THE WELSH WARS
The Welsh, who had been brought into at least nominal subjection by the
strong hand of Henry I., were not slow to avail themselves of England’s
weakness under Stephen to regain their liberty. Unfortunately the chief
result of the removal of foreign control was the increase of those
internal disputes which had always formed so large a part of the
nation’s history.[13] Prince warred with prince, brother against
brother, and cousin against cousin; treachery was met with treachery,
and in the end the inevitable appeal of a disappointed claimant for
foreign assistance against his successful rival brought an English army
into Welsh soil once more. Owain Gwynedd, king of North Wales, had
exiled his brother Cadwalader and seized his possessions, and it was on
the pretext of restoring Cadwalader that Henry assembled his forces at
Chester and prepared for the invasion of Wales in the summer of 1157.
The task was formidable alike from the nature of the country and the
inhabitants. Wales was divided into three parts--North Wales or
Venedotia, South Wales or Demetia, and Powys, but, save that the lance
was the weapon of the northern Welsh and the bow of the southern, the
divisions were arbitrary and artificial, and unconnected with any
differences in the character of the population. With the exception of
the Brabantine mercenaries, a race apart, a tribe of professional
Ishmaelites, ready to turn their hands against any man for pay, no
nation was so thoroughly permeated by the martial spirit as the Welsh.
With the English and Normans war was the business of the gentry, but
throughout Wales the young men of all classes, gentle and peasant alike,
devoted their leisure to the practice of military exercises and strove
to perfect themselves in the art of war. Possessing a country whose
woods and mountains, intersected by torrents and marshy valleys, were
admirably adapted for the ambuscade and other tricks of guerilla
warfare, the Welsh had cultivated those qualities which enabled them to
make best use of these natural advantages. Simple in their requirements
for food or dress, they were hardy, active, and endowed with wonderful
powers of endurance. Of defensive armour they made practically no use,
yet they did not hesitate to encounter any foe, however well equipped;
their first attack, delivered to an accompaniment of yells and braying
trumpets, was furious, but, as is inevitable when light armed troops
engage with heavy, if it did not prove immediately successful, they soon
broke and fled, always ready, however, to resume the fight if
opportunity offered. They did not disdain to strengthen their position
with fortifications, and the whole land bristled with castles,[14]
hardly a year passing without record of the erection, capture,
recapture, or destruction of one or more castles in the course of the
incessant wars waged either between local chieftains or with the Norman
barons of the Marches; yet it was emphatically in the strategical use
which they made of the natural advantages of their country that the
Welsh were pre-eminent.
It is possible that the straightforward pitched battle between troops
contending stubbornly under the open sky tends to promote the honourable
traditions of chivalry, while the ambush, surprise, and night attack
foster treachery and deceit. Certain it is that the Welsh were notorious
amongst their contemporaries as liars and perjurers, men to whom the
most solemn oaths were not binding; and their Norman neighbours, the
lords Marchers, were not slow to follow their example, so that the
history of the border warfare is constantly stained with treachery and
broken oaths. The corollary to “Taffy was a Welshman” that “Taffy was a
thief” was already recognised as an axiom at the time of the Domesday
Survey, when the customs of the Herefordshire Welsh contained provisions
for correcting this reprehensible propensity. Yet in spite of this
tendency to enrich themselves at the expense of their neighbours the
Welsh were open-handed and generous; none need beg for a meal, nor need
the wayfarer fear to lack a resting-place. Hospitality was not so much a
duty as a commonplace of life amongst this people, and exercised without
hesitation. The food was simple, for though orgies of gluttony and
drunkenness were only too common after a successful plundering raid, yet
the habitual excess prevalent in England was here unknown; but this
simplicity was more than atoned for by the charms of female society and
the delights of music. In music the Welsh surpassed even the Irish; in
every house a harp was to be found, and it is noteworthy that they
shared with the men of Yorkshire the peculiarity of singing not in
unison but in parts. In their rhythmical chanted songs the nation’s
exceptional powers of rhetoric found their highest form of expression,
and their bards were held in such honour that in 1157, when Morgan, son
of King Owain Gwynedd, was murdered, it is expressly noted that with him
was slain Gwrgant ap Rhys, “the best poet.” Thus with music and eloquent
conversation were passed the restful hours of the day, the remainder of
which would be devoted to military exercise, hunting, the tending of
flocks and herds, or, more rarely, agriculture, for which the poor soil
and the inclinations of the people were alike unsuited. They were thus
perilously dependent upon England for much of their food supply and
therefore liable to be starved into surrender in the event of war.
The antagonism existing between the peoples of England and Wales found
some echo in the relations between the two branches of the Church. The
Welsh Church, possessing a far longer continuous history than that of
England, was less completely under the influence of Rome, and retained
many primitive customs which were strange and even abhorrent to the more
orthodox. Their clergy continued to marry, with the result that many
benefices had become hereditary, descending from father to son like
secular property. But if the marriage of the clergy was a primitive
condition no longer canonical, the marriage customs of the laity were
still more shocking to the orthodox, being in many cases not merely
uncanonical but clearly survivals from pagan times, indefensible on any
grounds except those of crude common-sense. The English Church, having
control of the four sees of St. David’s, Llandaff, Bangor, and St.
Asaph, should have been able to execute the necessary reforms, but
unfortunately Norman prejudice forbade the appointment of a Welshman to
any post of authority in Wales, and the sees were consequently occupied
by foreigners who, for the most part, could not speak the language of
their flocks, and only too frequently used their power to increase their
slender revenues at the expense of their clergy. Despised by the Norman
clergy as corrupt and by the nobles as barbarous, it is possible that
the Welsh appeared to Henry less formidable opponents than they really
were. Moreover, he disregarded the advice of the lords of the Marches,
whose whole lives were spent in fighting their Welsh neighbours, and
determined to conduct his expedition on the most approved continental
lines. Owain had entrenched himself at Basingwerk, and Henry accordingly
advanced along the coast for some distance, and then, meditating a
flanking movement, led a detachment of his forces through the woods of
Consillt. This gave the Welsh the opportunity for which they had been
waiting, and no sooner were the Normans entangled in the woods than the
forces under Owain’s sons, David and Cynan, fell upon them, inflicting
heavy losses. Caught at a disadvantage the invaders were thrown into
confusion; two of their leaders, Eustace Fitz-John and Robert de Courcy,
were slain, and a cry was raised that the king had been killed. Panic
ensued, and it was afterwards said that Henry of Essex, the Constable of
England, had thrown down the royal standard and fled. If the Constable
really displayed cowardice on this occasion the fact must have been
hushed up, for nothing is heard of it for six years, until in 1163
Robert de Montfort made it the subject of a formal accusation. Such an
accusation could have only one outcome, and accordingly a duel was
fought between the two parties at Reading in the king’s presence, when
Henry of Essex, rashly abandoning a successful defence for the
offensive, was defeated and left for dead on the ground, but being
nursed back to life by the monks of Reading, joined their community and
spent the remainder of his days in their abbey. It is noteworthy that
the challenger, Robert de Montfort, was a connection of his opponent’s
and not improbably a rival claimant to the constableship, which Henry
had inherited through the heiress of Hugh de Montfort.[15] On the whole
it would seem more probable that Robert should have made his accusation
as a taunt based on some flying rumour and that the result of the duel
was unjust, than that King Henry should have condoned the Constable’s
cowardice and allowed him to continue in honour at his court.
However Henry of Essex may have behaved, it is clear that the Normans
had suffered a severe defeat, and Henry in a furious rage drew off his
troops and rejoined the main body of his army, with which he advanced
unopposed to Rhuddlan, Owain having withdrawn from Basingwerk to Conway.
Meanwhile the fleet, which was acting in unison with the land forces,
had been despatched to Anglesea, to ravage that fertile island, the
granary of North Wales. But here bad discipline was the cause of a
severe check; the attractions of looting churches and monasteries proved
too great for the royal forces and delivered them into the hands of the
ever vigilant natives. The sailors lost their commander, William
Trenchemer, and most of their officers, while amongst the men of note
who fell was Henry, the king’s half-uncle, son of Henry I. by the famous
Welsh princess Nest. In spite of these two initial successes Owain felt
himself in a position of danger, and preferring to make terms rather
than to have them forced upon him, made peace and gave hostages to
Henry. Cadwalader was restored to his possessions, and homage was done
by Owain to the English king, and the English frontier was once more
pushed as far forward as Rhuddlan, where, as also at Basingwerk, Henry
restored the castle. The campaign, therefore, might be regarded as
fairly successful, although the only two engagements recorded had been
disastrous.
Although Owain Gwynedd and the other princes had come to terms with King
Henry, the redoubtable Rhys, son of Gruffudd of South Wales, proposed to
continue the war. Finding, however, that he would receive no support
from any other native princes, he was persuaded to make his peace with
the king, who in return promised to grant him a complete _cantref_ of
land. The spirit of the agreement was broken by the grant of the land in
scattered portions instead of in a continuous block, but Rhys accepted
the gift and remained quiet until he found that the king would not do
him justice against Walter Clifford, when he took the law into his own
hands and made a series of successful attacks upon the strongholds of
the Norman barons in Cardigan. About the same time, in 1158, Yvor the
Little, a noble of Glamorgan, being deprived of his lands by Earl
William of Gloucester, made a daring night attack upon the castle of
Cardiff, and in spite of its strength and the imposing numbers of its
garrison, said to have numbered 120 men-at-arms, besides archers and
others, carried off the earl with his countess and their son, who were
only released after more than full restitution had been made to Yvor.
Meanwhile Rhys, encouraged by his successes in Cardigan, attacked
Caermarthen, and Henry, who was preparing for a great expedition into
the south of France, was obliged to send a force under the Earls of
Cornwall, Gloucester, and Clare to relieve the castle. This they did,
and they were also successful in bringing Rhys to accept terms of peace.
Peace, so far as it ever existed on the Welsh borders, continued for a
short time, but when Henry returned to England in 1163, he found the
country in so disturbed a state that he was obliged to lead an army
against Rhys. The latter offered little or no active opposition, and the
expedition took the form of a military progress through Glamorgan and
Gower towards Caermarthen and as far as Pencader, returning by the
mountains of Plinlimmon to Radnor. It is said that during this progress
the invading host came to a stream called Nant Pencarn, where the
natives anxiously waited to see whether Henry would fulfil in his own
person a traditional prophecy that the crossing of the ancient ford by a
brave man with a freckled face should foreshadow the defeat of the
Welsh. When they saw the king ride past the old ford and set his horse
to cross by one newer and better known, the Welsh set up such a blare of
horns and trumpets that his horse took fright, and the king, turning
round, made for the older ford and dashed across, this time without any
orchestral welcome.
As a result of this campaign Rhys, with Owain of North Wales and other
princes, attended Henry’s court at Woodstock and did homage to him there
in July 1163. The king, apparently meditating the confiscation of his
estates or possibly the extortion of a ransom, sent a knight to visit
Dynevor, the capital of South Wales, and to report upon the nature of
the country; the priest, however, who acted as guide, while professing
to go by the best route, took the unsuspecting knight by all the worst
and most impassable tracks, and so contrived to impress him with the
utter poverty of the land and the inhabitants that the king, on the
strength of his report, abandoned his first intention and released Rhys,
only taking from him hostages for his good behaviour. Hardly had Rhys
returned than he renewed the struggle, recapturing the whole district of
Cardigan, invading Pembrokeshire and despoiling the Norman and Flemish
settlers. His example was speedily followed by Owain Gwynedd and his
sons, who ravaged the district round Rhuddlan. In October 1164 Henry had
issued orders for a force to be raised against Rhys, and on his return
to England in the following May, he found this force ready and with it
pushed hastily forward to Rhuddlan. Having relieved pressure in this
district for the time being he returned to England to collect a larger
army, furiously vowing to destroy the whole nation of Welsh. The border
fortresses were set in order from Abergavenny, Grosmont, Llantilis, and
Skenfrith in the south to Montgomery, Shrawardine, and Chirk in the
north; foreign mercenaries were brought over and provided with arms,
Ernald the armourer providing 300 bucklers for their use; lances and
arrows were bought in Oxford and elsewhere and despatched to the
frontier; and, above all, large sums of money were extorted from the
cities, prelates, and nobles for the conduct of the war.[16] Operations
on a small scale seem to have been carried on from Abergavenny, but the
king, with the main part of his imposing army, advanced from Shrewsbury
to Oswestry and so into Powys. For once the Welsh were united; Rhys of
South Wales, Owain Gwynedd and Cadwalader his brother, the former ally
of the English, the two sons of Madog of Powys, lesser princes such as
Owain Cyveliog and Jorwerth the Red, all with their whole following were
assembled to oppose the invader.
Henry advanced down the valley of the Ceiriog and, mindful of former
disaster, endeavoured to protect his flanks by cutting down the woods.
Indecisive skirmishing took place, resulting in heavy losses to both
sides, but the Welsh avoided a pitched battle and retired before the
royal forces until the latter had penetrated as far as the mountains of
Berwyn in Merionethshire. Here they encamped, ravaging the country round
and plundering the churches, to the intense anger of the Welsh, who
always scrupulously observed the sanctity of churches. Punishment
speedily overtook the impious host: tremendous storms of rain,
exceptionally vehement even for Wales, coupled with a shortage of
provisions, drove the English back in a disorderly and disastrous
retreat to Chester, where Henry waited for the arrival of a fleet from
Ireland. When the ships came they proved to be insufficient for the
conduct of further operations against the Welsh. The king, furious at
his ill-success, took a mean revenge by barbarously mutilating the sons
of Rhys and Owain and a score of other hostages in his power.[17]
Hardly had the English army retired from Wales when Rhys stormed the
castle of Cardigan and captured its lord, Robert Fitz-Stephen. Next
year, in 1165, the Normans and Flemings of Pembroke made two
unsuccessful attempts to retake Cardigan, while in the north Owain
Gwynedd destroyed Basingwerk. Internal dissensions led to the ejection
from their lands of Jorwerth the Red and Owain Cyveliog,[18] and the
latter, in 1166, assisted the Normans to gain a small success in the
capture of the castle of Caereinion, but this was more than
counterbalanced by the action of Rhys and Owain Gwynedd, who, after a
three months’ siege, captured the castles of Rhuddlan and Prestatyn. The
development of Irish affairs now made friendly relations with Wales
important, the main route to Ireland being by way of South Wales and the
ports of Pembrokeshire. Accordingly we find Henry becoming reconciled to
Rhys in 1171, and from henceforth treating him with an honourable
courtesy which the Welsh prince reciprocated. Peace, therefore, varied
with occasional border skirmishes, continued between England and Wales
until the end of Henry’s reign, and the Welsh, deprived of the pleasure
of molesting the foreigner, turned with the greater zest to the task of
cutting one another’s throats.
The invariable failure of Henry’s military policy in Wales was due to
his persistent disregard of the local lords of the marches and reliance
upon men famous in continental warfare but totally ignorant of the very
different conditions prevailing in the mountains and forests of Wales.
Such a man as Gerald de Barri could have given the king far more useful
advice in the conduct of a Welsh campaign than any of his great Norman
barons. That acute historian afterwards set out at length the measures
necessary for the conquest of his native country. No expedition should
be undertaken hastily, but careful preparations should be made, allies
secured, and internal divisions carefully fostered; castles should be
built along the frontier, trade with England, especially in provisions,
stopped, and the coasts blockaded. This would, as a rule, be sufficient
to bring them to terms, but if military operations were needful then an
advance should be made in the early spring before the trees came into
leaf; the troops should be light armed, and preferably men of the border
used to the country rather than Flemish or Brabantines, good as the
latter were on their own ground. The operations should be conducted by
counsel of the lords marchers, and heavy losses must be expected and
borne with equanimity, for while mercenaries are easily replaced the
Welsh could not replace their men. Once subdued the natives should be
treated with justice and kindness so long as they remain quiet, but
their rulers should be ever watchful and should punish rebellion with
severity. To diminish the chance of revolt the intervals of peace ought
to be used for the building of roads and of castles, and at the same
time the English border towns along the Severn might well have special
privileges granted them to facilitate their growth, and in return they
should be bound to maintain a fitting provision of arms and horses and
to practise universal military training. “Yet for all this the nation
shall not perish utterly, and at the last great Day of Judgment this
little spot of land shall be answered for by the Welsh race, still
speaking in their ancient tongue.”