The Bowen family web presents :
Project Gutenberg's Short History of Wales, by Owen M. Edwards

[ Index ] [ Introduction ] [ Chapters 1 through_5 ] [ Chapters 6 through 10 ]

[ Chapters11 through 14 ] [ Chapters15 through 19 ] [ Chapters 20 through 25 ][ The Fine Print ]

A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
by Owen M. Edwards

Chapters 6 through 10

 

 

CHAPTER VI--THE LAWS OF HOWEL


The two ideas which ruled Wales were--the love of order and the love
of independence. The danger of the first is oppression; the dangers
of the other are anarchy and weakness. Wales was sometimes united,
under a Maelgwn or a Rhodri, and the princes obeyed them; oftener,
perhaps, the princes of the various parts ruled in their own way.

The internal life of Wales is best seen in the laws of Howel the
Good. Howel was the grandson of Rhodri; and, about 950, he called
four men from each district to Hendy Gwyn (Whitland) to state the
laws of the country. Twelve of the wisest put the law together; and
the most learned scribe in Wales wrote it.

It was thought that there should be one king over the whole people,
but it was very rarely that every part of Wales obeyed one king. The
country was divided into smaller kingdoms. In many ways Gwynedd was
the most powerful. It was very easy to defend; for it was made up of
the island of Mon (Anglesey), the promontory of Lleyn, and the
mountain mass of Snowdon. Its steep side was thus towards England,
and its cornlands and pastures on the further side. It was also the
home of the family of Cunedda, from Maelgwn to the last Llywelyn.

Powys was the Berwyn country. Ceredigion was the western slope of
the Plinlimmon range; the eastern slopes had many smaller, but very
warlike, districts. Deheubarth contained the pleasant glades and
great forests of the Towy country. Dyved was the peninsula to the
west; the southern slopes of the Beacons were Morgannwg and Gwent.

Howel the Good found that the laws of the various parts differed in
details, and he gave different versions to the north, the south-west,
and the south-east. But the law and life of the whole people, if we
only look at important features, are one. Several commotes made a
cantrev, many cantrevs made a kingdom, many kingdoms made Wales.

In each commote there were two kinds of people--the free or high-
born, and the low-born or serfs. These may have been the conquering
Celt and the conquered Iberian. It was very difficult for those in
the lower class to rise to the higher; but, after passing through the
storms of a thousand years, the old dark line of separation was quite
lost sight of.

The free family lived in a great house--in the hendre ("old
homestead") in winter, and in the mountain havoty ("summer house") in
summer. The sides of the house were made of giant forest trees,
their boughs meeting at the top and supporting the roof tree. The
fire burnt in the middle of the hall. Round the walls the family
beds were arranged. The family was governed by the head of the
household (penteulu), whose word was law.

The highest family in the land was that of the king. In his hall all
took their own places, his chief of the household, his priest, his
steward, his falconer, his judge, his bard, his chief huntsman, his
mediciner, and others. The chief royal residences were Aberffraw in
Mon, Mathraval in Powys, and Dynevor in Deheubarth.

Old Welsh law was very unlike the law we obey now. I cannot tell you
much about it in a short book like this, but it is worth noticing
that it was very humane. We do not get in it the savage and
vindictive punishments we get in some laws. I give you some extracts
from the old laws of the Welsh.

The king was to be honoured. According to the laws of Gwynedd, if
any one did violence in his presence he had to pay a great fine--a
hundred cows, and a white bull with red ears, for every cantrev the
king ruled; a rod of gold as long as the king himself, and as thick
as his little finger; and a plate of gold, as broad as the king's
face, and as thick as a ploughman's nail.

The judge, whether of the king's court or of the courts of his
subjects, was to be learned, just, and wise. Thus, according to the
laws of Dyved, was an inexperienced judge to be prepared for his
great office; he was to remain in the court in the king's company, to
listen to the pleas of judges who came from the country, to learn the
laws and customs that were in force, especially the three main
divisions of law, and the value of all tame animals, and of all wild
beasts and birds that were of use to men. He was to listen
especially to the difficult cases that were brought to the court, to
be solved by the wisdom of the king. When he had lived thus for a
year, he was to be brought to the church by the chaplain; and there,
over the relics and before the altar, he swore, in the presence of
the great officers of the king's court, that he would never knowingly
do injustice, for money or love or hate. He is then brought to the
king, and the officers tell the king that he has taken the solemn
oath. Then the king accepts him as a judge, and gives him his place.
When he leaves, the king gives him a golden chessboard, and the queen
gold rings, and these he is never to part with.

I will tell you about one other officer--the falconer. Falconry was
the favourite pastime of the kings and nobles of the time; indeed,
everybody found it very exciting to watch the long struggle in the
air between the trained falcon and its prey, as each bird tried every
skill of wing and talon that it knew. The falconer was to drink very
sparingly in the king's hall, for fear the falcons might suffer; and
his lodging was to be in the king's barn, not in the king's hall,
lest the smoke from the great fire-place should dim the falcon's
sight.



CHAPTER VII--THE NORMANS



On the death of Griffith ap Llywelyn, many princes tried to become
supreme. Bleddyn of Powys, a good and merciful prince, became the
most important.

In January 1070, when the snow lay thick on the mountains, William,
the Norman Conqueror, appeared at Chester with an army. He had
defeated and killed Harold, the conqueror of Griffith ap Llywelyn, in
1066; he had crushed the power of the Mercian allies of Bleddyn; he
had struck terror into the wild north, and England lay at his feet.

He turned back from Chester, but he placed on the borders a number of
barons who were to conquer Wales, as he had conquered England. They
had a measure of his ability, of his energy, and of his ambition.

The two great Norman traits were wisdom and courage; but the one was
often mere cunning, and the other brutal ferocity. But no one like
the Norman had yet appeared in Wales--no one with a vision so clear,
or with so hard a grip. A hard, worldly, tenacious, calculating race
they were; and they turned their faces resolutely towards Wales.

From England, Wales can be entered and attacked along three valleys--
along the Dee, the Severn, and the Wye. At Chester, Hugh of
Avranches, called "The Wolf," placed himself. From its walls he
could look over and covet the Welsh hills, as he could have looked
over the Breton hills from Avranches. He loved war and the chase:
he despised industry, he cared not for religion; he was a man of
strong passions, but he was generous, and he respected worth of
character. One of his followers, Robert, had all his vices and few
of his virtues. It was he who extended the dominions of the Earl of
Chester along the north coast to the Clwyd, where he built a castle
at Rhuddlan; and thence on to the valley of the Conway, where he
built a castle at Deganwy. The cruelty of Robert shocked even the
Normans of his time. He even set foot in Anglesey, which looked
temptingly near from Deganwy, and built a castle at Aberlleiniog.

At Shrewsbury, where the Severn, after leaving the mountains of
Wales, turns to the south, Roger of Montgomery was placed, with his
wife Mabel, an energetic little woman, hated and feared by all.
Roger himself, while ever ready to fight, preferred to get what he
wanted by persuasion; he was not less cruel than Hugh of Chester, but
he was less fond of war. He and his sons pushed their way up the
Severn, and built a castle at Montgomery.

To Hereford, on the Wye, William Fitz-Osbern came. He was the
ablest, perhaps, of all the followers of the Conqueror. He entered
Wales; he saw it from the Wye to the sea, and he thought it was not
large enough, and that it was too far from the political life of the
time. So he went back to Normandy, but he left his sons William and
Roger behind him. William had his father's wisdom. Roger had his
father's recklessness in action; he rebelled against his own king,
and found himself in prison. The king sent him, on the day of
Christ's Passion, a robe of silk and rarest ermine. The caged baron
made a roaring fire, and cast the robe into it. "By the light of
God," said William the Conqueror, for that was his wicked oath, "he
shall never leave his prison."

But another Norman, Bernard of Neufmarche, came to take his place.
He built his castle at Brecon, and defeated and killed Rees, the King
of Deheubarth; and, with great energy, he took possession of the
upper valleys of the Wye and the Usk.

Further south William the Conqueror himself came to Cardiff, and
possibly built a castle. The Norman conquest of the south coast of
Wales was exceedingly rapid, and castle after castle rose to mark the
new victorious advances--Coety, Cenfig, Neath, Kidwelly, Pembroke,
Newport, Cilgeran.

So far, the Norman advance has been a most quick one. In less than
twenty-five years from the appearance of the Conqueror at Chester,
the whole country had been overrun except the mountains of Gwynedd
and the forests of the Deheubarth. This success is easily explained.

For one thing, the Normans had trained, professional soldiers, who
were well horsed and well armed. In a pitched battle the hastily
collected Welsh levies, unused to regular battle and very lightly
armed, had no chance.

Again, the Norman never receded. He was willing to stop
occasionally, in order to bide his time; but he clung tenaciously to
every mile he had won. His skill as a castle builder was as striking
as his prowess in battle or his cautious wisdom in council. He took
possession of an old fortified post, or hastily constructed one of
turf and timber; but he soon turned it into a castle of stone. At
that time the Welsh had no knowledge of sieges; and their impetuous
valour was of no use against the new castles.

Again, the Welsh opposition was not only not organised, but weakened
by internal strife. While the Norman was winning valley after
valley, the Welsh princes were trying to decide by the issue of
battle who was to be chief. Bleddyn was slain in 1075; and his
nephews and cousins tried to rule the country. Among these,
Trahaiarn was a soldier of ability and energy, and a ruler of real
genius. But he was the rival of the exiled princes of the House of
Cunedda, and he found it difficult to bend Snowdon and the Vale of
Towy to his will. Two of the exiles met him, probably near some of
the cairns in the valley of the Teivy; and there, in the battle of
Mynydd Carn, fiercely fought through the dusk into a moonlight night
in 1079, Trahaiarn fell. It looked as if no leader could rise in
Wales to fight a Norman army or to take a Norman castle.



CHAPTER VIII--GRIFFITH AP CONAN AND GRIFFITH AP REES



In the battle of Mynydd Carn, a young chief led the shining shields
of the men of Gwynedd. He was Griffith, the son of a prince of the
line of Cunedda and of a sea-rover's daughter. He was mighty of
limb, fair and straight to see, with the blue eyes and flaxen hair of
the ruling Celt. In battle, he was full of fury and passion; in
peace, he was just and wise. His people saw at first that he could
fight a battle; then they found he could rule a country. And it was
he that was to say to the Norman: "Thus far shalt thou come, and no
further."

When Bleddyn died in 1075, Griffith came to Gwynedd, and found that
his father's lands were under new rulers. Robert of Rhuddlan and
Trahaiarn of Arwystli were mighty foes; but Griffith drove both of
them back; and, by his prowess and success in battle, broke the spell
of conquest which kept Gwynedd in bonds. But his enemies attacked
him again from all sides; and, while Hugh the Wolf and Robert of
Rhuddlan were laying Gwynedd waste, Trahaiarn and Griffith met at the
hard-fought battle of Bron yr Erw. Griffith lost the day, and again
became a sea-rover. He sailed to Dyved, and there he met Rees, the
King of Deheubarth, who also was of the line of Cunedda, and had been
driven from his land by the Normans. The two chiefs joined, and they
crushed Trahaiarn at Mynydd Carn. Then they turned against the
Normans.

Rees soon fell in battle, and left two children, Nest and Griffith.
The beauty of Nest and the genius of Rees ap Griffith fill an
important page in the history of their country. Nest became the
mother of the conquerors of Ireland; Rees became the greatest of all
the kings of South Wales.

The Normans found that the Welsh had taken heart. Of their
opponents, they feared three: Griffith ap Conan, Owen of Powys, and
Griffith ap Rees. The kings of England, the two sons of the
Conqueror--red, brutal William and cool, treacherous Henry--had to
come to help their barons.

Griffith ap Conan had a long life of strife and success. In his
struggle with Hugh the Wolf, he was once in The Wolf's prison, and
more than once he had to flee to the sea. But, backed up by the
liberty-loving sons of Snowdon and by his sea-roving kinsmen, he made
Gwynedd strong and prosperous. He drove the Normans from Anglesey;
he attacked and killed Robert of Rhuddlan; he saw the red King of
England himself forced by storm and rain to beat a retreat from
Snowdon. He was loved by his people during his youth of adventure
and battle, and during his old age of safe counsel and love of peace.
His wife Angharad and his son Owen live with him in the memory of his
country. When he died, in 1137, it was said that he had saved his
people, had ruled them justly, and had given them peace.

In the Severn country the princes of Powys were fighting against the
Normans also, especially against the family of Montgomery. The sons
of Bleddyn--Cadogan, Iorwerth, and Meredith--were driving the
invaders from the valley of the Severn, and from Dyved, defeating
their armies in battle, and storming their castles. Sometimes they
would make alliances with them, and defy the King of England. But it
is difficult to follow each of them. The history of one of them,
Owen ap Cadogan, is like a romance. He was brave and handsome, in
love with Nest, and a very firebrand in politics. The army of Henry
I. was too strong for him, and he had to submit. He then became the
friend of the King of England. It was the aim of the princes of
Powys to be free, not only from the Norman, but also from Griffith of
Gwynedd and Griffith of Deheubarth. They were an able and versatile
family; noble and base deeds, revolting crimes and sweet poems, come
in the stirring story of their lives.

What Griffith did in the north, and the sons of Bleddyn in the east,
Griffith ap Rees did in the south; he showed that the Norman army
could be beaten in battle, and that a Norman castle could be taken by
assault. After his father's death he spent much of his youth in
exile or in hiding: sometimes we find him in Ireland, sometimes in
the court of Griffith ap Conan, sometimes with his sister Nest--now
the wife of Gerald, the custodian of Pembroke Castle. But he had one
aim ever before him--to recover his father's kingdom and to make his
people free. Castle after castle rose--at Swansea, Carmarthen,
Llandovery, Cenarth, Aberystwyth--to warn him that the hold of the
Norman on the land was tightening. He came to the forests of the
Towy; his people rallied round him, and his power extended from the
Towy to the Teivy, and from the Teivy to the Dovey. His wife, the
heroic Gwenllian--who died leading her husband's army against the
Normans--was Griffith ap Conan's daughter. The great final battle
between Griffith and the Normans was fought at Cardigan in 1136, in
which the great prince won a memorable victory over the strongest
army the Normans could put in the field. In 1137 he died, and they
said of him that he had shown his people what they ought to do, and
that he had given them strength to do it.

The work of Griffith ap Conan and Griffith ap Rees was this: they
set bounds to the Norman Conquest, and saved Deheubarth and Gwynedd
from the stern rule of the alien. But, though the Norman was not
allowed to bring his stone castle and cruel law, what good he brought
with him was welcomed. The piety of the Norman, his intellectual
curiosity, and his spirit of adventure, conquered in Welsh districts
where his coat of mail and his castle were not seen.



CHAPTER IX--OWEN GWYNEDD AND THE LORD REES



The men who opposed the Normans left able successors--Owen Gwynedd
followed his father, Griffith ap Conan; the Lord Rees followed his
father Griffith ap Rees; and in Powys the sons of Bleddyn were
followed by the castle builder Howel, and by the poet Owen Cyveiliog.

Owen Gwynedd ruled from 1137 to 1169; the Lord Rees from 1137 to
1197. The age was, in many respects, a great one.

It was, of course, an age of war. Up to 1154, during the reign of
Stephen, the English barons were fighting against each other, and the
king had very little power over them. The most important Norman
barons in Wales were the Earls of Chester in the valley of the Dee,
the Mortimers on the upper Wye, the Braoses on the upper Usk, and the
Clares in the south. Their castles were a continual menace to the
country they had so far failed to conquer, and the Lord Rees was glad
to get Kidwelly, and Owen Gwynedd to get Mold and Rhuddlan.

It was, on the whole, an age of unity. It was the chief aim of Owen
Gwynedd to be the ally of the Lord Rees; and in this he succeeded,
though his brother Cadwaladr, in his desire for Ceredigion, had
killed Rees' brother, to Owen's infinite sorrow. The princes of
Powys, Madoc and Owen Cyveiliog, were in the same alliance also, and
they were helped in their struggle with the Normans. Unity was never
more necessary. Henry II. brought great armies into Wales. Once he
came along the north coast to Rhuddlan. At another time he tried to
cross the Berwyn, but was beaten back by great storms. Had he
reached the upper Dee, he would have found the united forces of the
Lord Rees, Owen Cyveiliog, and Owen Gwynedd at Corwen. There are
many stirring episodes in these wars: the fight at Consilt, when
Henry II. nearly lost his life; the scattering of his tents on the
Berwyn by a storm that seemed to be the fury of fiends; the reckless
exposure of life in storming a wall or in the shock of battle. But
the Norman brought new cruelty into war: Henry II. took out the eyes
of young children because their fathers had revolted against him; and
William de Braose invited a great number of Welsh chiefs to a feast
in his castle at Abergavenny, and there murdered them all.

It is a relief to turn to another feature of the age: it was an age
of great men. Owen Gwynedd was probably the greatest. He disliked
war, but he was an able general; he made Henry II. retire without
great loss of life to his own army. He was a thoughtful prince, of a
loving nature and high ideals, and his court was the home of piety
and culture. He is more like our own ideal of a prince than any of
the other princes of the Middle Ages. The Lord Rees was not less
wise, and his life is less sorrowful and more brilliant. He also was
as great as a statesman as he was as a general; and he made his peace
with the English king in order to make his country quiet and rich.
Owen Cyveiliog was placed in a more difficult position than either of
his allies; he was nearer to very ambitious Norman barons. He was
great as a warrior; often had his white steed been seen leading the
rush of battle. He was greater as a statesman: friend and foe said
that Owen was wise; and he was greater still as a poet.

The age was an age of poetry. A generation of great Welsh poets
found an equal welcome in the courts of Gwynedd, Powys, and
Deheubarth; and even the Norman barons of Morgannwg began to feel the
charm of Welsh legend and song; Robert of Gloucester was a great
patron of learning. One of the chief events of the period was Lord
Rees' great Eisteddvod at Cardigan in 1176.

It was an age of new ideals. The Crusades were preached in Wales;
the grave of Christ was held by a cruel unbeliever, and it was the
duty of a soldier to rescue it. It appealed to an inborn love of
war, and many Welshmen were willing to go. It did good by teaching
them that, in fighting, they were not to fight for themselves. It
was in Powys that feuds were most bitter. A young warrior told a
preacher, who was trying to persuade him to take the cross: "I will
not go until, with this lance, I shall have avenged my lord's death."
The lance immediately became shivered in his hand. The lance once
used for blind feuds was gradually consecrated to the service of
ideals--of patriotism or of religion.

The age of Owen Gwynedd and the Lord Rees and Owen Cyveiliog brought
a higher ideal still. If the Crusader made war sacred, the monk made
labour noble. The chief aim of the monk, it is true, was to save his
soul. He thought the world was very bad, as indeed it was; and he
thought he could best save his own soul by retiring to some remote
spot, to live a life of prayer. But he also lived a life of labour;
he became the best gardener, the best farmer, and the best shepherd
of the Middle Ages. Great monasteries were built for him, and great
tracts of land were given him, by those who were anxious that he
should pray for their souls. The monk who came to Wales was the
Cistercian. The monasteries of Tintern, Margam, and Neath were built
by Norman barons; and Strata Florida, Valle Crucis, and Basingwerk
showed that the Welsh princes also welcomed the monks.

Better, then, than the brilliant wars were the poets and the great
Eisteddvod. Better still, perhaps, were the orchards and the flocks
of the peaceful monks.



CHAPTER X--LLYWELYN THE GREAT



On the death of the Lord Rees, one of the grandsons of Owen Gwynedd
becomes the central figure in Welsh history. Llywelyn the Great rose
into power in 1194, and reigned until 1240--a long reign, and in many
ways the most important of all the reigns of the Welsh princes.

Llywelyn's first task was to become sole ruler in Gwynedd. The sons
of Owen Gwynedd had divided the strong Gwynedd left them by their
father, and their nobles and priests could not decide which of the
sons was to be supreme. Iorwerth, the poet Howel, David, Maelgwn,
Rhodri, tried to get Gwynedd, or portions of it. Eventually, David
I. became king; but soon a strong opposition placed Llywelyn, the
able son of Iorwerth, on the throne. Uncles and cousins showed some
jealousy; but the growing power of Llywelyn soon made them obey him
with gradually diminishing envy.

His next task was to attach the other princes of Wales to him, now
that the Lord Rees and Owen Cyveiliog were dead. To begin with, he
had to deal with the astute Gwenwynwyn, the son of Owen Cyveiliog;
and he had to be forced to submit. He then turned to the many sons
and grandsons of the Lord Rees--Maelgwn and Rees the Hoarse
especially. They called John, King of England, into Wales; but they
soon found that Llywelyn was a better master than John and his
barons. Gradually Llywelyn established a council of chiefs--partly a
board of conciliation, and partly an executive body. It was nothing
new; but it was a striking picture of the way in which Llywelyn meant
to join the princes into one organised political body.

His third task was to begin to unite Norman barons and Welsh chiefs
under his own rule. He had to begin in the old way, by using force;
and Ranulph of Chester and the Clares trembled for the safety of
their castles. He then offered political alliance; and some of the
Norman families of the greatest importance in the reign of John--the
Earl of Chester, the family of Braose, and the Marshalls of Pembroke-
-became his allies. His other step was to unite Welsh and Norman
families by marriage. He himself married a daughter of King John,
and he gave his own daughters in marriage to a Braose and a Mortimer.
It is through the dark-haired Gladys, who married Ralph Mortimer,
that the kings of England can trace their descent from the House of
Cunedda.

Llywelyn's last great task was to make relations between England and
Wales relations of peace and amity. During his long reign, he saw
three kings on the throne of England--the crusader Richard, the able
John, and the worthless and mean Henry III. It was with John that he
had most to do, the king whose originality and vices have puzzled and
shocked so many historians. John helped him to crush Gwenwynwyn,
then helped the jealous Welsh princes to check the growth of his
power. Llywelyn saw that it was his policy, as long as John was
alive, to join the English barons. They were then trying to force
Magna Carta upon the King, that great document which prevented John
from interfering with the privileges of his barons. In that document
John promises, in three clauses, that he will observe the rights of
Welshmen and the law of Wales.

When John died in 1216, and his young son Henry succeeded him, the
policy of England was guided by William Marshall Earl of Pembroke.
William Marshall was one of the ministers of Henry II., and by his
marriage with the daughter of Strongbow, the conqueror of Ireland, he
had become Earl of Pembroke. It was with him that Llywelyn had now
to deal. He was too strong in Pembroke to be attacked, but his very
presence made it easier for Llywelyn to retain the allegiance of the
chiefs who would have been in danger from the Norman barons if
Llywelyn's protection were taken away. In 1219 the great William
Marshall died; and changes in English politics forced his sons into
an alliance with Llywelyn.

Llywelyn's title of Great is given him by his Norman and English
contemporaries. He was great as a general; his detection of trouble
before the storm broke, his instant determination and rapidity of
movements, his ever-ready munitions for battle and siege, made his
later campaigns always successful. He felt that he was carrying on
war in his own country; so his wars were not wars of devastation, but
the crushing of armies and the razing of castles.

He took an interest in the three great agents in the civilisation of
the time--the bard, the monk, and the friar. The bard was as welcome
as ever at his court; the monk, welcomed by Owen Gwynedd before, was
given another home at Aber Conway. Llywelyn extended his welcome to
the friar, and he was given a home at Llan Vaes in Anglesey, on the
shores of the Menai. The friar brought a higher ideal than that of
the monk; his aim was salvation, not by prayer in the solitude of a
mountain glen, but by service where men were thickest together--even
in streets made foul by vice, and haunted by leprosy. Of the
Mendicant Orders, the Franciscans were the best known in Wales; and,
of all Orders of that day, it was they who sympathised most deeply
with the sorrows of men. And it was this which, a little later on,
brought them so much into politics.

Great and successful in war and policy, in touch with the noblest
influences in the life of the time, Llywelyn applied himself to one
last task. His companions and allies had nearly all died before him;
but he wished that the peace and unity, which they had established,
should live after them. He had two sons--Griffith, who was the
champion of independence; and David, who wished for peace with
England. Llywelyn laid more stress on strong government at home than
on the repudiation of feudal allegiance to the King of England. So
he persuaded the council of princes at Strata Florida to accept David
as his successor.

 

[ Index ] [ Introduction ] [ Chapters 1 through_5 ] [ Chapters 6 through 10 ]

[ Chapters11 through 14 ] [ Chapters15 through 19 ] [ Chapters 20 through 25 ][ The Fine Print ]

Also see : [ A Welsh history synopsis by David Fortin ]

[ The Description of Wales by Geraldus Cambrensis originally written in 1194, this text is from the 1912 J. M. Dent edition.]

 

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