The Brothers of Gwynedd Read Free Page A

already to their cost. But with the great prince gone, and an unknown, or untried at least, in his place, then they would close in on all sides to snatch back, if they could, the many lands they had lost to him.
      It was the first time that I had ever considered how those who felt as England felt towards us could hardly be anything but enemies to Wales; and it caused me some uneasiness even then, but being so young, I did not apply it too closely to those I had known and served all my life. And soon I forgot the qualm it had cost me, in thinking of other things. For towards the end of this same year—I think it was on the 19th of October, and the place I know was the abbey of Strata Florida, a foundation beloved of the prince and always faithful to his house—there was called a great assembly of all the princes of Wales, and there every man among them took the oath of fealty to David as the next heir. Then indeed we felt that death had moved a gentle step nearer to our lord, and none knew it better than he, or felt less fear of it for himself, or more for Wales. Doubtless he knew better than any how the marcher lords were sharpening their knives, and what a load his son would have to bear.
      Now I cannot say whether this ceremony at Strata Florida so inflamed the mind of the Lord Griffith that he took some rash action to assert his rights, or whether the Lord David, armed with so formidable a support, moved against him in expectation of just such a defiance, but certain it is that at the end of this year Griffith was stripped of his lands in Powys, and left with only his cantref of Lleyn, and that by order of his younger brother. By which it was made clear to all that the Lord David had already assumed a part of his royal privilege before his father's death, and that undoubtedly with his father's knowledge and sanction, for no son in his right wits would have reached to take any morsel of power out of those great hands but by their goodwill and grace. And surely the lords along the march, who had lost so much to Gwynedd these last twenty years, were counting days and mustering men already. Prince David had King Henry's word to accept and acknowledge him, and none other, and doubtful though King Henry's troth might be, if it held for any it would hold for his nephew, his sister's son. She, that great lady, her husband's right hand and envoy and counsellor all her days, was dead then more than two years, and buried with all honour and great grief at Llanfaes in Anglesey. She had but one son, though her daughters were married into all the great houses of the march, for better assurance. Yet there remained the Lord Griffith, and he was irreconcilable. And the year following there was sudden bitter blaze between those two brothers, the confiscated lands held hostage being insufficient to keep the elder in check, rather goading him to worse hostility. And before the year was out we heard that David had taken his brother prisoner, and his eldest son Owen with him, and lodged them in the castle of Criccieth under lock and key.
      This Owen Goch—"the Red" by reason of his flaming hair—was the Lady Senena's first child, and being nearly three years older than I, was then approaching thirteen, only a year away from his majority. And I suppose that it seemed a folly to shut up the father and leave in his place a son on the edge of manhood, round whom the same discontents could gather. The girl Gladys came next, a year before Llewelyn. She would not present the same danger, and the younger boys were but children as yet, and could be left with their mother at liberty. Thus for the second time that household was broken apart, and the lady was left to protect her own and manage her family's affairs alone. But she was not molested in her home at Nevin, and the boy Llewelyn, they said, was welcome always at his grandsire's court, and spent more than half of his time there, very gladly, for there was life there, and hunting, and