Llywelyn refuses to abandon his country. (Extracts from Llywelyn's letters )
Extracts from Llywelyn, Prince of Wales letter to John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury in Autumn, 1282: October 1282
From Llywelyn
We fight because we are forced to fight, for we, and all Wales, are oppressed, subjugated, despoiled, reduced to servitude by the royal officers and bailiffs, in defiance of the form of the peace and of all justice, more maliciously than if we were Saracens or Jews, so that we feel, and have often so protested to the king, that we are left without any remedy.
Always the justiciars and bailiffs grow more savage and cruel, and if these become satiated with their unjust exactions, those in their turn apply themselves to fresh exasperations against the people. To such a pass are we come that they begin to prefer death to life. It is not fitting in such case to threaten greater armies, or move the Church against us. Let us but have peace, and observe it as due, as we have expressed above.
You should not believe all the words of our enemies, Holy Father, the very people who by their deeds oppress and ill-use us, and in their words defame us by attributing to us whatever they choose. They are ever present with you, and we absent, they the oppressors, we the oppressed. In accordance with divine faith, instead of quoting their words in all things, we should rather examine their deeds.
May your holiness long flourish, to the benefit and good order of the Church.
Dated at Garth Kelyn
This is what llywelyn ap gruffydd was offered.
These to be put to the prince in secret.
First: This is the form of the royal grace drawn up by the king’s noblemen,
if the Lord Llywelyn should submit himself to the king’s will.
The king will provide for him honourably, bestowing upon him an estate to the value of £1000 sterling, with the rank of an earl, in some part of England. This is on the understanding that the said Llywelyn surrenders to the lord king, absolutely, perpetually and peaceably, his possession of Snowdonia.
The king himself will provide for the prince’s daughter, in accordance with his obligations to his own blood-kin. To this end, the noblemen are confident that they will be able to persuade the king’s mind to compassion.
Item Two: If Llywelyn should take a second wife, and by her have male heirs, the noblemen undertake to procure of the lord king that such heirs shall succeed in perpetuity to inherit the earldom of £1000 value.
Item Three: Concerning the people presently subject of the prince in Snowdonia or elsewhere, provision shall be made for them as God sanctions, and as is consistent with the safety, honour and wellbeing of such people. To which course the king’s mind is already strongly inclined since he desires to provide for all his people with conciliatory mercy.
THE WELSH RESPONSE
“The prince is no way bound to forgo his heritage and that of his forebears from the time of Brutus, and again confirmed as his by the papal legate, as is suggested, and accept lands in England where language, manners, laws and customs are foreign to him, and where, moreover, malicious mischiefs may be perpetrated against him, out of hatred, by English neighbours, from whom that land has been expropriated in perpetuity.
“Since the king is proposing to deprive the prince of his original inheritance, it seems unbelievable that he will allow him to hold land in England, where he is seen to have no legal right. And similarly, if the prince is not to be allowed to hold the sterile and uncultivated land rightfully his by inheritance from old times, here in Wales, it is incredible to us that in England he will be allowed possession of lands cultivated, fertile and abundant.
From Llywelyn
The realm of England may well be the special object of the Roman curia’s affection, but the aforesaid curia has yet to learn, and must learn, and the lord pope likewise, what evils have been wrought upon us by the English, how the peace formerly made has been violated in all the clauses of the treaty, how churches have been fired and devastated, and ecclesiastical persons, priests, monks and nuns slaughtered, women slain with children at their breast, hospitals and other houses of religion burned, Welsh people murdered in cemeteries, churches, yes at the very altar, with other sacrilegious offences horrible to hear.
We fight because we are forced to fight, for we, and all Wales, are oppressed, subjugated, despoiled, reduced to servitude by the royal officers and bailiffs, in defiance of the form of the peace and of all justice, more maliciously than if we were Saracens or Jews, so that we feel, and have often so protested to the king, that we are left without any remedy.
Always the justiciars and bailiffs grow more savage and cruel, and if these become satiated with their unjust exactions, those in their turn apply themselves to fresh exasperations against the people. To such a pass are we come that they begin to prefer death to life. It is not fitting in such case to threaten greater armies, or move the Church against us. Let us but have peace, and observe it as due, as we have expressed above.
You should not believe all the words of our enemies, Holy Father, the very people who by their deeds oppress and ill-use us, and in their words defame us by attributing to us whatever they choose. They are ever present with you, and we absent, they the oppressors, we the oppressed. In accordance with divine faith, instead of quoting their words in all things, we should rather examine their deeds.
May your holiness long flourish, to the benefit and good order of the Church.
Dated at Garth Kelyn
This is what llywelyn ap gruffydd was offered.
These to be put to the prince in secret.
First: This is the form of the royal grace drawn up by the king’s noblemen,
if the Lord Llywelyn should submit himself to the king’s will.
The king will provide for him honourably, bestowing upon him an estate to the value of £1000 sterling, with the rank of an earl, in some part of England. This is on the understanding that the said Llywelyn surrenders to the lord king, absolutely, perpetually and peaceably, his possession of Snowdonia.
The king himself will provide for the prince’s daughter, in accordance with his obligations to his own blood-kin. To this end, the noblemen are confident that they will be able to persuade the king’s mind to compassion.
Item Two: If Llywelyn should take a second wife, and by her have male heirs, the noblemen undertake to procure of the lord king that such heirs shall succeed in perpetuity to inherit the earldom of £1000 value.
Item Three: Concerning the people presently subject of the prince in Snowdonia or elsewhere, provision shall be made for them as God sanctions, and as is consistent with the safety, honour and wellbeing of such people. To which course the king’s mind is already strongly inclined since he desires to provide for all his people with conciliatory mercy.
THE WELSH RESPONSE
“The prince is no way bound to forgo his heritage and that of his forebears from the time of Brutus, and again confirmed as his by the papal legate, as is suggested, and accept lands in England where language, manners, laws and customs are foreign to him, and where, moreover, malicious mischiefs may be perpetrated against him, out of hatred, by English neighbours, from whom that land has been expropriated in perpetuity.
“Since the king is proposing to deprive the prince of his original inheritance, it seems unbelievable that he will allow him to hold land in England, where he is seen to have no legal right. And similarly, if the prince is not to be allowed to hold the sterile and uncultivated land rightfully his by inheritance from old times, here in Wales, it is incredible to us that in England he will be allowed possession of lands cultivated, fertile and abundant.
his council will not permit him to renounce the said lands and
accept land less rightfully his in England.
The people of Snowdonia for their part state that even if the
prince desired to give the king seisin of them, they themselves would not do
homage to any stranger, of whose language, customs and laws they are utterly
ignorant. For by doing so they could be brought into perpetual captivity and
barbarously treated, as other cantrefs around them have been by the royal
bailiffs and officers, more savagely than ever was wreaked upon Saracen
enemies, as we have said above, reverend father, in the rotuli we sent to you.’
”
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