Stephen de Cappenore was fined twenty marks; his securities being Robert de Typetoft, and John Lovel, of co. Northampton, at ten marcs each.
William le Valers was fined £10; his securities were John de Creppyng, of Lincoln, and Robert Fylliot, of Cumberland.
Perpoynt and his fellows were left to the ordinary course of law, with a hint that their punishment was not likely to be very severe. And thus ended one of the most important transactions in the history of the Welsh marches; a trial evidently pressed forward by Edward with a view to break down the great, ill-defined, and ill-exercised power of the Lords Marchers, intended to be regulated by the celebrated statute of Rhuddlan.
No apology is necessary for introducing this event at some length of detail into the history of a march castle; besides which, the names contained in it show who were at that time the great lords of the district. They show also, that while De Bohun’s captains were native Welshmen, for the Perpoynts, descendants of Giles Perpoynt, had become naturalised at Gileston a generation or two earlier, De Clare’s affairs were in the hands of strangers to the soil, men whose names, with the exception of Flemyng, do not appear then or since in Glamorgan pedigrees. (“Rolls,” i., 70; Carte, “History of England,” ii., 221; Dugd., “Bar.,” i., 182; Jones, “Brec.,” iii., 143; “Rot. Fin.,” 20 Edward I.)
The original cause of dispute seems to have been overlooked in the consequences, for nothing more is heard of the contested boundary. It is, however, noteworthy, that very near Morlais the county boundary quits the well-defined Taff Vechan, and crosses the mountain in a direction unmarked by any natural features, so that, until an amicable arrangement was arrived at twenty years ago, the actual limit of each county continued to be subject of dispute between the manorial lords on either side.
Morlais, though thus founded amidst contentions, seems, on the whole, to have enjoyed a peaceful, if not an ignoble, existence. No doubt the settlement of the country under the long reign of Edward III. destroyed its value as an outpost, and led to its neglect, or perhaps destruction. No mention of it has been discovered until the days of Leland, who says,—
Morlays Castelle standith in a good valley for corn and grass and is on the ... ripe of Morlais brook. This castelle is in ruin and longith to the king.—(“Itin.,” iv., 39.)
Leland probably had not visited the spot which he thus somewhat incorrectly describes, but his evidence as to the proprietorship is likely to be correct.
The circumstances that led to the construction of Morlais are sufficiently evident from its general position. The lower part of the county was protected not only by the lord’s castles of Cardiff, Llantrissant, and Kenfig, but by a considerable number of lesser castles belonging to private persons, and intended, primarily, for the protection of their estates. It remained to guard against the sudden inbreaks of the Welsh, who, descending from the north, and moving with great rapidity, and having, besides, the advantage of what strategists call “interior lines,” could readily select their point of attack, and cutting off detached parties, or sacking an occasional village or castle, could retreat through paths and at a rate which rendered useless any pursuit by the heavily armed Normans.
To check such marauders, or at any rate to cut them off in their retreat, other castles were constructed by the marchers, such as Castell Coch on the Taff, the tower of Whitchurch a little below it, and finally, at the head of the two great valleys of the Nedd and Taff, and at the apex of this contained triangle of mountainous country, Morlais.