Then they would think of Llywelyn the Great, and of that golden age which their fathers were never tired of recalling—how that wise and powerful prince strove to unite all Wales, and live on good terms with the Saxon on his borders. ’Twas Llywelyn, they remind one another, who married King John’s daughter, and aided the Saxon barons to make that false sovereign swear to observe the rights of the Cymry and keep their laws inviolate. ’Twas in his day, too, that the monk and the friar came into their land with a blessed ministry to the poor and the outcast. Strange that the great Llywelyn should have begotten so feeble a son as David, he who weakly threw in his lot with the Saxon and sent his patriot brother Griffith in chains to the Tower of London. Ah! it was a sad day when the rope broke by which that gallant prince was trying to escape, and he was killed by the fall! But his son Llywelyn, their late king, was worthy of his sire, look you! He and the great Simon de Montfort had fought shoulder to shoulder, and the Saxon king had been obliged to recognize Llywelyn as Prince of Wales. And now he has gone too—slain by a foe who knew him not, in a mere skirmish down by Builth. Yes, and the old prophecy has come true—that Llywelyn should ride crowned through London. Crowned he was, in very sooth, but, alas, the crowned head was carried on a spear. Woe worth the day! David, his brother, had been caught too, and had suffered the awful death penalty of a traitor. Even now his head was rotting over Shrewsbury gate. Had Llywelyn but lived, even Edward’s great army might have been driven back, especially as winter was coming on, and the storms and the snows would fight on their side. But with Llywelyn’s death all hope has vanished, and what can they do but submit? And now Edward, the Saxon king before whom they are to bow, comes on the scene. The chieftains scan him closely. Some of them have never seen him eye to eye before; but his warlike fame has long been familiar to them. As he strides into the courtyard, towering above his attendants, they can readily believe those wonderful stories which they have heard of his mighty prowess and physical strength—how, for example, he slew the assassin in the Holy Land, and how he bore himself at Châlons when the Burgundian knight strove to drag him from his saddle. What a fool the fellow must have looked when Edward clapped spurs to his horse and shook the man to the ground as though he had been a bag of straw! He is pitiful, too, and boasts—does he not?—that no man ever begged his life of him in vain. And what is that device which he bears so proudly on his shield? “Keep faith.” Ah, but will he keep faith with stricken Wales? Has he not slaughtered the very bards, lest their songs should keep the memory of the old free days fresh and green in their hearts?