The Britons now seemed to have altogether undone the work of the invaders. It was now time for vigorous action on the other side. The French—Hugh of Chester, Hugh of Shrewsbury, or any other—entered Gwynedd with a regular force; but if one deal was put to flight, another, under Cadwgan himself, claims to have overcome the invaders at Yspwys.[246] The path was now open for a march of the Britons to the south. Late in the year a general attack was made on all the castles throughout Ceredigion and Dyfed. Two only held out; Gerald of Windsor successfully defended Pembroke; William the son of Baldwin successfully defended Rhyd-y-gors.[247] Action of Cadwgan in Dyfed. But the warfare of Cadwgan was waged in the interest of Gwynedd, not in that of Dyfed. By a harsh, though possibly prudent policy, he enforced a migration somewhat in the style of an Eastern despot. The men and the cattle of Ceredigion and Dyfed—we must take so general a statement with those deductions which the laws of possibility imply—were transported to the safer region, and south-western Wales was made, so far as Cadwgan could make it, a wilderness.[248] Pembroke holds out. Gerald, in his castle among the creeks, was left to lord it over whom he might find, and to feed himself and his followers how he might, in the wasted land. As far as we can see, Gwent, Morganwg, and Brecheiniog, remained in the hands of the conquerors. The rest of the British land, from the isthmus of Gower to the furthest point of Mona, was either free or a wilderness.
Question of a winter campaign. It is almost past belief that William Rufus could have found time for a winter campaign against the Welsh in the few weeks, or rather days, which passed between his return from Normandy at the end of December and his interview with Anselm at Gillingham in the middle of January.[249] December 28,1094-January, 1095. But there was plenty of fighting in the course of the year in Wales and elsewhere. The Britons seem to have kept their independence in the newly liberated districts, while the Norman conquerors of Glamorgan made a successful attack on the intermediate lands which had not yet been subdued. Conquest of Kidwelly, Gower, and Caermarthen. “The French laid waste Gower, Kidwelly, and the vale of Towy;” and we are further told that those lands, as well as Dyfed and Ceredigion, remained waste.[250] But if Normans laid waste, they did not simply lay waste, like the Welsh. What they found it expedient to lay waste for a season they meant to put in order some day for their own advantage. This was no doubt the time when William of London established himself at Kidwelly, and made the first beginnings of castle, church, borough, and haven.[251] It was now too that the way was at least opened for the work of colonization which made Gower a Teutonic land. 1099. According to an authority to which we turn with a certain doubt, the actual settlement dates from five years later. Swansea Castle. The castles of Gower. Castles were built, Abertawy or Swansea guarding its own bay and the approach to the peninsula, Aberllwchr guarding the sandy estuary between the peninsula and the opposite coast to the north, Oystermouth, Penrice, Llanrhidian, on points within the peninsula itself.[252] Alleged West-Saxon settlement of Gower. And in this version the settlement is made, not by Flemings, according to the common tradition, but by West-Saxons brought across the channel from Somerset.[253] It is certain, as has been already said, that there is not the same historical evidence for Flemings in Gower which there is for Flemings in Pembrokeshire. But it is perhaps less important to fix the exact origin of each Teutonic settlement along this coast than to insist on the fact that, as compared with the native Cymry, any two branches of the Nether-Dutch stock, whether Flemish or Saxon, came to very much the same thing.
Along with this territorial advance on the part of the invaders, we hear, from the same somewhat doubtful quarter, of a movement among the invaders themselves which turned to the advantage of the natives. It is characteristic of the outwardly legal nature of the Norman Conquest of England that it gave no opportunity for a character not very rare in less regular invasions, the invading chief who finds it to his interest to separate himself from his own fellows and to place himself at the head of those whom he has helped to subdue. In the conquests both of Wales and of Ireland there was room for such a part to be played, and the story sets before us one of the Norman conquerors of Glamorgan as playing it with some effect. Pagan of Turberville joins the Welsh. The lord of Coyty, Pagan of Turberville, married to a wife of the house of Jestin, took the side of his wife’s countrymen, and, we are told, went so far as to attack Cardiff on their behalf. The result, it is said, was a confirmation of the ancient laws of Wales on the part of the lord of Glamorgan. This, it is added, led many to transfer their dwellings from the disturbed parts of the country to the more settled lands under his rule.[254]
North Wales keeps its independence. Meanwhile in the northern parts of Wales the Britons still kept the independence that they had won by the struggle of the last year. They had got the better of the local powers on their own borders, and the King, busied with the peaceful opposition of Anselm and the armed opposition of Robert of Mowbray, had little time to spare from councils and sieges within his kingdom. Autumn, 1095. At last, towards autumn, while the siege of Bamburgh was going on, after he had himself turned away from it, and left the Evil Neighbour to do its work, William heard a piece of news from the British border which at once stirred him to action. One of the great fortresses of the march had fallen. In vain had Earl Roger made his nest on the rock to which he gave the name of his own Norman home.[255] The Welsh take Montgomery. Montgomery, Tre Baldwin, was in the hands of the Britons, and all Earl Hugh’s men within it were slain.[256] William was wroth at the tidings, and he at once called out the fyrd of his realm, so much of it as was not needed for the lingering leaguer-work in Northumberland.[257] William’s invasion of Wales. Michaelmas, 1095. Soon after Michaelmas he entered Wales at the head of his host. He divided it into parties, and caused them to go thoroughly through the land. He reaches Snowdon. November 1. At last, by the feast of All-hallows, the whole army met together by Snowdon. If merely marching through a country could subdue it, William Rufus had now done a good deal towards the conquest of Gwynedd. But William Rufus was not Harold; the master of continental chivalry could not bring himself to copy Harold’s homely tactics. While the royal army scoured the dales, the Welsh betook them to the moors and mountains where no man might come at them.[258] Harold had found out the way to come at them; but the Red King knew it not. Ill-success of the campaign. All that he could do was to go homeward, when he saw that he there in the winter might do no more.[259] The British annalists, with good right, rejoice as they tell how God their people sheltered in the strong places of their land, and how the King and his host went away empty, having taken nothing.[260]
1096. The next year saw the bloody Gemót at Salisbury; it saw Europe pour forth its forces for the deliverance of Eastern Christendom; it saw the Red King become master of the Norman duchy. Among such cares, William had no time, perhaps he felt no strong call, for another Welsh campaign, either in winter or summer. But the lords of the marches could not be thus idle; with them the only choice was to invade or to be invaded. The year seems to have begun with another gain on the part of the Britons. The Welsh gain Rhyd-y-gors. 1096. William son of Baldwin, who had kept the castle of Rhyd-y-gors safe through all perils up to this time, now died. His spirit did not abide in his garrison; they left the castle empty, a prey to the enemy.[261] The spirit of the Britons, even in the lands which seemed most thoroughly subdued, now rose. Within the bounds of the present Glamorgan the favourable composition of the last year seems to have kept men quiet; but the lands to the east, parts of which had been so long under English rule, were now encouraged to strike another blow for independence. Revolt of Gwent and Brecknock. The natives were in arms along the whole line of the Usk; Brecheiniog, Gwent, and Gwenllwg, the land between Usk and Wye and the land between Usk and Rhymny, threw off, as their own writers say, the yoke of the French.[262] The marchers had now to act in earnest. English feeling towards the war. Our own Chronicler says mournfully how “the head men that this land held ofttimes sent the fyrd into Wales, and many men with that sorely harassed, and man there sped not, but man-marring and fee-spilling.”[263] We see that the old duty of every man to fight for the land when called on had come to awaken some of the feelings which attach to a conscription. Men were, we may believe, ready for a campaign in Normandy or Maine, where plunder was to be had, and where there was most likely still some satisfaction felt in fighting against French-speaking enemies, even under French-speaking captains. To drive back Malcolm would come home to every man’s heart as a national duty; to dispose of Malcolm’s crown under the leadership of an English Ætheling might call up long-forgotten feelings of national pride. But who could be tempted by the prospect of a march to Snowdon, even in the fairest weather? What interest had the men of perhaps far-off English shires in rivetting the dominion of a Norman lord on the men of Brecknock or Pembroke? No doubt every Englishman was ready to drive back the Briton from Shropshire and Herefordshire; but it was an irksome and bootless work to go and attack him in his own land, a land from which even conquerors could draw so little gain. Even to win back Gwent, the conquest of Harold, was an enterprise which would lead mainly to man-marring and fee-spilling. Vain attempt to recover Gwent. Into Gwent however they were marched; but nothing was done; the land was not subdued; the army was even attacked on its retreat, and after great slaughter put to flight.[264] A second greater attempt came to nothing more. The grandsons of Cadwgan, Gruffydd and Ivor, attacked this army too on its return, and cut it also off at Aberllech.[265]
The British chronicler here makes a comment which fully explains the final issue of these wars. The Normans or English, whichever we are to call the hosts of England under the Red King, had thus for three years met with nothing but defeat. Yet they had in truth won the land. “The folk stayed in their homes, trusting fearlessly, though the castles were yet whole, and the castlemen in them.”[266] Effects of the castle-building. The fortresses might be hemmed in for a moment; but, as long as they stood whole with the castlemen in them, the newly won freedom of the open country was liable to be upset at any moment. In Gwent and Brecheiniog at least the natives might for the moment stay fearlessly in their homes; they might at some favourable point surprise and cut to pieces the armies that were sent against them; they might withdraw to moors and mountains when the invading force was too strong for them; but, as long as the castles stood firm, the real grasp of the stranger on the land was not loosened. How long a castle could stand out we see by the example of this very year’s campaign. Pembroke castle holds out. All the castles of Dyfed and Ceredigion had been destroyed two years before, save Pembroke and Rhyd-y-gors; and Rhyd-y-gors was now in the hands of the Britons. Pembroke, the castle of earth and wood, the outpost cut off from all help, still stood through the whole of these two years, the one representative of Norman dominion in the whole region of which it had become the head. No wonder that the Britons, victorious everywhere else, resolved on one great attack on this still unconquered stronghold of the enemy. The Welsh attack Pembroke. 1096. A host led by several chieftains of the house of Cadwgan, Uhtred son of Edwin,--one whom we should rather have looked for in Northumberland,--and Howel son of Goronwy, set forth and fought against Pembroke. Gerald of Windsor was hard pressed. One night, fifteen of his knights, despairing of resistance, made their escape from the castle in a boat. Resistance of Gerald of Windsor. Their esquires were more faithful, and Gerald at once gave them the arms of knighthood, and also granted—or professed to grant to them—the fiefs of their recreant lords.[267] His devices. We read too how Gerald, to hide his real plight from the enemy, betook himself to some of those simple devices of which we hear in so many times and places. He had four swine in the castle; he cut them in pieces, and threw them over to the besiegers.[268] The next day he wrote or caused letters to be written sealed with his seal, saying that there was no need to trouble Earl Arnulf—he is made to bear the title—for any help for four months to come. His dealings with Bishop Wilfrith. These letters he took care should be found near a neighbouring house of Bishop Wilfrith of Saint David’s, as if they had been lost by their bearer.[269] They were read out in the Welsh army. The Britons, we are told, having no mind for a four months’ siege, marched away.[270] They claim to have marched away without loss, with much booty, especially with all the cattle belonging to the castle.[271] Offensive action of Gerald. 1097. But the castle was not taken; it stood there to do its work; and early in the next year Gerald was harrying in his turn as far as the borders of Saint David’s.[272] Friendship for the Bishop perhaps kept him from harrying the holy soil of Dewisland itself.
This year, the King, as he had done two years before, deemed the affairs of Wales to call for his own presence, and for a greater effort on his part than ever. He had come back from taking possession of the mortgaged land of Normandy; Easter, 1097. he had held the Easter Assembly at Windsor somewhat after the regular time.[273] At that Assembly Welsh affairs must have formed a subject of discussion, as the King presently set out for Wales with a great host. This was the time when the knights sent by the Archbishop were deemed so unfit for their duty.[274] William’s second Welsh campaign. The King’s coming appears to have led to a seeming, perhaps a pretended, submission. Led by native guides, he passed through the whole country,[275] Seeming conquest. and he clearly believed that he had brought Wales to a state of peace. So he deemed when he came back to hold the Whitsun Assembly, the assembly in which Anselm for the first time that year craved leave to go to the Pope.[276] But he was called back by a fresh revolt. Fresh revolt. The Welsh, in the emphatic phrase of our Chronicler, “bowed from the King.”[277] They had once bowed to him; now they bowed from him; they cast away his authority; perhaps they formally defied him in the strict feudal sense; certainly they defied him in the more general sense which that word has now come to bear. And now, for the first time in these wars, the English Chronicler gives us the name of a Welsh leader, a name which from British sources has long been familiar to us. Cadwgan. “They chose them many elders of themselves; one of them was Cadwgan hight, that of them the worthiest was; he was brother’s son of Gruffydd the King.”[278] The name of the great prince who had ruled all Wales, who had won the battle by the Severn,[279] who had put Earl Ralph to flight[280] and burned Hereford town and minster,[281] the prince whom it needed all the strength and all the arts of Harold to overthrow, was still famous even among Englishmen. The nephew of Gruffydd had this time too to dread no such tactics as had worn down his uncle on his own soil. William’s third campaign. June-August, 1097. King William set forth with a host of horse as well as of foot, vowing to put to death every male of the rebel nation.[282] Again the pomp and pride of Norman chivalry was shivered against the natural defences of the land which was so rashly attacked. The Britons seem, by their own account, to have made the war a religious one; perhaps, like the Irish king, they deemed that higher powers would fight for them against the blasphemer. The King’s ill-success. Strengthened by prayers, fastings, and other pious exercises, the Welsh took to their woods and rocks and mountains, while the Red King’s host marched and rode bootlessly through the valleys and plains.[283] “Mickle he lost in men and in horses, and eke in many other things.”[284] This state of things went on from midsummer to August.[285] Then the King came back to hold two assemblies at unusual times, in the second of which he and Anselm met for the last time.[286] And now it was that he took that wise resolution which I have quoted above.[287] He determines to build castles. October, 1097. As invasions by mounted knights led to nothing but losing both the knights and their horses, he would build castles on the borders. This Harold, who knew so much better than William Rufus how to carry on a Welsh campaign, had not done. But then the objects of Harold and the objects of William Rufus were not the same.
We should have been well pleased to know what was the immediate result of the resolve for the building of the border-castles. What were the fortresses which were built, as surely some must have been built, in obedience to it? This is the last entry which connects Rufus personally with Welsh affairs. But we can hardly help connecting this resolve with the building, a little time later, of several fortresses in the lands threatened by the Welsh, specially of one, the greatest of them all. Action of Robert of Bellême. 1098–1102. In the next year one part of the British land becomes the scene of a series of events of far-reaching interest and importance, but also of a local interest quite as great in its own way. We shall then see that, if the Red King did not do much in the way of building border-castles himself, much was done by others, of course with his approval, most likely by his order. Our next year’s tale brings Robert of Bellême to the Welsh border, and, where he was lord, castle-building went on with all vigour.
Affairs of Scotland. But before we enter on a branch of our story which touches all parts of the British islands, and many lands beyond the British islands, it may be well to take up the thread of our Scottish narrative at a point where the affairs of Scotland and those of Wales seem again to be brought into some measure of connexion. The year which saw that wise resolution of the Red King with regard to the Welsh castles, a resolution which really meant the final union of Wales with the English realm, saw also the end of those revolutions whose final result was, not the union of Scotland with the English realm—that was not to come about till long after, and by other means—but the extension of English influence within the kingdom of Scotland till it might be looked on as in truth a second English realm.