CHAPTER III

THE WELSH WARS

The Welsh, who had been brought into at least nominal subjection by the strong hand of Henry I., were not slow to avail themselves of England’s weakness under Stephen to regain their liberty. Unfortunately the chief result of the removal of foreign control was the increase of those internal disputes which had always formed so large a part of the nation’s history.[13] Prince warred with prince, brother against brother, and cousin against cousin; treachery was met with treachery, and in the end the inevitable appeal of a disappointed claimant for foreign assistance against his successful rival brought an English army into Welsh soil once more. Owain Gwynedd, king of North Wales, had exiled his brother Cadwalader and seized his possessions, and it was on the pretext of restoring Cadwalader that Henry assembled his forces at Chester and prepared for the invasion of Wales in the summer of 1157.

The task was formidable alike from the nature of the country and the inhabitants. Wales was divided into three parts--North Wales or Venedotia, South Wales or Demetia, and Powys, but, save that the lance was the weapon of the northern Welsh and the bow of the southern, the divisions were arbitrary and artificial, and unconnected with any differences in the character of the population. With the exception of the Brabantine mercenaries, a race apart, a tribe of professional Ishmaelites, ready to turn their hands against any man for pay, no nation was so thoroughly permeated by the martial spirit as the Welsh. With the English and Normans war was the business of the gentry, but throughout Wales the young men of all classes, gentle and peasant alike, devoted their leisure to the practice of military exercises and strove to perfect themselves in the art of war. Possessing a country whose woods and mountains, intersected by torrents and marshy valleys, were admirably adapted for the ambuscade and other tricks of guerilla warfare, the Welsh had cultivated those qualities which enabled them to make best use of these natural advantages. Simple in their requirements for food or dress, they were hardy, active, and endowed with wonderful powers of endurance. Of defensive armour they made practically no use, yet they did not hesitate to encounter any foe, however well equipped; their first attack, delivered to an accompaniment of yells and braying trumpets, was furious, but, as is inevitable when light armed troops engage with heavy, if it did not prove immediately successful, they soon broke and fled, always ready, however, to resume the fight if opportunity offered. They did not disdain to strengthen their position with fortifications, and the whole land bristled with castles,[14] hardly a year passing without record of the erection, capture, recapture, or destruction of one or more castles in the course of the incessant wars waged either between local chieftains or with the Norman barons of the Marches; yet it was emphatically in the strategical use which they made of the natural advantages of their country that the Welsh were pre-eminent.

It is possible that the straightforward pitched battle between troops contending stubbornly under the open sky tends to promote the honourable traditions of chivalry, while the ambush, surprise, and night attack foster treachery and deceit. Certain it is that the Welsh were notorious amongst their contemporaries as liars and perjurers, men to whom the most solemn oaths were not binding; and their Norman neighbours, the lords Marchers, were not slow to follow their example, so that the history of the border warfare is constantly stained with treachery and broken oaths. The corollary to “Taffy was a Welshman” that “Taffy was a thief” was already recognised as an axiom at the time of the Domesday Survey, when the customs of the Herefordshire Welsh contained provisions for correcting this reprehensible propensity. Yet in spite of this tendency to enrich themselves at the expense of their neighbours the Welsh were open-handed and generous; none need beg for a meal, nor need the wayfarer fear to lack a resting-place. Hospitality was not so much a duty as a commonplace of life amongst this people, and exercised without hesitation. The food was simple, for though orgies of gluttony and drunkenness were only too common after a successful plundering raid, yet the habitual excess prevalent in England was here unknown; but this simplicity was more than atoned for by the charms of female society and the delights of music. In music the Welsh surpassed even the Irish; in every house a harp was to be found, and it is noteworthy that they shared with the men of Yorkshire the peculiarity of singing not in unison but in parts. In their rhythmical chanted songs the nation’s exceptional powers of rhetoric found their highest form of expression, and their bards were held in such honour that in 1157, when Morgan, son of King Owain Gwynedd, was murdered, it is expressly noted that with him was slain Gwrgant ap Rhys, “the best poet.” Thus with music and eloquent conversation were passed the restful hours of the day, the remainder of which would be devoted to military exercise, hunting, the tending of flocks and herds, or, more rarely, agriculture, for which the poor soil and the inclinations of the people were alike unsuited. They were thus perilously dependent upon England for much of their food supply and therefore liable to be starved into surrender in the event of war.

The antagonism existing between the peoples of England and Wales found some echo in the relations between the two branches of the Church. The Welsh Church, possessing a far longer continuous history than that of England, was less completely under the influence of Rome, and retained many primitive customs which were strange and even abhorrent to the more orthodox. Their clergy continued to marry, with the result that many benefices had become hereditary, descending from father to son like secular property. But if the marriage of the clergy was a primitive condition no longer canonical, the marriage customs of the laity were still more shocking to the orthodox, being in many cases not merely uncanonical but clearly survivals from pagan times, indefensible on any grounds except those of crude common-sense. The English Church, having control of the four sees of St. David’s, Llandaff, Bangor, and St. Asaph, should have been able to execute the necessary reforms, but unfortunately Norman prejudice forbade the appointment of a Welshman to any post of authority in Wales, and the sees were consequently occupied by foreigners who, for the most part, could not speak the language of their flocks, and only too frequently used their power to increase their slender revenues at the expense of their clergy. Despised by the Norman clergy as corrupt and by the nobles as barbarous, it is possible that the Welsh appeared to Henry less formidable opponents than they really were. Moreover, he disregarded the advice of the lords of the Marches, whose whole lives were spent in fighting their Welsh neighbours, and determined to conduct his expedition on the most approved continental lines. Owain had entrenched himself at Basingwerk, and Henry accordingly advanced along the coast for some distance, and then, meditating a flanking movement, led a detachment of his forces through the woods of Consillt. This gave the Welsh the opportunity for which they had been waiting, and no sooner were the Normans entangled in the woods than the forces under Owain’s sons, David and Cynan, fell upon them, inflicting heavy losses. Caught at a disadvantage the invaders were thrown into confusion; two of their leaders, Eustace Fitz-John and Robert de Courcy, were slain, and a cry was raised that the king had been killed. Panic ensued, and it was afterwards said that Henry of Essex, the Constable of England, had thrown down the royal standard and fled. If the Constable really displayed cowardice on this occasion the fact must have been hushed up, for nothing is heard of it for six years, until in 1163 Robert de Montfort made it the subject of a formal accusation. Such an accusation could have only one outcome, and accordingly a duel was fought between the two parties at Reading in the king’s presence, when Henry of Essex, rashly abandoning a successful defence for the offensive, was defeated and left for dead on the ground, but being nursed back to life by the monks of Reading, joined their community and spent the remainder of his days in their abbey. It is noteworthy that the challenger, Robert de Montfort, was a connection of his opponent’s and not improbably a rival claimant to the constableship, which Henry had inherited through the heiress of Hugh de Montfort.[15] On the whole it would seem more probable that Robert should have made his accusation as a taunt based on some flying rumour and that the result of the duel was unjust, than that King Henry should have condoned the Constable’s cowardice and allowed him to continue in honour at his court.

However Henry of Essex may have behaved, it is clear that the Normans had suffered a severe defeat, and Henry in a furious rage drew off his troops and rejoined the main body of his army, with which he advanced unopposed to Rhuddlan, Owain having withdrawn from Basingwerk to Conway. Meanwhile the fleet, which was acting in unison with the land forces, had been despatched to Anglesea, to ravage that fertile island, the granary of North Wales. But here bad discipline was the cause of a severe check; the attractions of looting churches and monasteries proved too great for the royal forces and delivered them into the hands of the ever vigilant natives. The sailors lost their commander, William Trenchemer, and most of their officers, while amongst the men of note who fell was Henry, the king’s half-uncle, son of Henry I. by the famous Welsh princess Nest. In spite of these two initial successes Owain felt himself in a position of danger, and preferring to make terms rather than to have them forced upon him, made peace and gave hostages to Henry. Cadwalader was restored to his possessions, and homage was done by Owain to the English king, and the English frontier was once more pushed as far forward as Rhuddlan, where, as also at Basingwerk, Henry restored the castle. The campaign, therefore, might be regarded as fairly successful, although the only two engagements recorded had been disastrous.

Although Owain Gwynedd and the other princes had come to terms with King Henry, the redoubtable Rhys, son of Gruffudd of South Wales, proposed to continue the war. Finding, however, that he would receive no support from any other native princes, he was persuaded to make his peace with the king, who in return promised to grant him a complete _cantref_ of land. The spirit of the agreement was broken by the grant of the land in scattered portions instead of in a continuous block, but Rhys accepted the gift and remained quiet until he found that the king would not do him justice against Walter Clifford, when he took the law into his own hands and made a series of successful attacks upon the strongholds of the Norman barons in Cardigan. About the same time, in 1158, Yvor the Little, a noble of Glamorgan, being deprived of his lands by Earl William of Gloucester, made a daring night attack upon the castle of Cardiff, and in spite of its strength and the imposing numbers of its garrison, said to have numbered 120 men-at-arms, besides archers and others, carried off the earl with his countess and their son, who were only released after more than full restitution had been made to Yvor. Meanwhile Rhys, encouraged by his successes in Cardigan, attacked Caermarthen, and Henry, who was preparing for a great expedition into the south of France, was obliged to send a force under the Earls of Cornwall, Gloucester, and Clare to relieve the castle. This they did, and they were also successful in bringing Rhys to accept terms of peace.

Peace, so far as it ever existed on the Welsh borders, continued for a short time, but when Henry returned to England in 1163, he found the country in so disturbed a state that he was obliged to lead an army against Rhys. The latter offered little or no active opposition, and the expedition took the form of a military progress through Glamorgan and Gower towards Caermarthen and as far as Pencader, returning by the mountains of Plinlimmon to Radnor. It is said that during this progress the invading host came to a stream called Nant Pencarn, where the natives anxiously waited to see whether Henry would fulfil in his own person a traditional prophecy that the crossing of the ancient ford by a brave man with a freckled face should foreshadow the defeat of the Welsh. When they saw the king ride past the old ford and set his horse to cross by one newer and better known, the Welsh set up such a blare of horns and trumpets that his horse took fright, and the king, turning round, made for the older ford and dashed across, this time without any orchestral welcome.

As a result of this campaign Rhys, with Owain of North Wales and other princes, attended Henry’s court at Woodstock and did homage to him there in July 1163. The king, apparently meditating the confiscation of his estates or possibly the extortion of a ransom, sent a knight to visit Dynevor, the capital of South Wales, and to report upon the nature of the country; the priest, however, who acted as guide, while professing to go by the best route, took the unsuspecting knight by all the worst and most impassable tracks, and so contrived to impress him with the utter poverty of the land and the inhabitants that the king, on the strength of his report, abandoned his first intention and released Rhys, only taking from him hostages for his good behaviour. Hardly had Rhys returned than he renewed the struggle, recapturing the whole district of Cardigan, invading Pembrokeshire and despoiling the Norman and Flemish settlers. His example was speedily followed by Owain Gwynedd and his sons, who ravaged the district round Rhuddlan. In October 1164 Henry had issued orders for a force to be raised against Rhys, and on his return to England in the following May, he found this force ready and with it pushed hastily forward to Rhuddlan. Having relieved pressure in this district for the time being he returned to England to collect a larger army, furiously vowing to destroy the whole nation of Welsh. The border fortresses were set in order from Abergavenny, Grosmont, Llantilis, and Skenfrith in the south to Montgomery, Shrawardine, and Chirk in the north; foreign mercenaries were brought over and provided with arms, Ernald the armourer providing 300 bucklers for their use; lances and arrows were bought in Oxford and elsewhere and despatched to the frontier; and, above all, large sums of money were extorted from the cities, prelates, and nobles for the conduct of the war.[16] Operations on a small scale seem to have been carried on from Abergavenny, but the king, with the main part of his imposing army, advanced from Shrewsbury to Oswestry and so into Powys. For once the Welsh were united; Rhys of South Wales, Owain Gwynedd and Cadwalader his brother, the former ally of the English, the two sons of Madog of Powys, lesser princes such as Owain Cyveliog and Jorwerth the Red, all with their whole following were assembled to oppose the invader.

Henry advanced down the valley of the Ceiriog and, mindful of former disaster, endeavoured to protect his flanks by cutting down the woods. Indecisive skirmishing took place, resulting in heavy losses to both sides, but the Welsh avoided a pitched battle and retired before the royal forces until the latter had penetrated as far as the mountains of Berwyn in Merionethshire. Here they encamped, ravaging the country round and plundering the churches, to the intense anger of the Welsh, who always scrupulously observed the sanctity of churches. Punishment speedily overtook the impious host: tremendous storms of rain, exceptionally vehement even for Wales, coupled with a shortage of provisions, drove the English back in a disorderly and disastrous retreat to Chester, where Henry waited for the arrival of a fleet from Ireland. When the ships came they proved to be insufficient for the conduct of further operations against the Welsh. The king, furious at his ill-success, took a mean revenge by barbarously mutilating the sons of Rhys and Owain and a score of other hostages in his power.[17]

Hardly had the English army retired from Wales when Rhys stormed the castle of Cardigan and captured its lord, Robert Fitz-Stephen. Next year, in 1165, the Normans and Flemings of Pembroke made two unsuccessful attempts to retake Cardigan, while in the north Owain Gwynedd destroyed Basingwerk. Internal dissensions led to the ejection from their lands of Jorwerth the Red and Owain Cyveliog,[18] and the latter, in 1166, assisted the Normans to gain a small success in the capture of the castle of Caereinion, but this was more than counterbalanced by the action of Rhys and Owain Gwynedd, who, after a three months’ siege, captured the castles of Rhuddlan and Prestatyn. The development of Irish affairs now made friendly relations with Wales important, the main route to Ireland being by way of South Wales and the ports of Pembrokeshire. Accordingly we find Henry becoming reconciled to Rhys in 1171, and from henceforth treating him with an honourable courtesy which the Welsh prince reciprocated. Peace, therefore, varied with occasional border skirmishes, continued between England and Wales until the end of Henry’s reign, and the Welsh, deprived of the pleasure of molesting the foreigner, turned with the greater zest to the task of cutting one another’s throats.

The invariable failure of Henry’s military policy in Wales was due to his persistent disregard of the local lords of the marches and reliance upon men famous in continental warfare but totally ignorant of the very different conditions prevailing in the mountains and forests of Wales. Such a man as Gerald de Barri could have given the king far more useful advice in the conduct of a Welsh campaign than any of his great Norman barons. That acute historian afterwards set out at length the measures necessary for the conquest of his native country. No expedition should be undertaken hastily, but careful preparations should be made, allies secured, and internal divisions carefully fostered; castles should be built along the frontier, trade with England, especially in provisions, stopped, and the coasts blockaded. This would, as a rule, be sufficient to bring them to terms, but if military operations were needful then an advance should be made in the early spring before the trees came into leaf; the troops should be light armed, and preferably men of the border used to the country rather than Flemish or Brabantines, good as the latter were on their own ground. The operations should be conducted by counsel of the lords marchers, and heavy losses must be expected and borne with equanimity, for while mercenaries are easily replaced the Welsh could not replace their men. Once subdued the natives should be treated with justice and kindness so long as they remain quiet, but their rulers should be ever watchful and should punish rebellion with severity. To diminish the chance of revolt the intervals of peace ought to be used for the building of roads and of castles, and at the same time the English border towns along the Severn might well have special privileges granted them to facilitate their growth, and in return they should be bound to maintain a fitting provision of arms and horses and to practise universal military training. “Yet for all this the nation shall not perish utterly, and at the last great Day of Judgment this little spot of land shall be answered for by the Welsh race, still speaking in their ancient tongue.”