"OwenMEdwards-AShortHistoryOfWales" - читать интересную книгу автора (Edwards Owen M)

then helped the jealous Welsh princes to check the growth of his
power. Llywelyn saw that it was his policy, as long as John was
alive, to join the English barons. They were then trying to force
Magna Carta upon the King, that great document which prevented John
from interfering with the privileges of his barons. In that document
John promises, in three clauses, that he will observe the rights of
Welshmen and the law of Wales.

When John died in 1216, and his young son Henry succeeded him, the
policy of England was guided by William Marshall Earl of Pembroke.
William Marshall was one of the ministers of Henry II., and by his
marriage with the daughter of Strongbow, the conqueror of Ireland, he
had become Earl of Pembroke. It was with him that Llywelyn had now
to deal. He was too strong in Pembroke to be attacked, but his very
presence made it easier for Llywelyn to retain the allegiance of the
chiefs who would have been in danger from the Norman barons if
Llywelyn's protection were taken away. In 1219 the great William
Marshall died; and changes in English politics forced his sons into
an alliance with Llywelyn.

Llywelyn's title of Great is given him by his Norman and English
contemporaries. He was great as a general; his detection of trouble
before the storm broke, his instant determination and rapidity of
movements, his ever-ready munitions for battle and siege, made his
later campaigns always successful. He felt that he was carrying on
war in his own country; so his wars were not wars of devastation, but
the crushing of armies and the razing of castles.

He took an interest in the three great agents in the civilisation of
the time--the bard, the monk, and the friar. The bard was as welcome
as ever at his court; the monk, welcomed by Owen Gwynedd before, was
given another home at Aber Conway. Llywelyn extended his welcome to
the friar, and he was given a home at Llan Vaes in Anglesey, on the
shores of the Menai. The friar brought a higher ideal than that of
the monk; his aim was salvation, not by prayer in the solitude of a
mountain glen, but by service where men were thickest together--even
in streets made foul by vice, and haunted by leprosy. Of the
Mendicant Orders, the Franciscans were the best known in Wales; and,
of all Orders of that day, it was they who sympathised most deeply
with the sorrows of men. And it was this which, a little later on,
brought them so much into politics.

Great and successful in war and policy, in touch with the noblest
influences in the life of the time, Llywelyn applied himself to one
last task. His companions and allies had nearly all died before him;
but he wished that the peace and unity, which they had established,
should live after them. He had two sons--Griffith, who was the
champion of independence; and David, who wished for peace with
England. Llywelyn laid more stress on strong government at home than
on the repudiation of feudal allegiance to the King of England. So