A.D. 1281.--About the Festival of the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary, Llewellyn, violating the peace which he had some time before entered into with the King of England, at the instigation and with the assistance of his brother David, on whom the King of England had bestowed lands and possessions in England, and whom he had honoured with kindness among the nobles of his household, did not shame, with a large band of robbers, to devastate, plunder, and burn, in frequent raids, those lands, belonging to the King of England and the Marchers, which lay nearest to him; he even attacked the Castles of Flint and Rhuddlan, which the King had begun to build on the borders of Wales to ward off the threatened attacks of the Welsh. When the King, who was at that time keeping Easter at Devizes, heard the news, he sent off a few of his men immediately to check, even a little, the advance of the Welsh, until he himself could take more serious measures. Then, summoning the nobles of the kingdom, he appointed a Parliament to be held at Worcester on the Festival of the Nativity of S. John the Baptist. Meanwhile Roger de Clifford, who was endeavouring to protect the lands lying next his own from the fury of the marauding bands, was captured, mortally wounded, by David and his accomplices, after several of his family had been cruelly put to death. The King, hearing this, decreed in the Parliament above-mentioned that all the nobles of the kingdom should meet him with horses and arms in Wales on the Feast of S. Peter ad Vincula; and when a large army assembled, he laid waste, ravaged, and burned the strongholds, lands, and villages of the Prince of Wales, which lay near him. But the Welsh resisted courageously, and one day, when a detachment from the King's army was advancing somewhat carelessly and allowing itself to become too far separated from the main body, suddenly a countless host of Welshmen, bursting forth from hiding-places in the woods and marshes, attacked our men, who were relatively very few in number. In the struggle were slain the son of lord William de Valence, nephew of the lord King, Richard de Argentoein, and several others, the remainder escaping with difficulty.