A farther honour was paid to the insulted image by the inhabitants of Chester, whose river, formerly called the Usk, was henceforward denominated Rood Die, or Dee.
Harden Castle was occupied by Fitzvarlin, a Norman adventurer, soon after the conquest; it was next the seat of the Barons Mont-Alt, stewards of the palatinate of Chester; and, upon the extinction of that title in 1237, was resumed by the crown. In the year 1267 it was restored to the Mont-Alt family by Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, with an injunction restraining them from erecting a fortress here for the space of thirty years. David, the brother of Llewellyn, violating that allegiance which he had so often sworn, surprised and took the castle, upon Palm Sunday, in the year 1281, and cruelly butchered the brave little garrison. From the death of David the Mont-Alt family retained the possession for upwards of fifty years, when Robert, the last baron, conveyed it to Isabella, the queen of Edward the Second, and upon her disgrace it again became crown property.
In 1336 it was granted, by Edward the Third to Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, in which noble house it continued till 1400, when John, making an insurrectionary movement in favour of his deposed master Richard the Second, was beheaded by the townspeople of Leicester. The crown once more resumed possession of this fortress upon John of Salisbury’s attainder.
Thomas, Duke of Clarence, who fell at the battle of Baugy in 1420, had a grant of Harden Castle, and was succeeded in the tenure by Sir Thomas Stanley, who held it until the year 1420, when it was again resumed by the crown, and granted to Edward, Prince of Wales.
About this time also an inquisition was held, when it was found that John, Earl of Salisbury, having alienated this estate previous to his attainder, his surviving feoffee was legally entitled to enter, and repossess the same. A few years after the Stanley family appear to have been the proprietors, and it was also at one time the property of Margaret, mother of Henry the Seventh. Upon the execution of the Earl of Derby in 1601, this, together with his other possessions were sequestrated, and sold by the agents of the sequestration to Mr. Serjeant Glynn, in whose family it still continues. The ruins of the castle are inconsiderable, it was dismantled in the general destruction of fortresses by the Parliamentarians, and was further dilapidated by one of its proprietors. The present owner allows it the enjoyment of that respect which is generally felt towards a venerable ruin, and is himself a constant resident in a stately family mansion erected at a little distance from the remnants of the ancient castle. The family of Maude take the title of viscounts from this parish.
ABERGLASLYN, CAERNARVONSHIRE.
The pass of Aberglaslyn [119] is one of the most romantic mountain scenes in Wales. It is a subject of inexpressible grandeur, and quite unique in character. Those who have crossed the mountains of St. Gothard may form an idea of its sublime character by calling to mind the passage of the Pont du Diable. The mountains embracing the little valley of Beddgelert, approaching still nearer to each other at the south of the vale, contract the space below so much, as to afford room for nothing more than the river and a narrow road, while the rocks on each side rise with such perpendicularity, that the interval between their summits scarce exceeds the distance of their bases. Here the traveller finds himself immured within a chasm of rifted rocks for a length of about a mile, the waters of the Glaslyn tumbling and foaming over ledges of broken rock, and forming a succession of cascades which make a final plunge beneath the Devil’s Bridge, and swell the waters of the great dark pool beyond it. This is just a landscape suited to the pencil of Salvator, it is incomplete without a group of banditti, and the imagination of the spectator can scarce avoid conjuring up, in the mind’s eye, a band of robbers lurking under shelter of some projecting rock, or concealed in one of the dark caverns that yawn over the roadway. It is a scene adapted to the perpetration of some great or desperate deed, just such a pass as our Wellington would choose to display his Spartan bravery. Here the few could obstruct the many; here, in the language of the Wellington, of ancient Rome, “Mons altissimus impendebat, ut facilè perpauci transitum prohibere possent.” Pont Aberglaslyn has been confounded with another Devil’s Bridge in Cardiganshire. This connects the counties of Caernarvon and Merioneth, and is thrown from rock to rock, over a narrow passage of the river, and from its battlements enjoys a majestic view of the dark and broken cliffs that tower over the pass, as well as of the waters falling in numerous cataracts, the nearest to the bridge being of such a height as to cause a temporary obstruction to the passage of the salmon. There was anciently a royal wear, in the reign of Henry the Fourth, erected here by Robert ap Meredydd. Near the Bridge is shown a stone, called “the chair of Rhys gôch o Eryri,” a celebrated bard, in which he is believed to have sat while composing some of his national poems.
ST. ASAPH.
The city of St. Asaph stands on the declivity of a hill on the western bank of the river Elwy, whence its ancient name “Llan Elwy,” and one mile above the confluence of that river with the Clwyd. It consists of one cheerful looking avenue climbing the brow of the hill, and is perhaps the smallest city in Great Britain. The landscape of which it forms a part, though not exactly suited to the pencil, is gratifying and beautiful. Embowered in woods of luxuriant growth, adorning a pastoral scene of exquisite beauty, the city peeps forth beneath the massive tower of its sacred temple. At the foot of the little eminence the Elwy rolls its crystal waters over a broad and pebbly bed, and passing beneath a bridge of five elliptic arches, hastens to its union with the Clwyd and the sea. The background is composed of lofty, undulating hills, broken by wooded glens, and forming a beautiful termination to this happy, healthy, arcadian prospect.