We need not dwell upon the skill and vigour of the besiegers, nor the spirited resistance of the garrison. But, in the present instance, the siege was conducted in a more regular and systematic method than heretofore; they had recourse to all the appliances of military art. The warlike engines employed against stubborn fortresses were now called into perpetual action, and night and day the butting of the battering-rams continued to shake the ramparts, until here and there a stone dropping from the mason-work, the whole ramparts began to shake under the feet of the besieged. At length, a breach being effected, the Normans poured in their best troops, and for a time the conflict was maintained with desperate fury. Foot to foot the assailants met, fought, and fell where they stood. Too proud to ask quarter, the fiery Cambrian rushed upon his adversary with a blind impetuosity that often placed him at his mercy; while the Norman, adroit in the management of his weapon, and bent on revenging his countrymen, was only stimulated to indiscriminate slaughter; and long before sunrise the Norman banner waved on the Castle of Llanstephan.
In M.CC.XVI the fortune of war was again invoked. The Norman sway, so intolerable to native independence, had extended its influence and territory; and with these had inspired into the heart of every reflecting Cambrian, a deep sense of the wrongs inflicted upon his country. With an irrepressible and Wallace-like determination to crush or expel the invader, he rushed to the conflict. This, so far as regards Llanstephan, was partly effected by Llewelyn-ap-Iorwerth, who, after a successful attack, entered the fortress, slew or captured the garrison, and then, to prevent its being again turned against the peace of the country, dismantled the walls, threw down the gates, filled up the ditches, and left its towers for a habitation to the owls.
The position of the Castle, however, was too advantageous to be neglected for more than a season: for, as war continued rampant along the marches, the demand for garrisons increased; and Llanstephan was again converted into a fortress, and crowded with troops. In this state it appears to have continued until the year 1254. But in those days of mutual hatred and jealousy—when neighbour plotted against neighbour, and friendships cemented at morning were often changed, by some sudden exasperation, into mortal enmities before night—the garrison of Llanstephan could never remain unconcerned spectators of passing events. Llewelyn-ap-Grufydd, whose name is so familiar in the Cambrian annals, finding himself in a position to resent, to the very death, some personal insult from the haughty castellan of Llanstephan, summoned his countrymen to arms. “This offensive castle,” said he, “must be demolished! Ye have true British hearts; and if your hands will only obey those hearts, my countrymen, before two days elapse ye shall drive your goats to pasture in the courtyard, of Llanstephan!”
This old Griffin kept his word—the raid was successful—his flag soon waved over the battlements of the castle; and there we leave him for the present to enjoy the fruits of his new seigneurie.
St. Anton’s Well, in the parish of Llanstephan, was long a place of popular resort for invalids. Impregnated by some mysterious qualities which escaped detection by the ancient process of analysis, the water was lauded as a never-failing resource under those forms of corporeal malady which had baffled the skill of physicians, and conducted the sufferer to the very brink of despair. It may, therefore, be imagined, that the concourse of pilgrims was a source of no little emolument to the place, more especially to the “hydropathic” friar of the olden day, who presided at the well, and propitiated, for a consideration, the kind offices of St. Anthony. But all the medicinal virtues of this holy well are now left to the gossip of old tradition; and although the fountain bubbles up as fresh, and clear, and salubrious as ever, public faith in its qualities has been shaken; and no pilgrim, in these days of scientific analysis, ever stoops down to taste the water, and, in testimony of its virtue, leaves his crutch behind him.[406]
LAUGHARNE CASTLE,
Carmarthenshire.
“Now strike ye the harp that has slumbered so long,
Till yon mountains re-echo the theme of my song!
Come forth, ye bold warriors, from forest and tarn,
And up with the banner of Guy of Laugharne!