7: The Normans
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On the death of Griffith ap Llywelyn, many princes tried to become
supreme. Bleddyn of Powys, a good and merciful prince, became the
most important.
In January 1070, when the snow lay thick on the mountains, William,
the Norman Conqueror, appeared at Chester with an army. He had
defeated and killed Harold, the conqueror of Griffith ap Llywelyn, in
1066; he had crushed the power of the Mercian allies of Bleddyn; he
had struck terror into the wild north, and England lay at his feet.
He turned back from Chester, but he placed on the borders a number of
barons who were to conquer Wales, as he had conquered England. They
had a measure of his ability, of his energy, and of his ambition.
The two great Norman traits were wisdom and courage; but the one was
often mere cunning, and the other brutal ferocity. But no one like
the Norman had yet appeared in Wales—no one with a vision so clear,
or with so hard a grip. A hard, worldly, tenacious, calculating race
they were; and they turned their faces resolutely towards Wales.
From England, Wales can be entered and attacked along three valleys—
along the Dee, the Severn, and the Wye. At Chester, Hugh of
Avranches, called "The Wolf," placed himself. From its walls he
could look over and covet the Welsh hills, as he could have looked
over the Breton hills from Avranches. He loved war and the chase:
he despised industry, he cared not for religion; he was a man of
strong passions, but he was generous, and he respected worth of
character. One of his followers, Robert, had all his vices and few
of his virtues. It was he who extended the dominions of the Earl of
Chester along the north coast to the Clwyd, where he built a castle
at Rhuddlan; and thence on to the valley of the Conway, where he
built a castle at Deganwy. The cruelty of Robert shocked even the
Normans of his time. He even set foot in Anglesey, which looked
temptingly near from Deganwy, and built a castle at Aberlleiniog.
At Shrewsbury, where the Severn, after leaving the mountains of
Wales, turns to the south, Roger of Montgomery was placed, with his
wife Mabel, an energetic little woman, hated and feared by all.
Roger himself, while ever ready to fight, preferred to get what he
wanted by persuasion; he was not less cruel than Hugh of Chester, but
he was less fond of war. He and his sons pushed their way up the
Severn, and built a castle at Montgomery.
To Hereford, on the Wye, William Fitz-Osbern came. He was the
ablest, perhaps, of all the followers of the Conqueror. He entered
Wales; he saw it from the Wye to the sea, and he thought it was not
large enough, and that it was too far from the political life of the
time. So he went back to Normandy, but he left his sons William and
Roger behind him. William had his father's wisdom. Roger had his
father's recklessness in action; he rebelled against his own king,
and found himself in prison. The king sent him, on the day of
Christ's Passion, a robe of silk and rarest ermine. The caged baron
made a roaring fire, and cast the robe into it. "By the light of
God," said William the Conqueror, for that was his wicked oath, "he
shall never leave his prison."
But another Norman, Bernard of Neufmarche, came to take his place.
He built his castle at Brecon, and defeated and killed Rees, the King
of Deheubarth; and, with great energy, he took possession of the
upper valleys of the Wye and the Usk.
Further south William the Conqueror himself came to Cardiff, and
possibly built a castle. The Norman conquest of the south coast of
Wales was exceedingly rapid, and castle after castle rose to mark the
new victorious advances—Coety, Cenfig, Neath, Kidwelly, Pembroke,
Newport, Cilgeran.
So far, the Norman advance has been a most quick one. In less than
twenty-five years from the appearance of the Conqueror at Chester,
the whole country had been overrun except the mountains of Gwynedd
and the forests of the Deheubarth. This success is easily explained.
For one thing, the Normans had trained, professional soldiers, who
were well horsed and well armed. In a pitched battle the hastily
collected Welsh levies, unused to regular battle and very lightly
armed, had no chance.
Again, the Norman never receded. He was willing to stop
occasionally, in order to bide his time; but he clung tenaciously to
every mile he had won. His skill as a castle builder was as striking
as his prowess in battle or his cautious wisdom in council. He took
possession of an old fortified post, or hastily constructed one of
turf and timber; but he soon turned it into a castle of stone. At
that time the Welsh had no knowledge of sieges; and their impetuous
valour was of no use against the new castles.
Again, the Welsh opposition was not only not organised, but weakened
by internal strife. While the Norman was winning valley after
valley, the Welsh princes were trying to decide by the issue of
battle who was to be chief. Bleddyn was slain in 1075; and his
nephews and cousins tried to rule the country. Among these,
Trahaiarn was a soldier of ability and energy, and a ruler of real
genius. But he was the rival of the exiled princes of the House of
Cunedda, and he found it difficult to bend Snowdon and the Vale of
Towy to his will. Two of the exiles met him, probably near some of
the cairns in the valley of the Teivy; and there, in the battle of
Mynydd Carn, fiercely fought through the dusk into a moonlight night
in 1079, Trahaiarn fell. It looked as if no leader could rise in
Wales to fight a Norman army or to take a Norman castle.
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