Short History of Wales Part 3

CHAPTER XI--THE LAST LLYWELYN

David II., a mild and well-meaning prince, was too weak to carry his father's policy out. He tried to maintain peace, and did homage to his uncle, the King of England. But, as the head of the patriotic party, his more energetic brother, Griffith, opposed him. By guile he caught Griffith, and shut him in a castle on the rock of Criccieth. The other princes shook off the yoke of Gwynedd, and Henry III. tried to play the brothers against each other. David sent Griffith to Henry, who put him in the Tower of London. In trying to escape, his rope broke, and he fell to the ground dead. Soon afterwards, in 1246, in the middle of a war with Henry, David died of a broken heart.

The sons of Griffith--Owen, Llywelyn, and David--at once took their uncle's place; and by 1255 Llywelyn ap Griffith was sole ruler. By that year Henry III. had given his young son Edward the earldom of Chester, which had fallen to the crown, and the lands between the Dee and the Conway, which he claimed by a treaty with the dead Griffith.

Thus Edward and Llywelyn began their long struggle.

Between 1255 and 1267 Llywelyn tries to recover his grandfather's position in Wales. In 1255 his power extended over Gwynedd only. He found it easy to extend it over most of Wales, because the rule of the English officials made the Welsh chiefs long for the protection of Gwynedd. The Barons' War paralysed the power of the King, and Llywelyn made an alliance with Simon de Montfort and the barons.

Even after Montfort's fall in 1265 the barons were so powerful that the King was still at their mercy. In 1267 Llywelyn's position as Prince of Wales was recognised in the Treaty of Montgomery. His sway extended from Snowdon to the Dee on the east, and to the Teivy and the Beacons on the south--practically the whole of modern Wales, except the southern seaboard. Within these wide bounds all the Welsh barons were to swear fealty to Llywelyn, the only exception being Meredith ap Rees of Deheubarth.

The second struggle of Llywelyn's reign took place between 1267 and 1277. He tried to weld his land into a closer union, and many of the chiefs of the south and east became willing to call in the English King. Two of them, his own brother David and Griffith of Powys, fled to England, and were received by Edward, who had been king since 1272. Llywelyn and Edward distrusted each other. Edward wished to unite Britain in a feudal unity, and to crush all opponents.

Llywelyn thought of helping the barons; he might become their leader.

Eleanor, the daughter of Simon de Montfort, the old leader of the barons, was betrothed to him. War broke out. The barons--Clares and Mortimers, and all--joined the King. Llywelyn's dominions were invaded at all points, his barons had to yield, one after the other; and finally, in 1277, Llywelyn had to accept the Treaty of Rhuddlan.

His dominions shrunk to the old limits of Snowdon, his sway over the rest of Wales was taken from him, and the t.i.tle of Prince of Wales was to cease with his life.

The third struggle was between 1277 and 1282. The rule of the new officials drove the Welsh to revolt; and the chiefs who had opposed Llywelyn, especially his brother David, begged for Llywelyn's protection. Eleanor, Llywelyn's wife and Edward's cousin, tried to keep the peace, but she died while they were arming for the last bitter war of 1282.

It was comparatively easy for Edward to overrun Powys or Deheubarth, if he had an army strong enough. But at that time Gwynedd was almost impregnable. From Conway to Harlech lies the vast ma.s.s of Snowdon, a great natural rampart running from sea to sea. Its steep side is towards the east, and the invader found before him heights which he could not climb, and round which he could not pa.s.s. If you stand in the Vale of Conway, look at the hills on the Arvon side--the great natural wall of inmost Gwynedd, with its last tower, the Penmaen Mawr, rising right from the sea. The gentle slopes are to the west, and there the corn and flocks were safe.

Edward had to put a large army into the field, and it cost him much.

In the war with Llywelyn he had to change the English army entirely; and, in order to get money, he had to allow the Parliament to get life and power. To carry supplies, and to land men in Anglesey to turn the flank of the Welsh, he wanted a fleet. But there was no royal navy then, and the fishermen of the east coast and the south coast--who had no quarrel with the Welsh, but were very anxious to fight each other--were not willing to lose their fish harvest in order to fight so far away.

In 1282, Edward's great army closed round Snowdon. The chiefs still faithful to Llywelyn had to yield or flee. But winter was coming on, and could Edward keep his army in the field? An attempt had been made to enter Snowdon from Anglesey, but the English force was destroyed at Moel y Don. It looked as if Edward would have to retire. Llywelyn left Snowdon, and went to Ceredigion and the Vale of Towy to put new heart in his allies, and from there he pa.s.sed on to the valley of the Wye. He meant, without a doubt, to get the barons of the border, Welsh and English, to unite against Edward.

But in some chance skirmish a soldier slew him, not knowing who he was. When they heard that their Prince was fallen, his men in Snowdon entirely lost heart. They had no faith in David, and in a few months the whole of Wales was at Edward's feet.

CHAPTER XII--CONQUERED WALES

The war between Edward and Llywelyn was not a war between England and Wales, as we think of these countries now. Some of the best soldiers under Edward were Welsh, especially the bowmen who followed the Earl of Gloucester and Roger Mortimer from the Wye and Severn valleys.

It is not right that we Welshmen should feel bitter against England, because, in this last war, Edward won and Llywelyn fell. It is easy to say that Edward was cruel and faithless, and it is easy to say that Llywelyn was s.h.i.+fty and obstinate; but it is quite clear that each of them thought that he was right. Edward thought that Britain ought to be united: Llywelyn thought Wales ought to be free. Now, happily, we have the union and the freedom.

On the other hand, I should not like you to think that Wales was more barbarous than England, or Llywelyn less civilised than Edward I.

Giraldus Cambrensis saw a prince going barefoot, and the fussy little Archbishop Peckham saw that Welsh marriage customs were not what he liked; and many historians, who have never read a line of Welsh poetry, take for granted that the conquest of Wales was a new victory for civilisation.

In many ways Wales was more civilised than England at that time. Its law was more simple and less developed, it is true; but it was more just in many cases, and certainly more humane. Was it not better that the land should belong to the people, and that the youngest son should have the same chance as the eldest? And, in crime, was it not better that if no opportunity for atonement was given, the death of the criminal was to be a merciful one? In the reign of John, a Welsh hostage, a little boy of seven, was hanged at Shrewsbury, because his father, a South Wales chief, had rebelled. In the reign of Edward I., the miserable David was dragged at the tails of horses through the streets of the same town, and the tortures inflicted on the dying man were too horrible to describe to modern ears. And what the Norman baron did, his Welsh tenant learnt to do. In Wales you get fierce frays and frequent shedding of blood; on the borders you get callous cruelty to a prisoner, or the disfiguring of dead bodies-- even that of Simon de Montfort, the greatest statesman of the Middle Ages in England--on the battlefield when all pa.s.sion was spent.

Take the rulers of Wales again. Griffith ap Conan and Llywelyn the Great had the energy and the foresight, though their sphere was so much smaller, of Henry II. And what English king, except Alfred, attracts one on account of lovableness of character as Owen Gwynedd and Owen Cyveiliog and the Lord Rees do?

When Edward entered into Snowdon, Welsh was spoken to the Dee and the Severn, and far beyond. There were many dialects, as there are still, though any two Welshmen could understand each other wherever they came from, with a little patience, as they can still. But there was also a literary language, and this was understood, if not spoken, by the chiefs all through the country. It was more like the Welsh spoken in mid-Wales--especially in the valley of the Dovey--than any other. There are many signs of civilisation; one of them is the possession of a literary language--for romance and poem, for court and Eisteddvod.

Conquered Wales may be divided into two parts--the Wales conquered by the Norman barons and the Wales conquered by the English king.

The Wales conquered by the English king was the country ruled by Llywelyn and his allies. In 1284, by the statute of Rhuddlan, it was formed into six s.h.i.+res. The Snowdon district--which held out last-- was made into the three s.h.i.+res of Anglesey, Carnarvon, and Merioneth.

The part of the land between Conway and Dee that belonged to the king, not to barons, was made into the s.h.i.+re of Flint. The lands of Llywelyn's allies beyond the Dovey were made into the s.h.i.+res of Cardigan and Carmarthen. Instead of the chiefs of the Welsh prince, the king's sheriffs and justices ruled the country. But much of the old law remained.

The Wales conquered by the Norman barons lay to the east and south of the Wales turned into s.h.i.+res in 1284. It included the greater part of the valleys of the Clwyd, Dee, Severn, and Wye; and the South Wales coast from Gloucester to Pembroke. It remained in the possession of lords who were subject to the King of England, but who ruled almost like kings in their own lords.h.i.+ps. The laws and customs of the various lords.h.i.+ps differed greatly; sometimes the lord used English law, and sometimes Welsh law. The great ruling families changed much in wealth and power, from century to century. In Llywelyn's time the most important were the Clares (Gloucester and Glamorgan), the Mortimers (Wigmore and Chirk), Lacy (Denbigh), Warenne (Bromfield and Yale), Fitzalan (Oswestry), Bohun (Brecon), Braose (Gower), and Valence (Pembroke).

Llywelyn was the last prince of independent Wales. From that time on, the t.i.tle is conferred by the King of England on his eldest son, who is then crowned. The present Prince of Wales also comes, through a daughter of Llywelyn the Great, from the House of Cunedda, the princes of which ruled Wales from Roman times to 1284. Of all the houses that have gone to make the royal house, this is the most ancient.

CHAPTER XIII--CASTLE AND LONG-BOW

So far I have told you very little about war, except that a battle was fought and lost, or a castle built or taken.

War has two sides--attack and defence. New ways of attacking and defending are continually devised. When the art of defence is more perfect than the art of attack, the world changes very little, for the strong can keep what he has gained. When the art of attack is the more perfect, new men have a better chance, and many changes are made. The chief source of defence was the castle, the chief weapon of attack was the long-bow. Wales contains the most perfect castles in this country; it is also the home of the long-bow. From 1066 to 1284 England and Wales were conquered, and the conquest was permanent because castles were built. From 1284 to 1461, England and Wales attacked other countries, and the weapon which gave them so many victories was the long-bow.

I will tell you about the castles first, about the Norman castles and about the Edwardian castles.

The Norman castle was a square keep, with walls of immense thickness, sometimes of 20 feet. But if the Norman had to build on the top of a hill or on the ruins of an old castle, he did not try to make the new castle square, but allowed its walls to take the form of the hill or of the old castle; and this kind of castle was called a sh.e.l.l keep.

The outer and inner casing of the wall would be of dressed stone, the middle part was chiefly rubble. At first, if they had plenty of supplies, a very few men could hold a castle against an army as long as they liked. These were the castles built by the Norman invaders to retain their hold over the Welsh districts they conquered.

But many ways of storming a castle were discovered. They could be scaled by means of tall ladders, especially in a stealthy night attack. Stones could be thrown over the walls by mangonels to annoy the garrison. Sometimes a wall could be brought down by a battering- ram. But the quickest and surest way was by mining. The miners worked their way to the wall, and then began to take some of the stones of the outer casing out, propping the wall up with beams of wood. When the hole was big enough, they filled it with firewood; they greased the beams well, they set fire to them and then retired to a safe distance to see what happened. When the great wall crashed down, the soldiers swarmed over it to beat down the resistance of the garrison. If ever you go to Abergavenny Castle, in the Vale of Usk, look at the cleft in the rock along which the daring besiegers once climbed. And if you go to the Vale of Towy, and see Dryslwyn Castle, remember that the wall once came down before the miners expected, and that many men were crushed.

In order to prevent mining, many changes were made. Moats were dug round the castle, and filled with water. Brattices were made along the top of the towers, galleries through the floor of which the defenders could pour boiling pitch on the besiegers. The walls were built at such angles that a window, with archers posted behind it, could command each wall. Stronger towers were built--round towers with a coping at each storey, solid as a rock, which would crack and lean without falling; there is a leaning tower at Caerphilly Castle.

One other way I must mention--the child or the wife of the castellan would be brought before the walls, and hanged before his eyes unless he opened the gates.

The newer or Edwardian castles, those of the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., are concentric--that is, there are several castles in one; so that the besiegers, when they had taken one castle, found themselves face to face with another, still stronger, perhaps, inside it. Of these castles, the most elaborate is the castle of Caerphilly, built by Gilbert de Clare, the Red Earl of Gloucester who helped Edward in the Welsh wars. And it was by means of these magnificent concentric castles--Conway, Beaumaris, Carnarvon, and Harlech--that Edward hoped to keep Wales.

There are many kinds of bows. In war two were used--the cross-bow and the long-bow. The cross-bow was meant at first for the defence of towns, like Genoa or the towns of Castile. So strength was more important than lightness, and the archer had time to take aim. It was a bow on a cross piece of wood, along which the string was drawn back peg after peg by mechanism. The bow was then held to the breast, and the arrow let off. It was clumsy, heavy, and expensive.

The long-bow was only one piece of sinewy yew, and a string. It was used at first for the chase, and the archer had to take instant aim.

It was drawn to the ear, and it was a most deadly weapon when a strong arm had been trained to draw it. Its arrow could pick off a soldier at the top of the highest castle; it could pierce through an oak door three fingers thick; it could pin a mail-clad knight to his horse. It was this peasant weapon that brought the mailed knight down in battle.

The home of the long-bow is the country between the Severn and the Wye. 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 Snowdon lances and pikes, so that the mail-clad cavalry might dash in. But later on, the same bows were used to bring the n.o.bles of France down.

From the Welsh war on, archers and infantry became important; battles ceased to be what they had been so long--the shock of mail-clad knights meeting each other at full charge.

The long-bow made n.o.ble and peasant equal on the field of battle.

The revolution was made complete later on by gunpowder.

CHAPTER XIV--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.