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dom had their source in the mistaken policy of subdividing laws. Thus, after his victory at Carno, this martial prince is said to have been surprised, and thrown into prison, by his rival. He escaped only, after long durance, by the daring act of a young Welshman, Kynrig Hir, or the Tall, who, taking advantage of the inebriety of the gaoler, carried away his prince, laden as he was with irons, on his back. Surviving to the age of eighty-two, this able ruler reigned for a period of fifty-seven years, equally annoyed, it is stated, by his enemies the English, and by his friends the Welsh. He fought hand to hand with that hardy baron, Fitzwarren, entrusted by Henry I. with the care of the marches, and finally wrested from him his castle of Whittington. Accomplished as brave, he improved the national minstrelsy, introducing from Ireland, then the land of harps,' some of the fine old melodies, abler performers, and a better order of instruments. He further regulated the great family pedigrees,no trivial task, and fixed the various heraldic distinctions of his illustrious countrymen.

- Sus horridus, atraque Tigris

Squamosusque Draco, et fulvâ cervice Leœna.'

But what redounds less to his credit, he is said to have been the first to promulgate the system of the British game laws. The founder also of the House of Gwyder, among his descendants, he ranks Sir John Wynn, the historian, whose account of his journey to court contains many curious particulars of the times. of the times. In his dealings with the church, and even with his own countrymen, Sir John was considered too close and shrewd a bargainer, and a tradition is yet current, that the sprite of the old gentleman does penance under the great water-fall of Rhaiader y Wennol-there to be purged and spouted upon till purified from all his overreaching acts-foul deeds done in his days of nature.'

'Aliis sub gurgite vasto

Infectum eluitur scelus.'

CHAPTER II.

THE DEATH OF LLEWELLYN.

Ye that o'er Menai's darkened wave impend;

Majestic battlements! Thou tower sublime,
From whose broad brows the slender turret springs,
Light as the plumage from the warrior's helm,
The pensive bard, of Edward's martial fame
Regardless, from your splendid ruin turns
Aside to mourn o'er sad Llewellyn's fate.

Sotheby's Tour.

HISTORY has recorded few events more replete with pathetic interest than the fate of the last of the Llewellyns, justly entitled 'the Great' for at the moment he fell, a victim to treachery, he left his country in battle array upon the sides of her majestic Snowdon, and her fall as rapidly followed upon his own. When we track his bold and able movements, in the various campaigns against a powerful and overwhelming enemy, as they are described by the old historians, and while we gaze on the spot where he closed his sad and chequered career, we feel as much admiration of his genius and patriotism, as sorrow for his untimely doom. With eager curiosity we examine the route he is described to have taken in his last daring expedition into South Wales, while Edward lay encamped on the plains of Snowdon, eluding the vigilance of his wary foe, and still holding the strong passes, the fortified positions, and once magnificent castle of the King of Mountains. Step by step we trace the line of march, pointed out by the Welsh chroniclers of this last and most arduous of all his exploits, by which he made himself master-with a view of reinforcing his army-of great part of South Wales. As in most of his actions with the English, ability, decision,

and rapidity of movement are the prominent features of that fatal, yet memorable effort to break the bonds of his unhappy country. And strenuously as his royal predecessors had asserted her independence, and the faith and right of treaties, when that independence was lost, no one seems to have combined so many noble and amiable qualities with so much martial skill and energy, or to have been equally admired and beloved. His influence enabled him to unite the most factious princes and nobles in one common cause; his wisdom directed their counsels, and opened the way with his sword to renewed and simultaneous exertions, which ceased only with his life.

A series of brilliant actions during the minority of Edward I, whom he had thus early foiled in the field, gave rise, it is said, to a personal animosity in that prince, to be appeased only by the downfal of Llewellyn and his people.

The humiliations suffered by Edward when a prisoner with his royal father in the hands of the haughty Leicester, who entered into close alliance with the Welsh prince, and bore his captives as state pageants along with him, must, doubtless, have embittered his feelings when King of England. It could not be more strongly shewn than by the manner of his taking advantage of the long romantic passion entertained by Llewellyn for Eleanora de Montford, to whom he had been affianced in her childhood, as an additional bond of union between the Earl and himself. She even then gave promise of the rare beauty and superior accomplishments, both of mind and person, for which she was subsequently so distinguished, and which changed the policy of the prince into the impassioned tenderness of an ardent lover. Nor, though so early formed, does the attachment seem to have been only on Llewellyn's side; young as she was, the impression made on her tender years, by the amiable qualities of the prince, was not such as either time or distance could efface. The league was broken up; her father had in turn been vanquished--had died; and her lover was no longer the successful champion of his country, nor master of his own dominions. The

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banners of England waved over almost every city and fortress where Llewellyn had held undisputed sway; the sword of Edward had deprived him of all but the wild barren region of Snowdon, the last refuge and hope of the brave. A powerful king was his deadly enemy; the church had fulminated its heaviest maledictions upon his head; his brother had become an English peer, and bore arms against him; while his suffering countrymen, groaning under the heaviest oppression, looked with imploring eyes to him alone for succour. Power, splendour, and authority had departed from him; a triumphant king and a subservient church would readily have relieved the lovely countess from her early vows; but, in his extremity, her woman's heart was still true to the vanquished and fallen prince.

She had retired to France where she completed her education, and subsequently became the pride and ornament of courts,—splendid offers of the high-born and the powerful were laid at her feet; she was tempted even by crowned heads to forsake Llewellyn, for she was niece to Henry III, and first cousin to the martial Edward: but she still remembered and loved him-loved him, perhaps, more deeply because he was the unhappy object of a mighty king's and a great nation's unforgiving wrath. The memory of the hours she had spent in that beautiful land, with her father and noble lover at her side, of the splendid Aber,* and the wild secluded scenes midst which her young imagination had first reflected the image of that love she was told to cherish-still, perhaps, haunted her in the festive throng and liveried court, and whispered her how much more beautiful and noble, how joyful and reviving to the bosom of him, abandoned almost by hope, would it be for her, in all this faithlessness of fortune, to be still faithful found.'

One beam of light then still shone on the path of Llewellyn, as he yet held his enemy at bay in the mountain fortress of his little king

*The Palace of Aber, in Caernarvon, the favourite residence of Llewellyn in times of war as well as in peace.

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