The King brought an army to Chester; the Prince sued for peace, and the expedition was abandoned. In 1274 the King summoned Llewellyn to a conference at Chester, which invitation the Prince, perhaps wisely, declined. Instead of coming to a conference, he made inroads and plundered the country. Then Edward in 1277 marched with a vast army to Chester. He cut great avenues through the forests, so as to protect his men from ambuscades. He marched into Wales in triumph. Llewellyn made his submission, but this did not prevent him from renewing his inroads four years later. At last he was killed in a skirmish by Lord Mortimer, and the land had rest. Edward gave to his infant son, born at Carnarvon, the title of Prince of Wales, and peace at length descended on the hills and vales of Cheshire which for two hundred years had been complete strangers to it. Our chronicle of the Welsh wars and plunderings has carried us far afield, and we must hark back to the line of Earls who ruled over the harassed Palatinate. When Hugh Lupus died without issue, the Earldom descended to Ranulph Bohun, who married his sister, Margaret. He took for his arms three wheat sheaves or in a field azure, which are the present arms of the city. He was succeeded by his son, Hugh de Bohun, in 1152, who foolishly joined the rebellious Prince Henry against his father Henry II., and was sent a prisoner to Normandy. Ranulph III. succeeded, and earned the title of “the Good.” He founded several abbeys, fought in the Crusades, and drove the Dauphin Lewis out of England, who had come to depose King John. During the Wars of the Barons against Henry III., a battle was fought between the Earl of Derby and a large force for the barons against the royal army led by William, Lord Zouche, David, brother to Llewellyn, and John, Lord Audley, when the Earl was victorious and Chester was captured in 1264. John, Earl of Chester, adopted a novel expedient to end the Welsh invasions. He married Helena, the daughter of Llewellyn, during an interval of peace in order to confirm it. But the lion and the lamb might as well have mated, and the wild turbulent Princess proved a strange bride. History records not the differences of that ill-assorted alliance. Perhaps he tried to tame her too severely. Perhaps he was but a faint-hearted Petruchio. At any rate she poisoned him, and, leaving no children, the King took the Earldom into his own hands and gave it to his eldest son, Prince Edward. When this Prince was captured by Simon de Montfort, he was forced to relinquish the Earldom as part of his ransom, but on the triumph of the King’s forces it reverted again to the Crown.