Civil war looms

The sons of Belial (2)

On 2 August 1273 an order went out to all the sheriffs in England, instructing them to conduct themselves so the king ‘would not have to punish them’. On the same day a separate message was sent out to all the king’s subjects in every county, warning them to be diligent in the pursuit of criminals.

There was no king in England, as such. Henry III was dead and his heir far away in the Holy Land, so these orders were sent out by the regency government. The need for a king to provide strong centralized authority was all too apparent. Without him the realm fell to pieces. To make things worse, the courts were suspected of doing little to prevent the crime wave sweeping over England. There was even a suspicion that sheriffs and bailiffs were colluding with the ‘malefactors’ who committed robberies, homicides and other enormities in every county.

The arms of Gilbert de Clare

It didn’t help when the great magnates of the realm, who were supposed to help the regents keep order, got involved in wrongdoing. Gilbert de Clare, the ‘red earl’ of Gloucester was particularly shameless in this regard. In early 1273 a private war erupted in Staffordshire between Prince Edmund of Lancaster and Robert de Ferrers, the disinherited Earl of Derby. On 17 February Edmund wrote to the chancellor, Walter Merton, pleading for military aid against Ferrers.

The arms of Robert de Ferrers

Clare chose this moment to stick his oar in. Two days later he sent a letter to Merton, expressing concern at the behaviour of Edmund and Ferrers. There could be no peace in the land, Clare warned, unless the great lords settled their differences. A noble sentiment. At the same time Clare was in secret talks with Ferrers, and in May they sealed a pact whereby Ferrers agreed to surrender his stake in Gloucestershire if Clare would help him recover his lands in Staffordshire. This amounted to a joint declaration of war against Edmund.

The other magnates now started taking sides. Reynold de Grey, Roger Mortimer and Henry Lacy declared for Edmund. Earl Warenne, James Audley and John Fitz John declared for Ferrers. Another civil war - the third in little more than a decade - loomed on the horizon.

Lies and hostility

The sons of Belial (1)

In March 1270 Archbishop Walter Giffard of York cited the dire state of the realm - “turbatio regni” - as the reason for his inability to visit the pope. In August of the same year, the ageing Henry III declared that his fears for the kingdom’s safety prevented him from accompanying his son, Edward, to the Holy Land.

There is plenty of evidence for the disturbed state of England. The chronicle of the sheriffs of London records a projected uprising by the commons, the “populares”, against the aldermen. This was supposed to coincide with the death of Henry III. Shortly before the king’s demise in November 1272, the prior of Norwich quarreled with the men of the city and summoned to his aid “a great multidude of malivoli who, when the kingdom was disturbed, had been thieves and malefactors”. From this it appears the prior hired ex-Montfortians, bands of old soldiers wandering the land with nothing better to do than cause mayhem.

The midlands and northern counties were especially afflicted by these “malivoli”, called the Sons of Belial or sons of wickedness by the London chronicler. In scripture Belial is a demon of lies and guilt, the king of hostility. In Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, it was reported that nobody dared to travel the Great North Road because the counties were overrun by an army of outlaws. Their leader was Roger Godberd, a former tenant of Earl Ferrers who went back into revolt after his master was disinherited.

After Henry’s death, the regency government was especially fearful of old seats of rebellion. In August 1273 Walter Merton, the chancellor, spoke of bands of malivoli gathering together and conspiring to break the peace in Essex and Leicestershire. This was worrying since Leicestershire had been a Montfortian heartland; it was the county of the villagers of Great Peatling, who had attacked the king’s men after the battle of Evesham for “going against the commonalty of the realm and against the barons”. Here, if anywhere, trouble would arise.

Merton’s letter has survived (see third pic) but is virtually illegible even under ultraviolet.

Stitching things together

On 10 December 1276 Sir John Deyville paid 578 marks (roughly £400) to 'Peter Byset or to the abbot of St Mary's York', thus gaining the right to re-occupy his Yorkshire manor of Thornton-on-the-Hill on 20 September. This appears to have been the final redemption fine he owed to the queen, Eleanor of Provence, as the price for his rebellion in the previous decade.

This redemption fine is a quite striking parallel to an episode in the Geste of Robyn Hode, in which the outlaw entertains an impoverished military knight. Robyn takes pity on the knights and lends him the £400 he needs to redeem pledged lands from the abbot of St Mary's, York. Such a contract was unlikely after 1279, after which restrictions on lending were imposed on religious houses by the Statute of Mortmain.

In later versions of the legend the 'poor knyghte' acquires a name, Sir Richard Atte Lee or Sir Richard of the Lea. This was because two separate manuscripts, recording the deeds of Robin Hood, were literally stitched together to form a single narrative.

Double ditched

"There was there a fair castle,
A little within the wood;
Double-ditched it was about, And walléd, by the rood." 

- The Geste of Robyn Hode (mid-15th century)

This verse describes the castle of Sir Richard Atte Lee, who gives Robin Hood and his men sanctuary from the wicked High Sheriff of Nottingham. This tale was possibly inspired by Wellow or Jordan Castle near Rufford Abbey in the heart of Sherwood Forest. Wellow was a ringwork castle of the motte and bailey type, updated in 1252 with the addition of a fortified manor house on the motte. It was protected by a moat and the nearby village was surrounded by a ditch, so Wellow was 'double ditched', just like the ballad.

In 1272 Sir Richard Foliot, a former Montfortian-cum-royalist who could never quite make up his mind, was accused of harbouring outlaws on his estates. This was the band led by Roger Godberd, one of the legion of real-life Robin Hoods. Foliot probably sheltered them at Jordan, since it lay midway between his other manors at Fenwick and Grimston.

In the ballad Sir Richard Atte Lee takes the outlaws into his castle and proudly defies the sheriff to do his worst. In the real world Sir Richard Foliot went grovelling to Henry III, who rolled his eyes a bit and pardoned him. Godberd and the lads made themselves scarce.

Old and New

The hilltop castle-borough of Dinefwr in the Tywi valley, West Wales, was the ancestral seat of the ancient princes of Deheubarth. Rhys ap Maredudd, the last of these princes, was executed in 1291, but the old borough continued to exist. This was of Welsh origin and populated almost exclusively by Welsh tenants.

A new borough was planted on the old in about 1298. This was supposed to be an English colony, like others at Beaumaris and elsewhere, and at first the commercial privileges granted to the old Welsh cottagers were appropriated by English settlers. The number of settlers or burgesses was at first 35, subsequently increased to 44.

Unlike other towns in postconquest Wales, the old borough was not demolished. A complete set of rentals and surveys survive from the period, showing how the old and new boroughs co-existed. Certain Welsh families who continued to live in the old town had evidently been there for generations. For instance, in 1300 Griffith ab William and Howel ab William held six acres by the grant of Lord Rees or “Res Argluth” i.e. the Lord Rhys of Deheubarth, who died in 1197.

Some Welsh tradesmen moved from the old borough to the new. These were called “gable tenants”, apparently capitalizing on the availability of new burgage property. Everyone in Dinefwr at this time held their land and property of Edward of Caernarfon, referred to as “our lord the Prince.” The king had farmed out Wales to his son, along with the lordship of Chester, the county of Ponthieu and the duchy of Gascony. This was supposed to instil a sense of responsiblity in the future Edward II: some hope.

Part of a rental for the new town shows ten English burgesses living next door to seven Welsh. Given the climate of the time, the atmosphere in this mixed community must have been tense. A court roll for Dinefwr in 1300 lists various assaults and arguments in court, though it is difficult to tell if this was the result of Anglo-Welsh rivalry, or just the usual run of petty crime found in any township.

The end of the dragon

The Dragon of Chirk (6, and last)

In 1282 Llywelyn Fychan of Bromfield chose to join Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in his final war against Edward I. Five years earlier the lord of Bromfield had fought for Edward against Llywelyn, probably because he was unhappy at the prince’s division of Powys Fadog and efforts to take direct control of the lordship. Now he returned to his former allegiance.

Shortly before he broke with the king, Llywelyn Fychan submitted a petition that listed his complains. This is a separate protest to the one in Archbishop Peckham’s register. Among other things, Llywelyn refused to accept the authority of the judges appointed by the king to enquire into the native law of Wales. One of these judges was Hywel ap Meurig, a royal justice and bailiff to the Mortimers of Wigmore. Llywelyn named Hywel as one of his enemies along with Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, lord of southern Powys.

In the previous war of 1277, Hywel had led the men of Powys, Radnor and Builth against Prince Llywelyn and invaded southern Snowdonia on behalf of the king: attached (above) is the first membrane of the payroll for this army. He remained a crown loyalist and his sons rose to high office under Edward I and Edward II. Thus Wales was split between Prince Llywelyn and his supporters on the one hand, and crown loyalists such as Hywel and Gwenwynwyn on the other.

Llywelyn Fychan’s fate was to die with his prince near Cilmeri in December 1282, slaughtered along with all the cavalry and part of the infantry. He was probably slain by Andrew Astley, a Marcher lord who seems to have boasted of his exploit by taking Llywelyn’s arms, the lion of Powys Fadog, and adding it to the Astley cinquefoil. Sixteen years later Astley fought under these converted arms at the Battle of Falkirk.

The arms of Andrew Astley

And that was the end of the dragon of Chirk:

“Hail thou of great and high discretion,
From God the foremost leader of forces;
Prosperous elder of the excelling spear,
Inexorable is your wrath, thou wall in battle.”

- Llygad Gwr

Peckham's register

The Dragon of Chirk (5)

The printed register of John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury, contains all of the complaints submitted by Welsh lords and communities against royal government between 1277-82. It is an invaluable record of events leading up to the war of 1282 and the conquest of Wales. To gain any kind of proper understanding, each complaint needs to be considered on its own merits.

One such is the protest of Llywelyn Fychan of Bromfield. He was engaged in a private war against the men of Oswestry and Ellesmere, and at the same time at loggerheads with fellow Marcher lords. His principal enemies were Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn and the Lestranges of Knockin.

Llywelyn claimed the constable of Oswestry had plundered a third part of the vill of Lledrod, a township of Llansilin, and his father’s court, which lay nearby. They had also stolen his pastureland, along with £70 of Llywelyn’s money. The same constable allegedly hanged two of Llywelyn’s officers and imprisoned sixty others, only releasing them on a payment of 10 shillings per head. He also seized cattle when the beasts were brought to market and detained them at Oswestry castle, refusing to return or pay for them. The same constable stole pack-horses as well as Llywelyn’s own horse.

Worst of all (he claimed), Llywelyn himself, when on the road to Chester carrying letters from the king, had been ambushed and kidnapped by the soldiers of Gwenwynwyn and Roger Lestrange. He and his men were held in prison until they bought themselves out. This protest should be cross-referenced with a separate entry in the Welsh assize roll. The latter reveals that Llywelyn had sent his men to burnt the mill at Coedgoch and houses belonging to Isabella Mortimer and the men of Oswestry, to the value of £100. Or so they alleged. 

The truth of all this is impossible to sift, but it is clear that the situation in Wales was steadily darkening. Once again the Mortimers of Wigmore were at the heart of it.

[The first pic is of Peckham’s effigy]