I
WALES
WALES is a row of hills, rising between the Irish Sea on the west and the
English plains on the east. If you come from the west along the sea, or
if you cross the Severn or the Dee from the east, you will see that Wales
is a country all by itself. It rises grandly and proudly. If you are a
stranger, you will think of it as “Wales”—a strange country; if you are
Welsh, you will think of it as “Cymru”—a land of brothers.
The geologist will tell you how Wales was made; the geographer will tell
you what it is like now; the historian will tell you what its people have
done and what they are. All three will tell you that it is a very
interesting country.
The rocks of Wales are older and harder than the rocks of the plains; and
as you travel from the south to the north, the older and harder they
become. The highest mountains of Wales, and some of its hills, have
crests of the very oldest and hardest rock—granite, porphyry, and basalt;
and these rocks are given their form by fire. But the greater part of
the country is made of rocks formed by water—still the oldest of their
kind. In the north-west, centre, and west—about two-thirds of the whole
country,—the rocks are chiefly slate and shale; in the south-east they
are chiefly old red sandstone; in the north-east, but chiefly in the
south, they are limestone and coal.
Its rocks give Wales its famous scenery—its rugged peaks, its romantic
glens, its rushing rivers. They are also its chief wealth—granite,
slate, limestone, coal; and lodes of still more precious metals—iron,
lead, silver, and gold—run through them.
The highest mountain in Wales is Snowdon, which is 3,570 feet above the
level of the sea. For every 300 feet we go up, the temperature becomes
one degree cooler. At about 1,000 feet it becomes too cold for wheat; at
about 1,500 it becomes too cold for corn; at about 2,000 it is too cold
for cattle; mountain ponies graze still higher; the bleak upper slopes
are left to the small and valuable Welsh sheep.
There are three belts of soil around the hills—arable, pasture, and
sheep-run—one above the other. The arable land forms about a third of
the country; it lies along the sea border, on the slopes above the Dee
and the Severn, and in the deep valleys of the rivers which pierce far
inland,—the Severn, Wye, Usk, Towy, Teivy, Dovey, Conway, and Clwyd. The
pasture land, the land of small mountain farms, forms the middle third;
it is a land of tiny valleys and small plains, ever fostered by the warm,
moist west wind. Above it, the remaining third is stormy sheep-run, wide
green slopes and wild moors, steep glens and rocky heights.
From north-west to south-east the line of high hills runs. In the
north-west corner, Snowdon towers among a number of heights over 3,000
feet. At its feet, to the north-west, the isle of Anglesey lies. The
peninsula of Lleyn, with a central ridge of rock, and slopes of pasture
lands, runs to the south-west. To the east, beyond the Conway, lie the
Hiraethog mountains, with lower heights and wider reaches; further east
again, over the Clwyd, are the still lower hills of Flint.
To the south, 30 miles as the crow flies, over the slate country, the
Berwyns are seen clearly. From a peak among these—Cader Vronwen (2,573
feet), or the Aran (2,970 feet), or Cader Idris (2,929 feet)—we look east
and south, over the hilly slopes of the upper Severn country.
Another 30 miles to the south rises green Plinlimmon (2,469 feet); from
it we see the high moorlands of central Wales, sloping to Cardigan Bay on
the west and to the valley of the Severn, now a lordly English river, on
the east.
Forty miles south the Black Mountain (2,630 feet) rises beyond the Wye,
and the Brecon Beacons (2,910 feet) beyond the Usk. West of these the
hills fade away into the broad peninsula of Dyved. Southwards we look
over hills of coal and iron to the pleasant sea-fringed plain of Gwent.
On the north and the west the sea is shallow; in some places it is under
10 fathoms for 10 miles from the shore, and under 20 fathoms for 20
miles. Tales of drowned lands are told—of the sands of Lavan, of the
feast of drunken Seithenyn, and of the bells of Aberdovey. But the sea
is a kind neighbour. Its soft, warm winds bathe the hills with life; and
the great sweep of the big Atlantic waves into the river mouths help our
commerce. Holyhead, Milford Haven, Swansea, Newport, Barry, and
Cardiff—now one of the chief ports of the world—can welcome the largest
vessels afloat. The herring is plentiful on the west coast, and trout
and salmon in the rivers.
II
THE WANDERING NATIONS
BY land and by sea, race after race has come to make the hills of Wales
its home. One race would be short, with dark eyes and black hair;
another would be tall, with blue eyes and fair hair. They came from
different countries and along different paths, but each race brought some
good with it. One brought skill in taming animals, until it had at last
tamed even the pig and the bee; another brought iron tools to take the
place of stone ones. Another brought the energy of the chase and war,
and another a delight in sailing a ship or in building a fortress.
One thing they had in common—they wandered, and they wandered to the
west. From the cold wastes and the dark forests of the north and east,
they were ever pushing west to more sunny lands. As far back as we can
see, the great migration of nations to the west was going on. The
islands of Britain were the furthest point they could reach; for beyond
it, at that time, no man had dared to sail into the unknown expanse of
the ocean of the west. In the islands of Britain, the mountains of Wales
were among the most difficult to win, and it was only the bravest and the
hardiest that could make their home among them.
The first races that came were short and dark. They came in tribes.
They had tribal marks, the picture of an animal as a rule; and they had a
strange fancy that this animal was their ancestor. It may be that the
local nicknames which are still remembered—such as “the pigs of
Anglesey,” “the dogs of Denbigh,” “the cats of Ruthin,” “the crows of
Harlech,” “the gadflies of Mawddwy”—were the proud tribe titles of these
early people. Their weapons and tools were polished stone; their hammers
and hatchets and adzes, their lance heads and their arrow tips, were of
the hardest igneous rock—chipped and ground with patient labour.
The people who come first have the best chance of staying, if only they
are willing to learn; hardy plants will soon take the place of tender
plants if left alone. The short dark people are still the main part, not
only of the Welsh, but of the British people. It is true that their
language has disappeared, except a few place-names. But languages are
far more fleeting than races. The loss of its language does not show
that a race is dead; it only shows that it is very anxious to change and
learn. Some languages easily give place to others, and we say that the
people who speak these languages are good linguists, like Danes and
Slavs. Other languages persist, those who speak them are unwilling to
speak any new language, and this is the reason why Spanish and English
are so widespread.
After the short dark race came a tall fair-haired people. They came in
families as well as in tribes. They had iron weapons and tools, and the
short dark people could not keep them at bay with their bone-tipped
spears and flint-headed arrows. We know nothing about the struggle
between them. But it may be that the fairy stories we were told when
children come from those far-off times. If a fairy maiden came from lake
or mound to live among men, she vanished at once if touched with iron.
Is this, learned men have asked, a dim memory of the victory of iron over
stone?
The name given to the short dark man is usually Iberian; the name given
to the tall fair man who followed him is Celt. The two learnt to live
together in the same country. The conqueror probably looked upon himself
at first as the master of the conquered, then as simply belonging to a
superior race, but gradually the distinction vanished. The language
remained the language of the Celt; it is called an Aryan language, a
language as noble among languages as the Aran is among its hills. It is
still spoken in Wales, in Brittany, in Ireland, in the Highlands of
Scotland, and in the Isle of Man. It was also spoken in Cornwall till
the eighteenth century; and Yorkshire dalesmen still count their sheep in
Welsh. English is another Aryan tongue.
The more mixed a nation is, the more rich its life and the greater its
future. Purity of blood is not a thing to boast of, and no great and
progressive nation comes from one breed of men. Some races have more
imagination than others, or a finer feeling for beauty; others have more
energy and practical wisdom. The best nations have both; and they have
both, probably, because many races have been blended in their making.
There is hardly a parish in Wales in which there are not different types
of faces and different kinds of character.
The wandering of nations has never really stopped. The Celt was followed
by his cousins—the Angle and the Saxon. These, again, were followed by
races still more closely related to them—the Normans and the Danes and
the Flemings. They have all left their mark on Wales and on the Welsh
character.
The migration is still going on. Trace the history of an upland Welsh
parish, and you will find that, in a surprisingly short time, the old
families, high and low, have given place to newcomers. Look into the
trains which carry emigrants from Hull or London to Liverpool on their
way west—they have the blue eyes and yellow hair of those who came two
thousand years ago. But this country is no longer their goal, the great
continent of America has been discovered beyond. Fits of longing for
wandering come over the Welsh periodically, as they came over the
Danes—caused by scarcity of food and density of population, or by a sense
of oppression and a yearning for freedom. An empty stomach sometimes,
and sometimes a fiery imagination, sent a crowd of adventurers to new
lands. And it is thus that every living nation is ever renewing its
youth.
III
ROME
IT is not a spirit of adventure and daring alone that makes a nation.
Rome rose to say that it must have the spirit of order and law too. It
rose in the path of the nations; it built the walls of its empire,
guarded by the camps of its legions, right across it. For four hundred
years the wandering of nations ceased; the nations stopped—and they began
to till the ground, to live in cities, to form states. The hush of this
peace did not last, but the memory of it remained in the life of every
nation that felt it. Unity and law tempered freedom and change.
The name of Rome was made known, and made terrible, through Wales by a
great battle fought on the eastern slopes of the Berwyn. The Romans had
conquered the lands beyond the Severn, and had placed themselves firmly
near the banks of that river at Glevum and Uriconium. Glevum is our
Gloucester, and its streets are still as the Roman architect planned
them. Uriconium is the burnt and buried city beyond Shrewsbury; the
skulls found in it, and its implements of industry, and the toys of its
children, you can see in the Shrewsbury Museum.
The British leader in the great battle was Caratacus, the general who had
fought the Romans step by step until he had come to the borders of Wales,
to summon the warlike Silures to save their country. We do not know the
site of the great battle, though the Roman historian Tacitus gives a
graphic description of it. The Britons were on a hill side sloping down
to a river, and the Romans could only attack them in front. The enemy
waded the river, however, and scaled the wall on its further bank; and in
the fierce lance and sword fight the host of Caratacus lost the day. He
fled, but was afterwards handed over to the Romans, and taken to Rome, to
grace the triumphal procession of the victors.
The battle only roused the Silures to a more fierce resistance, and it
cost the Romans many lives, and it took them many years, to break their
power. The strangest sight that met the invaders was in Anglesey, after
they had crossed the Menai on horses or on rafts. The druids tried to
terrify them by the rites of their religion. The dark groves, the women
dressed in black and carrying flaming torches, the aged priests—the sight
paralysed the Roman soldiers, but only for a moment.
Vespasian—it was he who sent his son Titus to besiege Jerusalem—became
emperor in 69. The war was carried on with great energy, and by 78 Wales
was entirely conquered.
Then Agricola, a wise ruler, came. The peace of Rome was left in the
land; and the Welshman took the Roman, not willingly at first, as his
teacher and ruler instead of as his enemy. Towns were built; the two
Chesters or Caerlleons (Castra Legionum), on the Dee and the Usk, being
the most important from a military point of view. Roads were made; two
along the north and south coasts, to Carmarthen and Carnarvon; two others
ran parallel along the length of Wales, to connect their ends. On these
roads towns rose; and some, like Caerwent, were self-governing
communities of prosperous people. Agriculture flourished; the Welsh
words for “plough” and “cheese” are “aradr” and “caws”—the Latin
_aratrum_ and _caseus_. The mineral wealth of the country was
discovered; and copper mines and lead mines, silver mines and gold mines,
were worked. The “aur” (gold) and “arian” (silver) and “plwm” (lead) of
the Welshman are the Latin _aurum_, _argentum_, and _plumbum_.
The Romans allowed the Welsh families and tribes to remain as before, and
to be ruled by their own kings and chiefs. But they kept the defence of
the country—the manning of the great wall in the north of Roman Britain,
the garrisoning of the legion towns, and the holding of the western
sea—in their own hand.
Gradually the power of Rome began to wane, and its hold on distant
countries like Britain began to relax. The wandering nations were
gathering on its eastern and northern borders, and its walls and legions
at last gave way. It had not been a kind mother to the nations it had
conquered—in war it had been cruel, and in peace it had been selfish and
stern. The lust of rule became stronger as its arm became weaker. The
degradation of slavery and the heavy hand of the tax-gatherer were
extending even to Wales. The barbarian invader found the effeminate,
luxurious empire an easy prey. In 410 Alaric and his host of Goths
appeared before the city of Rome itself; and a horde of barbarians,
thirsting for blood and spoil, surged into it. The fall of the great
city was a shock to the whole world; the end of the world must be near,
for how could it stand without Rome? Jerome could hardly sob the strange
news: “Rome, which enslaved the whole world, has itself been taken.”
Rome had taken the yoke of Christ; and many said that it fell because it
had spurned the gods that had given it victory. Three years after Alaric
had sacked it, Augustine wrote a book to prove that it was not the city
of God that had fallen; and that the heathen gods could neither have
built Rome in their love nor destroyed it in their anger. He then
describes the rise of the real “City of God,” in the midst of which is
the God of justice and mercy, and “she shall not be moved.”
IV
THE NAME OF CHRIST
THE name of Christ had been heard in Britain during the period of Roman
rule, but we do not know who first sounded it. There are many beautiful
legends—that the great apostle of the Gentiles himself came to Britain;
that Joseph of Arimathea, having been placed by the Jews in an open boat,
at the mercy of wind and wave, landed in Britain; that some of the
captives taken to Rome with Caratacus brought back the tidings of great
joy.
We know that the name of Christ, between 200 and 300 years after His
death, was well known in Britain, and that churches had been built for
His worship. Between 300 and 400 we have an organised church and a
settled creed. Between 400 and 500 there was searching of heart and
creed, and heresies—a sure sign that the people were alive to religion.
Between 500 and 600 there was a translation of the Bible from Hebrew and
Greek into the better-known Latin. The whole of Wales becomes Christian;
and probably St David converted the last pagans, and built his church
among them.
Between 450 and 500 a stream of pagan Teutons flowed over the east of
Britain, and the British Church was separated from the Roman Church. By
664 British and Roman missionaries had converted the English; and the two
Churches of Rome and Britain, once united, were face to face again. But
they had grown in different ways, and refused to know each other. Their
Easter came on different days; they did not baptize in the same way; the
tonsure was different—a crescent on the forehead of the British monk, and
a crown on the pate of the Roman monk. In the Roman Church there was
rigid unity and system; in the British Church there was much room for
self-government. The newly converted English chose the Roman way,
because they were told that St Peter, whose see Rome was, held the keys
of heaven. Between 700 and 800 the Welsh gradually gave up their
religious independence, and joined the Roman Church.
But there was another dispute. Were the four old Welsh
bishoprics—Bangor, St Asaph, St David’s, Llandaff—to be subject to the
English archbishop of Canterbury, or to have an archbishopric of their
own at St David’s? By 1200 the Welsh bishoprics were subject to the
English archbishop, and Giraldus Cambrensis came too late to save them.
But through all these disputes the Church was gaining strength. Churches
were being built everywhere. Up to 700 they were called after the name
of their founder; between 700 and 1000 they were generally dedicated to
the archangel Michael—there are several Llanvihangels {1} in Wales; after
1000 new churches were dedicated to Mary, the Mother of Christ—we have
many Llanvairs. {2}
Times of civil strife, or of popular indifference, came over and over
again; and the old paganism tried to reassert itself. And time after
time the name of Christ was sounded again by men who thought they had
seen Him. In the twelfth century the Cistercian monk came to say that
the world was bad, that prayer saved the soul, and that labour was noble.
{3} He was followed by the Franciscan friar, who said that deeds of
mercy and love should be added to prayer, that Christ had been a poor
man, and that men should help each other, not only in saving souls, but
in healing sickness and relieving pain. In the fifteenth century the
Lollard came to say that the Church was too rich, and that it had become
blind to the truth, and Walter Brute said that men were to be justified
by faith in Christ, not by the worship of images or by the merit of
saints. In the sixteenth century came the Protestant, and the sway of
Rome over Wales came to an end; Bishop Morgan translated the Bible into
Welsh, and John Penry yearned for the preaching of the Gospel in Wales.
The Jesuit followed, calling himself by the name of Jesus, to try to win
the country back again to Rome. Robert Jones toiled and schemed, and
some laid down their lives. The Puritan came in the seventeenth century
to demand simple worship, and Morgan Lloyd thought that the second advent
of Christ was at hand. The Revivalist came in the eighteenth century,
and, in the name of Christ, aroused the people of Wales to a new life of
thought.
After all this, you will be surprised to learn that many of the old gods
still remain in Wales, and much of the old pagan worship. Who drops a
pin into a sacred well, or leaves a tiny rag on a bush close by, and then
wishes for something? A young maiden in the twentieth century, who
sacrifices to a well heathen god. Until quite recently men thought that
Ffynnon Gybi, and Ffynnon Elian, and Ffynnon Ddwynwen, had in them a
power which could curse and bless, ruin and save.
Lud of the Silver Hand was the god of flocks and ships. His caves are in
Dyved still, and his was the temple on Ludgate Hill in London. Merlin
was a god of knowledge; he could foretell events. Ceridwen was the
goddess of wisdom; she distilled wisdom-giving drops in a cauldron.
Gwydion created a beautiful girl from flowers, “from red rose, and yellow
broom, and white anemony.” I am not quite sure what Coil did, but I have
heard children singing the history of “old King Cole.” Olwen also walked
through Wales in heathen times, and it is said that three white flowers
rose behind her wherever she had put her foot.
V
THE WELSH KINGS
THE spirit of Rome remained, though Rome itself had fallen. And Welsh
kings rose to take the place of the Roman ruler, trying to force the
tribes of Wales—of different races and tongues—to become one people.
The chief Roman ruler, at any rate during the later wars against the
invaders, was called Dux Britanniae, “the ruler of Britain.” It became
the aim of the ablest kings to restore the power of this officer, and to
carry on his work, to rule and defend a united country. And I will tell
you briefly how the kings ruled and defended Wales for more than five
hundred years—how Maelgwn tried to unite it, how Rhodri tried to prevent
the attacks of Saxon and Dane, how Howel gave it laws, and how Griffith
tried to defend it against England.
Between 400 and 450 Rome left Wales to look after itself. An able
family, called the House of Cunedda, took the power of the Dux
Britanniae, and they translated the title into Gwledig—“the ruler of a
_gwlad_ (country).” Of this family Maelgwn Gwynedd is the most famous.
It was his work to try to unite all the smaller kings or chiefs of Wales
under his own power as “the island dragon.” It was a difficult thing to
persuade them; they all wanted to be independent. A legend shows that
Maelgwn tried guile as well as force. The kings met him at Aberdovey,
and they all sat in their royal chairs on the sands. And Maelgwn said:
“Let him be king over all who can sit longest on his chair as the tide
comes in.” But he had made his own chair of birds’ wings, and it floated
erect when all the other chairs had been thrown down. Before Maelgwn
died of the yellow plague in 547, his strong arm had made Wales one
united country, and had made every corner of it Christian.
The new wave of nations, coming on as surely as the tide, began to beat
against Wales. The Picts came from the northern parts of Britain, and
Teutonic tribes swarmed across the eastern sea. The Angles came to the
Humber, and spread over the plains of the north and the midlands of Roman
Britain; the Saxons came to the Thames, and won the plains and the downs
of the south-east. In 577 the Saxons, after the battle of Deorham,
pierced to the western sea at the mouth of the Severn; they crept up
along the valley of the Severn, burning the great Roman towns. Before
they reached Chester and the Dee, however, they were defeated at the
battle of Fethanlea in 584. But the Angles soon appeared, from the
north; and after their victory at Chester in 613, they won the plains
right to the Irish Sea.
Wales was now surrounded on the land side by a people who spoke strange
languages, and who worshipped different gods, for the Angles and the
Saxons were heathens. From the sea also it was open to attack.
Sometimes the Irish came. But the most feared of all were the Danes,
whose sudden appearance and quick movements and desperate onslaughts were
the terror of the age. The “black Danes” came from the fords of Norway,
the “white Danes” from the plains of Sweden and Denmark. The Danes
settled on the south coast: Tenby is a Danish name. Offa, the king of
the Mercian Angles, took the rich lands between the Severn and the Wye;
but Offa’s Dyke (Clawdd Offa) is probably the work of some earlier people
whose history has been lost. It was only by incessant fighting that the
enemy could be kept at bay.
Of all the kings who tried to defend his country against the enemies
which now stood round it, the greatest is Rhodri, called Rhodri Mawr—“the
Great.” From 844 to 877, by battles on sea and land, he broke the spell
of Danish and Saxon victories; and his might and wisdom enabled him to
lead his country in those dark days. Like Alfred of Wessex, who lived at
the same time and faced the same task, he stemmed the torrent of Danish
invasion and beat the sea-rovers on their own element. Like Alfred, he
left warlike children and grandchildren. One of the grandsons was Howel
the Good, who put the laws of Wales down in a book.
Wales and England were now, both of them in their own way, trying to
become one country. It was seen by many that strength and peace were
better than division and war. In England, the Earls of Mercia and Wessex
tried to rise into supreme power. In Wales Llywelyn ab Seisyll,
victorious in many battles and wishing for peace, made the country rich
and happy. Still, when he died in 1022, the princes said they would not
obey another over-king.
But the long ships full of Danes came again; the Angles crossed the
Severn: war and misery took the place of peace and plenty. Griffith, the
son of Llywelyn, came to renew his father’s work. In the battle of Rhyd
y Groes on the Severn, in 1039, he drove the Mercians back; in the battle
of Pencader, in 1041, he crushed the opponents of Welsh unity; in 1044 he
defeated the sea-rovers at Aber Towy. At the same time Harold, Earl of
Wessex, was making himself king of England. A war broke out between
Griffith and Harold; and, during it, in 1063, the great Welsh king—“the
head and the shield of the Britons”—was slain by traitors.
So far I have told you about a few, only the greatest, kings of the House
of Cunedda. I know that you are wondering where Arthur comes in. I am
not quite sure that Arthur ever really lived, except in the mind of many
ages. He is the spirit of Roman rule, the true Dux Britanniae, and he
has all the greatness and ability of all the race of Cunedda. I have
been shown mountains under which he sleeps, with his knights around him,
waiting for the time when his country is to be delivered. Let us hope
that what Arthur represents—courage and wisdom, love of country and love
of right—lives in the hearts of his people.
VI
THE LAWS OF HOWEL
THE two ideas which ruled Wales were—the love of order and the love of
independence. The danger of the first is oppression; the dangers of the
other are anarchy and weakness. Wales was sometimes united, under a
Maelgwn or a Rhodri, and the princes obeyed them; oftener, perhaps, the
princes of the various parts ruled in their own way.
The internal life of Wales is best seen in the laws of Howel the Good.
Howel was the grandson of Rhodri; and, about 950, he called four men from
each district to Hendy Gwyn (Whitland) to state the laws of the country.
Twelve of the wisest put the law together; and the most learned scribe in
Wales wrote it.
It was thought that there should be one king over the whole people, but
it was very rarely that every part of Wales obeyed one king. The country
was divided into smaller kingdoms. In many ways Gwynedd was the most
powerful. It was very easy to defend; for it was made up of the island
of Môn (Anglesey), the promontory of Lleyn, and the mountain mass of
Snowdon. Its steep side was thus towards England, and its cornlands and
pastures on the further side. It was also the home of the family of
Cunedda, from Maelgwn to the last Llywelyn.
Powys was the Berwyn country. Ceredigion was the western slope of the
Plinlimmon range; the eastern slopes had many smaller, but very warlike,
districts. Deheubarth contained the pleasant glades and great forests of
the Towy country. Dyved was the peninsula to the west; the southern
slopes of the Beacons were Morgannwg and Gwent.
Howel the Good found that the laws of the various parts differed in
details, and he gave different versions to the north, the south-west, and
the south-east. But the law and life of the whole people, if we only
look at important features, are one. Several commotes made a cantrev,
many cantrevs made a kingdom, many kingdoms made Wales.
In each commote there were two kinds of people—the free or high-born, and
the low-born or serfs. These may have been the conquering Celt and the
conquered Iberian. It was very difficult for those in the lower class to
rise to the higher; but, after passing through the storms of a thousand
years, the old dark line of separation was quite lost sight of.
The free family lived in a great house—in the _hendre_ (“old homestead”)
in winter, and in the mountain _havoty_ (“summer house”) in summer. The
sides of the house were made of giant forest trees, their boughs meeting
at the top and supporting the roof tree. The fire burnt in the middle of
the hall. Round the walls the family beds were arranged. The family was
governed by the head of the household (_penteulu_), whose word was law.
The highest family in the land was that of the king. In his hall all
took their own places, his chief of the household, his priest, his
steward, his falconer, his judge, his bard, his chief huntsman, his
mediciner, and others. The chief royal residences were Aberffraw in Môn,
Mathraval in Powys, and Dynevor in Deheubarth.
Old Welsh law was very unlike the law we obey now. I cannot tell you
much about it in a short book like this, but it is worth noticing that it
was very humane. We do not get in it the savage and vindictive
punishments we get in some laws. I give you some extracts from the old
laws of the Welsh.
The king was to be honoured. According to the laws of Gwynedd, if any
one did violence in his presence he had to pay a great fine—a hundred
cows, and a white bull with red ears, for every cantrev the king ruled; a
rod of gold as long as the king himself, and as thick as his little
finger; and a plate of gold, as broad as the king’s face, and as thick as
a ploughman’s nail.
The judge, whether of the king’s court or of the courts of his subjects,
was to be learned, just, and wise. Thus, according to the laws of Dyved,
was an inexperienced judge to be prepared for his great office; he was to
remain in the court in the king’s company, to listen to the pleas of
judges who came from the country, to learn the laws and customs that were
in force, especially the three main divisions of law, and the value of
all tame animals, and of all wild beasts and birds that were of use to
men. He was to listen especially to the difficult cases that were
brought to the court, to be solved by the wisdom of the king. When he
had lived thus for a year, he was to be brought to the church by the
chaplain; and there, over the relics and before the altar, he swore, in
the presence of the great officers of the king’s court, that he would
never knowingly do injustice, for money or love or hate. He is then
brought to the king, and the officers tell the king that he has taken the
solemn oath. Then the king accepts him as a judge, and gives him his
place. When he leaves, the king gives him a golden chessboard, and the
queen gold rings, and these he is never to part with.
I will tell you about one other officer—the falconer. Falconry was the
favourite pastime of the kings and nobles of the time; indeed, everybody
found it very exciting to watch the long struggle in the air between the
trained falcon and its prey, as each bird tried every skill of wing and
talon that it knew. The falconer was to drink very sparingly in the
king’s hall, for fear the falcons might suffer; and his lodging was to be
in the king’s barn, not in the king’s hall, lest the smoke from the great
fire-place should dim the falcon’s sight.
VII
THE NORMANS
ON the death of Griffith ap Llywelyn, many princes tried to become
supreme. Bleddyn of Powys, a good and merciful prince, became the most
important.
In January 1070, when the snow lay thick on the mountains, William, the
Norman Conqueror, appeared at Chester with an army. He had defeated and
killed Harold, the conqueror of Griffith ap Llywelyn, in 1066; he had
crushed the power of the Mercian allies of Bleddyn; he had struck terror
into the wild north, and England lay at his feet.
He turned back from Chester, but he placed on the borders a number of
barons who were to conquer Wales, as he had conquered England. They had
a measure of his ability, of his energy, and of his ambition.
The two great Norman traits were wisdom and courage; but the one was
often mere cunning, and the other brutal ferocity. But no one like the
Norman had yet appeared in Wales—no one with a vision so clear, or with
so hard a grip. A hard, worldly, tenacious, calculating race they were;
and they turned their faces resolutely towards Wales.
From England, Wales can be entered and attacked along three valleys—along
the Dee, the Severn, and the Wye. At Chester, Hugh of Avranches, called
“The Wolf,” placed himself. From its walls he could look over and covet
the Welsh hills, as he could have looked over the Breton hills from
Avranches. He loved war and the chase: he despised industry, he cared
not for religion; he was a man of strong passions, but he was generous,
and he respected worth of character. One of his followers, Robert, had
all his vices and few of his virtues. It was he who extended the
dominions of the Earl of Chester along the north coast to the Clwyd,
where he built a castle at Rhuddlan; and thence on to the valley of the
Conway, where he built a castle at Deganwy. The cruelty of Robert
shocked even the Normans of his time. He even set foot in Anglesey,
which looked temptingly near from Deganwy, and built a castle at
Aberlleiniog.
At Shrewsbury, where the Severn, after leaving the mountains of Wales,
turns to the south, Roger of Montgomery was placed, with his wife Mabel,
an energetic little woman, hated and feared by all. Roger himself, while
ever ready to fight, preferred to get what he wanted by persuasion; he
was not less cruel than Hugh of Chester, but he was less fond of war. He
and his sons pushed their way up the Severn, and built a castle at
Montgomery.
To Hereford, on the Wye, William Fitz-Osbern came. He was the ablest,
perhaps, of all the followers of the Conqueror. He entered Wales; he saw
it from the Wye to the sea, and he thought it was not large enough, and
that it was too far from the political life of the time. So he went back
to Normandy, but he left his sons William and Roger behind him. William
had his father’s wisdom. Roger had his father’s recklessness in action;
he rebelled against his own king, and found himself in prison. The king
sent him, on the day of Christ’s Passion, a robe of silk and rarest
ermine. The caged baron made a roaring fire, and cast the robe into it.
“By the light of God,” said William the Conqueror, for that was his
wicked oath, “he shall never leave his prison.”
But another Norman, Bernard of Neufmarché, came to take his place. He
built his castle at Brecon, and defeated and killed Rees, the King of
Deheubarth; and, with great energy, he took possession of the upper
valleys of the Wye and the Usk.
Further south William the Conqueror himself came to Cardiff, and possibly
built a castle. The Norman conquest of the south coast of Wales was
exceedingly rapid, and castle after castle rose to mark the new
victorious advances—Coety, Cenfig, Neath, Kidwelly, Pembroke, Newport,
Cilgeran.
So far, the Norman advance has been a most quick one. In less than
twenty-five years from the appearance of the Conqueror at Chester, the
whole country had been overrun except the mountains of Gwynedd and the
forests of the Deheubarth. This success is easily explained.
For one thing, the Normans had trained, professional soldiers, who were
well horsed and well armed. In a pitched battle the hastily collected
Welsh levies, unused to regular battle and very lightly armed, had no
chance.
Again, the Norman never receded. He was willing to stop occasionally, in
order to bide his time; but he clung tenaciously to every mile he had
won. His skill as a castle builder was as striking as his prowess in
battle or his cautious wisdom in council. He took possession of an old
fortified post, or hastily constructed one of turf and timber; but he
soon turned it into a castle of stone. At that time the Welsh had no
knowledge of sieges; and their impetuous valour was of no use against the
new castles.
Again, the Welsh opposition was not only not organised, but weakened by
internal strife. While the Norman was winning valley after valley, the
Welsh princes were trying to decide by the issue of battle who was to be
chief. Bleddyn was slain in 1075; and his nephews and cousins tried to
rule the country. Among these, Trahaiarn was a soldier of ability and
energy, and a ruler of real genius. But he was the rival of the exiled
princes of the House of Cunedda, and he found it difficult to bend
Snowdon and the Vale of Towy to his will. Two of the exiles met him,
probably near some of the cairns in the valley of the Teivy; and there,
in the battle of Mynydd Carn, fiercely fought through the dusk into a
moonlight night in 1079, Trahaiarn fell. It looked as if no leader could
rise in Wales to fight a Norman army or to take a Norman castle.
VIII
GRIFFITH AP CONAN AND GRIFFITH AP REES
IN the battle of Mynydd Carn, a young chief led the shining shields of
the men of Gwynedd. He was Griffith, the son of a prince of the line of
Cunedda and of a sea-rover’s daughter. He was mighty of limb, fair and
straight to see, with the blue eyes and flaxen hair of the ruling Celt.
In battle, he was full of fury and passion; in peace, he was just and
wise. His people saw at first that he could fight a battle; then they
found he could rule a country. And it was he that was to say to the
Norman: “Thus far shalt thou come, and no further.”
When Bleddyn died in 1075, Griffith came to Gwynedd, and found that his
father’s lands were under new rulers. Robert of Rhuddlan and Trahaiarn
of Arwystli were mighty foes; but Griffith drove both of them back; and,
by his prowess and success in battle, broke the spell of conquest which
kept Gwynedd in bonds. But his enemies attacked him again from all
sides; and, while Hugh the Wolf and Robert of Rhuddlan were laying
Gwynedd waste, Trahaiarn and Griffith met at the hard-fought battle of
Bron yr Erw. Griffith lost the day, and again became a sea-rover. He
sailed to Dyved, and there he met Rees, the King of Deheubarth, who also
was of the line of Cunedda, and had been driven from his land by the
Normans. The two chiefs joined, and they crushed Trahaiarn at Mynydd
Carn. Then they turned against the Normans.
Rees soon fell in battle, and left two children, Nest and Griffith. The
beauty of Nest and the genius of Rees ap Griffith fill an important page
in the history of their country. Nest became the mother of the
conquerors of Ireland; Rees became the greatest of all the kings of South
Wales.
The Normans found that the Welsh had taken heart. Of their opponents,
they feared three: Griffith ap Conan, Owen of Powys, and Griffith ap
Rees. The kings of England, the two sons of the Conqueror—red, brutal
William and cool, treacherous Henry—had to come to help their barons.
Griffith ap Conan had a long life of strife and success. In his struggle
with Hugh the Wolf, he was once in The Wolf’s prison, and more than once
he had to flee to the sea. But, backed up by the liberty-loving sons of
Snowdon and by his sea-roving kinsmen, he made Gwynedd strong and
prosperous. He drove the Normans from Anglesey; he attacked and killed
Robert of Rhuddlan; he saw the red King of England himself forced by
storm and rain to beat a retreat from Snowdon. He was loved by his
people during his youth of adventure and battle, and during his old age
of safe counsel and love of peace. His wife Angharad and his son Owen
live with him in the memory of his country. When he died, in 1137, it
was said that he had saved his people, had ruled them justly, and had
given them peace.
In the Severn country the princes of Powys were fighting against the
Normans also, especially against the family of Montgomery. The sons of
Bleddyn—Cadogan, Iorwerth, and Meredith—were driving the invaders from
the valley of the Severn, and from Dyved, defeating their armies in
battle, and storming their castles. Sometimes they would make alliances
with them, and defy the King of England. But it is difficult to follow
each of them. The history of one of them, Owen ap Cadogan, is like a
romance. He was brave and handsome, in love with Nest, and a very
firebrand in politics. The army of Henry I. was too strong for him, and
he had to submit. He then became the friend of the King of England. It
was the aim of the princes of Powys to be free, not only from the Norman,
but also from Griffith of Gwynedd and Griffith of Deheubarth. They were
an able and versatile family; noble and base deeds, revolting crimes and
sweet poems, come in the stirring story of their lives.
What Griffith did in the north, and the sons of Bleddyn in the east,
Griffith ap Rees did in the south; he showed that the Norman army could
be beaten in battle, and that a Norman castle could be taken by assault.
After his father’s death he spent much of his youth in exile or in
hiding: sometimes we find him in Ireland, sometimes in the court of
Griffith ap Conan, sometimes with his sister Nest—now the wife of Gerald,
the custodian of Pembroke Castle. But he had one aim ever before him—to
recover his father’s kingdom and to make his people free. Castle after
castle rose—at Swansea, Carmarthen, Llandovery, Cenarth, Aberystwyth—to
warn him that the hold of the Norman on the land was tightening. He came
to the forests of the Towy; his people rallied round him, and his power
extended from the Towy to the Teivy, and from the Teivy to the Dovey.
His wife, the heroic Gwenllian—who died leading her husband’s army
against the Normans—was Griffith ap Conan’s daughter. The great final
battle between Griffith and the Normans was fought at Cardigan in 1136,
in which the great prince won a memorable victory over the strongest army
the Normans could put in the field. In 1137 he died, and they said of
him that he had shown his people what they ought to do, and that he had
given them strength to do it.
The work of Griffith ap Conan and Griffith ap Rees was this: they set
bounds to the Norman Conquest, and saved Deheubarth and Gwynedd from the
stern rule of the alien. But, though the Norman was not allowed to bring
his stone castle and cruel law, what good he brought with him was
welcomed. The piety of the Norman, his intellectual curiosity, and his
spirit of adventure, conquered in Welsh districts where his coat of mail
and his castle were not seen.
IX
OWEN GWYNEDD AND THE LORD REES
THE men who opposed the Normans left able successors—Owen Gwynedd
followed his father, Griffith ap Conan; the Lord Rees followed his father
Griffith ap Rees; and in Powys the sons of Bleddyn were followed by the
castle builder Howel, and by the poet Owen Cyveiliog.
Owen Gwynedd ruled from 1137 to 1169; the Lord Rees from 1137 to 1197.
The age was, in many respects, a great one.
It was, of course, an age of war. Up to 1154, during the reign of
Stephen, the English barons were fighting against each other, and the
king had very little power over them. The most important Norman barons
in Wales were the Earls of Chester in the valley of the Dee, the
Mortimers on the upper Wye, the Braoses on the upper Usk, and the Clares
in the south. Their castles were a continual menace to the country they
had so far failed to conquer, and the Lord Rees was glad to get Kidwelly,
and Owen Gwynedd to get Mold and Rhuddlan.
It was, on the whole, an age of unity. It was the chief aim of Owen
Gwynedd to be the ally of the Lord Rees; and in this he succeeded, though
his brother Cadwaladr, in his desire for Ceredigion, had killed Rees’
brother, to Owen’s infinite sorrow. The princes of Powys, Madoc and Owen
Cyveiliog, were in the same alliance also, and they were helped in their
struggle with the Normans. Unity was never more necessary. Henry II.
brought great armies into Wales. Once he came along the north coast to
Rhuddlan. At another time he tried to cross the Berwyn, but was beaten
back by great storms. Had he reached the upper Dee, he would have found
the united forces of the Lord Rees, Owen Cyveiliog, and Owen Gwynedd at
Corwen. There are many stirring episodes in these wars: the fight at
Consilt, when Henry II. nearly lost his life; the scattering of his tents
on the Berwyn by a storm that seemed to be the fury of fiends; the
reckless exposure of life in storming a wall or in the shock of battle.
But the Norman brought new cruelty into war: Henry II. took out the eyes
of young children because their fathers had revolted against him; and
William de Braose invited a great number of Welsh chiefs to a feast in
his castle at Abergavenny, and there murdered them all.
It is a relief to turn to another feature of the age: it was an age of
great men. Owen Gwynedd was probably the greatest. He disliked war, but
he was an able general; he made Henry II. retire without great loss of
life to his own army. He was a thoughtful prince, of a loving nature and
high ideals, and his court was the home of piety and culture. He is more
like our own ideal of a prince than any of the other princes of the
Middle Ages. The Lord Rees was not less wise, and his life is less
sorrowful and more brilliant. He also was as great as a statesman as he
was as a general; and he made his peace with the English king in order to
make his country quiet and rich. Owen Cyveiliog was placed in a more
difficult position than either of his allies; he was nearer to very
ambitious Norman barons. He was great as a warrior; often had his white
steed been seen leading the rush of battle. He was greater as a
statesman: friend and foe said that Owen was wise; and he was greater
still as a poet.
The age was an age of poetry. A generation of great Welsh poets found an
equal welcome in the courts of Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth; and even
the Norman barons of Morgannwg began to feel the charm of Welsh legend
and song; Robert of Gloucester was a great patron of learning. One of
the chief events of the period was Lord Rees’ great Eisteddvod at
Cardigan in 1176.
It was an age of new ideals. The Crusades were preached in Wales; the
grave of Christ was held by a cruel unbeliever, and it was the duty of a
soldier to rescue it. It appealed to an inborn love of war, and many
Welshmen were willing to go. It did good by teaching them that, in
fighting, they were not to fight for themselves. It was in Powys that
feuds were most bitter. A young warrior told a preacher, who was trying
to persuade him to take the cross: “I will not go until, with this lance,
I shall have avenged my lord’s death.” The lance immediately became
shivered in his hand. The lance once used for blind feuds was gradually
consecrated to the service of ideals—of patriotism or of religion.
The age of Owen Gwynedd and the Lord Rees and Owen Cyveiliog brought a
higher ideal still. If the Crusader made war sacred, the monk made
labour noble. The chief aim of the monk, it is true, was to save his
soul. He thought the world was very bad, as indeed it was; and he
thought he could best save his own soul by retiring to some remote spot,
to live a life of prayer. But he also lived a life of labour; he became
the best gardener, the best farmer, and the best shepherd of the Middle
Ages. Great monasteries were built for him, and great tracts of land
were given him, by those who were anxious that he should pray for their
souls. The monk who came to Wales was the Cistercian. The monasteries
of Tintern, Margam, and Neath were built by Norman barons; and Strata
Florida, Valle Crucis, and Basingwerk showed that the Welsh princes also
welcomed the monks.
Better, then, than the brilliant wars were the poets and the great
Eisteddvod. Better still, perhaps, were the orchards and the flocks of
the peaceful monks.
X
LLYWELYN THE GREAT
ON the death of the Lord Rees, one of the grandsons of Owen Gwynedd
becomes the central figure in Welsh history. Llywelyn the Great rose
into power in 1194, and reigned until 1240—a long reign, and in many ways
the most important of all the reigns of the Welsh princes.
Llywelyn’s first task was to become sole ruler in Gwynedd. The sons of
Owen Gwynedd had divided the strong Gwynedd left them by their father,
and their nobles and priests could not decide which of the sons was to be
supreme. Iorwerth, the poet Howel, David, Maelgwn, Rhodri, tried to get
Gwynedd, or portions of it. Eventually, David I. became king; but soon a
strong opposition placed Llywelyn, the able son of Iorwerth, on the
throne. Uncles and cousins showed some jealousy; but the growing power
of Llywelyn soon made them obey him with gradually diminishing envy.
His next task was to attach the other princes of Wales to him, now that
the Lord Rees and Owen Cyveiliog were dead. To begin with, he had to
deal with the astute Gwenwynwyn, the son of Owen Cyveiliog; and he had to
be forced to submit. He then turned to the many sons and grandsons of
the Lord Rees—Maelgwn and Rees the Hoarse especially. They called John,
King of England, into Wales; but they soon found that Llywelyn was a
better master than John and his barons. Gradually Llywelyn established a
council of chiefs—partly a board of conciliation, and partly an executive
body. It was nothing new; but it was a striking picture of the way in
which Llywelyn meant to join the princes into one organised political
body.
His third task was to begin to unite Norman barons and Welsh chiefs under
his own rule. He had to begin in the old way, by using force; and
Ranulph of Chester and the Clares trembled for the safety of their
castles. He then offered political alliance; and some of the Norman
families of the greatest importance in the reign of John—the Earl of
Chester, the family of Braose, and the Marshalls of Pembroke—became his
allies. His other step was to unite Welsh and Norman families by
marriage. He himself married a daughter of King John, and he gave his
own daughters in marriage to a Braose and a Mortimer. It is through the
dark-haired Gladys, who married Ralph Mortimer, that the kings of England
can trace their descent from the House of Cunedda.
Llywelyn’s last great task was to make relations between England and
Wales relations of peace and amity. During his long reign, he saw three
kings on the throne of England—the crusader Richard, the able John, and
the worthless and mean Henry III. It was with John that he had most to
do, the king whose originality and vices have puzzled and shocked so many
historians. John helped him to crush Gwenwynwyn, then helped the jealous
Welsh princes to check the growth of his power. Llywelyn saw that it was
his policy, as long as John was alive, to join the English barons. They
were then trying to force Magna Carta upon the King, that great document
which prevented John from interfering with the privileges of his barons.
In that document John promises, in three clauses, that he will observe
the rights of Welshmen and the law of Wales.
When John died in 1216, and his young son Henry succeeded him, the policy
of England was guided by William Marshall Earl of Pembroke. William
Marshall was one of the ministers of Henry II., and by his marriage with
the daughter of Strongbow, the conqueror of Ireland, he had become Earl
of Pembroke. It was with him that Llywelyn had now to deal. He was too
strong in Pembroke to be attacked, but his very presence made it easier
for Llywelyn to retain the allegiance of the chiefs who would have been
in danger from the Norman barons if Llywelyn’s protection were taken
away. In 1219 the great William Marshall died; and changes in English
politics forced his sons into an alliance with Llywelyn.
Llywelyn’s title of Great is given him by his Norman and English
contemporaries. He was great as a general; his detection of trouble
before the storm broke, his instant determination and rapidity of
movements, his ever-ready munitions for battle and siege, made his later
campaigns always successful. He felt that he was carrying on war in his
own country; so his wars were not wars of devastation, but the crushing
of armies and the razing of castles.
He took an interest in the three great agents in the civilisation of the
time—the bard, the monk, and the friar. The bard was as welcome as ever
at his court; the monk, welcomed by Owen Gwynedd before, was given
another home at Aber Conway. Llywelyn extended his welcome to the friar,
and he was given a home at Llan Vaes in Anglesey, on the shores of the
Menai. The friar brought a higher ideal than that of the monk; his aim
was salvation, not by prayer in the solitude of a mountain glen, but by
service where men were thickest together—even in streets made foul by
vice, and haunted by leprosy. Of the Mendicant Orders, the Franciscans
were the best known in Wales; and, of all Orders of that day, it was they
who sympathised most deeply with the sorrows of men. And it was this
which, a little later on, brought them so much into politics.
Great and successful in war and policy, in touch with the noblest
influences in the life of the time, Llywelyn applied himself to one last
task. His companions and allies had nearly all died before him; but he
wished that the peace and unity, which they had established, should live
after them. He had two sons—Griffith, who was the champion of
independence; and David, who wished for peace with England. Llywelyn
laid more stress on strong government at home than on the repudiation of
feudal allegiance to the King of England. So he persuaded the council of
princes at Strata Florida to accept David as his successor.
XI
THE LAST LLYWELYN
DAVID II., a mild and well-meaning prince, was too weak to carry his
father’s policy out. He tried to maintain peace, and did homage to his
uncle, the King of England. But, as the head of the patriotic party, his
more energetic brother, Griffith, opposed him. By guile he caught
Griffith, and shut him in a castle on the rock of Criccieth. The other
princes shook off the yoke of Gwynedd, and Henry III. tried to play the
brothers against each other. David sent Griffith to Henry, who put him
in the Tower of London. In trying to escape, his rope broke, and he fell
to the ground dead. Soon afterwards, in 1246, in the middle of a war
with Henry, David died of a broken heart.
The sons of Griffith—Owen, Llywelyn, and David—at once took their uncle’s
place; and by 1255 Llywelyn ap Griffith was sole ruler. By that year
Henry III. had given his young son Edward the earldom of Chester, which
had fallen to the crown, and the lands between the Dee and the Conway,
which he claimed by a treaty with the dead Griffith. Thus Edward and
Llywelyn began their long struggle.
Between 1255 and 1267 Llywelyn tries to recover his grandfather’s
position in Wales. In 1255 his power extended over Gwynedd only. He
found it easy to extend it over most of Wales, because the rule of the
English officials made the Welsh chiefs long for the protection of
Gwynedd. The Barons’ War paralysed the power of the King, and Llywelyn
made an alliance with Simon de Montfort and the barons. Even after
Montfort’s fall in 1265 the barons were so powerful that the King was
still at their mercy. In 1267 Llywelyn’s position as Prince of Wales was
recognised in the Treaty of Montgomery. His sway extended from Snowdon
to the Dee on the east, and to the Teivy and the Beacons on the
south—practically the whole of modern Wales, except the southern
seaboard. Within these wide bounds all the Welsh barons were to swear
fealty to Llywelyn, the only exception being Meredith ap Rees of
Deheubarth.
The second struggle of Llywelyn’s reign took place between 1267 and 1277.
He tried to weld his land into a closer union, and many of the chiefs of
the south and east became willing to call in the English King. Two of
them, his own brother David and Griffith of Powys, fled to England, and
were received by Edward, who had been king since 1272. Llywelyn and
Edward distrusted each other. Edward wished to unite Britain in a feudal
unity, and to crush all opponents. Llywelyn thought of helping the
barons; he might become their leader. Eleanor, the daughter of Simon de
Montfort, the old leader of the barons, was betrothed to him. War broke
out. The barons—Clares and Mortimers, and all—joined the King.
Llywelyn’s dominions were invaded at all points, his barons had to yield,
one after the other; and finally, in 1277, Llywelyn had to accept the
Treaty of Rhuddlan. His dominions shrunk to the old limits of Snowdon,
his sway over the rest of Wales was taken from him, and the title of
Prince of Wales was to cease with his life.
The third struggle was between 1277 and 1282. The rule of the new
officials drove the Welsh to revolt; and the chiefs who had opposed
Llywelyn, especially his brother David, begged for Llywelyn’s protection.
Eleanor, Llywelyn’s wife and Edward’s cousin, tried to keep the peace,
but she died while they were arming for the last bitter war of 1282.
It was comparatively easy for Edward to overrun Powys or Deheubarth, if
he had an army strong enough. But at that time Gwynedd was almost
impregnable. From Conway to Harlech lies the vast mass of Snowdon, a
great natural rampart running from sea to sea. Its steep side is towards
the east, and the invader found before him heights which he could not
climb, and round which he could not pass. If you stand in the Vale of
Conway, look at the hills on the Arvon side—the great natural wall of
inmost Gwynedd, with its last tower, the Penmaen Mawr, rising right from
the sea. The gentle slopes are to the west, and there the corn and
flocks were safe.
Edward had to put a large army into the field, and it cost him much. In
the war with Llywelyn he had to change the English army entirely; and, in
order to get money, he had to allow the Parliament to get life and power.
To carry supplies, and to land men in Anglesey to turn the flank of the
Welsh, he wanted a fleet. But there was no royal navy then, and the
fishermen of the east coast and the south coast—who had no quarrel with
the Welsh, but were very anxious to fight each other—were not willing to
lose their fish harvest in order to fight so far away.
In 1282, Edward’s great army closed round Snowdon. The chiefs still
faithful to Llywelyn had to yield or flee. But winter was coming on, and
could Edward keep his army in the field? An attempt had been made to
enter Snowdon from Anglesey, but the English force was destroyed at Moel
y Don. It looked as if Edward would have to retire. Llywelyn left
Snowdon, and went to Ceredigion and the Vale of Towy to put new heart in
his allies, and from there he passed on to the valley of the Wye. He
meant, without a doubt, to get the barons of the border, Welsh and
English, to unite against Edward. But in some chance skirmish a soldier
slew him, not knowing who he was. When they heard that their Prince was
fallen, his men in Snowdon entirely lost heart. They had no faith in
David, and in a few months the whole of Wales was at Edward’s feet.
XII
CONQUERED WALES
THE war between Edward and Llywelyn was not a war between England and
Wales, as we think of these countries now. Some of the best soldiers
under Edward were Welsh, especially the bowmen who followed the Earl of
Gloucester and Roger Mortimer from the Wye and Severn valleys.
It is not right that we Welshmen should feel bitter against England,
because, in this last war, Edward won and Llywelyn fell. It is easy to
say that Edward was cruel and faithless, and it is easy to say that
Llywelyn was shifty and obstinate; but it is quite clear that each of
them thought that he was right. Edward thought that Britain ought to be
united: Llywelyn thought Wales ought to be free. Now, happily, we have
the union and the freedom.
On the other hand, I should not like you to think that Wales was more
barbarous than England, or Llywelyn less civilised than Edward I.
Giraldus Cambrensis saw a prince going barefoot, and the fussy little
Archbishop Peckham saw that Welsh marriage customs were not what he
liked; and many historians, who have never read a line of Welsh poetry,
take for granted that the conquest of Wales was a new victory for
civilisation.
In many ways Wales was more civilised than England at that time. Its law
was more simple and less developed, it is true; but it was more just in
many cases, and certainly more humane. Was it not better that the land
should belong to the people, and that the youngest son should have the
same chance as the eldest? And, in crime, was it not better that if no
opportunity for atonement was given, the death of the criminal was to be
a merciful one? In the reign of John, a Welsh hostage, a little boy of
seven, was hanged at Shrewsbury, because his father, a South Wales chief,
had rebelled. In the reign of Edward I., the miserable David was dragged
at the tails of horses through the streets of the same town, and the
tortures inflicted on the dying man were too horrible to describe to
modern ears. And what the Norman baron did, his Welsh tenant learnt to
do. In Wales you get fierce frays and frequent shedding of blood; on the
borders you get callous cruelty to a prisoner, or the disfiguring of dead
bodies—even that of Simon de Montfort, the greatest statesman of the
Middle Ages in England—on the battlefield when all passion was spent.
Take the rulers of Wales again. Griffith ap Conan and Llywelyn the Great
had the energy and the foresight, though their sphere was so much
smaller, of Henry II. And what English king, except Alfred, attracts one
on account of lovableness of character as Owen Gwynedd and Owen Cyveiliog
and the Lord Rees do?
When Edward entered into Snowdon, Welsh was spoken to the Dee and the
Severn, and far beyond. There were many dialects, as there are still,
though any two Welshmen could understand each other wherever they came
from, with a little patience, as they can still. But there was also a
literary language, and this was understood, if not spoken, by the chiefs
all through the country. It was more like the Welsh spoken in
mid-Wales—especially in the valley of the Dovey—than any other. There
are many signs of civilisation; one of them is the possession of a
literary language—for romance and poem, for court and Eisteddvod.
* * * * *
Conquered Wales may be divided into two parts—the Wales conquered by the
Norman barons and the Wales conquered by the English king.
The Wales conquered by the English king was the country ruled by Llywelyn
and his allies. In 1284, by the statute of Rhuddlan, it was formed into
six shires. The Snowdon district—which held out last—was made into the
three shires of Anglesey, Carnarvon, and Merioneth. The part of the land
between Conway and Dee that belonged to the king, not to barons, was made
into the shire of Flint. The lands of Llywelyn’s allies beyond the Dovey
were made into the shires of Cardigan and Carmarthen. Instead of the
chiefs of the Welsh prince, the king’s sheriffs and justices ruled the
country. But much of the old law remained.
The Wales conquered by the Norman barons lay to the east and south of the
Wales turned into shires in 1284. It included the greater part of the
valleys of the Clwyd, Dee, Severn, and Wye; and the South Wales coast
from Gloucester to Pembroke. It remained in the possession of lords who
were subject to the King of England, but who ruled almost like kings in
their own lordships. The laws and customs of the various lordships
differed greatly; sometimes the lord used English law, and sometimes
Welsh law. The great ruling families changed much in wealth and power,
from century to century. In Llywelyn’s time the most important were the
Clares (Gloucester and Glamorgan), the Mortimers (Wigmore and Chirk),
Lacy (Denbigh), Warenne (Bromfield and Yale), Fitzalan (Oswestry), Bohun
(Brecon), Braose (Gower), and Valence (Pembroke).
Llywelyn was the last prince of independent Wales. From that time on,
the title is conferred by the King of England on his eldest son, who is
then crowned. The present Prince of Wales also comes, through a daughter
of Llywelyn the Great, from the House of Cunedda, the princes of which
ruled Wales from Roman times to 1284. Of all the houses that have gone
to make the royal house, this is the most ancient.
XIII
CASTLE AND LONG-BOW
SO far I have told you very little about war, except that a battle was
fought and lost, or a castle built or taken.
War has two sides—attack and defence. New ways of attacking and
defending are continually devised. When the art of defence is more
perfect than the art of attack, the world changes very little, for the
strong can keep what he has gained. When the art of attack is the more
perfect, new men have a better chance, and many changes are made. The
chief source of defence was the castle, the chief weapon of attack was
the long-bow. Wales contains the most perfect castles in this country;
it is also the home of the long-bow. From 1066 to 1284 England and Wales
were conquered, and the conquest was permanent because castles were
built. From 1284 to 1461, England and Wales attacked other countries,
and the weapon which gave them so many victories was the long-bow.
I will tell you about the castles first, about the Norman castles and
about the Edwardian castles.
The Norman castle was a square keep, with walls of immense thickness,
sometimes of 20 feet. But if the Norman had to build on the top of a
hill or on the ruins of an old castle, he did not try to make the new
castle square, but allowed its walls to take the form of the hill or of
the old castle; and this kind of castle was called a shell keep. The
outer and inner casing of the wall would be of dressed stone, the middle
part was chiefly rubble. At first, if they had plenty of supplies, a
very few men could hold a castle against an army as long as they liked.
These were the castles built by the Norman invaders to retain their hold
over the Welsh districts they conquered.
But many ways of storming a castle were discovered. They could be scaled
by means of tall ladders, especially in a stealthy night attack. Stones
could be thrown over the walls by mangonels to annoy the garrison.
Sometimes a wall could be brought down by a battering-ram. But the
quickest and surest way was by mining. The miners worked their way to
the wall, and then began to take some of the stones of the outer casing
out, propping the wall up with beams of wood. When the hole was big
enough, they filled it with firewood; they greased the beams well, they
set fire to them and then retired to a safe distance to see what
happened. When the great wall crashed down, the soldiers swarmed over it
to beat down the resistance of the garrison. If ever you go to
Abergavenny Castle, in the Vale of Usk, look at the cleft in the rock
along which the daring besiegers once climbed. And if you go to the Vale
of Towy, and see Dryslwyn Castle, remember that the wall once came down
before the miners expected, and that many men were crushed.
In order to prevent mining, many changes were made. Moats were dug round
the castle, and filled with water. Brattices were made along the top of
the towers, galleries through the floor of which the defenders could pour
boiling pitch on the besiegers. The walls were built at such angles that
a window, with archers posted behind it, could command each wall.
Stronger towers were built—round towers with a coping at each storey,
solid as a rock, which would crack and lean without falling; there is a
leaning tower at Caerphilly Castle. One other way I must mention—the
child or the wife of the castellan would be brought before the walls, and
hanged before his eyes unless he opened the gates.
The newer or Edwardian castles, those of the reigns of Henry III. and
Edward I., are concentric—that is, there are several castles in one; so
that the besiegers, when they had taken one castle, found themselves face
to face with another, still stronger, perhaps, inside it. Of these
castles, the most elaborate is the castle of Caerphilly, built by Gilbert
de Clare, the Red Earl of Gloucester who helped Edward in the Welsh wars.
And it was by means of these magnificent concentric castles—Conway,
Beaumaris, Carnarvon, and Harlech—that Edward hoped to keep Wales.
There are many kinds of bows. In war two were used—the cross-bow and the
long-bow. The cross-bow was meant at first for the defence of towns,
like Genoa or the towns of Castile. So strength was more important than
lightness, and the archer had time to take aim. It was a bow on a cross
piece of wood, along which the string was drawn back peg after peg by
mechanism. The bow was then held to the breast, and the arrow let off.
It was clumsy, heavy, and expensive.
The long-bow was only one piece of sinewy yew, and a string. It was used
at first for the chase, and the archer had to take instant aim. It was
drawn to the ear, and it was a most deadly weapon when a strong arm had
been trained to draw it. Its arrow could pick off a soldier at the top
of the highest castle; it could pierce through an oak door three fingers
thick; it could pin a mail-clad knight to his horse. It was this peasant
weapon that brought the mailed knight down in battle.