“What will not money, diligence, and faire words doe, with corrupt dispositions—everting of all bonds of either religious or civil duties? By such means, therefore, the desolate, sad, and unfortunate Kinge fell into his cousen of Lancaster’s hands, in the Abbey-house of Neath;” [or, according to others, in the Castle of Llantrissant, a place of great strength; but as the gates were thrown open by treachery, neither the strength of the Castle nor the courage of those around him could avail the royal victim,[400] doomed to expiate, it was supposed, the ruthless cruelty of his father in massacring the bards.
“Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward’s race;
Give ample room and verge enough,
The characters of Hell to trace.
Mark the year, and mark the night,
When Severn shall re-echo with affright,
The shrieks of death, through Berkeley’s roof that ring—
Shrieks of an agonizing King!”]
Richard de Greenvile,[401] the reputed founder of Neath Abbey, and lord of the adjoining Castle, is thus noticed in the ‘Baronage of England:’—“In the fourth of William Rufus, Jestin, the son of Gurgunt, being lord of Glamorgan, Rees-ap-Theodore, prince of South Wales, made war upon him; and that Jestin, discerning himself to be unable to make defence, sent one Enyon, his servant, to Robert Fitz-Hamon,[402] then a knight of the privy chamber to the King, for his aid, with large promises of reward for his help. And that hereupon Robert, having retained twelve knights, marched with what power they could all make into Wales; and so joining with Jestin, slew Rees, and Conan, his son. Furthermore, that after this victory, demanding his reward according to the agreement so made with Enyon, and Jestin refusing to perform his promise, the difference came to be tried by battle; and that Jestin being therein slain, this Robert Fitz-Hamon had full possession of all that territory.
“Whereupon, for reward to those twelve knights, with other his assistants, he gave unto them divers castles and manors; and, as second on the list, he gave to Richard de Greenvile the lordship of Nethe.”
Subjoined is a view of the Crypt of this once magnificent Abbey, which, though long exposed to the wasting hand of Time, and the depredations of enemies, is still a monument of early piety, upon which few pilgrims will look unmoved, and no archæologist can survey without admiration.
KIDWELLY CASTLE,
Carmarthenshire.
“For some brief passion
Are centuries of high splendour laid in dust,
And that eternal honour, which should live
Sun-like above the rock of mortal fame,
Changed to a mockery and a by-word.”
