Afterwards he said not a word, at first, of what he had heard, or what he had learned from it, but only asked me to go with him to hear mass in the abbey church, and after it to watch with him for a while, which I did gladly, for there was that working in him that comforted me for his soul and mine. Together we two watched out the greater part of that night, and the grief we shared became a living fire in place of a hellish darkness.
When he came forth his face was clear, pale and bright. Under the stars he said to me: "Well I know his enemies made use of his dealings with me as a reproach to him, that he gave away England's rights for his own ends, though I asked of him nothing, and he gave nothing, that was not Welsh by right, and lost to England only by force. The guilt I bear in holding back from going with him, when my heart and will desired to go, I cannot measure. That God must do. But if they think to have put him away out of reckoning and out of mind by dismembering his body and befouling his memory, they have everything yet to learn. Others will take up his visions after him, and bring them to veritable birth in England. But I know of two things I can do here to honour him, and those I have sworn to do. I will wrest from King Henry at liberty everything he granted to me under duress. And I will make Earl Simon's daughter princess of Wales."
The heart and spirit of the reform was broken after Evesham, as well it might be. Castles were surrendered, towns sued to come to the king's peace. Weary and sick and seeing now no man to lead them, even young Simon and the garrison in Kenilworth listened to the first proffers made them, and were ready to deal. But though at first there were hopeful signs for conciliation and moderation, that soon changed.
It was Edward who sent out the first call to all loyal prelates and barons to attend at Winchester in the first week of September, and issued orders to the sheriffs to maintain law, so that no man should despoil his neighbour under the pretext of loyal indignation, ordinances worthy almost of Earl Simon himself. For the king was so low, wounded and weary and dazed, that he was carried away to Gloucester, and thence to Marlborough, to recover from his ills. And only when the gathering at Winchester convinced him that he was again royal, and had real power in his hands, did he begin to feel his own man. Had he continued abased and frightened a little longer, things might have gone more wisely in England. For when Henry was no longer afraid, he would take vengeance on all those who had frightened him, as a braver and stronger man need not have done.
But to us, watching from Wales, the first important act that followed Edward's victory was his prompt march to Chester. Llewelyn smiled sourly at that, and went quietly to Mold to keep a watch on events. But at least it proved that Edward considered us still to be reckoned with, and was in haste to secure his city and county again on our borders, and put his own men back into the seats of power there. At Beeston castle, in mid-August, Luke Tany surrendered Chester to him, and relinquished his office to a new justiciar, James Audley. It was the reversal of the scene we had witnessed less than a year before, in the meadows by the Dee, and as we heard from our ageing friend the garrison horse-doctor, who kept his place through all reversals, David was close at Edward's side when he entered the city, and known to be in the highest favour and intimacy with him.
"I hear he did well at Evesham," said Llewelyn bitterly. "And got his pay for it! The king rewarded him with all the lands forfeited by some poor wretch called Boteler. Well, I never doubted his gallantry. And at least he has preserved some kindness for you."
"Even for Wales," I said, "seeing he knew very well there were more of us, and all Welsh. "Go safely," he said, "and give thanks to God!" And a grain of thanks I gave heartily to him, also."
"I have not forgotten," said Llewelyn, and almost smiled. "For that and other reasons, I grudge him to Edward. But this Edward himself—I see qualities in him that speak for David, too. To fight well and to think well is surely a promising beginning."
In this I think he was right. For it was only at Winchester, where King Henry began to rule again, that the tone of the victors changed, and in place of conciliation there was nothing better than vengeance and spite, and hatred had its way. For there were too many others of smaller quality, like the king, who had felt themselves humiliated and disprized, and yearned to climb back into their own esteem by debasing those who had outmatched them. So tragedy was compounded for two years to come, and a great opportunity lost.
Young Simon in Kenilworth received letters of safe-conduct to go to Winchester, as speaker for all his garrison, and he went with a fair hope, for Edward's first approaches had been generous and large-minded. But at Winchester hatred prevailed, and the terms presented to him were such as he could not tolerate. So he returned unreconciled to his father's castle, and prepared it for a long siege, and so held it in defiance. And I think he achieved his full growth only then, when he was left to uphold that lost cause without hope, but still with dignity.
At Winchester, too, it was concluded, and I do not quarrel with that conclusion, that whatever deeds, acts, grants, charters and other documents King Henry had enacted since Lewes, when he fell captive into Earl Simon's hands, were enacted under duress, and thereby invalid, and all were repudiated. So passed among the rest, as we had foreseen, the treaty made at Pipton.
"More than that I lost at Evesham," said Llewelyn. "So be it! Better by far I should bring him to such an act voluntarily. And so I will!"
For us this was the most meaningful of the business at Winchester. Yet we could not be unmoved by the ordinance made on the seventeenth day of September, the triumph of the vengeful, by which all the lands and tenements of all the adherents of Earl Simon were seized into the king's hands. That was the only test, that the defaulter should be ally to the earl, and who was to be the local judge of that adherence? Every man who coveted could cast the accusation. No manner of pure principle was a defence, no clear uprightness of life. All those of one faction were damned, whatever their virtue and goodwill. There was raised at Winchester a great, ghostly company of the dispossessed, by this infamous act of disinherison that was opposed, vainly, by all the wise and humane men on the king's side, Edward, I think, among them. They were outnumbered five to one by men neither wise nor humane, bitter for their former losses, and insatiable for their possible gains.
"Well," said Llewelyn with grim calm, "they have Chester secured, their treaty and the royal seal dishonoured and discarded, my ally disposed of and me, as they think, checked and subdued into caution. They think they can turn their backs on me and set about the despoiling of others. I have two ends to serve. Once before King Henry wrote me off his accounts as dead, and found me very much alive. It's time to remind him once again."
Deliberately he called up the local muster to add to his own guard, enough for his purpose, and rode out from Mold towards Hawarden, that same way we had ridden a year ago to see Edward's garrison march away and give place to Earl Simon's men.
"Hawarden I was promised," said Llewelyn, "in his name, and if they deny it now to me, so will I deny it to them. Edward's garrison there threatens my valley."
In one swift and unexpected assault we took that castle, drove out the household, such as were not worth keeping as prisoners, and stripped roofs and walls low enough to make it uninhabitable. It was done with economy and precision, and it was a hoisting of his standard on his border, as a warning that he had suffered no setback, and had a power that could stand of itself, without confederates.
When it was done, we drew back to Mold, and he called in a reserve force, expecting that some action must soon be taken against him. And in the month of October it came, a very strong army loosed against us from Chester under Hamo Lestrange and Maurice FitzGerald, two marcher lords both experienced and able. But Llewelyn struck hard before they had reached the position they desired, or ordered their array to the best advantage, and broke and scattered them so completely that they fled back into Chester piecemeal, we chasing them to the very gates. They began to talk anxiously of truce with us, and though in the general confusion i
n England this came to nothing, what we had was as effective as truce, for wherever anything was attempted against us it was quenched at once and without difficulty or loss. So he taught England that Wales had lost no battles, nor been defeated in
any wars.
London had submitted to the king before that time, and been fined and penalised and plundered like a conquered city. Disputes and lawsuits over lands seized from the disinherited arose even among the victors, and in many parts of England companies of rebels betook themselves to lonely and difficult places like the eastern fens, and there held out month after month against the king's peace. Worst of all, there was a bitter division between those of the victors who were for mercy and moderation, and those who wanted to crush the defeated utterly and drive them into the wilderness. So the state of England in those days was worse than before Evesham, and though the old cause was hopelessly lost, its surviving adherents had still to put up a rearguard fight for their lives and livelihoods and lands, and some remnant of justice.
During those autumn days Llewelyn kept anxious watch in particular on the distant fortunes of those de Montforts who were left. For the Countess Eleanor, still fiercely loyal to her dead lord, held the castle of Dover, and her daughter was still there with her. Her two youngest sons she had succeeded in shipping away to France, fearing captivity for them if they should be taken. The third son, Guy, wounded at Evesham, lay sick and prisoner at Windsor, and young Simon still defied siege in Kenilworth, though later he slipped away out of that fortress, leaving it well manned and supplied, to join the gathering at Axholme, in the fens.
All this year through we had had no word from Cynan, for we had been nearer to events than he, and moreover, left behind among the minor household clerks in London, at such a time of malice and suspicion, he had been forced to look to his own life and observe absolute caution in his dealings. Now with the monarchy re-established he breathed again, however regretfully at least more easily, and finding a venerable and reliable messenger in a Franciscan of Llanfaes on his way home from pilgrimage to Rome, he sent us in September a full and enlightening account of what went forward in the south.
"They are waiting, it seems," said Llewelyn, reporting Cynan's news in council, "the arrival of the new cardinal-legate at Dover. There's no bar to his landing now, he'll be welcomed with open arms. God knows they have need of good and sane counsel to bring order out of the wicked chaos they have made. And this man, since he took over the mission, has at least hurled no more thunderbolts and curses across the sea." For Cardinal Gui, who had been kept so long in holy wrath at Boulogne, had been called away some months since to become pope under the name of Clement, the fourth so styled, and in his place a new man was appointed, of whom at that time we knew nothing. "The exiles are on their way home, the queen is expected to make the crossing in the legate's company, and soon. A Genoese, a lawyer, and of good repute," said Llewelyn, pondering Cynan's usually acute judgment with interest, "and he comes with wide authority, to preach the crusade, to make peace and reconcile enemies and assuage grudges in all the land of England. And why not in Wales, too? I will gladly use any man of goodwill, and be thankful for him."
In this manner we first heard of the approach of Cardinal Ottobuono Fieschi, who did indeed enter England with goodwill, and with very good sense, too as we later found, though he had a hard struggle of it. Had the most implacable of the victors paid heed to him, England could have been pacified very quickly. But then he was no more than a name to us.
"Cynan writes further," Llewelyn said, "that Edward has left the king resting at Canterbury, and is setting out for Dover himself, not only to meet his mother when she lands, but to try if he can get possession of the castle from Countess Eleanor, first. By persuasion!" But he made a wry face over that word, for something we had seen of Edward's persuasion.
"She is his father's sister," said Goronwy sensibly. "He cannot for his good name offer her any offence. But he will not need to. What can she do but make her peace? There is nothing left to defend."
He spoke truth, there was nothing, except a memory and an ideal, and the integrity of her love. Yet I know that Llewelyn feared for her, and waited in great uneasiness for the next news of her forlorn and solitary stand. There was no possibility as yet of making any approach to her on his own behalf, her situation was so piteous and so difficult that even if there had been a means of sending to her, he would not have done so. She had lost a husband most deeply and passionately loved, and her firstborn son, and was separated from two more sons whose fate she could not aid. It was no time to send proffers to her for her daughter.
"She is very young," said Llewelyn, steadily looking towards the south-east. "As yet it could have been only a betrothal. And I can wait. Until her mother is free of this last burden, and has her remaining children back, or at least knows them safe and free. There will be a right time for it!"
So he waited with patience. And in the early days of November Cynan sent another letter. I was at work among the documents of a dry civil case at Mold, when he came into the room with the parchment unsealed in his hand. His face was bleak and still, but his eyes were wide, far-looking and calm. The wound he had received was sharp enough, but short of mortal, because he would not acknowledge it. The first thing he said to me was simply: "I have lost her!"
I looked up at him in some doubt and wonder, for he had not the look of one admitting loss.
"I have lost her—for a while," he said. "Edward is in Dover castle, and the Countess Eleanor is out of it. The prisoners she held there broke out and captured the keep against her, but even if they had not, what could she have done? If she had fought, it would have been the worse for her and for others. And for whom should she hold it, now Earl Simon is dead? Edward has received her into grace, but all she has asked of him is that the gentlemen of her household shall be maintained in all that is theirs, and not held felon for their loyalty, and that he grants. She has accepted his peace, and undertaken to withdraw herself from all activity against him and against the crown and government of England. I doubt if she can love, but she will not oppose him. Poor lady, what is the world, and justice, and the well-being of the realm of England to her, now Simon is gone?"
"It is safely over, then," I said. "You would not have had her resist?"
"No, God knows! I dreaded she might," he said.
Yet I saw that it was she who had dealt him the blow that was twisting his heart
so sorely at that very moment, while he kept his will and his countenance. This pain was not all for her. And in truth, deprived though she now was of all her rights, since the king had already bestowed the earldom of Leicester upon his second son, Edmund, and though she stood bereaved of husband and son, solitary in her grief, yet I thought her rich and exalted above all her sisters. Better Earl Simon, dead and abused, the king's felon and the pope's pestilence, the people's hero and the poor men's saint, than all the living and vengeful lords that served in King Henry's retinue and enjoyed his favour.
I said, I doubt not with some taint of blasphemy: "'Blessed art thou among women…'" and Llewelyn said: "Truly! But the greater the blessing withdrawn, the deeper is the desolation left behind. She knows little of me, and nothing of this betrothal. He never saw her again. My bride is only a child. I cannot touch or trouble either the one or the other in their sorrow."
I said that the lady might be glad, for what future was there now for her daughter? And he laughed, rather ruefully than bitterly.
"Glad? She, whose whole peace now depends on the sanction of brother and nephew? She who wants nothing but to turn her back on the world as it is, and remember it in secret only as he wanted it? No, she will never be glad of me. But in time—in time, God knows, not now!—she may learn to bear with me. When I am no longer a reminder to Edward of an old alliance that cost him dear, and a marriage with me ceases to be the imagined threat of a new alliance as perilous as the old. No, I can wait! The time will come when she will forget, and he will cease to susp
ect and fear. But not yet. Even if I could reach her now," he said in a soft and grievous cry, "and I cannot!"
I asked him in dread: "What has she done?"
"She has shaken off the dust of England for a witness against them," said Llewelyn, "and set sail for France with her daughter, one day before the queen landed with Cardinal Ottobuono at Dover. They say she did not want to see her brother's detestable wife, and has said she will never set foot in these islands again. She is gone to Earl Simon's sister at the convent of Montargis, and has taken the other Eleanor—my Eleanor!—with her!"
When he had thought long, and come to terms with his situation, he said: "I have two vows in my heart, both debts due to his memory, and if I cannot yet do anything about one of them, let's see how quickly the other may be brought to fruit. One thing at a time!" And he turned his every waking thought to the re-establishment of the settlement he had briefly enjoyed after Pipton, absolutely resolved to compel the recognition of the unity and sanctity of Wales.
Cardinal Ottobuono came to London and set up his office there without delay. On the first day of December he held a clerical council to declare his mission and display his authorities, and to receive oaths of obedience from bishops and abbots, though four of the most saintly bishops of the realm were soon suspended by reason of their devotion to Earl Simon's cause, and so would Bishop Walter of Worcester have been, but that he died, old and tired as he was, before his case ever came to be examined. Howbeit, it did appear that the legate truly intended generosity and mercy, and desired to ensure that justice should not be defiled by malice and selfinterest. Llewelyn, encouraged, called his council and proposed, with their approval, to present the Welsh case and his desire for an amicable settlement, without waiting to be invited to do so, the cardinal's brief being all-embracing.
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