represented by a small motte in a garden near the Ceiriog stream, and close to the church. An AngloNorman poem of the 13th century attributes the first building of this castle to William Peverel, Lord of Whittington and Ellesmere, and says he placed it "on the water of Ceiriog."1 No doubt it defended the passage of the stream, and an important road into Shropshire.

PRESTATYN. - This castle defended the coast road from Chester to Rhuddlan. Henry II. granted it to Robert Banaster for his services in 1165.2 It was destroyed by Owen Gwynedd in 1167, and does not appear to have been rebuilt. A low motte with a halfmoon bailey, and a larger square enclosure, still remain. [B. T. S.]

3

Mr Davis has remarked that John was more successful in extending his authority over the British Isles than in anything else. In 1211 he led an expedition into the heart of Wales, and reduced his son-in-law Llywelyn ap Jorwerth to complete submission. As usual, the expedition was marked by the building or repair of castles. The Earl of Chester restored Deganwy, which shows that the English frontier was again advanced to the Conway; he also repaired the castle of Holywell, which the Pipe Roll shows to have been recovered from the Welsh about this time. These Rolls also show that in 1212-1213 John was paying for works at

MATHRAVAL-EGLOE-YALE

271

the castles of Carreghova, Ruthin, and Chirk, as well as at the following castles, which have not been mentioned before.

2

MATHRAVAL, Madrael in the Pipe Rolls (Fig. 40), near Meifod in Montgomeryshire, defending the valley of the Vyrnwy. Here was the chief royal residence of Powys;1 but the castle was built in John's reign by Roger de Vipont. It occupied 24 acres, and the motte is in one corner of the area, which is square, and surrounded only by banks; though ruined foundations are found in parts of the castle. John himself burned the castle in 1211, when the Welsh were besieging it, but the Pipe Roll (1212-1213) shows that he afterwards repaired it. [D. H. M.]

3

EGLOE, or Eulo, called by Leland Castle Yollo.On the Chester and Holywell road, about 8 miles from Holywell. The mention in the Pipe Roll of pikes and ammunition provided for this castle in 1212-1213 is the first ancient allusion to it with which we are acquainted. It is a motte-and-bailey castle, with additions in masonry which are probably of the reign of Henry III. The keep is of the "thimble" plan, a rare instance.* [B. T. S.]

*YALE.-The Brut tells us that in 1148 (read 1150) Owen Gwynedd built a castle in Yale. Powell identified this with Tomen y Rhodwydd, a motte and bailey on the road between Llangollen and Ruthin. Yale, however, is the name of a district, and there can be little doubt that the castle of Yale was the motte and bailey at Llanarmon, which for a long period was the caput of Yale.1 Yale undoubtedly belonged to the Normans when Domesday Book was compiled, and it is therefore not unlikely that these earthworks were first thrown up by the Earl of Chester. The castle was burnt by Jorwerth Goch in 1158, but restored by John in 1212. One of the expenses entered for that year is "for iron mallets for breaking the rocks in the ditch of the castle of Yale." This ditch cut in the rock still remains, as well as some foundations on the motte, which is known as Tomen y Vardra, or the Mount of of the demesne.5

4

How long the two last-mentioned groups of castles continued in Anglo-Norman hands we do not attempt to say. North Wales, as is well known, reaped a harvest of new power and prosperity through the civil war of the end of John's reign, and the ability of Llywelyn ap Jorwerth. Our task ends with the reign of John. We have only to remark that until the Pipe Rolls of Henry III.'s reign have been carefully searched, it is impossible to say with certainty what castles of North Wales, or if any, were still held by the English king.

1

CHAPTER IX

MOTTE-CASTLES IN SOUTH WALES

It is not possible to fix certain dates for all the Norman conquests of the several provinces of South Wales. These conquests proceeded from various points, under different leaders. We might have expected that the earliest advances would have been on the Herefordshire border, the earldom of Hereford having been given by William I. to William FitzOsbern, one of his most trusted and energetic servants. Ordericus tells us that FitzOsbern and Walter de Lacy first invaded the district of Brecknock, and defeated three kings of the Welsh. This looks as though the conquest of Brecknock was then begun. But it was not completed till the reign of Rufus; in 1093 Bernard of Neufmarché defeated and slew Rhys ap Tudor, King of South Wales, in a battle which the Welsh chronicler speaks of as the fall of the kingdom of the Britons. William FitzOsbern died in 1071, and he had scarcely time to accomplish more than the building of the border castles of Wigmore, Clifford, Ewias, and Monmouth, and the incastellation of Gwent, that is the country between the Wye and the Usk, which had already been conquered by Harold.

2

It seems probable that Pembrokeshire was one 1 Ordericus, ii., 218, 219 (edition Prévost). 2 Bruty Tywysogion, 1091.

of the earliest Norman conquests in South Wales, as in 1073 and 1074 the Brut tells of two expeditions of "the French" into Dyfed, a region which included not only what we now call Pembrokeshire, but also Strath Towy, which comprised an extensive district on both sides of the valley of the Towy. The Annales Cambriæ name Hugh de Montgomeri, Earl Roger's eldest son, in connection with the second of these expeditions, seven years before the expedition of King William into Wales in 1081.2 The House of Montgomeri certainly took the most conspicuous part in the conquest of Dyfed and Cardigan, which was completed, according to the Brut, in 1093.8 Arnulf of Montgomeri, fifth son of Earl Roger, was the leader of this conquest. But his father must at the same time have been operating in Cardigan, as the building of the castle of Cilgerran, which is on the very borders of Pembroke and Cardigan, is attributed to him.

How far Earl Roger made himself master of Ceredigion it is impossible to say. Later writers say that he built the castle of Cardigan, but we have not been able to find any early authority for this statement, which in itself is not improbable. Powell's History makes him do homage to William Rufus for the lordship of Cardigan, but here again the authority is doubtful. The fact

4