On his death bed, we are told, Henry VII "gave in charge to his son Prince Henry that he should have a special care for the benefit of his own nation and countrymen, the Welshmen." However that may be, the new king seems to have paid no great heed to the injunction. He had never been sent by his father to keep Court at Ludlow; and he was quite content to leave things to the care of the Council, and the faithful Rhys. But as he grew older, and as the fascination of politics began to lay hold upon him, Henry began to think about the neglected Principality. Complaints were constantly reaching his ears of the anarchy which prevailed there; how the whole land was infested with bandits; how life and property were no longer safe. In 1525 the king visited Ludlow in person, taking with him the Princess Mary. There the Princess remained until 1528, when she was recalled owing to the divorce proceedings which had been instituted against her mother. Again, for a period, Wales appears to have been forgotten; for Henry was fully engaged in the mighty task of "breaking the bonds of Rome," and laying the foundations of the English Reformation. So bad did things become, that one of the king's justices was beset and {132} murdered when on circuit in Merionethshire; and in 1529 there was an insurrection at Carmarthen. But it was the darkest hour, and the dawn was at hand. In 1534 Henry appointed Rowland Lee, Bishop of Lichfield, to be Lord President; and for the next nine years he held his Court at Ludlow. Of the administration of this able, jovial, energetic, and ruthless man it is not necessary to say much; let it suffice that, in the comparatively brief period during which he held office, he educed order out of chaos, and caused the law to be feared and obeyed, not only in the Marches, but in the remotest corners of Wales. Gangs of robbers were mercilessly hunted down. High and low were punished with exemplary severity. The qualms which ecclesiastics affected to feel against the shedding of blood counted for naught with the martial prelate. According to one authority he hanged as many as five thousand malefactors, and that at a time when the total population of Wales could hardly have exceeded 125,000. For the Common Law, and especially for the jury system, he avowed the most extreme contempt. How absurd, he used to remark, to expect thieves to convict a thief! Harsh he may have been; {133} but his harshness achieved its purpose. He found Wales turbulent, lawless, and rebellious, a land in which it was well nigh impossible to pursue a peaceful calling. He left it orderly and tranquil, loyal to its sovereign, and ready to play its part in what was to prove to be the most glorious period in British history.