without difficulty into the more general narrative given by the Chroniclers.

The campaign opened in the last days of May. The plan of Harold embraced a combined attack on the Welsh territory from both sides. He himself sailed with a fleet from Bristol (May 26, 1063), the haven from which he had set sail on so different an errand twelve years before. Meanwhile Tostig set forth with a mounted land force from Northumberland. The brothers met, probably at some point of central Wales, and began a systematic ravaging of the country. The military genius of Harold was now conspicuously shown in the way in which he adapted himself to the kind of warfare which he had to wage. Nothing could be better suited than the ancient English tactics for a pitched battle with an equal enemy. But here there was no hope or fear of pitched battles, and the enemy to be dealt with was one whose warfare was of a very different kind. The English Housecarls, with their heavy coats of mail and huge battle-axes, were eminently unfitted to pursue a light-armed and active foe through the hills and valleys of Wales. Ralph the Timid had brought himself and his army to discomfiture by compelling his Englishmen suddenly to adopt the tactics of France; the valiant Earl of the West-Saxons proved his true generalship by teaching his soldiers to accustom themselves to the tactics and the fare3 of Welshmen. The irregular English troops, the fyrd, the levies of the shires, did not differ very widely from the Welsh in their way of fighting. But it is not likely that Harold would enter on such a campaign as this without the help of at least a strong body of tried and regular soldiers. We must therefore conclude that Harold actually made his Housecarls follow the tactics suitable to the country. They gave up the close array of the shield-wall; they exchanged their coats of mail for leathern jerkins; they laid aside their heavy axes; they kept their swords, but they were to trust mainly to the nimble and skilful use of the javelin for attack and of the shield for defence.*

HAROLD'S GREAT WELSH CAMPAIGN.

315 Thus attired, the English, under their great leader, proved more than a match for the Welsh at their own weapons. Unhappily we have no geographical details of the campaign, but we have a vivid picture of its general nature, and we can see that it must have been spread over a large portion of the country. There were no pitched battles; but the English, in their new array, everywhere strove with success against the enemy. Every defensible spot of ground was stoutly contested by the Britons; but even the most inaccessible mountain fastnesses proved no safeguard against the energy of Harold.1 He won skirmish after skirmish, and each scene of conflict was marked, we are told, by a trophy of stone, bearing the proud legend, "Here Harold conquered." Such a warfare was necessarily merciless. The object was to reduce the Welsh to complete submission, to disable them from ever again renewing their old ravages. Harold was fighting too with an enemy who knew not what mercy was, who gave no quarter, who, if they ever took a prisoner, instead of putting him to ransom, cut off his head. We are not therefore surprised to hear that every male who resisted was put to the sword.* One of our informants is even driven to the rhetoric of the East to express the greatness of the slaughter. Such terrible execution soon broke the spirit of the Welsh. They sub

armis victuque patriæ conformi [see on the Welsh fare just above], tam valide totam Kambriam et circuivit et transpenetravit.' But the fullest account is given by John of Salisbury (iv. 18); "Quum ergo gentis cognosceret levitatem, quasi pari certamine militiam eligens expeditam, cum eis censuit congrediendum, levem exercens armaturam, perornatus incedens fasciis pectus et præduro tectus corio, missilibus eorum levia objectans ancilia, et in eos contorquens nunc spicula, nunc mucronem exercens, sic fugientium vestigiis inhærebat, ut premeretur pede pes et cuspide cuspis,' et umbo umbone repelleretur."

1 Vita Eadw. 426;

5

"Gnarus inaccessis scrobibus se credere quantum præstiterit, quam acer et strenuus

mitted and gave hostages, they bound themselves to tribute, and pronounced sentence of deposition and outlawry upon Gruffydd. The King who had reigned over all the Welsh kin, the warrior who had been hitherto invincible, the head and shield and defender of Britons,3 was now thoroughly hated by his own people. The war and its results were laid upon him as a crime, though we cannot doubt that, in the days of success, the Welsh people had been as eager as their King to carry spoil and slaughter along the Saxon border. But now outlawry was not a doom hard enough for the fallen prince; death alone was the fitting punishment for his crimes. In the month of August in this year, Gruffydd the son of Llywelyn, the last victorious hero of the old Cymrian stock, the last British chief whose name was really terrible in Saxon ears, was put to death by men of his own race, and his head was sent to the conqueror.5

Harold had thus been merciless as long as resistance lasted, but as soon as the foe submitted, he displayed the same politic and generous lenity which he always displayed towards both foreign and domestic enemies. The head of Gruffydd and the beak of his ship were brought as trophies to King Eadward. His Kingdom was granted to his two brothers or kinsmen, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon,' who received

3 I quote literally the Brut y Tywysogion. Its wrong date, 1061, is corrected in the Annales Cambriæ into 1063. "Griffinus filius Lewelini Rex Britonum nobilissimus dolo suorum occisus est."

Chron. Wig. He is slain "fram his agenum mannum, þurh pet gewin þe he won wip Harold Eorl."

5 The Peterborough Chronicler is almost startling in his terse brevity; "And þæt folc heom gislodon and to bugon, and forcn syddan to, and ofslogon heora cyng Griffin and brohton Harolde his heafod.' The words in Italics might mean that they went and slew Gruffydd by Harold's order, in short that his death, in conformity with the vote of the Christmas Gemôt (see above, p. 312), was required by Harold as part of the conditions of peace. Such a demand, severe as it may seem, would doubtless have been legal. But this does not seem a necessary meaning of the words, and the expressions of the Worcester writer, of Florence, and of the Welsh Chronicle read as if the deed was distinctly the work

of the Welsh themselves. By John of Salisbury's time it was forgotten that Gruffydd was killed by his own people; with him Harold "Reges cepit et capita eorum Regi qui eum miserat præsentavit " (iv. 18).

Chron. Wig. "And Harold hit [Gruffydd's head] þam kynge brohte, and his scipes heafod and pa bone permid." I do not know what the 66 bone" means. The Biographer (426) says nothing about the death of Gruffydd, but is eloquent about the spoil, especially the

"Proram cum puppi, pondus grave scilicet auri,

Artificum studio fusile multiplici."

7 The Worcester Chronicle (1063) says expressly that the two princes were Gruffydd's brothers; " And se kyng Eadward betæhte þæt land his twam gebropran Blepgente and Rigwatlan." In the two Welsh Chronicles no notice is taken of this investiture of Gruffydd's successors, but in 1068 we find Bleddyn and Rhiwallon reigning; they are however called sons of Cynfyn, and are described as waging war with the sons of Gruffydd. Of Bleddyn we have heard before in the invasion of Herefordshire. See above, p. 259.

SETTLEMENT OF WALES.

317

the land as Under-kings of the English Emperor. But, according to the precedent set on the earlier submission of Gruffydd,1 a considerable part of the Welsh territory was now incorporated with the English Kingdom. In the North the vale of Clwyd, containing Gruffydd's palace at Rhuddlan, was added to the English shire of Chester, and in the South, the land of Gwent, or so much of it as lies between the Wye and the Usk, was added to the shire of Gloucester. The former dismemberment became an addition to the Earldom of Eadwine and the latter to that of Harold. Radnor too, on the central march of Wales, also became an English possession.2 For the remainder of the land the new princes went through the accustomed rites of homage. They swore oaths and gave hostages to King Eadward, and also to Earl Harold, seemingly as his destined successor.3 They engaged also to pay the tribute which had been accustomed in past times, but which, we may be sure, had been very irregularly paid in the days of Gruffydd.*

Two pieces of legislation are said to have followed the conquest of Wales. Harold is said to have ordained that any Welshman found in arms on the English side of Offa's Dyke should lose his right hand. If this was anything more than a temporary military regulation, Harold's ordaining it can only mean that it was he who proposed the enactment to the Witan. The other decree is attributed to the special indulgence of Eadward himself. The slaughter of the male population of Wales had been so great that there was no chance of the widows and daughters of the slain finding husbands among their own people. Lest the whole race should die out, the King allowed them to marry Englishmen, which we must infer had hitherto been unlawful. Stories like these must be taken at what they are

6

1 See above, p. 266.

2 On the evidence for these cessions, see Appendix SS.

3 See Appendix LL. The Peterborough Chronicle leaves out all mention of Eadward; "And he [Harold] sette operne cyng parto."

Chron. Wig. "And hig [Bleddyn and Rhiwallon] apas sworon and gislas saldan þæm Cynge and pæm Eorle, pæt heo him on allum þingum unswicende beon woldon, and eighwar him gearwe, on wætere and on lande, and swylc of pam lande gelæstan swylc man dyde toforan ær oþrum kynge."

Offæ, cum telo inveniretur, ei ab officialibus regni manus dextra præcideretur." A not very different order was put out in John of Salisbury's own day. Henry the Second ordered in 117: "ne aliquis arma gestaret per Angliam citra Sabrinam, scilicet arcum et sagittas, et cultella cum punctis; et si quis hujusmodi arma gestaret caperetur." Ben. Petrib. i. 93. This however does not seem to have been specially aimed at the Welsh. The historian adds, "sed hæc præcepta parvo tempore custodita sunt."

Joan. Sarisb. iv. 18. Adeoque vir

tute Ducis tunc Britones confecti sunt ut fere gens tota deficere videretur, et ex indulgentiâ jam dicti Regis mulieres eorum nupserunt Anglis."

worth. Though coming from the same source, they do not bear about them the same stamp of truth as the accounts which are given us of the military details of the campaign.

But

Wales was thus, to all appearance, thoroughly conquered. North Wales, the original Kingdom of Gruffydd, seems to have remained fairly quiet; but elements of disturbance still lingered in the South. Part of the land of Gwent had, as we have seen, been formerly incorporated with the English Kingdom and with the West-Saxon Earldom.1 Harold accordingly hastened to take possession on behalf of himself and of his sovereign. King Eadward was growing old, but he still retained his love of hunting, and a new field seemed to be opened for the royal sport in the wild lands which had been lately brought into fuller subjection to the royal authority. In the low lands of Gwent, near one of the usual places of crossing the mouth of the Severn from England into Wales, the Earl chose out a place called Porth-iscoed or Portske wet as well suited for his sovereign's diversions. One of the great Gemóts of each year was now so regularly held at Gloucester that a place at no very great distance from that city might well seem convenient for the purpose. besides this, it was an obvious policy thus to take seizin, as it were, of the conquered lands, and to show to their inhabitants that their new sovereign was to be really a present master. At Portskewet then Earl Harold began (August 1, 1065) to build a house, and he had gathered together a large number of workmen and an abundant store of provisions and other good things. We do not read that Eadward ordered the building of the house; it seems rather like a voluntary act of Harold's own, springing from his personal consideration for his royal brother-in-law's pleasure. Of any discontent on the part of the newly-appointed princes of the country we hear nothing. But there was one to whom a Saxon settlement on the soil of Gwent was far more irksome than it could be to any prince of Powys or Gwynedd. A disinherited and dispossessed chieftain still looked on the land as his own, and probably deemed Harold and Bleddyn to be equally intruders. This was Caradoc ap Gruffydd, the son of that Gruffydd of South Wales who had been slain, and his Kingdom seized, by the more famous Gruffydd whose career had so lately come to an end.3 According to one account, he had been himself outlawed by order of

1 See Appendix SS.

"Ut

2 Chron. Ab. 1065. "Harold Eorl þone Kinge Eadward þar to habbene for huntnopes pingon." So Flor. Wig. Dominus suus Rex Eadwardus illic aliquamdiu venationis caussâ degere possit."

3 See above, p. 258. Florence expressly distinguishes him as "filius Regis SuthWalanorum Griffini, quem ante paucos annos Griffinus Rex North-Walanorum occiderat, ejusque regnum invaserat."