 Chapter 1 of A Short History of Wales This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Phil Casper, www.filcasper.net A Short History of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Introduction This little book is meant for those who have never read any Welsh history before. It is not taken for granted that the reader knows either Latin or Welsh. A fuller outline may be read in the story of Wales, in the story of the Nations series, and a still fuller one in the Welsh people of Rhys and Brynmore Jones. Of fairly small and cheap books in various periods, I may mention Rhys' Celtic Britain, Owen Roscamill's Flame Bearers of Welsh History, Henry Owen's Gerald the Welshman, Bradley's Owen Glendauer, New Elves Welsh Church, and Rhys' Protestant Nonconformity in Wales. More elaborate and expensive books are Seabalms Village Community and Tribal System in Wales, Clark's Medieval Military Architecture, Morris' Welsh Wards of Edward I, South Hall's Wales and Her Language. In written local history, A. N. Palmer's History of Wrexham and Companion Volumes are models. If you turn to a library, you will find much information about Wales in Social England, the Dictionary of National Biography, the Publications of the Chimrodorian, and other societies. You will find articles of great value and interest over the names of F. H. Haverfield, J. W. Willis Bund, Egerton Philomore, the Honourable Mrs. Bolkelly Owen, Guinarian Gwynedd, Henry Owen, the late David Lewis, T. F. Tout, J. E. Lloyd, D. LeFure Thomas, W. LeWyland Williams, J. Arthur Price, J. H. Davies, J. Ballinger, Edward Owen, Hubert Hall, Hugh Williams, R. A. Roberts, A. W. Wade Evans, E. A. Lewis. These are only a few out of the many who are now working in the rich and unexplored field of Welsh history. I put down the names only of those I had to consult in writing a small book like this. The sources are mostly in Latin or Welsh. Many volumes of chronicles, charters, and historical poems have been published by the government, by the Corporation of Cardiff, by J. Gwynedd Evans, by H. D. Gray Birch, and others. But so far, we have not had the interesting chronicles and poems translated into English as they ought to be and published in well-edited, not too expensive volumes. Owen Edwards, Lincoln College, Oxford. 1. 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 D 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 Kimry, 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 northwest, center, and west, about two-thirds of the whole country, the rocks are chiefly slate and shale. In the southeast, they are chiefly old red sandstone. In the northeast, 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 loads of still more precious metals, iron, lead, silver, and gold, run through them. The highest mountain in Wales is Snowden, 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 seaborder, on the slopes above the D and the Severn, and in the deep valleys of the rivers, which pierce far inland. The Severn, Wy, Usk, Toei, Tyvee, Dovee, Conway, and Cluid. 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 northwest to southeast, the line of high hills run. In the northwest corner, Snowden towers among a number of heights over 3,000 feet. At its feet to the northwest, the Isle of Anglesey lies. The peninsula of Lane, with a central ridge of rock and slopes of pasture lands, runs to the southwest. To the east, beyond the Conway, lie the Hierothog Mountains, with lower heights and wider reaches. Further east again, over the Cluid, are the still lower hills of Flint. To the south, 30 miles as the crow flies, over the slate country, the Burwinds are seen clearly. The peak among these, Cater of Ronwin, 2,573 feet, or the Iran, 2,970 feet, or Cater 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 Plin Lemon, 2,469 feet. From it, we see the high moorlands of Central Wales, sloping to the Cardigan Bay on the west and to the valley of the Severn, now a lordly English river on the east. 40 miles south, the Black Mountain, 2,630 feet, rises beyond the Y, and the Brecon Beacons, 2,910 feet, beyond the Usk. West of these, the hills fade away into the broad peninsula of David. Southwards, we look over hills and see-frenched 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 Levan, of the Feast of Drunken Siethanen, and the bells of Aberdovy. But the sea is a kind neighbor. Its soft, warm winds bade the hills with life, and the great sweep of the big Atlantic waves that help our miles help our commerce. Hollyhead, Milford, Haven, Swansea, Newport, Berry, and Cardiff, now one of the chief ports of the world, can welcome the largest vessels of float. The herring is plentiful on the west coast, and trout and salmon in the rivers. End of Chapter 1 Recording by Phil Casper www.filcasper.net Chapter 2 of A Short History of Wales This is the LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Phil Casper www.filcasper.net A Short History of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 2 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 in the bee. Another brought iron tools to take the place of stone ones. Another brought the energy of the chase and war. Another brought a delight in sailing a ship and fortress. One thing they had in common, they wandered. And they wandered to the west. From the cold wastes in 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 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 Denby, the cats of Rhythm, the crows of Harlech, the gadflies of Maudwee 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 aerotips were of the hardest igneous rock chipped and ground with patient labor. 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, but 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 tip 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 Kelt. The two learned 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 Kelt. 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 18th 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. Period of blood is not a thing to boast of and no great 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 Kelt 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 immigrants from Hull or London to Liverpool on their way west. They have the blue eyes and yellow hair of those who came 1000 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. End of Chapter 2 Recording by Phil Casper www.philcasper.net Chapter 3 of A Short History of Wales This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Phil Casper www.philcasper.net A Short History of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 3 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 400 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 Burwin. The Romans had conquered the lands beyond the Severn and had placed themselves firmly near the banks of that river at Glewham and Yerlecuniam. Glewham is our Gloucester and its streets are still as the Roman architect planned them. Yerlecuniam 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 war like Siluris 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 hillside sloping down to a river and the Romans could only attack them in front. The enemy waited 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 Siluris to a more fierce resistance and it cost the Romans many lives and it took them many years to break their power. The strangest site that met the invaders was in Anglesey after they had crossed the Manai on horses or on rafts. The Druids tried to terrify them by the rights of their religion. The dark groves, the women dressed in black and carrying flaming torches, the aged priests the site paralyze the Roman soldiers but only for a moment. The Spasian 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 Wells 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 Carlians, Castra legion them on the D and the usk being the most important from a military point of view. Roads were made, two along the north and south coasts, two Carmarthian and Carnarvon. Two others ran parallel along the length of Wales to connect their ends. On these roads towns rose and some, like Carwent, were self-governing communities of prosperous people. Agriculture flourished. The Welsh lands for plough and cheese are Arrater and Caos, the Latin Aratrum and Caesius. The mineral wealth of the country was discovered and copper mines and lead mines, silver mines and gold mines were worked. The Eier, gold and Arian, silver and Plum, lead of the Welshman are the Latin Arum, 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 defense of the country, the manning of the Great Wall and the north of Rome and 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 in 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 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. End of Chapter 3 Recording by Phil Casper www.filcasper.net Chapter 4 of A Short History of Wales This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Michael Fasio A Short History of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 4 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 organized 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 tutans flowed over the east of Britain and the British church was separated from the Roman church. By 664 Britain 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 taunture 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 a 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 at St. Peter whose sea Roman 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. SF, St. David's, Landolph 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 Geraldus Cambrentus 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 Langfen hangels in Wales. After 1000 new churches were dedicated to Mary, the mother of Christ. We have many Langvers. 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 12th century the Cistercian monk came to say that the world was bad, that prayer saved the soul and that labour was noble. 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 15th 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 16th 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 17th century to demand simple worship and Morgan Lloyd thought that the second advent of Christ was at hand. The revivalist came in the 18th 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 20th century who sacrifices to a well heathen god. Until quite recently men thought that Phinon Gibi and Phinon Illian and Phinon Dwinwin had in them a power which could curse and bless, ruin and save. Lud of the Silverhand was the god of flocks and ships. His caves are in Dived still and his was the temple on Ludgate Hill in London. Merlin was a god of knowledge. He could foretell events. Cered Wen was the goddess of wisdom. She distilled wisdom giving drops in a cauldron. Gwydian created a beautiful girl from flowers from red rose in yellow broom and white anemone. I'm not quite sure what Coil did but I've heard children singing of the history of Old King Cole. Old Wen also walked through Wales in heathen times and it is said the three white flowers rose behind her wherever she had put her foot. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of A Short History of Wales This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Michael Fasio A Short History of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 5 The Welsh Kings The spirit of Rome remained. The Rome itself had followed 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 Britannia, the ruler of Britain. It became the aim of the ableist 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 500 years. How Melguyn tried to unite it how Rodry tried to prevent the attacks of Saxon and Dane how Hale 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 Cunetha took the power of the Dux Britannia and they translated the title into Gwyledyg the ruler of a Gwlad country. Of this family, Melguyn Gwynef 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 Melguyn tried to guile as well as force. The kings met him at Aberdovy and they all sat in their royal chairs on the sands. And Melguyn 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 bird's wings and it floated erect when all the other chairs had been thrown down. Before Melguyn 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 picks 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 in the downs of the southeast. In 577 the Saxons, after the battle of Doreham 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 Fethenly 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 landside by a people who spoke strange languages and who worshipped different gods for the angles in 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 and 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 Y. But Offa's dyke Cloth 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 bay. Of all the kings who tried to defend his country against the enemies which now stood round it the greatest is Rodri called Rodri Mar 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 war-like children and grandchildren. One of the grandsons was Howell 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 Llewellyn Abbe Cysil 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 Griffith, the son of Llewellyn came to renew his father's work. In the battle of Ride he grows on the Severn in 1039 he drove the Mercians back. In the battle of Pencater in 1041 he crushed the opponents of Welsh unity. In 1044 he defeated the sea rovers at Abertawy. 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 Cunetha. 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 duke's Britannia and he is all the greatness and ability of all the race of Cunetha. 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. End of chapter 5 Chapter 6 of A Short History of Wales This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Michael Fosio A Short History of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 6 The Laws of Howell 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 male Gwyn or Rodry and the princes obeyed them often or perhaps the princes of the various parts ruled in their own way. The internal life of Wales is best seen in the laws of Howell the Good. Howell was the grandson of Rodry and about 950 he called four men from each district to Hendy and 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 Gwyneth was the most powerful. It was very easy to defend up of the island of Maun, Anglesey, the promontory of Lane and the mountain mass of Snowden. Its steep side was thus towards England and its corn lands and pastures on the further side. It was also the home of the family of Gwynetha from Whalewind to the last Llewellyn. Poece was the Burwin country. Ceredigian was the western slope of the Plinlemon range. The slopes had many smaller but very warlike districts. Dehubarth contained the pleasant glades in great forests of the Toei country. Divid was the peninsula to the west. The southern slopes of the beacons were Morganwig 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 southwest, and the southeast. But the law and life of the whole people, the only look at important features, are one. Several commotes made a cantrev. Many cantreves 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 Kelt 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 hen-dre, old homestead in winter, and in the mountain Havoti, 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. Around the walls the family beds were arranged. The family was governed by the head of the household, Pentilu, 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 Abberfra in Mont, Matraval in Poes, and Dinevere in Duhibath. 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 Gwyneth, if any one did violence in his presence, he had to pay a great fine, a hundred cows, and a white bowl with red ears for every country of 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 plowman'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 Divid, 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 enforced, especially the three main divisions of the king's court, the supreme 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 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 favorite 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 longing was to be in the king's barn, not in the king's hall, lest the smoke from the great fireplace should dim the falcon's sight. 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, at Blue Ellen, in 1066. He had crushed the power of the Mercian allies of Blethen, he had struck terror into the wild north, and England lay at his feet. He turned back from Chester to the north, to the south, 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, so hard, worldly tenacious, calculating race they were, and they turned their faces resolutely toward Wales. From England Wales can be entered and attacked along three valleys, along the D, the Severn, and the Y. At Chester, Hugh of Avranchise, called the Wolf, placed himself. From its walls he could look over and covet the Welsh hills, as he could have looked over the Frenchies. 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 Cluid, where he built a castle and thence on to the valley of the Conway, where he built a castle at the Ganwe. The cruelty of Robert shocked even the Normans of his time. He even set foot in Anglesey, which looked temptingly near from the Ganwe, and built a castle at Aber Laniog. At Shrewsbury, where the Severn, after leaving the mountains of Wales, turns to the south, Roger of Montgomery was placed, with his wife Mabel, guided and feared by all. Roger himself, while ever ready to fight, preferred to get what he wanted by persuasion. He was not less cruel and 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 Y, William Fitz-Ozburn came. He was the ablest, perhaps of all the followers of the Conqueror. He entered Wales, from the Y to the C, 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 and 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 wine. 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 Nuthmarshay, came to take his place. He built his castle at Brecon and defeated and killed Rhys, the king of Duhibarth, and with great energy he took possession of the armies of the Y 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, Coetie, Kenfeg, Nith, Kiddwelli, Pembroke, Newport, Kilgoren. So far the Norman advance for 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 Duhibarth. 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. 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 to build a castle, and to build a castle was of no use, and to build a castle Again, the Welsh opposition was not only 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. Blethen was slain in 1075 and his nephews and cousins tried to rule the country. Among these, Traheron 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 Cunetha, and he found it difficult to bend Snowden and the veil of Toei to his will. Two of the exiles met him, probably near some of the cairns in the valley of the Tyvee, and there, in the battle of Mooneith Carn, fiercely fought through the dusk into a moonlight night in 1079, Traheron fell. It looked as if no leader could rise in Wales to fight a Norman army to take a Norman castle. End of chapter 7 Chapter 8 of A Short History of Wales This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Michael Fasio A Short History of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 8 Griffith, Op Cohnen, and Griffith Op Rees In the battle of Mooneith Carn a young chief led the shining shields of the men of Gwyneth. He was a Griffith, the son of a prince of the line of Crenethah and of a sea-rover's daughter. He was mighty of limb, fair and straight to sea, with the blue eyes and flaxen hair of the ruling Kelt. 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 and 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 Bluthin died in 1075 Griffith came to Gwyneth and found that his father's lands were under new rulers. Robert of Rutherland and Traherne of Arwissley 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 Gwyneth in bonds. But his enemies attacked him again from all sides, and while Hugh the Wolf and Robert of Rutherland were laying Gwyneth waste, Traherne and Griffith met at the hard-fought battle of Bronn-Yerwer. Griffith lost the day and again became a sea-rover. He sailed to David, and there he met Rhys, the king of Duhibarth, who was also of the line of Cunethah and had been driven from his land by the Normans. The two chiefs joined and they crushed Traherne at Munithcarn. Then they turned against the Normans. Rhys soon fell in battle and left two children, Nest and Griffith. The beauty of Nest and the genius of Rhys up Griffith fill an important page in the history of their country. Nest became the mother of the conquerors of Ireland. Rhys 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, Apconon, Owen of Poes, and Griffith, Apres. The kings of England, the two sons of the conqueror, Red, Brutal William, and cool treacherous Henry had come to help their barons. Griffith, Apconon, 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 fled to the sea. But backed up by the liberty-loving sons of Snowden and by his sea-roving kinsmen, he made Gwyneth strong and prosperous. He drove the Normans from Anglesey. He attacked and killed Robert of Ruthlyn. He saw the red king of England himself forced by storm and rain to beat a retreat from Snowden. 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 Poes were fighting against the Normans also especially against the family of Montgomery. The sons of Blefen, Cadogan, Eoworth and Meredith were driving the invaders from the valley to the Severn and from the Divid 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 to fight it. He then became the friend of the king of England. It was the aim of the princes of Poes to be free, not only from the Norman but also from Griffith of Gwyneth and Griffith of Dewabarth. 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 Blefen in the east Griffith Opris 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 Opkonen, 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. The battle after castle rose at Swansea, Carmarthen, Landeverry, Canarth, Aberystwyth, to warn him that the hold of the Norman on the land was tightening. He came to the forests of the Toei. His people rallied around him and his power extended from the Toei to the Tyvee and from the Tyvee to the Dovee. His wife, the heroic Wendillion fighting her husband's army against the Normans was Griffith Opkonen'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 Opkonen and Griffith Opris was this. They set bounds to the Norman conquest and saved Dehu Barth and Gwyneth 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. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 The men who opposed the Normans left able successors. Owen Gwyneth followed his father Griffith Opkonen. Rhys followed his father Griffith Opris and in Poes the sons of Blythen were followed by the castle-builder Howell and by the poet Owen Geveliog. Owen Gwyneth ruled from 1137 to 1169. The Lord Rhys 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 Urals of Chester in the Valley of the Dee, the Mortimers on the Upper Y, the Braeoses on the Upper Usk and the Clairs in the South. Their castles were a continual menace to the country they had so far failed to conquer, and the Lord Rhys was glad to get to Kidwelli in England. It was, on the whole, an age of unity. It was the chief aim of Owen Gwyneth to be the ally of the Lord Rhys, and in this he succeeded, though his brother Cadvaladir and his desire for Caradigian had killed Rhys's brother to Owen's infinite sorrow. The princes of Poes, Medoc, and Owen Geveliog were in the same alliance also, and they were helped in their struggle against the Normans. Unity was never more necessary. Henry II brought great armies into Wales. Once he came along the North Coast to Rutherland. At another time he tried to cross the Burwen, but was beaten back by great storms. Had he reached the Upper Dee he would have found the United Forces of the Lord Rhys, Owen Geveliog, and Owen Gwyneth at Corwin. There are many stirring episodes of his insult. When Henry II nearly lost his life the scattering of his tents on the Burwen 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 Broussy invited a great number of Welsh chiefs to a feast in his castle 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 Gwyneth 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 of the middle ages. The Lord Rhys 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 Cavaliag 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 Gwyneth, Poise and Duhibarth and even the Norman barons of Morganvig began to feel the charm of Welsh legend and song. Robert of Gloucester was a great patron one of the chief events of the period was Lord Reese's great Eistethfudd at Cardigan in 1176. It was an age of new ideas. 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 Poise 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 Gwyneth and the Lord Rhys and Owen Caveliag 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 but 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. The best gardener, the best farmer and the best shepherd of the Middle Ages. Great monasteries were built for him and great tracks of land were given him by those who were anxious that he should pray for their souls. The monk who came to Wales was a Cistercian. The monasteries of Tintern, Margrom and Neath were built by Dormon Barons and Strata Florida, Valley Cruces and Basingverk showed that the Welsh princes welcomed the monks. Better than than the brilliant wars were the poets and the great Eisteddfod better still perhaps were the courtards and the flocks of the peaceful monks. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of A Short History of Wales This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Michael Fosio A Short History of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 10 Llewellyn the Great On the death of the Lord Rhys one of the grandsons of Owen Gwyneth becomes the central figure in Welsh history. Llewellyn 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. Llewellyn's first task was to make a ruler in Gwyneth. The sons of Owen Gwyneth had divided the strong Gwyneth left them by their father and their nobles and priests could not decide which of the sons was to be supreme. Eoworth, the poet Howell David, Melguyn, Rodry tried to get Gwyneth or portions of it. Eventually David I became king but soon a strong opposition placed Llewellyn uncles and cousins showed some jealousy but the growing power of Llewellyn 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 Rhys and Owen Keveliog were dead. To begin with he had to deal with the astute Gwynwenwen the son of Owen Keveliog and he had to be forced to submit. He then turned to the many sons and grandsons of the Lord Rhys Melguyn and Rhys the horse especially. They called John, king of England into Wales but they soon found that Llewellyn was a better master than John and his barons. Gradually Llewellyn 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 Llewellyn meant to join his 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 run off of Chester and the Clairs 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 Browsy 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 Browsy 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 Cunetha. Llewellyn's last great task was to make relations between England and Wales relations of peace and prosperity. During his long reign he saw three kings on the throne of England the Crusader Richard, the Abel 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 Gwynn Wynwyn then helped the jealous Welsh princes to check the growth of his power. Llewellyn saw that it was his policy that 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 Llewellyn had now to deal. He was too strong in Pembroke to be attacked but his very presence made it easier for Llewellyn to retain the allegiance of the chiefs who would have been in danger from the Norman Barons if Llewellyn's protection were taken away. William Marshall died and changes in English politics forced his sons into an alliance with Llewellyn. Llewellyn's title of great has 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 that his wars were not wars of devastation but the crushing of armies and the raising of castles. He took an interest in the three great agents in the civilization 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. Gwyneth before was given another home at Aberconway. Llewellyn extended his welcome to and he was given a home at Lanves 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 and 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 sympathized 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, Llewellyn 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. Two sons, Griffith who was the champion of independence and David who wished for peace with England. Llewellyn 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. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Michael Fosio A short history of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 11 The Last Llewellyn 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 Crick-Yth. The other princes shook off the yoke of Gwyneth 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, Llewellyn, and David at once took their uncle's place and by 1255 Llewellyn Op 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 D and the Conway which he claimed by a treaty with the dead Griffith. Thus Edward and Llewellyn began their long struggle. Between 1255 and 1267 Llewellyn tries to recover his grandfather's position in Wales. In 1255 his power extended over Gwyneth 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 Gwyneth. The Barons war paralyzed the power of the king and Llewellyn 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 Llewellyn's position as Prince of Wales was recognized in the Treaty of Montgomery. His sway extended from Snowden to the D on the east and to the Tyvee 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 Llewellyn. The only exception being Meredith Opryce of Dayubarth. The second struggle of Llewellyn's reign took place between 1267 and 1277. He tried to wield 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 Poise, fled to England and were received by Edward who had been king since 1272. Llewellyn and Edward distrusted each other. Edward wished to unite Britain in a feudal unity and to crush all opponents. Llewellyn thought of helping the Barons. He might become their leader. Eleanor, the daughter of Simon de Malfort, the old leader of the Barons was betrothed to him. War broke out. The Barons, Clairs and Mortemers and all, joined the king. Llewellyn's dominions were invaded at all points. His Barons had to yield one after the other. And finally, in 1277 Llewellyn had to accept the Treaty of Ruthlyn. His dominions shrunk to the old limits of Snowden. 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 Llewellyn, especially his brother David, begged for Llewellyn's protection. Eleanor, Llewellyn'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 Poeys, or de Hubarth, if he had an army strong enough. But at that time Gwyneth was almost impregnable. From Conway to Harlech lies the vast mass of Snowden, the 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 veil of Conway, look at the hills on the Arvonside, the great natural wall of inmost Gwyneth, with its last tower, the pen mine mar, 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 Llewellyn 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 to flee. 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 and had 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 Snowden. The chiefs still faithful to Llewellyn 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 Snowden from Anglesey, but the English force was destroyed at Mole A'dun. It looked as if Edward would have to retire. Llewellyn left Snowden and went to Ceredigion and the Vale of Toei 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 had was fallen, his men in Snowden entirely lost heart. They had no faith in David, and in a few months the whole of Wales was at Edward's feet. CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XII The war between Edward and Llewellyn 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 Bowman, 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 Llewellyn fell. It is easy to say that Edward was cruel and faithless, and it is easy to say that Llewellyn 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. Llewellyn 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 Llewellyn less civilized than Edward I. Geraldus Kembransus 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 civilization. In many ways Wales was more civilized 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 learned 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 Upconan and Llewellyn 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 Gwyneth and Owen Kevegliog and the Lord Rhistu. When Edward entered into Snowden Welsh was spoken to the D 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 civilization. One of them is the possession of a literary language for romance and poem for court and Eisteddfod. Concord 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 Llewellyn and his allies. In 1284 by the Statute of Ruthlyn it was formed into six shires. The Snowden district, which held out last, was made into the three shires of Anglesey, Carnivon, and Myrion Neff. The part of the land between the Conway and the D that belonged to the king, not to Barons was made into the Shire of Flint. The lands of Llewellyn'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 laid to the east and south of the Wales turned into shires in 1284. It included the greater part of the valleys of the Cluid, D, Severn, and Y and the south Wales coast from Gloucester to Penbrook. They 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 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 Llewellyn's time the most important were the Clairs, Gloucester and Glamorgan, the Mortemers, Wygmore and Chirk, Lacy, Denby, Warran, Bromfield and Yale, Fitsalen, Oswestry, Bohan, Brecken, Browsy, Gower and Valens, Penbrook. Llewellyn 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 Llewellyn the Great from the house of Cunnetha, 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. End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of A Short History of Wales This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Michael Fasio A Short History of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 13 Castle and Longbow 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 defense. New ways of attacking and defending are continually devised. When the art of defense 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 defense was the castle and the first to attack was the Longbow. Wales contains the most perfect castles in this country. It is also the home of the Longbow. 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 Longbow. I will tell you about the castles first and about the Edwardian castles. The Norman castle was a square keep with walls of immense thickness sometimes of 20 feet but if the Normans had to build on 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 manganals 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 you ever go to Abergevenny Castle in the Vale of Usk, look at the cleft of the rock along which the daring besiegers once climbed. And if you go to the Vale of Toei and see Drysiluyn 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 around 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 story, solid as a rock which would crack and lean without falling. There is a leaning tower at Carefully Castle. One other way I must mention the child or the wife of the castle 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 of the castles is Carefully, built by Gilbert Declair the Red Earl of Gloucester who helped Edward in the Welsh Wars. And it was by means of these magnificent concentric castles Conway, Bumaris, Carnivan and Harlech that Edward hoped to keep Wales. There are many kinds of bows in war too were used the crossbow and the longbow. The crossbow was meant at first for the defensive 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 longbow was only one piece of sinewy U 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 and it could pin a male clad knight to his horse. It was this peasant weapon that brought the male knight down in battle. The home of the longbow is the country between the Severn and the Y. It was famous before but it was first used with effect in the last Welsh Wars. It was used to break the lines of the Snowden lances and pikes so that the male clad cavalry might dash in. But later on the same bows were used to bring the French down. From the Welsh War on archers and infantry became important. Battles ceased to be what they had been so long the shock of male clad knights meeting each other at full charge. The longbow made noble and peasant equal on the field of battle. The revolution was made complete later on by gunpowder. End of Chapter 13 Chapter 14 of a short history of Wales This is a LibriVox recording. Our LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Michael Fasio A short history of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 14 The Rise of the Peasant I have told you much about princes and soldiers but very little about the lowly life of peasants and the trade of towns. The conquest of Wales by Baron and English King tended to raise the serf to the level of the Freeman. The chief causes of the rise of the serf were the following. 1. The ignorance of the English officials The Norman Baron very often paid close attention to the privileges of the classes he ruled and the Welsh Freeman retained his superiority. But the English officials and Edward II found that they were far too numerous in Wales often refused to distinguish between a Welshman who was an innate Freeman and a Welshman who lived on a serf menal. Their aim was to make them all pay the same tax. 2. The fall in the value of money At the time of the Norman conquest silver coins were rare and their value high. But in exchange for cloth and wool of arrows and spears of mountain ponies and cattle coins came in great numbers and it was easier for the serf to earn them. Not as the value of coins became less. This was a great boon to all who were bound to pay fixed sums. The Freeman who paid to the king the dues he used to pay to his prince the serf who paid to his lord a sum of money instead of service. All ancient servitude political and economic was commuted for money. As the money became easier to get the serf became more free. 3. The rise of towns and the growth of commerce We must not, however, think of commerce as if it had been first brought by the Normans. There had been roads and coins in Roman times. The Danes had been traders, probably before they became pirates and invaders. Timber, millstones, cattle, coarse cloth and arrowheads crossed the Severn eastwards before the Normans saw it and corn was carried westward. There were close relations political and commercial between Wales and Ireland from very early times. But the Norman and English conquests revived in quickened trade. Towns rose. Regular markets were established and the barons who took tolls protected the merchants who paid them. Every baron had a castle. Every castle needed a walled town and a town cannot live except by trade. In the town the baron did not ask a Welshman whether he had been free or serf. The townsmen were strangers and they welcomed the serf who came to work. 4. The Monk and the Friar The bard was a freemen born a skilled weaver of courteous phrases not a churlish taug. The monk or friar might be a serf. They worked like serfs and ennobled labour. The church condemned serfdom and we find chapters giving their serfs freedom. 5. The Scotch and French wars of the English kings gave employment to hosts of bowmen and of men at arms and to the numerous attendants required to look after the horses by means of which the army moved. The greater use of infantry after the reign of Edward I caused a greater demand for the peasant and the use of the cheap longbow gave him a value in war. There were 5,000 Welsh archers and spearmen on the field of Cressy. In these in other ways the serf was becoming free. You would expect a gradual almost unconscious struggle between the serf and his lord for political power. The struggle came but it was conscious and very fierce. It was brought about by a terrible pestilence known as the Black Death. This plague came slowly and steadily from the east. In 1348 it reached Bristol and it probably swept away one half of the people of the towns of Wales. It was not the towns alone that it visited. It came to the mountain glens as well. There was no deadly disease. It killed for one thing because people believed that they would die. They saw the dark spots on the skin before they became feverish. They recognized the black mark of the death and they gave themselves up for lost. Labourers became very scarce. They claimed higher wages. The lords tried to drag them back and to serf them. They tried to force them by law to take the old wage. On both sides of the Severn were the lords. The peasant war in England is called the peasant revolt. The peasant war in Wales is sometimes called the revolt of Owen Glendore. A change came over the rebellions in Wales. At first the rebellions were those of Llewellyn's country, the allies who had deserted him and then turned against Edward like Rhysop Meredith or his own followers like Madoch who said he was his son of the Llewellyn Vichon in Pembroke. Later on, under Edward II and Edward III the rebellions were against the March lords and the king was looked upon as a protector such as the rebellion of Llewellyn Brann against the Clairs and Mortemers and Glamorgan in 1316. But the wilder spirits went to the French wars and fought for both sides. With the assassination of Owen of Wales in 1378, the last of Llewellyn's near relatives fighting the independence of Wales the rebellions against the king of England came to an end. When they broke out again it was not in Snowden or Ceredigion the old dominions of Llewellyn were almost unwilling to rise. The new revolts were in the March lands and especially in the towns. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of a short history of Wales This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. In order to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michael Fosseo A short history of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 15 Owen Glendauer The English baron in Wales tried to add to his possessions by encroaching on the lands of the Welsh freemen. His estate always remained the same because it all went to the eldest son according to what is called primogeniture. Their lands on the other hand were divided between the sons of the Abelkind. He also, by laws they did not understand, took the wasteland forest and mountain. As one man can more easily watch his interest than many, the baron succeeded but the freemen felt that they were being robbed. The tenants of the barons were restless and rebellious. They said they were free and they would not work as serfs, that they would not bring food rents, but that they would pay a fixed rent for every anchor they held. At Ruthen in the Vale of Cluid there was a baron called Lord Grey and in the valley of the D there was a Welsh squire called Owen Glendauer. Their lands met and Grey took part of Owen's sheep-walk. Owen had been a law student at Westminster and he had served Henry of Lancaster. In 1399 Richard II had been dethroned and the barons had made Henry of Lancaster King as Henry IV. Owen saw, however, that the king was too weak to curb his lawless barons and in 1400 he attacked Lord Grey and burnt Ruthen. The rebellion that had long been smoldering burst into a flame all over the country. Owen was at once welcomed by the Bard, the friar and the peasant. The Bard hailed his star as that of the heir of the princes who had come to deliver his country. The friar welcomed him as the war and of learning and unruly students from Oxford, then the centre of a great intellectual awakening flocked home to march under his banner. The peasant welcomed him as his protector against the steward of his lord. The main strength of the movement was the peasant revolt and Welsh poets, like the English ones, sang the praises of the plowmen and of the plow. Owen's success was most rapid so rapid that it was put at stake. In four years the whole of Wales recognized him as its prince. Henry IV and Prince Henry came to Wales made rapid marches and retook castles, punished the friars of Launvays and the monks of Strata, Florida. But their victories led to nothing and the storms fought against them. Owen's victories were used to the full that of the Viernwy was followed by an agreement with Grey of Ruthen, that of Bringlas with the mortemers. His marches were nearly all triumphant. He was welcomed along the whole line of the marches by the peasants to the furlest corners of Gwent. Owen was wise enough to see that no abiding power can be based on a popular rising. He tried to establish a government that the king of England could not overthrow. He had three institutions in mind an independent Wales, governed by him as prince in a parliament of representatives of the commotes an independent Welsh church with an archbishop of St. David's at its head and an independent system of learning and civilization guided by two universities one in North Wales and one in South Wales. The new Wales was to be safeguarded by four alliances with the English barons, with the Pope, with Scotland and with France. He failed to save the purses from their defeat at Shrewsbury but he based all his plans on an alliance with the Mortimer's the enemies of Lancaster and the purses. The head of the Mortimer family had died in Ireland in 1398 and had left four young children. They were the real heirs to the crown and Owen meant to win their throne for them. Their uncle Edmund Mortimer married Glendauer's daughter. But the young Earl of March the elder of the Mortimer boys had an ambition and a plot to bring him and his brother to Owen failed. The papacy had always proved to be a broken read for Welsh princes but Owen's alliance with Peter De Luna, the anti-Pope Benedict XIII gave a certain amount of prestige to his title. The alliance with Scotland, based on common kinship, could bring him no help at that time because it was torn between two factions during the reign of the weak Robert III and the next king, the poet James I was captured at sea and put into an English prison. The French alliance was much more promising. It would give what Owen wanted most, siege engines, a fleet, and an army of trained soldiers. Charles VI of France, the father-in-law of the deposed Richard, refused to make peace with the usurper Henry. His fleet protected the Welsh coast and in 1405 a French army of 2800 men landed at Milford. Owen struggled on with waning power until his death in 1415. He came too soon for success while the power of the House of Lancaster was increasing. Of all figures in the history of Wales that of Owen Glendover is the most striking and the most popular. The place of his grave is unknown, his lineage and the date of his death a matter of conjecture. There is much mystery about even his most brilliant years. But his majestic figure, his wisdom and his ideals remained in the memory of his country. His ghost wandered, it was said, around Valley Cruces. His spirit, more than that of any hero of the past, seems to follow his people on their onward march. This is not on account of his political ideals but because he was the champion of the peasant and of education. End of Chapter 15 Chapter 16 A Short History of Wales. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michael Fascio. A Short History of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 16 The Wars of the Roses The reign of Henry V was a reign of brilliant victories in France and the reign of Henry VI, one of disastrous defeats. During both reigns the lords were becoming more powerful in Wales as well as in England. The hold of the king over them became weaker every year. They packed the parliament, they appointed the council, they overawed the law courts. If a man wanted security, he must wear the badge of some lord and fight for him when called upon to do so. In the marches of Wales there were more than a hundred lords holding castle in court and it was easy for a robber or a murderer to escape from one lordship to the other with welcome and protection. In Wales and in the marches the lords preyed upon their weaker neighbors and the country became full of private war. The selfish families, all fighting for more land and more power, gradually formed themselves into two parties, the parties of the red rose and of the white rose. The leading family in the red rose party was that of Lancaster, represented by the saintly king Henry VI. The leading family in the white rose party was that of York. In the wars of the roses York and Lancaster fought over the crown and those who supported them over a castle or an estate. Wales was divided. The west was for Lancaster from Pembroke to Harlech and from Harlech to Anglesey. The east was for York from Cardiff and Roglin to Wigmore and from Wigmore to Chirk. Lancaster held estates in Wales and on the border. The castles of Hereford, Skenfrith, Ogmore and Kidwelley being centers of strength and wealth. York's chief country was the march of Wales with Ludlow as its center. The Welsh barons took sides according to their interests. Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke held the west for his half-brother, the king, Sir William Herbert who was very powerful in the country south of the Mortimer's, took the side of his powerful neighbor. He was favored, especially Grey of Ruthen and the Stanleys in north Wales. One battle was fought between the Welsh Orchists and the Wellesland Castrians. This was the Battle of Mortimer's Cross near Wigmore in February 1461. The victor was the young Duke of York who was crowned king as Edward IV later in the year. An old man, Henry Tudor, the father of Jasper Tudor and the grandfather of the boy who, after them all, as Henry VII, was taken prisoner. They took him to Hereford and there they cut his head off and set it on the market cross. The battles of the Wars of the Roses were very cruel ones. The noble prisoners that had been taken, even children of tender age, were murdered in cold blood on the evening of the battle. By God's blood, said one as he killed the child, thy father slew mine The Welsh barons led their men to nearly all the important battles. North Wales archers wearing the three feathers of the Prince of Wales fought for Lancaster in the snow at the great defeat of Tauton on the Palm Sunday of 1461. The archers of Gwent, led by Herbert, fought vainly for York at the Battle of Edgecote in the summer of 1469. And the Welsh waiver and traitor was seen in battle also. The kingdom led the van for Lancaster at the Battle of Northampton in 1460 and caused the battle to be lost by deserting to York at the beginning of the fighting. In Wales itself also, the war was fought bitterly and the stubborn defence of Harlech for the Lancasterians became famous through the whole country. The last battle fought between Lancaster and York was the Battle of Tuxbury in May 1471 and Lancaster lost it. The Prince of Wales, the King's only son, was killed and his heroic mother, Margaret of Anjou gave the struggle up. A young Welsh noble, Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond became the Lancasterian heir. The fortunes of his house were hopeless, however, and his uncle Jasper sent him in safety to Brittany. The Yorkist, Kings, Edward IV and Richard III in spite of cruelty and murder of the Royal. They broke the power of the Barons and they made the people rich by maintaining peace, by repressing piracy, by protecting the woollen industry of the towns. In Wales their rule was for peace and order. They made a court for Wales at Ludlow, the home of their race. From Ludlow they began to force the Barons to do justice and to obey the King. It seemed as if the rule of the Orcas was popular in London and the towns. But the nobles were not willing to see their power taken from them day by day. Jasper Tudor appealed to the loyalty of the Welsh and the men of West Wales wanted a King of their own blood, for the laws had been made unjust to them ever since the time of Owen Glendore. Many attempts were made and they failed. But at last, on August 7th, 1485 the fugitive Earl of Richmond came to Milford Haven. He marched on to the Valley of the Tidy and he was joined by Sir Rhys of Thomas and an army of South Wales men. He journeyed on through the valley of the Severn and the North Wales men joined him. English nobles joined him as he marched by Shrewsbury, Stafford, Litchfield and Tamworth. Richard's army was also on the march. At Bosworth, August 22nd, 1485 the two armies met in the last battle of the War of Sotheb Roses. Richard fought fiercely, wearing his crown and when he was defeated and killed the crown was placed on Henry's head. The people of England did not care who ruled Richard or Henry as long as he kept order for they were very tired of civil war. But the people of Wales welcomed Henry as a Welshman who would rule them kindly and justly. End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 of A Short History of Wales This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Michael Fosio A Short History of Wales by Owen M. Edwards Chapter 17 Tudor Order The Tudors, Henry VII his son Henry VIII Edward VI and Mary and Elizabeth ruled England and Wales from 1485 to 1603. Under them the people became united law-abiding, patriotic, and prosperous. The Tudor period is justly regarded as the most glorious in British history with its great statesmen, its great adventurers, and its great poets. The Tudors were loyally supported by Wales by the military strength of men like Sir Rhys Op Thomas or the Earl of Pembroke and by the diplomatic skills of the Cecils. Under their rule hard and unmerciful but just and efficient the law became strong enough to crush the mightiest and shield the weakest. Welshmen found that even under their own sovereigns their ancient language was regarded as a hindrance and their patriotism as a possible source of trouble but they obtained the privileges of an equal race and they were pleased to regard themselves as a dominant one. They obtained equal political privileges. The laws which denied them residence in the garrison towns in Wales or the holding of land in England came to an end. The whole of the country shire ground and march ground was divided into one system of shires and given representation in parliament by the act of union of 1535. It is called an act of union because by it Wales and England were united on equal terms. Anglesey, Carnivon, Maryaneth, Flint, Cardigan and Camarfan had been shires since 1284 and small portions of Glamorgan and Pembroke have been governed like shires so that some tutor writers call them counties. The chief difference between a shire and a lordship is that the king's red runs to the shire but not to the lordship. The king administers the law through the shire through the sheriff. The lord administers the law in the lordship through his own officials. In 1535 the marches of Wales were turned into shire ground. The bulk of them went to make seven new shires Pembroke, Glamorgan, Monmouth, Preckon, Radnor, Montgomery and Denby. The others were added to the older English and Welsh counties. Of these those added to Shropshire and Herefordshire and Gloucestershire became part of England. Monmouth also was declared to be an English shire for judicial purposes but it has remained sturdily Welsh and now it is practically regarded by Parliament as part of Wales. The whole country was now governed in the same way and Wales was represented like England in Parliament. No attempt had been made to do this before except by the first English prince of Wales, the weak and unfortunate Edward II. Of even greater value than political equality was the new reign of law. The tutors used the star chamber, the court of Wales and the great sessions of Wales to make all equal before the law. To the star chamber they summoned a noble who was still too powerful for the court of law. But it was the court of Wales that did most work. It was held at Ludlow. It had very able presidents, men like Bishop Lee, the Earl of Pembroke and Sir Henry Sydney. Bishop Lee struck terror into the whole Welsh march between 1534 and 1543. Before his time a lord would keep murderers and robbers at his castle, protect them and perhaps share their spoil. But no man could keep a felon out of the reach of Bishop Rowland Lee. If you could not get them alive he got their dead bodies and you might have seen processions of men carrying sacks on ponies. They were dead men who were to swing on Ludlow gibbets. But severe as Lee was the peasant was glad that he could go to the court at Ludlow instead of going to the court of a March Lord, as he had to do before 1535. The shire had been much better governed than the lordship. When the lordship of Maudwe was added to the shire of Maryaneth in 1535, the officers of the shire found that it was a nest of brigands and outlaws. In the more peaceful and humane days of Queen Elizabeth Sir Henry Sydney became president of the court of Wales. He was one of the best men of the day and he was proud of ruling Wales and the border counties. A third part of this realm because his high office made him available to do good every day. Besides the court of Wales for the whole country a court of justice was held in each of the four groups of shires and these courts were called the great sessions of Wales. So though the law was the same for everybody Wales had a separate system to itself partly because there was so much to do and partly because the central courts in London were so far away. Much was also done to get wise justices of the peace and fair juries. By the end of the reign of Elizabeth the last of the tutors one may say that Wales rejoiced in the following. There was no hatred between England and Wales. The Welsh Gentries served the Queen on land and sea and the people were more happy and contented than they had been since the time of Llewelyn. There was no danger of private war between Wales and Wales to which the peasant might be summoned. The brigands which infested parts of the country had been cleared away. Number three the law of land had been fixed. It was determined that land was to go to the eldest son according to the English fashion. All the land became the property of some landlord and it was decided who was a land owner and who was not. The Welsh freemen were held to own their land. The descendants of an old conquered race sometimes became owners and sometimes tenants. They all thought that Henry VII the Welsh victor of Bosworth had set them free. Number four the tutors trusted their people and called upon them to govern and to administer justice themselves. The squires were to be justices the freemen were to be jurors the shire was to look after the militia and the parish after the poor. End of chapter 17