The Brothers of Gwynedd

by Edith Pargeter

  "Since we have some weeks of grace," he said, "this shall be done in proper form, and not I, but the council of the princes of all Wales, shall make the decision." And he called such a council to assemble in the next month. All the magnates of his realm received his writs, and all attended.

  Llewelyn read out to the assembly the king's summons, and laid it on the table before them.

  "Less than a year ago," he said, "I received such a summons to Shrewsbury, and set out to obey it and keep that appointment. But then it was at a place and date agreed between us, and I had nothing to argue against it. I will not keep secret from you that I would gladly see Wales free of all obligation to any other monarch, if I might do so upon terms of peace with our neighbours, and without breaking faith. But that I cannot do, as yet. I made a treaty with King Henry, and I am bound by it still, and do not wish to repudiate the bond. Provided the king, as the other party to the agreement, keeps its terms and performs his own obligations, I have promised him homage and fealty and I shall pay it. But a treaty requires the keeping of faith by both sides. As to my own part, I have not until this time, as I see it, defaulted in any point. I have held back the recent moneys due under treaty, but I have said repeatedly that it is ready to be paid as soon as reparation is made for violations of my borders and acts of aggression against my men. Until a year ago I would have said, also, that King Edward has kept to terms, and respects the treaty. Now I am less certain. Hear my reasons, and tell me honestly if I am making much of little, and finding malice where none is.

  "As to the infringements of our borders, they began before the king returned to England, and in part I know they are to be expected, and cannot be charged against him. Nor dare I claim my own men are invariably guiltless. But see how these troubles have increased during this year since he came home, when I expected them to be strongly taken in hand. I have written letter after letter, detailing every violence, every offence; he cannot say he is not informed. There has been offered no remedy.

  "Again, and still closer to the mark, those traitors who conspired against my life fled at once, when charged, to England, and that in David's case when he had every opportunity to defend himself in court, and in Griffith's case even after his son's confession, and after clemency had been twice offered to him if he would come to my peace. They were sure of their welcome, or why make such a choice? Do all princes welcome their neighbours' traitors with open arms? Princes of goodwill, with no evil intent? Even if they shelter and maintain and tolerate them, do they leave them at large on the borders of the land they have offended, and allow them to raid across those borders at will? I think not. Yet this is what King Edward has done. He cannot say he was not told the full truth about their conspiracy, he cannot say he has not been told of their depredations from Shrewsbury. Still there has been no remedy, and no change.

  "I have been long in looking beyond this point, but I am come to it now. In all that Edward now does, and all that he deliberately refrains from doing, I see the gradual erosion of the treaty of Montgomery. I am driven to believe that he means, when he has weakened it enough, to repudiate it, and be free to conduct the old enmity against Wales, in the hope of conquest, and that he will use my brother, and Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn, and any other such powerful tools as may fall into his hands, to that end.

  "Now consider, and tell me, in the light of all this, how am I to reply to this summons to Chester?"

  They hesitated long, pondering, all watching him with doubt and anxiety, his young nephews of Dynevor most earnestly. The elders among them, I think, had reached the same suspicion long before Llewelyn opened his mind to it. But it was Tudor who took up the argument, and very gravely.

  "I have gone this road," said he, "a stage further even than the lord prince. This murder was planned for February of last year, while King Edward was still away from his kingdom—true enough. But how far away? In Gascony, and then on the road to Montreuil and Calais. For a good year before he came home there were couriers running back and forth to him across the sea, and half the business of England was in his hands, and half the court of England overseas in his company. Was it so hard for those who planned our lord's death to send their messages back and forth among the rest? How if the assassins were sure of their welcome in England because it was promised in advance?"

  I was watching Llewelyn's face when this was said to him, and I knew then past doubt that such a thought had never so far entered his mind, being so alien to his own nature, which he was all too apt to attribute as candidly to his enemies. I knew, too, that now, at Tudor's instance, the notion struck deep as a sword-thrust, and would not be easily dislodged, however he contended against belief.

  He sat roused and startled. "Are you saying," he asked with care, "that the king may have been a party to the plot to kill me?"

  "I am saying more. I am saying that the king may have instigated it," said Tudor stoutly.

  "I cannot believe it," said Llewelyn. "He may be willing to go far in his lust for conquest, but he could not stoop so low as to suborn murder. It is impossible!"

  "How so, my lord? Only in the sense that this king regularly performs the impossible. It was impossible a noble prince should pledge his good faith time and time again in Earl Simon's war, and time and time again break it, but he did it. It was impossible he should give his parole, with the most solemn oaths, and callously discard it, but he did that also. Consider the circumstances! Has he not all his life been close to your brother? Has not David once before deserted Wales for England, and served Edward, even in arms, to the best of his power? Who was it wrote into the treaty the provisions for David, that he should be re-established in at least the equal of what he had before? Did Edward scruple to make use of a traitor then? To reward a traitor? You know he did not! Strange, indeed, if such an attempt on the lord prince's life were timed so carefully to herald the king's home-coming without implicating him, and he unaware of it, who had the most to gain. Stranger still, when it failed, that those who did the work should fly so directly into his arms, unless he owed them protection for their services. It would suit King Edward very well to have David installed in your place. David is his creature. You belong to yourself and to Wales."

  "You make too strong a case," said Llewelyn, very pale, "though I won't deny a certain logic. It may not be as you say, but only that circumstances give it colour."

  "True," said Tudor, "that it may not be as I have said, but not true that I make too strong a case. I make the case we must make, and must consider fully, before we can know what it is wise to do now. For the end of it is, that it very well may be as I have said. And that is more than enough. Has he behaved all this year as if intending justice, or has he nursed the murderers, given them aid and protection, allowed them to run riot over his borders with impunity, against your rights and your lands? You know the answer better than any!"

  Then Madoc ap Griffith of Maelor spoke up. So many of the older princes had passed from the world in those last few years that Llewelyn's council showed as a circle of young men, with only a few of Tudor's generation to add experience to their ardour, and Madoc, who was the eldest of four brothers, ranked almost as an elder of Wales among these glowing boys. He was shrewd, reasonable and provident, a good man in council.

  "There is one further point to be made," he said. "The king summons the lord prince into Chester to do his homage, and while Chester is a border town, it is also a royal garrison town, and to enter it is one thing, to leave it may be quite another. I have in mind the precedent of the lord prince's father, who accepted a king's word and went into the Tower as his guest, but never left that place again alive."

  "The king has offered safe-conduct," said Llewelyn fairly.

  "So he may, and he may even be honest in offering it. At the best, let us say he is. Even so, he puts no restraints upon your traitors and would-be assassins in Shrewsbury. We know he allows the Lord David access to his own court and person, what reason have we to suppose the king will curb his freedom if
he attend him to Chester? A murderer can just as well strike in Chester as in Aber, once he is sure of the king's indulgence. And that's to put the best construction upon it. At the worst, if the king set them on once, or sanctioned what they suggested, so he can set them on again, and still, in public, wash his own hands."

  "Madoc is right," said Tudor. "It is not safe for the prince to go into any royal town where his enemies may move about at will, and in arms. It should not be asked of him. It was always the custom to meet in the open at the border, either at the ford of Montgomery or some similar spot, as the dukes of Normandy used to meet the kings of France on the Epte. If the king is sincere in wishing to continue the treaty and keep its terms, he should be willing to ensure that homage may be performed in a safe place. It is my view that the lord prince should take that stand, give his reasons, and decline to go into Chester."

  Then several of the others present also spoke, some doubting if the king could be planning expansion by murder, but all wary of allowing Llewelyn to go into an English city, where, if treachery was indeed contemplated, he would have no means of extricating himself. Llewelyn sat and listened to all, himself adding nothing more, and it was clear to me that he was greatly shocked by what had been suggested, but almost as much by his own slowness to recognise the full extent of his danger as by the danger itself. Had not David, even, in his devious way, constantly warned him against putting any trust in Edward, or taking his intelligent self-interest for goodwill?

  "Give me your counsel, then, man by man," he said when they had all done, "am I to go to Chester or no." And one by one they spoke out, from the eldest to the youngest, and every man said no. By the measure of the threat to the treaty, our one safeguard against England's greed, by the measure of the distrust all felt towards Edward, not one was in favour of compliance with the royal summons. It came to the youngest present, Llewelyn's nephew and namesake, not yet eighteen. The boy flushed red with passion as he said: "No, do not go! For the sake of Wales, do not put yourself at risk."

  "I am at risk whether I go or refuse to go," said Llewelyn, and smiled at the young man, who was dark and bright and beautiful, like his mother before him, "I am at risk every day of my life, waking or sleeping. So are we all. It is a good thing to remember it, sometimes. But Wales I will risk as little as I may, God and you guiding me. I shall do as you have advised. I will write and set down yet once more those injuries I feel should be amended before I swear fealty, and the reasons why I will not come to Chester. I will make reasonable request for a safer place, and declare my own intent to keep honourably to terms if Edward will do the same."

  "It might also be well," said Madoc, pondering, "to prepare such a statement as may be offered to another authority, if the king is not minded to be accommodating."

  "I had thought of it," said Llewelyn. "Pope Gregory is a wise and just man, and easy of approach, as I have heard. I'll give my mind to it. If we are to look for friends in need, we'll go to the highest."

  Thus armed with the approval of all his magnates, the prince answered Edward's summons as he had said, courteously but decidedly, declaring his willingness to assume all the duties implied or stated in the treaty, provided Edward would do the same, and in particular charging him to end his illegal support for those who unquestionably had been and still were acting against the prince. This was the chief stumbling-block, being by far the most serious breach of treaty. If that was set right, and a safe and proper place agreed for their meeting, Llewelyn would take the oath and do homage as was due.

  Edward, so we heard, was very angry when he received this letter. In the first place, whatever some men may have said, wise long after the event, concerning the previous considerable delay in regularising Llewelyn's position as vassal of the English king, there never had been any prior refusal or even avoidance, for only once before had the prince been summoned to the meeting, and then he had set out without any resistance or reluctance to keep the engagement, and only Edward's illness had prevented the matter from being completed. Consequently this firm and reasoned refusal now came as a shock to the king, who could never bear to be denied. Whatever his own motives, he had certainly expected unquestioning compliance on Llewelyn's part. Then also, he had made the journey to Chester, certainly not only for the prince's sake, but publishing the fact that the homage was to take place there, and an offence against Edward's dignity and face was mortal. He could be generous to those who threw themselves at his feet in total submission—if that may be called generosity, for rather was it that when they so satisfied his desire to dominate he ceased to care about them—but firm and steady resistance drove him to ever-mounting ferocity. He at once issued another summons, ignoring everything Llewelyn had written to him concerning the place and the terms, to come to him at Westminster, three weeks after Michaelmas. Chester had been declined, he flung Westminster itself, the very centre of his power, in the prince's face.

  "I have taken my stand," said Llewelyn grimly, laying this new summons aside, "and I shall not depart from it. I cannot go back. If his aim is to convince me he has designs on my life, he makes progress. From Westminster to the Tower is not so far, as my father discovered, but from the Tower to Westminster is a lifetime's journey. This I'll answer, but not until answer is due. Let him wait until the day he himself has appointed, and he shall have all the answer he deserves, and as civilly as before. But he is mad if he thinks I will come to Westminster at his bidding." And he turned again, quite calmly, to the composition of his manifesto to Pope Gregory, who was Edward's friend and fellow-crusader, and yet was honest enough to be trusted by those who held Edward to be their enemy. We were well advanced with it by then, and it was a lengthy document, first outlining again, as a reminder, the main terms of the treaty of Montgomery, negotiated and blessed by a papal legate, which should by law and right govern the relations between Wales and England, then detailing the main counts on which England was now breaking those terms.

  By then we knew that the crown was paying money to keep David and his household. The entire plot against the prince's life we set down for Pope Gregory to read, with all the raids mounted since that time from Shrewsbury, and winked at, or worse, by de Knovill, the king's sheriff, at the king's orders. And lastly we complained of the king's persistent citing of the prince to places unsafe for him, where his felons and traitors were free to move about him at will.

  So grave a document was drawn up with the counsel and participation of all the chief law officers and elders of the prince's realm. Whoever says he acted of his own might, and arbitrarily, he lies. Whatever was wisest and most earnest in Wales took part in this appeal to the chief arbiter of Christendom. When it was drawn, we were as men drained and fulfilled, who could do no more, having done their best.

  On the day that we had it ready, Cynfric and the notaries came back from Montfort l'Amaury with letters and messages from Amaury de Montfort and his sister, the Lady Eleanor.

  So strange a day it was, hot and long and dusty with harvest, the sky a pallid blue clear as crystal, and never a cloud in all its bowl. And we were newly come to the full understanding of danger, and had accepted it and made our dispositions because there was no alternative, and yet that day was so full of the bright solemnity of joy that there was no room in it for any other passion or repining. From the moment Cynfric rose from his knee before Llewelyn, and showed him a beaming face, and held him out letters, there was no looking back.

  "These," said Cynfric, "from Amaury de Montfort, on behalf of his sister and his house. And this from the Lady Eleanor, who speaks for herself, to the same effect, and to your comfort and worship."

  So he conveyed at once the purport of what was afterwards read and re-read many times for its savour, as slowly and lovingly as the finest wine satisfied a great thirst.

  To the match, so long delayed but never abandoned, her kinsmen consented, in the terms of the settlement there was no dispute nor demur. But what best pleased Llewelyn was her own letter, written with her own hand
. I know, for to me he snowed it that night, in the summer twilight, after we had heard mass.

  "For you knew her," he said, "and you will know the very voice in which she speaks these words to me, and I think it must resemble his voice, as surely her mind resembles his mind."

  She had written to him, at once with noble formality and so blazing and direct an intimacy that it was as if she walked towards us in the fields, with outstretched hands:

  "To the most noble and puissant Llewelyn, prince of Wales, greetings and reverence. My dear lord, though I have never seen you but through other eyes, yet I have known you from my childhood, and what my father did not live to tell me concerning his pledging of my hand to you, my mother did tell me, though only in regret when she also told me why she felt herself bound. But having been promised the impossible, I have chosen not to lower my eyes to anything less. The pledge made at my father's will I have kept at my own. That we may join our hands very soon, and see each other face to face, and that God may keep you safe and glorious until that day comes, is the prayer of your affianced wife, Eleanor de Montfort."