The Children of Westminster Abbey: Studies in English HistoryKingsley, Rose Georgina
History
The Children of Westminster Abbey: Studies in English History
Kingsley, Rose Georgina
Children -- England -- London; Westminster Abbey -- Biography
In the campaign which followed, the sufferings of the English were
terrible. Llewellyn held out in Snowdon with the determination of
despair. An English detachment was cut to pieces at the Menai Straits;
and the war was prolonged into the winter. The undaunted king, however,
rejected all proposals of retreat; and gave orders for the formation of
a new army at Caermarthen to complete the circle of investment. This
proved needless. Llewellyn, fearing probably to be shut up and starved
out in his fastness, left Snowdon and passed into Radnorshire. Here he
fell in with a party of English under the command of Edward Mortimer and
John Gifford; and in a skirmish at Builth on the banks of the Wye he was
killed by Adam Frankton, an English soldier, who did not even know who
he was. But the body of the dead man, lying in the little hollow among
the broom beside the spring, was recognized by some of the leaders. His
head was cut off and sent to the king. Then, crowned with ivy, it was
set up over the gate of the tower of London. Thus was Merlin's prophecy
fulfilled. The "Prince of Wales" was indeed crowned at London.
David of Snowdon held out in the wilds of the mountains for a few
months, and at last was arrested and sentenced to a traitor's death.
With Llewellyn's death Wales became and has remained ever since, part of
the kingdom of England. English laws were established, and the barbarous
Welsh laws abolished. The country was divided into shires and hundreds
on the English model. Strong castles were built at Conway and
Caernarvon; and at the latter in 1284, Queen Eleanor gave birth to "the
Prince of Wales, who could not speak a word of English," as his father
said when he presented the future Edward the Second to the Welsh
chieftains. A tradition has existed that Edward completed the
pacification of Wales by a massacre of the Bards. In spite of that very
familiar quotation from Gray's Ode,
Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!
one is thankful to know that modern historians have proved this terrible
accusation to be a mere fable; besides it is a fact that from the time
of Edward to that of Elizabeth, the productions of the bards were so
numerous as to fill more than sixty volumes in quarto.
Meantime the Abbey had been yearly growing in beauty. Edward the First
added to his father's building. On his return from the crusades he
brought from France the slabs of porphyry, the precious marbles, which
still help to make his father's tomb one of the most gorgeous monuments
in the Abbey. He filled the Confessor's Chapel with trophies of his
wars--the dagger with which he was wounded at Acre--the Black Rood of
St. Margaret and the Stone of Fate from Scotland. But these were all
given in later years. What we have to do with were certain trophies of
the Conquest of Wales.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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