The Brothers of Gwynedd

  One of his law clerks present, who had been an envoy at the drawing up of that treaty, looked a little uneasy at this, and frowned like a man searching his memory, and said that as to the wording, the lord prince was slightly in error, for the word "fugitive" did not occur in the king's responsibilities towards Wales, though it did in Llewelyn's undertakings towards England.

  "The phrase, as I recall, is that King Henry promised, for himself and his heirs, 'inimicum vel adversarium principis vel heredum suorum non manutenebunt contra principem vel iuvabunt.'"

  "Is that not to vary without differing?" said Llewelyn impatiently. "Are not David and Griffith my enemies and adversaries, and is not Edward now maintaining and aiding them against me? If the word "fugitivum" had been added, what difference would it have made?"

  To him there was indeed no difference, because he did not play with words like cards in a game, but held fast to conceptions of duty, undertaking and honour. What use was it to tell him, even if we had then grasped the rules of the game, that Edward could claim the exiles he entertained had not yet, from his land, attempted any move against the prince, to come within the terms of the treaty? Or that Edward's lawyers would have a thousand arguments, even if the exiles did continue their treasons from without, to prove the treaty was not infringed, and Edward not obliged to take any restraining action?

  "He knows," said Llewelyn quite positively, to himself rather than to us. "He knows what he is doing! I have not evaded my obligations under treaty, there is no personal matter at issue between us. He has made the first move towards enmity. Take note of it!"

  And so I did, in great trouble of mind, yet not quite recognising what I saw. For this was the moment when Llewelyn's belief in Edward's good faith was first, and fatally, shaken. Thereafter there was no return to the old, easy, honourable enmity, played out fairly and with honest men's regard and respect for an honest opponent. Never, until they came to blows. The battle-ground was the only ground where they could meet.

  At night, when Llewelyn called me to him to play the crwth before he slept, he said, softly but abruptly after long silence: "I have not yet pledged him fealty or done him homage. It is the only weapon I have, if he takes arms of his own choosing against me." And he looked up at me and smiled, seeing my uneasiness. "No, I have no hope of withholding any homage for ever. I owned it due, and I shall pay it. But, oh, Samson, if I could with honour, how gladly I would! To have Wales entirely separate, entirely free, a state equal with England!" And he closed his eyes upon the vision, for he was very weary. But in a moment he opened them again, and said wryly, quoting an old Welsh proverb: "Truth is better than law! But how shall we prove it, against the tide, if Edward maintains that law is better than truth?"

  CHAPTER VII

  There is no man can say that Llewelyn acted rashly or in haste during that spring season after Griffith's flight, or took his own way without consulting his council. He was more than usually careful to sound out the opinions of the elders, and to weigh the consequences of what he did before taking action. He made no complaint to the king, and no sign of knowing where his enemies were lodged, much less of being aware that they stayed there with the king's sanction and approval, and virtually under his protection, until they themselves took action and showed all too plainly that they were based on Shrewsbury, and moreover were freely allowed to make armed sallies from that town, against the terms of the treaty. This forbearance on his part was primarily to protect Cynan, or any other royal servant of Welsh birth, who might come under suspicion of sending us secret information, but also to demonstrate to the whole world that the offence came first from Griffith's men, and Edward could no longer plead that they were not conducting themselves as "enemies and adversaries of the prince, contrary to treaty."

  The first raid into Cydewain came late in February, a rapid strike from Shrewsbury into the lands south of Pool, and a quick retreat, driving off several head of cattle and burning barns full of grain. One villager was killed in that fight, and a number of families left homeless. Llewelyn, when he heard of it, sent for one of the chief men of that part, and took a detailed statement from him, as an eye-witness, that no one might be able to challenge his story. Then he wrote formally to Edward, setting forth the truth of the matter, whence the onslaught was launched, what booty had been taken, and by whose men, naming names, and making it clear that no intelligent man could fail to note how the king's officers, though they had not taken any part themselves, certainly had done nothing to prevent or restrain the attack, as undoubtedly they could have done. Nothing on such a scale was begun from Shrewsbury but the bailiffs of the town and the sheriff of the shire knew about it. But they had not banned the raid, nor taken any steps to punish the offenders since.

  Soon afterwards there were two more such raids, briefer but also hurtful, into the commotes of Deuddwr and Ystrad Marchell. The Welsh there defended themselves stoutly, but could not pursue the retreating enemy into England. Each time Llewelyn wrote again, always fully, and in March King Edward finally sent a reply, in very correct but distant form, saying he had received the prince's letters complaining of various trespasses along his borders, partly following the reception of the prince's enemies into the march, partly from other causes, but not having with him those advisers he would wish to consult in the matter, he thought it better to leave dealing until his proposed Easter parliament in London, when all his counsellors would be present. And he asked that Llewelyn would send to that parliament legal envoys fully instructed in the matters at issue, and promised to do whatever was right according to treaty.

  It was a very civil letter, and promised fairly enough, but there were things about it that troubled me, as though I saw again between the lines the heavy droop of the eyelid over the wide brown eye, hiding half the king's thoughts. Why, for instance, did he lump together these specific complaints concerning the traitors and rebels with the ordinary infringements to which we had grown almost accustomed along the border? They belonged in a category very different, and Llewelyn had most markedly distinguished between them. And where was the need of consulting all his parliament and council, nobles and clerics, some three months after he himself, consulting no one, had issued orders that the fugitives should be free to live as they pleased in Shrewsbury? The time to take counsel would have been before he opened his arms to traitors.

  "He is playing the delaying game with me," said Llewelyn, and the suspicions he nursed against the king grew larger and blacker. Nevertheless, he did send envoys, expert in law and fully briefed concerning the facts, to the king's Easter parliament, and of talk there was plenty, but still all of promises without action. King Edward wrote, early in May, that he had heard the complaints of the envoys, and had instructed the sheriff of Salop to fix a day for meeting according to custom, to discuss such complaints from both sides, and to make mutual amends for any injuries done. The present ambassadors, he claimed, were not fully empowered, and therefore no judgment could be arrived at in Westminster concerning the trespasses alleged to have been committed against the prince by the king's magnates.

  This, after Llewelyn had named them! "His magnates!" he said angrily. "The two greatest are my magnates, and my traitors, and he dares lay claim to them? What is he about? Is he so preoccupied with other business that he has not realised how great is this offence and this danger? Or is he welcoming it after his own fashion, and looking for profit from it, all in good time?"

  Nor was he the first of us to begin to suspect as much, for Tudor had already voiced to me a similar dread. Moreover, before long the king's attitude hardened, and he no longer empowered de Knovill, the sheriff of Salop, to meet with our envoys and make amends in the old way, but ordered him to make none, nor accept any from us, until Llewelyn should have regularised his position by performing his homage to Edward, though up to that time no further arrangements had been made, nor any further demand, for that formality, and it was Edward's own illness that had prevented it before. We did not know of this prohibition
until later, but we saw for ourselves that no meeting ever took place, and no redress was made. Moreover, the depredations of Griffith and David from Shrewsbury grew bolder, and were carried out by such formidable numbers that we suspected—it may be wrongly— that their own forces were augmented by some of the king's men, perhaps not officially ordered, but willingly serving as auxiliaries, and sure that de Knovill would turn a blind eye.

  Llewelyn complained once again, in terms stronger and more direct than before.

  "Write to King Edward," he said, "that since my envoys returned from parliament there have been no less than six further raids made on my territories by the men of Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn, who are maintained and protected in the county of Salop, and their crimes publicly defended there. Of the booty they took on these six raids, from all the border commotes of my realm in this region, part has been sold openly in the markets of Shrewsbury and Montgomery, which can hardly be done without the knowledge of the authorities responsible for those towns. Four horses belonging to me have been taken from the groom travelling with them, and my man publicly beheaded. The peace can hardly be maintained if such felonies are permitted. Though the king's own men are not directly to blame, yet their maintaining and protecting of the criminals is as great a peril to peace as if they themselves had committed the offences. I therefore pray your Grace to do justice, and order your sheriff to arrest the felons, whose names, should they be still unknown to your Grace, I can and will supply. I expect justice and fair amends from you, and the prevention of such disorders in the future, and I beg for an answer to this letter by the bearer."

  This was sent on the twenty-second of May, from Aberyddon, and could hardly have been more explicit.

  "But not wholly true, I doubt," said Llewelyn bitterly, "for I tell you, I am no longer sure that I expect from Edward any measure of justice or any amends."

  This was also the mood of most of us who had followed this exchange of letters. Looking back now, I am not sure how far we were just in our turn to Edward, who had all the complex business of state upon his mind, of which this affair of the Welsh traitors may have seemed to him only a minor part. Yet I am not satisfied with this, because of small, perilous points, like his insistence on treating David and Griffith and the complaints against them in just the same way as he treated Llewelyn's legal wrangles with de Bohun over disputed lands farther south, as though all these men were his own barons. This he knew was not the case, and his continued refusal to differentiate cannot have been anything but deliberate. At this time the only grievance he can possibly have had against the prince was the withholding of the money due under treaty, and again and again Llewelyn had stressed that it was ready and waiting to be paid if the king would also perform what was due from him under treaty, that is, to curb and compensate for the border infringements of which we had cause to complain. But Edward was a proud and domineering man, and a single grievance was enough, even if he had not chosen, in that month of June, to provide himself with a second and greater.

  On the twenty-fourth day of the month he issued a summons to the prince of Wales to present himself at Chester on the twenty-second of August, to take the oath of fealty and perform his homage as a vassal. True, he offered letters of safeconduct for the journey into the town, but it was not yet forgotten, in Wales or in England, what the worth of Edward's word had been to Henry de Montfort at Gloucester, and to many another whom he chose to consider as rebels and obdurate, or his parole and solemn oath when he was hostage to Earl Simon, and turned recreant without a qualm.

  The messenger who brought the summon was a young clerk we did not know, and therefore Llewelyn merely thanked him for his errand and offered him entertainment overnight, making no show of what he felt concerning the matter of the message. But the young man smiled, and said: "I am entrusted also with another piece of news, I will not say all welcome, since it concerns a death, but perhaps not all unwelcome. And I am bidden to mention to you the name of Master Cynan, who taught me the message. For I am his sister's son, and I owe my place at court to him."

  "Then you are doubly welcome," said Llewelyn heartily, "and I look forward to hearing all your uncle's news over dinner. Speak out his message now, whatever it may be."

  "My uncle bids me tell you," said the boy, "that the king has received word, only a week ago, of the death of his aunt, the Countess Eleanor de Montfort, at the convent of Montargis, where she has lived since she left England. Her daughter, the Lady Eleanor, is now in the guardianship of her brother Amaury, still unwed, still unaffianced. To the best of my uncle's belief, it is she herself who has resisted all offers made for her. If you are still of the same mind, my lord, your way lies open."

  Late in the evening I looked for him and could not find him, though he had presided at the high table as always, with a calm face and a commanding eye, and been gracious to the young man, Cynan's nephew, who had brought him two such momentous and perilous messages. Not a word had he yet said to us of either, gone beyond indecision, beyond exultation or despair, forgetful of the king in the sudden sense he had of being near to Eleanor, as though the miles of air between had shrunk, so that he could all but stretch out his hand and touch her cheek. I should have known from old experience where to find him, and there he was, when I thought on the certainty at last, alone in his chapel before the small altar light, not on his knees but standing erect, his eyes upon the little silver glimmer that flowed reflected down the cross, and in his cupped hands before him the painted and enamelled medallion that Earl Simon had given to him long ago, the image of a child's grave and marvellous face in profile, with the heavy braid of dark-gold hair coiled upon her shoulder. Twelve years old she was when that portrait was made, hardly older when her father betrothed her to the prince, and now she was a woman grown, twenty-two years old, and I had not seen her for those ten years, and except in this image, Llewelyn had never seen her.

  "God forgive me," he said, very low, for he knew who came in to him without looking round, "God forgive me that I can be glad, when she has lost a mother she surely loved. But if she has waited, as I have—oh, Samson, if she has indeed waited for me with a single heart, as I for her—then even she may be glad at the heart of her sorrow. And when I see her face to face, and take her hand, it shall be my life's work to make her glad, and fend off from her every sorrow and every doubt. At Evesham I was promised I should be his son. The blind man blessed me, in Earl Simon's name and in God's name, and wished me fulfilment. It cannot fail!"

  I wondered then if there had ever been times when he had doubted of winning her, for he was human like other men, and could not be always constant in faith. But it is all one, for I believe, whatever the exaltations and despairs of his spirit, he had never contemplated giving up the fight, and to die still pursuing an ideal is not defeat, but victory. Now it was so near that his extended hands touched the hem of her garment.

  "I must not take her consent for granted," he said, "nor her brother's approval, either. She has never seen me, I am only a name to her, remembered for the sake of her father. But now at least I may send and offer for her in good faith, and she may say yes or no to me, and at no other person's leave but hers will I take her. There is a wine-ship of St. Malo lying in Caergybi now, and ready to leave. My envoy and notaries shall sail with her, and with good weather they may be in France within the week. This Montargis is south of Paris, is it not?"

  "Twenty leagues or so," I said, "perhaps twenty-five."

  "And Montfort l'Amaury, from which her family came?"

  "Closer still, very close to the city."

  I had never been over the sea, but often, in the days when I was Llewelyn's envoy in Earl Simon's retinue, I had talked with his son Henry, and sometimes with the earl himself, about the lands in France which they had left to put down deep and powerful roots in England. As for Eleanor, I think she had never seen France until her mother took her away after Earl Simon's death at Evesham. She was born in Kenilworth, the youngest of her line, and the only daught
er after five sons, three of them now dead, one just absolved from excommunication but still right-less and landless, one, the last, a scholar of Padua and a papal chaplain. To his care she was now committed, and with his goodwill, in no way bound by promises made to Edward, as her mother's had been, she could be married.

  "In a month," said Llewelyn, his eyes steady and bright upon the flicker of silver light on the altar, "I may get her answer. I would to God I could go myself, if she consents, and bring her home, but I dare not turn my back here. It is her dower, and her son's inheritance, I am nursing now, and I must hold it safe for them. But, Samson, if she consents—you knew her, she will not have forgotten! -I would have you go as my proxy, and speak the words for me at our first wedding."

  Not until the wine-ship had sailed, and with it Cynfric and the prince's best notaries, with his proposals and gifts, did Llewelyn turn his attention to King Edward's summons to Chester. But when he did, it was clear that a part of his mind had been busy with it in secret. For things had changed greatly since he set forth to meet the king at Shrewsbury on the same errand, and illness prevented. He had then had no complaints or grievances against the king, and no suspicions of his motives and intentions. Now he had all these, and to a grave degree.