The question whether the Edwardian conquest was a benefit or a misfortune to Wales in the long run is one to which no certain answer can be given. In so far as it put an end to the rivalries and the internecine strife which, for centuries, had convulsed the land, it was an unalloyed blessing. But there were signs that Welshmen had already learnt the lesson of the past; and that they were willing, without the drastic measures applied to them from without, to set their own house in order. The multiplication of small States is now, no doubt, an evil; but the same cannot be said with confidence about the Middle Ages. The {99} assertion of writers, unable themselves to read a line of Welsh, that the culture of England in the latter half of the thirteenth century was superior to that of Wales is certainly untrue. Indeed the direct contrary is the fact. Welsh literature, both prose and poetry, was far ahead of that of England; and the Welsh language had attained a decidedly higher stage of development. Welsh customs were "barbarous" only in the sense in which all that is strange is considered barbarous by the man of insular mind. We have now learned (and it is our good fortune that we have learned) that a nation can live its own free life of the mind and the spirit while forming, for political purposes, part of a larger body called a State; but it does not follow that, in the thirteenth century, a nation could exist at all without enjoying a large measure of political independence, if not sovereignty itself. Llewelyn may have been crafty, proud, and impulsive; but it is equally true that Edward was harsh, perfidious, and a narrow legalist always thinking in terms of strict feudal law. His plea that the amending or abrogating of Welsh laws was for the good of the Welsh people themselves is the excuse which strong empires have always made use {100} of when seeking to justify the subjugation and assimilation of small nations. He talked much about justice; but this justice, which sounded so fair in theory, resolved itself in practice into the oppression and cruelty of ruthless and unsympathetic foreign officials. At heart what Edward most desired was not that Welshmen should remain Welshmen and be at peace with him, but that they should as quickly as possible be turned into Englishmen. It has been noted that in the towns which Edward founded in Wales English was the language of the people down to the close of the sixteenth century. {101} CHAPTER VII CALM BEFORE THE STORM