save before the two castles of Deganwy and Diserth.  He conquered Cardigan with equal ease, and prudently granted out his acquisition to the local chieftain Meredith ap Owen.  Nor were Edward’s lands alone exposed to his assaults.  In central Wales Roger Mortimer was stripped of his marches on the upper Wye, and Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn, the lord of upper Powys, driven from the regions of the upper Severn.  In the spring of 1257 the lord of Gwynedd appeared in regions untraversed by the men of Snowdon since the days of his grandfather.  He devastated the lands of the marchers on the Bristol Channel and slew Edward’s deputy in battle.  “In those days,” says Matthew Paris, “the Welsh saw that their lives were at stake, so that those of the north joined together in indissoluble alliance with those of the south.  Such a union had never before been, since north and south had always been opposed.”  The lord of Snowdon assumed the title of Prince of Wales.

Edward was forced to defend his inheritance.  Henry III. paid little heed to his misfortunes, and answered his appeal for help by saying:  “What have I to do with the matter?  I have given you the land; you must defend it with your own resources.  I have plenty of other business to do.”  Nevertheless, Henry accompanied his son on a Welsh campaign in August, 1257.  The English army got no further than Deganwy, and therefore did not really invade Llewelyn’s dominions at all.  After waiting idly on the banks of the Conway for some weeks, it retired home, leaving the open country to be ruled by Llewelyn as he would, and having done nothing but revictual the castles of the four cantreds.  Next year a truce was made, which left Llewelyn in possession of the disputed districts.  Troubles at home were calling off both father and son from the Welsh war, and thus Llewelyn secured his virtual triumph.  Though fear of the progress of the lord of Gwynedd filled every marcher with alarm, yet the dread of the power of Edward was even more nearly present before them.  The marcher lords deliberately stood aside, and the result was inevitable disaster.  Edward found that the territories handed over to him by his father had to be conquered before they could be administered, and Henry III.’s methods of government made it a hopeless business to find either the men or the money for the task.

England still resounded with complaints of misgovernment, and demands for the execution of the charters.  Before going to Bordeaux in 1253, Henry obtained from the reluctant parliament a considerable subsidy, and pledged himself as “a man, a Christian, a knight, and a crowned and anointed king,” to uphold the charters.  During his absence a parliament, summoned by the regents, Queen Eleanor and Richard of Cornwall, for January, 1254, showed such unwillingness to grant a supply that a fresh assembly was convened in April, to which knights of the shire, for the first time since the reign of John, and representatives