture and his death, it was neither the ingratitude nor the treachery of those he had previously trusted that was most clearly revealed to his dulled conscience and filled up the measure of his woe, so much as the knowledge that he had forfeited the love and support of his people, even of his Welsh subjects who had loved and honoured him most of all.

“Like some large pillar of a lordly height, On whose proud top some huge frame doth depend,

By time disabled to uphold the weight, And that with age his back begins to bend, Shrinks to his first seat, and in piteous plight, The lesser props with his sad load doth spend: So fared it with King Edward, crushing all, That stood near him in his violent fall.

The State whereon these princes proudly lean, Whose high ascent men trembling still behold, From whence oft-times with insolent disdain The kneeling subject bears himself controlled, Their earthly weakness truly doth explain, Promoting whom they please not whom they should, Whereas their fall shows how they foully erred, Procured by those whom fondly they preferred.”

Look at that picture and look at this. The Dictator of Rhuddlan there, the Protector of the University of Wales here. The first Prince of Wales there, offering to send some of his “savage people” (gentz sauvages) of Wales to train the hounds of gentlemen’s sons; the latest Prince of Wales here, acting as Chancellor of a Welsh University which converts the “savage people” into gentlemen who leave hound-loving gentlemen to look after their hounds themselves. A great change, but how belated! George Meredith says the plain truth: – “individually they are in the heart of the injury done them thirty years back.” Brad y Llyfrau Gleision,” the Blue Books’ Betrayal, is so

recent that it is very difficult for the Welsh people of to-day to credit the English people as such for any reform or improvement directly for the benefit of the Welsh. Wales has had to fight hard for every single privilege which John Bull can bestow. Practically, she is her own creditor for everything.

Our first University College was founded by the enthusiastic cooperation of a 100,000 “feeble folk.”

Even the way Government grants have been secured is strongly suggestive of a favourite expedient used by wealthy men to evade paying a subscription towards some cause, when a direct refusal would look rather mean. “I will give a tenth of the sum required, providing you make up the rest yourselves” - a suggestion which has sent many a fine enterprising bubble up the chimney. We are told that we can get a fine grant towards founding a Welsh national museum, if we can perform what seems a harder task than collecting all Welsh curiosities to one spot, namely, agreeing among ourselves what town should have the proud distinction of being called the capital of Wales. It is something, however, to learn that John Bull is willing for us to have a capital, and we should by all means respond to such rare expression of spontaneous generosity.

The Celt is nothing if not an agitator. He will be a reformer as long as any mortal thing will need reforming. As a Christian, he is still the same, always finding fault with himself and with others.

But Wales, nevertheless, is to-day one of the freest, happiest, most truly prosperous patches on God’s earth, but over every Welsh institution, both ancient and modern, is inscribed the watchword: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” While we acknowledge with gratitude the great services which individual Englishmen have rendered Wales during the last thirty years, our debt to our own heroes is not for a moment forgotten. Our patron saint has been given an honoured place in the decorations of St. Stephen’s. We shall not be perfectly happy until we get a statue of Owen Glyndwr placed vis-a-vis with Cromwell there, and especially a statue of Llywelyn, with his face pointing direct to the Tower, where once his noble head furnished entertainment for Cockneys and crows.

The many cairns, or graves, on the Alps of Glamorgan serve the purpose of mile-stones and finger-posts to the befogged or benighted traveller. Within the memory of people still living, every

traveller was expected to pick up a stone on his way and add it to the cairn. Hence there are supplementary heaps of stones on the older cairns, the result of the thoughtful co-operation of wayfarers, who desired to make such useful landmarks as conspicuous as possible. Trackways and paths invariably touch these augmented cairns. You are safe as long as you keep the cairns in sight. So is present Wales as long as she keeps within the track of her ancient heroes.

Mewn Anghof ni chânt fod, Wyr y clêdd, hir eu clod, Tra’r awel tros eu bedclau chwyth: Y mae yng Nghymru fyrdd, O feddau ar y ffyrdd, Yn balmant hyd pa un y rhodia Rhyddid byth!

Forgotten ne’er shall be Men of the sword, pride of the free, While o’er their graves the breese shall play: The trackways tell their tales, A causeway runs through Wales Built up of countless cairns where Freedom strides for aye!

FINIS.

Draig Enfys aims to bring into the public domain lost non-fiction works of Welsh interest.

See also: Human Wales by George R. Sims Dr. Price of Llantrisant by ap Idanfryn