confiscated.  Nevertheless, the Parliament of Shrewsbury granted the King a thirtieth, from which, however, the loans previously advanced were deducted.  In return for this the King passed the Statute of Merchants, which made provisions for the registration of merchants’ debts, their recovery by distraint, and the debtor’s imprisonment.  The clergy had at first been less compliant when the King applied to them for a tenth.  The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, April, 1283, replied that they were impoverished; that they still owed a fifteenth, and that they expected to be taxed again by the Pope.  They also reminded him bitterly of the Statute of Mortmain.  Ultimately the matter was compromised by the grant of a twentieth, November, 1283.

[Illustration:  King Edward I fulfills his promise of giving the Welsh “a native prince who could not speak one word of English” Painting by Ph.  Morris.]

[Illustration.]

For a few years Wales was still an insecure portion of the English dominion.  In 1287, Rees ap Meredith, whose services to Edward had been largely rewarded with grants of land and a noble English wife, commenced levying war against the king’s sheriff.  His excuse was that his baronial rights had been encroached upon; but as he had once risked forfeiture by preferring a forcible entry to the execution of the king’s writ which had been granted him, we may probably assume that he claimed powers inconsistent with English sovereignty.  After foiling the Earl of Cornwall in a costly campaign, Rees, finding himself outlawed, fled, by the Earl of Gloucester’s complicity, into Ireland.  Some years later he returned to resume his war with Robert de Tiptoft, but this time was taken prisoner and executed at York by Edward’s orders, 1292.

More dangerous by far was the insurrection of two years later, 1294, when the Welsh, irritated by a tax, and believing that Edward had sailed for France, rose up throughout the crown lands and slew one of the collectors, Roger de Pulesdon.  Madoc, a kinsman of Llewelyn, was put forward as king, and his troops burned Carnarvon castle and inflicted a severe defeat on the English forces sent to relieve Denbigh, November 10th.  Edward now took the field in person, and resumed his old policy of cutting down the forests as he forced his way into the interior.  The Welsh fought well, and between disease and fighting the English lost many hundred men.  Once the King was surrounded at Conway, his provisions intercepted, and his road barred by a flood; but his men could not prevail on him to drink out of the one cask of wine that had been saved.  “We will all share alike,” he said, “and I, who have brought you into this strait, will have no advantage of you in food.”  The flood soon abated, and, reinforcements coming up, the Welsh were dispersed.  Faithful to his policy of mercy, the King spared the people everywhere, but hanged three of their captains who were taken prisoners.  Madoc lost heart, made submission,