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The History of England from the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377)
The Conquest Of North Wales
by Tout, T.F. (M.A.)
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The treaty of Shrewsbury of 1267 had not
brought enduring peace to Wales and the march. The pacification was
in essentials a simple recognition of accomplished facts, but, so
far as it involved promises of restitution and future good
behaviour, its provisions were barely carried out, even in the
scanty measure in which any medieval treaty was executed. Moreover,
the treaty by no means covered the whole ground of variance between
the English and the Welsh. like the treaty of Paris of 1259, it was
as much the starting-point of new difficulties as the solution of
old ones. Many troublesome questions of detail had been postponed
for later settlement, and no serious effort was made to grapple
with them. Even during the life of the old king, there had been war
in the south between the Earl of Gloucester and Llewelyn. However,
the Welsh prince paid, with fair regularity, the instalments of the
indemnity to which he had been bound, and there was no disposition
on the part of the English authorities to question the basis of the
settlement. Even the marchers maintained an unwonted tranquillity.
They had lost so much during the recent war that they had no great
desire to take up arms again. Llewelyn himself was the chief
obstacle to peace. The brilliant success of his arms and diplomacy
seems somewhat to have turned his brain. Visions of a wider
authority constantly floated before him. His bards prophesied the
expulsion of the Saxon, and he had done such great deeds in the
first twenty years of his reign, that a man of more practical
temperament might have been forgiven for indulging in dreams of
future success. Three obstacles stood in the way of the development
of his power. These were his vassalage to the English crown, the
hostility of the marcher barons, and the impatience with which the
minor Welsh chieftains submitted to his authority. For five years
he impatiently endured these restraints. He then took advantage of
the absence of the new king to rid himself of them.
Five days after the accession of Edward I., the lieutenants of
the king received the last payment of the indemnity which Llewelyn
condescended to make. Their demand that the Welsh prince should
take an oath of fealty to his new sovereign was answered by evasive
delays. Arrears of the indemnity accumulated, and the state of the
march became more disturbed. The regents showed moderation, though
one of them, Roger Mortimer, had himself been the greatest sufferer
from the treaty of Shrewsbury. In the south, Humphrey Bohun,
grandson of the old Earl of Hereford and earl himself in 1275 by
his grandfather's death, was engaged in private war with Llewelyn.
In direct defiance of the terms of 1267, Humphrey strove to
maintain himself in the march of Brecon, which had been definitely
ceded to Llewelyn. It was to the credit of the regents that they
refused to countenance this glaring violation of the treaty.
Meanwhile Llewelyn busied himself with erecting a new stronghold on
the upper Severn, which was a menace alike to the royal castle of
Montgomery and to his own vassal, Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn, the
tributary lord of Powys. Yet the regents were content to
remonstrate, and to urge on all parties the need of strict
adherence to the terms of the treaty. The Earl of Warwick was
appointed in the spring of 1274 as head of a commission, empowered
to do justice on all transgressions of the peace, and Llewelyn was
ordered to meet him at Montgomery Ford. But Llewelyn was busy at
home, where his brother David had joined hands with Griffith ap
Gwenwynwyn in a plot against him. Llewelyn easily crushed the
conspiracy; David, after a feeble attempt to maintain himself in
his own patrimony, took flight to England, and Griffith of Powys,
driven from his dominions, was also obliged to seek the protection
of Edward. Henceforth Llewelyn ruled directly over Powys as well as
Gwynedd. His success encouraged him to persevere in defying his
overlord.
Rash as he was, Llewelyn recognised that he was not strong
enough to stand up single-handed against England. Former
experience, however, suggested that it was an easy matter to make a
party with the barons against the crown. But times had changed
since the Great Charter and the Barons' War; and a policy, which
could obtain concessions from John or Henry III., was powerless
against a king who commanded the allegiance of all his subjects.
Yet there was enough friction between the new king and his
feudatories to make the attempt seem feasible, and Llewelyn revived
the Montfort tradition, by claiming the hand of Eleanor, Earl
Simon's daughter, which had been promised to him since 1265. The
alarm created by this shows that Edward perceived the danger that
it might involve. But his policy of conciliation had now restored
to their estates the last of the "disinherited," and, since the
murder of Henry of Almaine, the name of Montfort was no longer one
to conjure with. The exiled sons of Earl Simon welcomed Llewelyn's
advances, and, in 1275, Eleanor was despatched from France to Wales
under the escort of her clerical brother Amaury. On their way,
Eleanor and Amaury were captured by English sailors. Edward
detained the lady at the queen's court, and gave some scandal to
the stricter clergy by shutting up Amaury in Corfe castle. He had
foiled the Welsh prince's game, but he had given him a new
grievance.
During these transactions negotiations had been proceeding
between the English court and Llewelyn. In November, 1274, Edward
went to Shrewsbury in the hope of receiving the prince, but he was
delayed by illness, and Llewelyn made this an excuse for
non-appearance. Next year the king journeyed to Chester with the
same object, but his mission was equally fruitless. Summons after
summons was despatched to the recalcitrant vassal. Llewelyn heeded
them no more than requests to pay up the arrears which he owed the
English crown. After two years of hesitation Edward lost all
patience. Irritated to the quick by Llewelyn's offer to perform
homage in a border town on conditions altogether impossible of
acceptance, the king summoned a council of magnates for November
12, 1276, and laid the whole case before them. It was agreed that
the king should go against Llewelyn as a rebel and disturber of the
peace; and the feudal levies were summoned to meet at Worcester on
June 24, 1277. As a preliminary to the great effort, Warwick was
sent to Chester, Roger Mortimer to Montgomery, and Payne of Chaworth
to Carmarthen. All the available marcher forces and every trooper
of the royal household were despatched to enable them to operate
during the winter and spring. Their movements were brilliantly
successful. On the reappearance of its ancient lord, the middle
march threw off the yoke of Llewelyn and went back to its obedience
to Mortimer. Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn was restored to upper Powys;
the sons of Griffith of Bromfield cast off their allegiance to
Llewelyn and were received back as direct vassals of the king. A
Tony was once more ruling in Elvael, a Gifford in Llandovery, and a
Bohun in Brecon. Rhys ap Meredith yielded up Dynevor, and was
content to be recognised as lord of the humbler stronghold of
Drysllwyn. Chaworth's bands conquered all Cardiganshire. Thus the
wider "principality" of Llewelyn was shattered at the first
assault, and when the decisive moment came, Llewelyn was thrown
back upon his hereditary clansmen of Gwynedd. Of all the
acquisitions of the treaty of Shrewsbury, the four cantreds alone
still held for their prince.1
1 On the whole subject of this chapter Mr. J.E.
Morris's Welsh Wars of Edward I. throws a flood of new
light, especially on the military history, the organisation of the
Edwardian army, and the political condition of the march.
When the baronial levies mustered at Worcester, the work was
already half accomplished. Of the thousand lances that there
assembled, small forces were detached to help Mortimer in mid Wales
and to reinforce the marcher army in west Wales, which was now
commanded by Edmund of Lancaster, the king's brother. The mass of
the troops followed Edward to Chester, whence the main attack was
to be made. Edward's plan of operations was simplicity itself. He
knew that the Welsh desired no pitched battle, and he was
indisposed to lose his soldiers in unnecessary conflict. Swarms of
workmen cleared a wide road through the dense forests of the four
cantreds. The route chosen was as near as possible to the coast,
where a strong fleet, mainly from the Cinque Ports, kept up
communications with the land forces. The advance was cautious and
slow, with long halts at Flint and at Rhuddlan, where hastily
erected forts secured the king's base and safe-guarded a possible
retreat. By the end of August the king was at Deganwy, and the four
cantreds were conquered. During all this time fresh forces were
hurried up. Some 15,000 infantry, largely drawn from southern and
central Wales, swelled the king's host.
Llewelyn was closely shut up in the Snowdon country. His
position was safe enough from a direct assault, and his only fear
was want of provisions. He trusted, however, that supplies would
come in from Anglesea, whose rich cornfields were yellowing for the
harvest. But the fleet of the Cinque Ports cut off communications
between Anglesea and the mainland, and ferried over a strong
detachment of Edward's troops, which occupied the island. English
harvest-men gathered for Edward the crops of Welsh corn, and left
Llewelyn to face the beginnings of a mountain-winter without the
means of feeding his followers. By September the real fight was
over. Edward withdrew to Rhuddlan and dismissed the greater part of
his followers. Enough were left to block the approaches to Snowdon,
and Llewelyn, seeing no gain in further delay, made his submission
on November 9.
The treaty of Aberconway, which Edward dictated, reduced
Llewelyn to the position of a petty North Welsh chieftain, which he
had held thirty years before. He gave up the homage of the greater
Welsh magnates, and resigned all his former conquests. The four
cantreds thus passed away from his power, and even Anglesea was
only allowed to him for life and subject to a yearly tribute. He
was compelled to do homage, and ordered to pay a crushing
indemnity, twice as much as the expenses of the war. But Edward was
in a generous mood. After Llewelyn's personal submission at
Rhuddlan, the king remitted the indemnity and the rent for
Anglesea. It was a boon to Llewelyn that the treacherous David
received his reward not' in Gwynedd itself but in Duffryn Clwyd and
Rhuvoniog, two of the four cantreds of the Perveddwlad. Llewelyn's
humiliation was completed by his enforced attendance at Edward's
Christmas court at Westminster. Next year, however, he received a
further sign of royal favour. He was allowed to marry Eleanor
Montfort, and Edward himself was present at their wedding. But on
the morning of the ceremony, Llewelyn was forced to make a promise
not to entertain the king's fugitives and outlaws.
The treaty of Aberconway left Edward free to revive in the rest
of Wales the policy which, when originally begun in 1254,1 had,
like a rising flood, floated Llewelyn into his wider principality.
The lords marchers resumed their ancient limits. Princes like
Griffith of Powys and Rhys of Drysllwyn sank into a position which
is indistinguishable from that of their Anglo-Norman neighbours.
David, in the vale of Clwyd had no better prospects. The heirs of
lower Powys were put under the guardianship of Roger Mortimer's
younger son, another Roger, who, on the death of his wards by
drowning, received possession of their lands, and henceforth, as
Roger Mortimer of Chirk, became a new marcher baron. Meanwhile
Edward busied himself with schemes for establishing settled
government in the conquered territories. To a man of his training
and temperament, this meant the establishment of English law and
administration. He could see no merits in the archaic Welsh customs
which regarded all crimes as capable of atonement by a money
payment, treated a wrecked ship as the lawful perquisite of the
local proprietor, and hardly distinguished legitimate from
illegitimate children in determining the descent of property. He
convinced himself that the land laws of Wales were already those of
Anglo-Norman feudalism. He subjected the cantreds of Rhos and
Englefield to the Cheshire county court, and breathed a new life
into the decayed shire organisation of Cardiganshire and
Carmarthenshire. Flint and Rhuddlan dominated the two former,
Aberystwyth and Carmarthen the latter. Round the king's castles
grew up petty boroughs of English traders, who would, it was
believed, teach the Welsh to love commerce and peaceful ways.
1 See page 76.
For five years all seemed to go well, though underneath the
apparent calm a storm was gradually gathering. The Welsh of the
ceded districts bitterly resented the imposition of a strange yoke
and complained that the king had broken his promise to respect
their laws. "Are the Welsh worse than Jews?" was their cry, "and
yet the king allows the Jews to follow their own laws in England."
But Edward coldly answered that, though it would be a breach of his
coronation oath to maintain customs of Howel the Good, which were
contrary to the Decalogue, he was willing to listen to specific
complaints. It was, however, a very difficult matter to persuade
Edward's bailiffs and agents to carry out his
commands, and many acts of oppression were wrought for which there
was no redress. Nobles like David and Rhys found their franchises
threatened by the encroachments of the neighbouring shire-courts.
Lesser Welshmen were liable to be robbed and insulted by the
workmen who were building Edward's castles, or by the soldiers who
were garrisoning them. At last even the Welsh who had helped Edward
to put down Llewelyn saw that they had been preparing their own
ruin, and turned to their former enemy for the redress refused them
at Westminster. David himself made common cause with his brother,
and the spirit of resistance spread among the half-hearted Cymry of
the south. Edward's oppression did more than Llewelyn's triumphs to
weld together the Welsh clans into a single people. A rising was
planned in the strictest secrecy; and on the eve of Palm Sunday,
March 21, 1282, David swooped down on Hawarden, a weak castle in
private hands, and captured it. Llewelyn promptly crossed the
Conway and turned his arms against the royal strongholds of Flint
and Rhuddlan, which withstood him, though he devastated the
countryside in every direction. Meanwhile David hurried south and
found the local lords in Cardigan and the vale of Towy already in
arms. With their help he captured the castles of the upper Towy,
but lower down the river Rhys remained staunch to the king,
whereupon David hurried over the hills to Cardiganshire and took
Aberystwyth. North and south were in full revolt.
Edward, taken unawares, prepared to reassert his authority.
Certain faithful barons were "affectionately requested" to serve
the king for pay, and a fairly large army was gathered together,
though the scattered character of the rebellion necessitated its
acting in small bands. Meanwhile the military tenants and the
Cinque Ports were summoned to join in an attack on Llewelyn on the
lines of the campaign of 1277. Edward's task was more difficult
than on the previous occasion. Though Rhuddlan, not Chester as in
1277, had become his starting-point against Gwynedd, he dared not
advance so long as David threatened his left flank from Denbigh,
and the rising in the south was far more formidable than that of
five years before. A considerable part of the levies had to be
despatched to the help of Earl Gilbert of Gloucester, who was
charged with the reconquest of the vale of Towy. On June 17 as the
earl's soldiers were returning, laden with plunder, to their
headquarters at Dynevor, they were suddenly attacked by the Welsh
at Llandilo, and were driven back on their base. Gloucester hastily
retreated to Carmarthen. He was superseded by William of Valence,
whose activity against the Welsh had been quickened by the loss of
his son at Llandilo. Llewelyn then came south, and pressed the
English so hard that for several weeks nothing of moment was
accomplished.
The advance against Gwynedd was delayed until the late summer.
Edward still tarried at Rhuddlan, with a host constantly varying in
numbers, for his soldiers had long overpassed the period of feudal
service. Every effort was made to bring fresh troops to the field,
and Luke de Tany, seneschal of Gascony, came upon the scene with a
small levy of the chivalry of Aquitaine. To Tany was assigned the
task of conquering Anglesey, but it was not until September that he
was able to occupy the island. In the same month a strenuous effort
was made to dislodge the hostile Welsh in the vale of Clwyd; the
Earl of Lincoln at last took Denbigh from David; Reginald Grey,
justice of Chester, captured Ruthin, higher up the valley, and Earl
Warenne seized Bromfield and Yale. Each noble fought for his own
hand, and Edward was forced to reward their services by immediately
granting to them their conquests, and thus created a new marcher
interest which, later on, stood in the way of an effective
settlement. But things were getting desperate, and it was well for
Edward that the security of his left flank at last enabled him to
advance to the Conway. Thereupon Llewelyn returned to Snowdon,
where he was joined by the homeless David. Meanwhile Tany, then
master of Anglesey, opened up communications with the coast of
Arvon by a bridge of boats over the Menai Straits. Winter was
already at hand when Llewelyn and his brother were at last shut up
amidst the fastnesses of Snowdon.
Late in October Archbishop Peckham appeared on the scene. He had
excommunicated Llewelyn at the beginning of the war, but was still
anxious to negotiate a peace. Edward did his best to put him off,
but Peckham's importunity extorted from him a short truce, during
which the primate visited Snowdon, taking with him an offer of an
ample estate in England if the prince would surrender his patrimony.
Llewelyn furnished Peckham with long catalogues of grievances. He
was quite willing to gain time by discussing his wrongs.
Edward's army shared his irritation at Peckham's interference,
and, while the archbishop was still in Snowdon, a breach of the
truce destroyed any hopes of peace. On November 6 Tany led his
troops over the bridge of boats at low water and marched inland.
But his operations were ill-planned, and the Welsh came down from
the hills and easily put him to flight. Meanwhile the tide had
risen and the flood cut off access to the bridge over the Menai. In
their panic the soldiers rushed into the water rather than face the
enemy. Many leading men were drowned, including Tany himself, the
author of the treachery. Flushed with this success Llewelyn
rejected Peckham's terms. In great disgust the archbishop went back
to England, bitterly denouncing the Welsh. But defeat only
strengthened the iron resolution of Edward. He issued fresh
summonses for men and money. Contrary to all precedent, he
determined to continue the campaign through the winter.
Llewelyn was probably ignorant of the perilous plight into which
the king had fallen. With the approach of bad weather he became
afraid that he would be starved out in Snowdon. Any risk was better
than being caught like a rat in a trap, and, fearing lest a cordon
should be drawn round the mountains, he made his way southwards,
leaving David in command. His enemy, Roger Mortimer, was just dead,
and Mortimer's eldest son Edmund, a youth brought up for the
clerical profession, was not likely to hold the middle marches with
the same strong grasp as his father. Thither accordingly Llewelyn
made his way, hoping that on his approach the tribesmen of the
upper Wye, over whom he had ruled so long, would abandon their
English lord for their Cymric chieftain. A force gathered round
him, and he occupied a strong position on a hill overlooking the
river Yrvon, which flows into the right bank of the Wye, just above
Builth. The right bank of the Yrvon was held by the English of
Builth. But the only way over the stream was by Orewyn bridge,
which was held by a detachment of the Welsh. Their position seemed
so secure that, on December 11, Llewelyn left his troops to confer
with some of the local chieftains. The English were, however, shown
a ford over the river; a band crossed in safety, and, taking the
defenders of Orewyn bridge in the rear, opened up the passage over
it to their comrades. The English ascended the hill, their
mail-clad squadrons interlaced with archers, in order that the
Welsh infantry might be assailed by missiles before they were
exposed to the shock of a cavalry charge. In the absence of their
leader, the Welsh were a helpless mass of sheep, and were easily
put to flight. Meanwhile Llewelyn, hearing the din of battle,
hurried back to direct his followers. On the way he was slain by
Stephen of Frankton, a Shropshire veteran of the Barons' War, who
fought under the banner of Roger l'Estrange. The discovery of
important papers on the body first told the conquerors the rank of
their victim.
Thus perished the able and strenuous chief, who had struggled so
long to win for himself in Wales a position similar to that
occupied by the King of Scots in the north. His death did not end,
but it much simplified, the struggle. The south and midland
districts were entirely subdued, and the interest of the war again
shifted to the mountains of Snowdon, where David strove to maintain
himself as Prince of Wales. His best chance lay in the exhaustion
of his enemy, but Edward stuck grimly to his task. His coffers were
exhausted, and his army for the most part went home. Yet Edward
tarried at Rhuddlan for over six months, dividing his energy
between watching the Welsh and replenishing his treasure and
troops. His treasurer, John Kirkby, wandered from shire to shire
soliciting voluntary contributions. Then in January, 1283, an
anomalous parliament was summoned, consisting mainly of
ecclesiastics, knights of the shire, and burgesses, and meeting in
two divisions, at York and at Northampton, according as the members
came from the northern or southern ecclesiastical provinces. The
grant of a thirtieth so little satisfied the king that he laid
violent hands on the crusading-tenth, which was deposited in the
Temple. Meanwhile the chivalry of Gascony and Ponthieu were tempted
by high wages to supply the void left by the retirement of the
English.
Early in 1283 a gallant force from beyond sea, among which
figured the Counts of Armagnac and Bigorre, reached Rhuddlan. After
their arrival the king took the offensive, crossed the Conway and
transferred his headquarters to the Cistercian abbey of Aberconway.
Fearful once more of being enclosed in the mountains, David sought
a new hiding-place among the heights of Cader Idris. He shifted his
quarters to the castle of Bere, hidden away in a remote valley
sloping down from the mountain to the sea. The unwearied Edward
once more issued summonses for a fresh campaign. David was at the
extremity of his resources. Before the new arrivals enabled Edward
to move, William of Valence marched up from the south, and in April
forced Bere to surrender. David fled before the siege began; but he
was a fugitive without an army, and the campaign was reduced to a
weary tracking out of the last little bands that still scorned to
surrender. In June David was betrayed by men of his own tongue, and
Edward summoned for Michaelmas at Shrewsbury a parliament whose
chief business was the trial of David. On October 3 the last Cymric
Prince of Wales suffered the ignominious doom of a traitor, a
murderer, and a blasphemer. The magnates then adjourned to the
chancellor's neighbouring seat of Acton Burnell, where the
rejoicings incident to the king's visit to his friend's new mansion
were combined with passing the statute of Merchants.
Edward's love of thoroughness made him linger in Wales to settle
the government of the newly won lands. His first care was to hold
Snowdon with the ring of fortresses which, in their ruin, still
bear abiding witness to the solidity of the conqueror's work. Round
each castle arose a new town, created as artificially as were the
bastides of Aquitaine, within whose walls English traders
and settlers were tempted by high privileges to take up their
abodes, and whose strictly military character was emphasised by the
general provision that the constable of the castle was to be ex
officio the mayor of the municipality. Chief among these was
Aberconway, whose strategic importance Edward understood so fully
that he forced the Cistercian monks to take up new quarters at
Maenan, higher up the valley, in order that there might be room for
the castle and town which were henceforth to guard the entrance to
Snowdon. Equally important was the future capital of Gwynedd,
Carnarvon, where on April 25, 1284, a son was born to Edward and
Eleanor, who seventeen years later was to become the first English
Prince of Wales. Elsewhere fortresses of Welsh origin were rebuilt
and enlarged to complete the stone circuit round the mountains.
Such
were Criccieth, the key of Lleyn; Dolwyddelen, which dominated the
upper Conway; and Harlech and Bere, the two strongholds that curbed
the mountaineers of Merioneth. In the south the same policy was
carried out. Alike in Gwynedd and in the vale of Towy, both in his
castle building and in his town foundations, Edward was simply
carrying on the traditions of earlier ages, and applying to his new
lands those principles of government which, since the Norman
Conquest, had become the tradition of the marcher lords. Even in
his architectural schemes there was nothing novel in Edward's
policy. Gilbert of Gloucester at Caerphilly, and Payne of Chaworth
at Kidwelly, had already worked out the pattern of "concentric"
defences that were to find their fullest expression in the new
castles of the principality. In each of these strongholds an
adequate garrison of highly trained and well-paid troops kept the
Welsh in check.
The civil government of the Edwardian conquests was provided for
by the statute of Wales, issued on Mid-Lent Sunday, 1284, at
Rhuddlan, Edward's usual headquarters. It declared that the land of
Wales, heretofore subject to the crown in feudal right, was
entirely transferred to the king's dominion. To the whole of the
annexed districts the English system of shire government was
extended, though such local customs as appealed to Edward's sense
of justice were suffered to be continued. Gwynedd and its
appurtenances were divided into the three shires of Anglesey,
Carnarvon, and Merioneth, and were collectively put under the
justice of Snowdon, whose seat was to be at Carnarvon, where courts
of chancery and exchequer for north Wales were set up. The shires
of Cardigan and Carmarthen were re-organised so as to include the
southern districts which had been subject to Llewelyn, or to the
Welsh lords who had fallen with him. These were put under the
justice of west Wales, whose chancery and exchequer were
established at Carmarthen. It is significant that Edward prepared
the way for making these districts into shires by persuading his
brother Edmund, to whom they had been granted, to abandon his
claims over them in return for ample compensation elsewhere.
Without this step the new shires would only have been palatinates
of the Glamorgan or Pembroke type, and the creation of such
franchises was directly contrary to Edward's policy. It was
different in the vale of Clwyd, where it would have
been natural for Edward to have extended the shire system to the
four cantreds. Military exigences had, however, already erected
most of these lands into new marcher lordships, and Edward was
perforce content with the union of some fragments of Rhos to the
shire of Carnarvon, and with joining together Englefield and some
adjoining districts in the new county of Flint. This arrangement
secured the strongholds of Flint and Rhuddlan for the king. But the
district was too small to make it worth while to set up a separate
organisation for it, and Flintshire was put under the justice and
courts of Chester, so that it became a dependency of the
neighbouring palatinate.1
1 For the shires of Walessee my paper on The
Welsh Shires in Y Cymmrodor, ix. (1888), 201-26.
The lordships of the march were not directly influenced by this
legislation. They continued to hold their position as franchises
until the reign of Henry VIII., and under Edward III. were declared
by statute to be no part of the principality but directly subject
to the English crown. Yet the removal of the pressure of a native
principality profoundly affected these districts. The policy of
definition made its mark even here. The liberties of each marcher
were defined and circumscribed, and, while scrupulously respected,
were incapable of further extension. The vague jurisdictions of the
sheriffs of the border shires were cleared up, and if this process
involved some limitation of the royal authority in districts like
Clun and Oswestry, which virtually ceased to be parts of
Shropshire, there was a compensating advantage in the increased
clearness with which the border line was drawn and the royal
authority consolidated. Gradually the marcher lordships passed by
lapse into the royal hands, and even from the beginning there were
regions, such as Montgomery and Builth, which knew no lord but the
king. All this was, however, an indirect result of the Edwardian
conquest. Strictly speaking it was no conquest of all Wales but
merely of the principality, the ancient dominions of Llewelyn, to
which most of the crown lands in Wales were joined.
Ecclesiastical settlement followed the political reorganisation.
Peckham was as zealous as Edward in compelling the conquered to
follow the law-abiding traditions of the king's ancient
inheritance. He laboured strenuously for the rebuilding of
churches, the preservation and extension of ecclesiastical
property, the education of the clergy, and the extirpation of
clerical matrimony and simony. Despite his unsympathetic attitude,
he did good work for the Welsh Church by his manful resistance to
all attempts of Edward and his subordinates to encroach upon her
liberties. He quaintly thought it would promote the civilisation of
Wales if the people were forced to "learn civility" by living in
towns and sending their children to school in England. His
assiduous visitation of the Welsh dioceses in 1284 did something to
kindle zeal, and win the Welsh clergy from the idleness wherein, he
believed, lay the root of all their shortcomings.
In the autumn of 1284 Edward went on an extended progress in
Wales. He passed through the four cantreds into Gwynedd, and thence
worked his way southwards through Cardigan and Carmarthen, ending
his tour by visits to the marcher lords of the south. He crossed
over from Glamorgan, where he had been entertained by Gilbert of
Clare, to Bristol, where he held his Christmas court. Wales was to
see no more of its new ruler for seven years. During that time the
principality gave Edward little trouble, though the marchers, as
will be seen, were a constant anxiety to him. In 1287, while Edward
was in Gascony, the regent, Edmund of Cornwall, was called upon to
deal with a revolt of Rhys, son of Meredith, the loyalist lord of
the vale of Towy, who resented the authority of the justice of
Carmarthen over his patrimony. His grievances were those of a
marcher rather than those of a Welshman. Yet his rising in 1287 was
formidable enough to require the raising of a great army for its
suppression. The Welsh chieftain could not long hold out against
the odds brought against him, and the confiscation of his lands
swelled the district directly depending on the sheriff of
Carmarthen. The support of the countryside enabled Rhys to evade
his pursuers for nearly three years. At last he was captured, and
with the execution of the last of the lords of Dynevor, the triumph
of Edward became complete.
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