of the Conway, was seized and fortified, and the Welsh
king had to remove to Aberffraw, in Anglesey.
" The conquest which now began," says Mr. Freeman,
"that which we call either the English or Norman conquest
14 THE ENGLISH CONQUEST
of Britain, differed from the Norman conquest of England.
It wrought far less change than the landing at Ebbfleet ; it
wrought far more change than the landing at Pevensey.
"The Britton of these lands, which in the Red King's
day were still British, was gradually conquered ; he was
brought gradually under English rule and English law, but
he was neither exterminated nor enslaved, nor wholly assimi-
lated. He still abides in his ancient land, still speaking his
ancient tongue.
" The English or Norman conquest of Wales was not
due to a national migration like the English conquest of
Britain, nor was it a conquest wrought under the guise
of an elaborate legal fiction, like the Norman conquest
of England."
The process pursued was this. The Norman barons
advanced with their armed men along the shore, and
up the basins of the rivers, till they gained some
point of vantage controlling the neighbourhood, and
there they erected castles of stone. This was an art
they had acquired in Normandy, where stone was
abundant and easily quarried. It was one to which
the Brittons were strange. By degrees they forced
their way further ; they seized the whole seaboard.
They strangled the valleys by gripping them where
they opened out ; they controlled the fertile pasture
and arable land from their strongholds. Towns
sprang up under the shelter of the castles, and Eng-
lish mechanics and traders were encouraged to settle
in them.
The Welsh had never been city builders or dwellers
in cities. They had suffered the old Roman towns
to fall into decay, the walls to crumble into shapeless
heaps of ruins. They lived in scattered farms, and
LAND OF CASTLES 15
every farmer had his hafod, or summer residence, as
well as his hendre, or winter and principal home.
Only the retainers of a prince dwelt about him in
his palace, or caer. And now they saw strongly
walled and fortified towns starting up at command-
ing points on the roads and beside all harbours.
The arteries of traffic, the very pores of the land,
were occupied by foreigners.
As Freeman further observes : —
"Wales is, as everyone knows, pre-eminently the land
of castles. Through those districts with which we are
specially concerned, castles great and small, or the ruins
or traces of castles, meet us at every step. The churches,
mostly small and plain, might themselves, with their forti-
fied towers, almost count as castles. The towns, almost
all of English foundation, were mostly small; they were
military colonies rather than seats of commerce. As Wales
had no immemorial cities like Exeter and Lincoln, so she
had no towns which sprung up into greatness in later times,
like Bristol, Norwich, and Coventry. Every memorial of
former days which we see in the British land reminds us
of how long warfare remained the daily business alike of
the men in that land and of the strangers who had made
their way into it at the sword's point."
Through the reigns of the Plantagenet kings the
oppression and cruelties to which the Welsh were
subjected drove them repeatedly to reprisals. At
times they were successful.
During the commotions caused by the misrule of
King John and the incapacity of Henry III. the
Welsh took occasion to stretch their limbs and recover
some of the lands that had been wrested from them,
16 THE ENGLISH CONOUEST
and to throw down the castles that were an incubus
upon them.
There were three Welsh kingdoms, or principalities.
Gwynedd, roughly conterminous with the counties of
Anglesey, Carnarvon, Merioneth, and parts of Den-
bigh and Flint. Powys, sadly shrunken, still comprised
Montgomeryshire and Radnor and a portion of
Denbigh. The third principality, Deheubarth or
Dynevor, composed of Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire,
Carmarthenshire, and Glamorgan. Brecknock was
claimed as part of it, but was an enclave in which the
Normans had firmly established themselves. Mon-
mouthshire also belonged to Deheubarth.
The king of Gwynedd claimed supremacy as head
over the rest, and although this was allowed as a
theory, if practically asserted it always met with
armed resistance. But this was not all that went
to weaken the Welsh opposition. Each prince who
left sons carved up his principality into portions for
each, and as the brothers were mutually jealous and
desirous of acquiring each other's land, this led to
incessant strife and intrigue with the enemy in the
heart of each of the three principalities. A great op-
portunity had offered. Rhodri the Great had united
all Wales in his own hands, as mentioned already.
But the union lasted only for his life ; all flew apart
once more at his death in 877, and that just at the
moment when unity was of paramount importance.
Llewelyn ab Iorwerth, surnamed " the Great," was
king of Gwynedd at the beginning of the thirteenth
century, and he had sufficient wit to see that the only
salvation for Wales was to be found in its reunion,
THE LLEWELYNS 17
and he attempted to achieve this. As Powys was
obstructive, he had to fight Gwenwynwyn its king,
then to subject Lleyn and Merioneth.
In 1202 Llewelyn was firmly established in
Gwynedd, and he married Joan, the daughter of
King John, who proceeded to reinstate Gwenwyn-
wyn in Powys. In 121 1 this prince sided with
Llewelyn against John, who, furious at this act of
ingratitude, hanged twenty-eight Welsh hostages at
Nottingham.
Llewelyn now turned his attention to the conquest
of South Wales. He stormed one castle after
another, and obtained recognition as prince of
Dynevor. But in 12 16 the false and fickle Gwen-
wynwyn abandoned the Welsh side and went over
to that of the English. After some fighting Llewelyn
submitted to Henry III. at Worcester in 12 18.
His grandson, another Llewelyn, was also an able
man, but he lacked just that essential faculty of being
able to detect the changes of the sky and the signs
of the times, and that ruined him.
In 1256 Llewelyn was engaged in war against the
English. He had done homage to Henry III. in
1247, but the unrest in England caused by the
feeble rule and favouritism of Henry had resulted in
the revolt of the barons. Llewelyn took advantage
of this condition of affairs to recover Deganwy
Castle and to subdue Ceredigion. Then he drove
the unpatriotic son of Gwenwynwyn out of Powys.
The same year he entered South Wales, and was
everywhere victorious. Brecon was brought under
his rule, and the castles held by the English were
c
18 THE ENGLISH CONOUEST
taken and burned. But Llewelyn's great difficulty
lay with his own people, though his power was
used for the recovery of Wales from English dom-
ination.
In 1265 he had received the oaths of fealty
throughout Wales, which was now once more an in-
dependent principality. But he made at this point
a fatal mistake. He did not appreciate the strength
and determination of Edward I., the son of the feeble
Henry, and in place of making favourable terms with
him he intrigued against him with some revolted
barons.
But Edward was a man of different metal from his
father, and he declared war against Llewelyn, and in
1277 invaded Wales.
Three formidable armies poured in, and Llewelyn
was driven to take refuge among the wilds of
Snowdon, where he was starved into submission.
All might have gone smoothly thenceforth had
Edward been just. But he was ungenerous and
harsh. He suffered his officials to treat the Welsh
with such brutality that their condition became in-
tolerable. Appeals for redress that were made to
him were contemptuously set aside, and the Welsh
princes and people felt that it would be better to die
with honour than to be treated as slaves.
A general revolt broke out. In 1282 Llewelyn
took the castles of Flint, Rhuddlan, and Hawarden
in the north, and Prince Gruffydd rose against the
English in the south.
Edward I. resolved on completely and irretrievably
crushing Wales under his heel. He entered it with
FIRST PRINCE OF WALES 19
a large army, and again drove Llewelyn into the
fastnesses of Snowdon. Llewelyn thence moved
south to join forces with the Welsh of Dyved, leav-
ing his brother David to hold the king back in North
Wales.
The place appointed for the junction was near
Builth, in Brecknock, but he was betrayed into a trap
and was surrounded and slain, and his head sent to
Edward, who was at Conway.
Edward ordered that his gallant adversary's body
should be denied a Christian burial, and forwarded
the head to London, where, crowned in mockery
with ivy leaves, it was set in the pillory in Cheapside.
Nor was that all : he succeeded in securing the person
of David, had him tried for high treason, hanged,
drawn, and quartered. Llewelyn's daughter was
forced to assume the veil. Thus ended the line of
Cunedda, and Llewelyn is regarded as the last of the
kings of Wales.
Edward was at Carnarvon when his second son
Edward was born, 1301, and soon after he proclaimed
him Prince of Wales.
It has been fondly supposed that this was a tact-
ful and gracious act of the king to reconcile the
Welsh to the English Crown. It was nothing of the
kind. His object was to assure the Crown lands of
Gwynedd to his son.
; ' Edward's brutal treatment of the remains of Llewelyn,
who, though a rebel according to the laws of the king's
nation, was slain in honourable war, and his utter want of
magnanimity in dealing with David were long remembered
among the Cymry, and helped to keep alive the hatred
2o THE ENGLISH CONOUEST
with which the Welsh-speaking people for several genera-
tions more regarded the English."*
The principality of Wales indeed remained, but
in a new and alien form, and all was over for ever
with the royal Cymric line.
* Rhys and Brynmor Jones, The Wehh People, p. 342.
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CHAPTER III
ANGLESEY
The "Mother of Wales" — Agricola — Invades Mon — Mines — Caswallon
Long-hand — Drives out the Irish— Conquest by Edwin — Aberffraw
— Characteristics of Anglesey — Plas Llanfair — Llandyssilio —
Llansadwrn — Inscribed stone of Sadwrn — Prophecy — Beaumaris —
Bulkeley monuments — Penmon — Church of S. Seiriol — Old gallows
— Puffin Isle — Maelgwn Gwynedd — Gildas — Loss of the Rothesay
Castle — Tin Sylwy — English and Welsh inscriptions — Monument
of Iestyn — His story — The Three Leaps — Amlwch — Llaneilian —
John Jones — Llanbadrig — The witches of Llanddona — Goronwy
Owen — Lewis Morris.
ANGLESEY is called the "Mother of Wales,"
J-\_ apparently because of its fertility and as
supplying the mountain districts of the Principality
with corn.
It has not the rugged beauty of the greater portion
of Wales — there is, however, some bold coast scenery
on the north and the west — but it possesses one great
charm, the magnificent prospects it affords of the
Snowdon chain and group and of the heights of Lleyn.
Its Welsh name is Mon, which was Latinised into
Mona, and it did not acquire that of Anglesey till
this was given to it by King Egbert in 828. We
first hear of it in A.D. 78, when the Roman general
Cn. Julius Agricola was sent into Britain. He at
22
THE ORDOVICES 2x
3
once marched against the Ordovices, who occupied
Powys.
As represented by Tacitus, Agricola was a Roman
of the purest type, a man sincere, faithful, and
affectionate in his domestic relations, and gracious
in his behaviour to all men. He was upright in
his dealings, a fine soldier, an able general, but in-
flexible in his dealings with the enemies of Rome.
The ancient Roman was filled with the conviction
that the gods had predestined the City on the
Seven Hills to rule all nations and languages, and
that such as resisted were to be treated as the
enemies of the gods. No mercy was to be accorded
to them. Much of the same principle actuated the
generals of the Republic and the Empire as did the
followers of the Prophet. With one it was Rome,
with the other Islam, or the sword.
The Ordovices had been most stubborn in their
opposition, and most difficult to restrain within
bounds. In a short but decisive campaign Agricola
so severely chastised them that his biographer says
that he almost literally exterminated them. This is
certainly an exaggeration, but it implies the hewing
to pieces of the chiefs and free men capable of bear-
ing the sword who fell into his hands. Caesar had
treated the Cadurci, after their gallant stand at
Uxellodunum, in the same way, and again the
Veneti of Armorica, without a shadow of compunc-
tion. Whatsoever people opposed Rome was guilty
of a capital crime, and must be dealt with accord-
ingly. Agricola now pushed on to the Menai Straits,
beyond which he could see the undulating land of
24 ANGLESEY
Mona, the shore lined with Britons in paint, and
brandishing their weapons, whilst behind them were
ranged the Druids and bards inciting them to victory
with their incantations and songs.
We can determine with some confidence the spot
where Agricola stood contemplating the last strong-
hold of the Briton and its defenders. It was at
Dinorwic, where now plies a ferry.
He waited till the strong current of the tide had
run to exhaustion and left a long stretch of sand on
the further side. The Britons seeing that he was
without ships feared nothing.
But they were speedily convinced of their mistake.
Agricola's auxiliaries, probably natives of the low
lands at the mouth of the Rhine, had no fear of the
water, plunged in, and gallantly swam across the
channel.
A massacre ensued ; the island was subjugated,
and Roman remains found on it in several places
testify that the conquerors of the world planted troops
there in camp to keep Mona in complete control.
They worked the copper mines near Amlwch.
As the Roman power failed in Britain, Mona
became the stronghold of the invading Gwyddyl or
Irish; they held it, and erected on its commanding
heights their stone-walled fortresses, and it was not
till the time of Caswallon Long-hand, grandson of
Cunedda, that they were dislodged. He fought them
in a series of battles, drove them from their strong
castles faced with immense slabs of granite, such as Tin
Sylwy, swept them together into Holy Island, then
broke in on their last remaining fortress. According
HISTORY
25
to legend, Caswallon was obliged to fasten his Britons
together with horse-hobbles, to constrain them to
fight by taking away from them the chance of escape
by running away. With his own hand he slew Serigi,
the Irish chief, near the entrance to the camp, and
Mfi**5
SERIGI. A STATUE AT CAERGYEI
those of the Gwyddyl who did not escape in their
boats were put to the sword. By an odd freak much
like ours in glorifying De Wet and Lucas Meyer,
the Welsh agreed to consider their late enemy as a
martyr, and a chapel was erected where he fell, and
he is figured, very shock-headed and bearing the
26 ANGLESEY
short sword wherewith he was killed, in a niche of the
doorway of the church which now stands in the
midst of the old Gwyddyl fortress.
Caswallon set up his residence on the hill above
Llaneilian, where the foundations may still be traced
— a spot whence in the declining day the mountains
of Wicklow may be seen, the Isle of Man stands out
to the north, and in clear weather Helvellyn may be
distinguished on the rim of the blue sea.
Edwin, king of Northumbria, conquered both Mona
and the Isle of Man in 625. The place of his landing
is still pointed out at Lleiniog, near Beaumaris, and
a mound of the Anglo-Saxon type remains to show
where was his first camp. Here also Hugh the Fat,
Earl of Chester, was killed by the arrow of Magnus
Barefoot. But of this more presently. Driven from
Deganwy, on the Conway, the kings of Gwynedd
made their residence at Aberffraw, in Mona. Of that
palace there are but scanty traces.
There is something remarkable in the character of
Anglesey. The bold mountains of Wales come to
an abrupt fall at the Menai Straits, and thence the
island stretches west in low undulation rising
nowhere to any considerable elevation, and scored
across with depressions from north to south, feeble
and imperfect replicas of the Menai Straits. One is
the furrow occupied by the Malldraeth morass and
sands, but this does not cut completely across the
island. The other is more thorough ; it severs Holy
Island from the main body of Mon, but it is so
narrow that it has been bridged at Penybont and
the railway crosses it on a causeway at Valley.
MONA 27
Anglesey does not impress the visitor as being so
fertile as has been supposed. There are long stretches
of morass and moor strewn with pools. But perhaps
Mon was first called the " Mother of Wales " because
to it, as to a mother's lap, retreated the Cymry when
beaten, wounded, and sore before their oppressors.
If so, it soon ceased to be their place of refuge, but
formed a point d'appui for their enemies, whence to
strike at them from the rear.
Mona, as already said, does not present us with
very striking scenery, except on the coast, but it teems
with interest in other ways. It is dotted with
monuments of the primeval inhabitants — cromlechs
and meini-hirion (the plural of maen-hir). It
possesses very well preserved camps of the Gwyddyl
invaders. It was first the sanctuary and school of
the Druids, and after that, of their spiritual successors,
the Saints. The slope of Mona towards the east is
well timbered and studded with mansions, the park
of Plas Newydd, the residence of the Marquess of
Anglesey, Plas Llanfair, and the palace of the
Bishop of Bangor. This prelate had his residence
near the Cathedral, but this has been sold, and a
lordly mansion has been given to him on the Straits,
where he can turn his back on his Anglesey clergy,
and say to the rest, " Between us and you there is
a great gulf fixed." The beautiful suspension bridge
erected by Telford crosses the Straits at their
sweetest spot. Here the channel is broken by a little
island occupied by the graveyard and church of
Llandyssilio. The church is of no architectural in-
terest. It was founded by Tyssilio, one of the sons of
28 ANGLESEY
Brochwel Ysgythrog, prince of Powys, when he ran
away from Meifod to escape the blandishment of an
over-affectionate sister-in-law.
Llansadwrn Church, beautifully situated and care-
fully restored, contains the tombstone of its patron
saint. This is a small block, now broken, that was
found under the wall of the north transept, and is
now let into the side of the chancel. It bears the
inscription : Hie Beatu{s) Saturninus Se{pultus Pjacit.
Et Sua Sa(ncta) Coniux. P(ax). The knight was
an Armorican prince, and the brother of S. Illtyd,
founder of Llantwit Major, in Glamorganshire.
Sadwrn and his wife Canna, who was his cousin,
left Armorica, owing probably to some family un-
pleasantness. After his death she married again, and
became the mother of Elian the Pilgrim, of whom
we shall have something to say presently. In the
very interesting church of Beaumaris is a tomb the
sides of which are decorated with delicately carved
figures of Anglesey saints, and among these are two
that may be taken to represent Sadwrn and his wife.
He is shown in armour, his sword sheathed, and hold-
ing a pilgrim's staff in his left hand, whilst giving a
benediction with the right.
When the tubular bridge for the railway was built
it was considered that a prophecy made by a Welsh
bard had been fulfilled, wherein he spoke of rising
from his bed in Mona, of breakfasting in Chester, of
lunching in Ireland, and of returning to sup in Mona.
But the required speed to Ireland has not yet been
attained. Another meaning or interpretation has
been put on the words of Robyn Ddu. He was
BEAUMARIS 29
living at Holyhead when he wrote the lines in ques-
tion, and there were two boats by the quay, one
from Chester and the other from Dublin, and he
breakfasted with the captain at his table in the first
boat, took his midday meal in the cabin of the
second, and returned to his own quarters to sup and
sleep.
Beaumaris is a sleepy little place, only waking to
life when the bathing season sets in. The castle was
erected by Edward I., and took its name from its
situation on the Fair Marsh. It is not a particularly
striking building, and is far gone in ruin.
The church, however, which is of the same period,
and due to Edward I., is worth a visit. The side
aisles contain five two-light Decorated windows. The
chancel is Late Perpendicular, with a very poor east
window containing some fragments of stained glass.
The arcade of the church is Perpendicular. In the
vestry are Bulkeley monuments, removed at the
Dissolution from Penmon. From Beaumaris a de-
lightful excursion may be made to Penmon, which
was a great nursery of saints for Gwynedd. It would
be hard to find anywhere a sweeter or sunnier spot.
The hills fold around the little dell in which lies the
church, shutting off the gales from north and east
and west, and open only to the south to let in the
sun.
Unhappily a marble quarry is close by, and is
eating into one of the arms that is wrapped
lovingly about the old site, and will in time eat its
way through.
In the combe, among ancient walnut and chestnut
30 ANGLESEY
trees and flowering elder, are some relics of the
monastery and its Norman priory church. The
foundation of the cloister may be traced. The
church is cruciform, and is aisleless. The south
transept contains rich Norman arcades, and the
arch into this transept is of the same period and of
equal richness. A square font in the nave, covered
with interlaced and key work, is the base of an old
Celtic cross. A Norman doorway on the south side
gives admission to the nave. This has knotwork
and a monster biting its tail in the tympanum. The
chancel is three steps below the level of the nave. A
fine cross is in the south transept, taken out of the
ruins of the priory, where it had served as lintel to a
mediaeval window.
S. Seiriol, the founder, is represented in stained
glass of the fifteenth century in a window of the
south transept, and a bishop, probably S. Elian, in
one of the north transept. Near the church is the
holy well of the saint, gushing forth from under a
rock, and filling what was once the priory fishpond.
The well is now in request mainly by such as desire
to know what is in store for them in their love affairs,
by dropping in pins and forming wishes.
About a mile distant, on a height where the rock
comes to the surface, are four holes— the sockets for
a pair of gallows, as the Prior of Penmon had
seigneurial rights, and could hang misdoers.
Just off the coast is Ynys Seiriol, or Puffin Island,
with the tower and ruins of a church on it. Hither