Llywelyn and his allies could not afford to wait for this to happen. At present they were encircled but, with the respite granted by their recent victory, they might open up new fronts. Already in the second half of November there were fresh risings in South and West Wales, perhaps fomented by the presence of the prince himself in those areas. It was in the middle March, however, that Llywelyn was hoping for the greatest gains. There, on 26 November, Roger Mortimer, not only the king’s commander in the region but also the most powerful lord in his own right, had died of natural causes. (‘His long and praiseworthy services’, wrote Edward to Mortimer’s namesake son, ‘recur frequently and spontaneously to our memory’). The old warrior’s passing had led to immediate fears of an English collapse in central Wales: within weeks, the sheriff of Shropshire was reporting that Mortimer’s ‘fickle and haughty’ tenants were ‘on the point of leaving the king’s peace’. In Edward’s second set-back that autumn, Llywelyn saw his best opportunity. Leaving Dafydd in charge of Snowdonia, the prince took his army and struck out in the direction of Builth.
He arrived there on 11 December to find the might of the entire middle March ranged ready to meet him. Coincidence or conspiracy? There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that the Welsh leader had been lured into a trap devised by Mortimer’s sons, and perhaps by some of his own men too. Whatever the truth, it is clear enough what happened next. On the high ground to the west of Builth, at a place called Cilmeri, a substantial battle took place between the English and Welsh forces, and in the course of the fighting the prince of Wales fell. Most accounts agree that he somehow became separated from his men, and was killed unrecognized by his English assailant. It was only when the battle was over, and the bodies examined, that his corpse was identified.
‘Know, Sire’, wrote Roger Lestrange, captain of the English forces, to his royal master, ‘that Llywelyn ap Gruffudd is dead, his army broken, and the flower of his men killed’. Accompanying the letter as proof was the prince’s severed head. Edward had it sent on to Anglesey to cheer his other troops, and from there dispatched to London, where its arrival was greeted with a fanfare of trumpets and horns. Carried through the city’s streets on the end of a lance, it was finally placed on a iron spike above the Tower of London, and crowned with a mockery of ivy. The prophecy that a Welshmen would one day wear a crown in London was in this grisly way seen to have been fulfilled.
While the English rejoiced, Wales despaired. ‘See you not that the world is ending?’ asked one Welsh poet. ‘Ah, God, that the sea would cover the land!'
A Great and Terrible King, pp. 185-6
No comments:
Post a Comment