in the reigning house of Gwynedd had continued to weaken the Welsh.  Llewelyn and Owen the Red, the two elder sons of the Griffith ap Llewelyn who had perished in attempting to escape from the Tower, took upon themselves the government of Gwynedd, dividing the land, by the advice of the “good men,” into two equal halves.  The English seneschal at Carmarthen took advantage of their weakness to seize the outlying dependencies of Gwynedd south of the Dovey.  War ensued, for the brothers resisted this aggression.  But in April, 1247, they were forced to do homage at Woodstock for Gwynedd and Snowdon.  Henry retained not only Cardigan and Carmarthen, but the debatable lands between the eastern boundary of Cheshire and the river Clwyd, the four cantreds of the middle country or Perveddwlad, so long the scene of the fiercest warfare between the Celt and the Saxon.  Thus the work of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth was completely undone, and his grandsons were confined to Snowdon and Anglesey, the ancient cradles of their house.

It suited English policy that even, the barren lands of Snowdon should be divided.  As time went on, other sons of Griffith ap Llewelyn began to clamour for a share of their grandfather’s inheritance.  Owen, the weaker of the two princes, made common cause with them, and David, another brother, succeeded in obtaining his portion of the common stock.  Llewelyn showed himself so much the most resourceful and energetic of the brethren that, when open war broke out between them in 1254, he easily obtained the victory.  Owen was taken prisoner, and David was deprived of his lands.  Llewelyn, thus sole ruler of Gwynedd, at once aspired to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather.  He overran Merioneth, and frightened the native chieftains beyond the Dovey into the English camp.  His ambitions were, however, rudely checked by the grant of Cheshire and the English lands in Wales to Edward.

Besides the border palatinate, Edward’s Welsh lands included the four cantreds of Perveddwlad, and the districts of Cardigan and Carmarthen.  Young as he was, he had competent advisers, and, while he was still in Aquitaine, designs were formed of setting up the English shire system in his Welsh lands, so as to supersede the traditional Celtic methods of government by feudal and monarchical centralisation.  Efforts were made to subject the four cantreds to the shire courts at Chester; and Geoffrey of Langley, Edward’s agent in the south, set up shire-moots at Cardigan and Carmarthen, from which originated the first beginnings of those counties.  The bitterest indignation animated Edward’s Welsh tenants, whether on the Clwyd or on the Teivi and Towy.  They rose in revolt against the alien innovators, and called upon Llewelyn to champion their grievances.  Llewelyn saw the chance of extending his tribal power into a national principality over all Wales by posing as the upholder of the Welsh people.  He overran the four cantreds in a week, finding no resistance