The Brothers of Gwynedd (179 page)

  "Why, my lord, at low water this morning de Tany crossed his bridge. A great company, Tany himself and any number of bannerets with him, and some hundreds of men-at-arms."

  David struck his hands together with a shout that made his horse start and sidle. "Then he dared! He dared break truce, and against even Edward's ban. The fool! Go on, man, what followed? Were they stopped on the shore?"

  "We did better than that. The wind was rising, and the sea rough, and our old men foretold north-east gales. You know how they drive in there, and pile the waters as the tide comes in. So we let the English land, all that company, and drew back a mile or so before them as they moved up into the hills, until the gale was at its worst. Then we loosed everything we had down the slopes at them, and drove them back to the strand. It was high water then, and what with the winds driving in, the waves were threshing up among the trees, and sweeping in tall as a man. They ripped the bridge from its moorings on our side, and set it lashing like a cat's tail, and two or three of the boats went plunging away loose down the strait. They had no way of getting back. If they had any eye or nose for weather they'd have known it! We rolled them into the sea, or killed them in the woods if they turned and fought. A slaughter, my lord! A few bold souls fought it out and are prisoners. A few rode their horses into the strait and swam for it, and perhaps one here and there got through, but with their heavy armour I doubt it. Most have drowned. All are dead, or skulking in the woods and being ferreted out now, or prisoner, or gone draggle-tailed back, the very few of them, to tell the tale."

  "And a noble tale!" crowed David, shivering and shaken between laughing and weeping. "Go on, make this perfect! Tell me de Tany is taken!"

  "Not by us," said the messenger in vengeful glee. "But taken, surely. The sea has taken him. Myself I saw him go down, his grand Gascon armour dragging him below. He will not again break truce!"

  "And all's quiet there now?" pressed David. "No threat left ashore, and everything in disarray on Anglesey? You do my heart good! Oh, dear heaven," he said, shuddering, "I never knew my prayers had such potency. Samson, have you heard? God was listening!"

  I took him by the arm, leaning from my broad-beamed mountain pony, for he was shivering and tense like a sick man. I said to the messenger: "Your horse is tired, friend, and ours are fresh. Let us take the word ahead of you into Garthcefn, and you come after at your own speed, and you shall be not the loser. We will report you faithfully, and have lodging and audience ready for you when you come."

  "With goodwill!" he said heartily, "and speak me a bed and meat beforehand, and stabling. And this good brute can amble as he pleases now, it's not so far."

  We rode, David and I, at David's pace, that tried the light and the track hard. I kept at his side throughout, watching his face, so long as I could see it still by that failing light, the thrusting profile so beautifully drawn against the sky. He went as one gifted with such perfect assurance that even his mount trod blessedly, waned on favouring winds into Garthcefn. Only once, short of the maenol, did he rein in, and turn to gaze at me, attentive beside him, and his face was blanched and bright, the last afterlight of the sunset gilding it.

  "God was listening," he said. "We have got our miracle." And he looked fully at me, and his eyes were wide as moons, and his mouth smiling. "No, it is not
that
makes me thus drunk," he said, "no sense of being spared. I am here to be spent like Edward's minted coin for my brother's dream. No, I am thanking God for something very different, my own honour, my own soul. Now we have a victory in hand that will send the king on the defensive into his castles of Rhuddlan and my Denbigh for five, six weeks, maybe longer. He has lost his bridge and half his Anglesey army. But when I pledged my fealty and spat in Edward's face, we had no

We brought the news into Garthcefn, and it fell like music on every man's ears, and lined up every heart, as well it might. We had good reason to rejoice, for we had gained not only the several weeks it must take the king to repair his losses, but also our reputation was enhanced and our position strengthened, for they, not we, had broken truce, and they, not we, had received the sharp reward of treachery. Nor would Llewelyn allow free action against the English forces elsewhere, but maintained truce still upon his part, countenancing only defence against further bad faith, and stressing to Brother John of Wales that he expected the like from the king's side, holding de Tany's treachery to be the crime of one man, and not to be attributed to all his comrades-in-arms. What the friar thought or felt he never gave to view, being well schooled in diplomacy, and less garrulous than his archbishop.

  I am certain that this victory, most welcome as it was, had no effect upon Llewelyn's response to the English terms. To him there was only one answer possible to such a suggestion. It did not influence David, either, for his heart was fixed, but it did sweeten the choice for him and fill him with fresh hope. Concerning the men of the council, for individual voices I cannot speak, but I am sure the general voice would have been the same whether or not de Tany had made his fatal onslaught and met his deserved death. Yet it was no wonder if we sat down to the slow and careful work of composing our replies with calmer minds and refreshed courage. There was no question but the situation was greatly changed in our favour, and if fighting must begin again the king would be held in his castles for some time, for want of the very advantage he had planned by the occupation in strength of Anglesey.

  So by the eleventh day of November we had ready our letters to Archbishop Peckham, each party replying separately, though all had sat in conference several times together. And that day John of Wales departed for Rhuddlan with these documents, which I give here, David's letter in part, the rest complete.

"This is the reply of David, brother of the prince.

  "That when he shall see fit to go to the Holy Land, he will do so of his own free will and in fulfilment of his own vow, for God, not for man. Not at any man's bidding will he go wandering into distant lands, for forced service is known to be displeasing to God. And should he chance indeed to go to the Holy Land of his own free will, out of devotion, it would hardly be fitting that on that account he and his heirs should incur perpetual disinheritance, on the contrary, they might rather look to be rewarded.

  "The war which the prince and his people have waged was not motivated by hatred for any creature, nor by lust of gain or conquest, invading the territories of others, but only by the desire to defend their own rightful heritage, laws and liberties, while the king and his people wage their war out of inveterate hatred, with the aim of conquering our lands. Therefore we believe ours to be the just war, and place our hope and trust in God."

  Then he also repeated the accusations made against the English soldiery concerning their usage of churchmen and sacred places, repudiated utterly the suggestion that any Welsh chief should leave his own lands and go into virtual exile among his enemies, saying that if we could not have peace in the land which was ours by right, how much less could we expect to live at peace in a foreign land. And lastly, he complained of the difference made between himself and other barons holding of the king, who had likewise at times offended against him, and been forced to make reparation, but never by total disinheritance, or perpetual banishment.

  And strange indeed did I find it that David should so fight for his own privilege to the last, as the old David, and in the same letter speak out so well for the Wales he had so often deserted, a new David borrowing his love and his light by reflection from Llewelyn, but freer far with words than ever was his brother.

  The reply from the council of Wales was drawn up chiefly by Tudor, Master William and Goronwy ap Heilyn, but agreed and approved by all. And thus it ran:

"The reply of the council of Wales.

  "Though it may please the king to say that he will allow no discussion concerning the Middle Country, or Anglesey, or the other lands bestowed upon his magnates, nevertheless the prince's council, if peace is to be made at all, will not countenance any departure from the premise that these cantrefs are a part of the unquestionable holding of the prince, lying within the bounds within which the prince and his predecessors have held right since the time of Camber, son of Brutus. Further, they belong to the principality renewed to the prince by confirmation, at the instance of Ottobuono of blessed memory, legate of the apostolic see in the realm of England, with the consent of the lord king and his magnates, as is manifest in the treaty. Moreover, it is more equitable that the true heirs should hold the said cantrefs, if need be from the lord king for fee and customary service, rather than they should be given over to strangers and newcomers, even though these may have been powerful supporters of the king's cause.

  "Further, all the tenants of all the cantrefs of Wales declare with one voice that they dare not come to the king's will, to allow him to dispose of them according to his royal majesty, for these reasons: First, because the lord king has kept neither treaty nor oath nor charter towards their lord prince and themselves from the beginning. Second, because the king's men have used the most cruel tyranny against ecclesiastical establishments and persons. Third, that they cannot be bound by the offered terms, since they are the liege-men of the prince, who is prepared to hold the said lands of the king by customary service.

  "As to the demand that the prince shall submit absolutely to the king's will, we reply that since not one man of all the aforesaid cantrefs would dare to submit himself to that will, neither will the community of Wales permit its prince to do so upon such terms.

  "As to the king's magnates guaranteeing to procure an earldom for the prince, we say he need not and should not accept any such provision, procured by the very magnates who are striving to have him disinherited, so that they may possess his lands in Wales.

  "Item: The prince is no way bound to forgo his heritage and that of his forebears from the time of Brutus, and again confirmed as his by the papal legate, as is suggested, and accept lands in England, where language, manners, laws and customs are foreign to him, and where, moreover, malicious mischiefs may be perpetrated against him, out of hatred, by English neighbours, from whom that land has been expropriated in perpetuity.

  "Item: Since the king is proposing to deprive the prince of his original inheritance, it seems unbelievable that he will allow him to hold land in England, where he is seen to have no legal right. And similarly, if the prince is not to be allowed to hold the sterile and uncultivated land rightfully his by inheritance from old times, here in Wales, it is incredible to us that in England he will be allowed possession of lands cultivated, fertile and abundant.

  "Item: That the prince should place the king in seisin of Snowdonia, absolutely, perpetually and peaceably. Since Snowdonia is a part of the principality of Wales, which he and his ancestors have held since the time of Brutus, as we have said, his council will not permit him to renounce the said lands and accept land less rightfully his in England.

  "Item: The people of Snowdonia for their part state that even if the prince desired to give the king seisin of them, they themselves would not do homage to any stranger, of whose language, customs and laws they are utterly ignorant. For by so doing they could be brought into perpetual captivity and barbarously treated, as other cantrefs around them have been by the royal bailiffs and officers, more savagely than ever was wreaked upon Saracen enemies, as we have said above, reverend father, in the
rotuli
we sent to you."

And last, I give my prince's letter, by contrast so brief, courteous, dignified and distant, for he was writing to a man who had been close to being loved. and was now dead to him, and waited only his last retort to be buried.

  "To the most reverend father in Christ, the Lord John, by the grace of God archbishop of Canterbury and primate of all England, from his devoted son in Christ, Llewelyn, prince of Wales and lord of Snowdon, greeting, with an earnest prayer for his benevolence towards his son, and all manner of reverences and respects.

  "Holy father, as you have counselled, we are ready to come to the king's grace, if it be offered in a form safe and honourable for us. But the form contained in the articles submitted to us is in no particular either safe or honourable, in the judgment of our council and ourselves, indeed, so far from it that all who hear it are astonished, since it tends rather to the destruction and ruin of our people and our person than to our honour and safety. There is no way in which our council could be brought to permit us to agree to it, even should we so wish, for never would our nobles and subjects consent in the inevitable destruction and dissipation which would surely derive from it.