"Or with such bishops," I said. For no less than nine of them, in full pontificals, had closed that parliament with the solemn excommunication of all those who transgressed against the great charter, the forest charter and the present statutes, the bible of civil liberty.
"Break them," said Llewelyn bitterly, "and put smooth noblemen from Savoy and Poitou in their places."
I said, for I also saw the same stony barrier blunting every attempt at advance: "He may yet be forced to take the sword again. And with the sword he is their master."
"If they can force him to hold down England with arms," cried Llewelyn with sudden passion, "they will have defeated him, as surely as if they beat him in battle. It is his dilemma. I pray it may not be his tragedy!"
It was as if I argued with my own heart. Every word he said I felt to be true. And greatly I marvelled how he, watching and fretting at a distance, had come by a sharper understanding of Earl Simon than I had gained in the earl's own retinue.
CHAPTER XI
Before the beginning of April we were reminded of all that we had said together, for Meurig came riding into Bala, where Llewelyn's court had removed while the shaky quiet held, with a scrip full of gossip he had collected about the horse-markets of Gwent and Gloucester. Yearly he grew greyer and shaggier and smaller, more like a seeding thistle, but he was wiry and tough as thorn still, and had very sharp ears for all the tunes the wind brought him.
"There's more goes on below the hangings than is known abroad," he said. "Gilbert of Clare took himself off from Westminster before parliament ended or the peace was made, and went home to Gloucester with all his men. Some say in displeasure over the earl of Derby's fall, for his own conscience is not altogether clear. Some say for jealousy of the de Montfort sons. There was to have been a grand tournament at Dunstable, a court function, on Shrove Tuesday—did you hear of that?—but they got wind of high feeling between the Clares and the Montforts, and found it easier to call off the occasion on the plea that all good men were needed at court to aid in the Lord Edward's settlement. They put it off until the twentieth of this month at Northampton, hoping the bad blood would need no letting by then. And John Giffard was not long after the earl in quitting London, they say for fear of the law reaching for him as it had reached for Ferrers. He's with Gilbert now, hand in glove. The latest word is that the council called on Gilbert to make good his pledge as guarantor, and see the castle of Bamburgh handed over, and Gilbert has sent a very left-handed answer, pleading that he cannot take any steps because he is fully occupied defending his Gloucester borders. Against you, my lord!"
"I have not so much as cast a glance in his direction," said Llewelyn warmly. "What can the man be up to?"
"That is what the earl of Leicester is also wondering. Nor is Bamburgh the only castle still detained."
"I know it," said Llewelyn drily. "Shrewsbury, for one." For we knew by then that David was there, still tethered on his long leash, it seemed, as close as he could get to Gwynedd, as though he had been tied by his heart-strings, as indeed perhaps he was.
"And others," said Meurig, nodding his silvery head, "and others! It cannot be overlooked for ever. If Earl Gilbert does not appear at Northampton on the twentieth to run a course among the rest at this tournament, I think the earl of Leicester will be forced to go and smoke him out of Gloucester in person. The young man has been his right hand ever since Lewes; he cannot afford to be at odds with him, or leave him to his sulks. Who would replace him?"
"And they have called another parliament in June," said Llewelyn, listening and brooding. "Will it ever meet, I wonder?"
When the prince laid all these considerations before his council, Goronwy put his finger on the heart of the matter.
"There is one man," he said, "who could resolve all this if he would, and only one. It is pointless affirming to King Louis and pope and cardinal that England is at one, and King Henry consents to his lot, when it is plain he consents only under duress, however many oaths he swears. But their arguments and their weapons would be blunted if the crown did indeed consent and work with the earl and the council. All that the marchers and their kind are doing is done in the name of the royal liberties and privileges, and all the orders that issue from the chancery under the king's seal are all too clearly Earl Simon's orders, and can be denounced. But it would not be so easy to denounce them if the crown actively linked hands with the earl and repudiated the troublers of the peace. Aloud, voluntarily and credibly. King Henry never will, granted, he has fought every step of the road. But there's one who already carries more weight than King Henry, and shows as a more formidable enemy and a more effective friend. And once he was inclined warmly enough towards the earl and the reform. Surely it is only personal grudges, not ideas, that divide them even now. If the Lord Edward willed to make this government secure, he could call off the marchers, silence King Louis, and disband the invasion fleet, at one stroke. He might even convince the pope. He could certainly disarm him."
Llewelyn looked to me for answer. "It is true," he said, "I remember, not so long ago, he went so far in support of the earl as to bring himself into suspicion and disgrace for a time. Is there any possibility, do you think, that he may raise himself far enough above his grudges to discover some good in this new order, and give it his countenance, if not his blessing?"
I said: "None! If he examined it in his own heart and found it perfect in justice and virtue, it would not change him, and he would not relent. Edward can be generous in friendship, even generous from policy, but once he turns to hating his hate is indelible. Edward will not lift a finger to make peace. But he will go to the last extreme to get his revenge."
When the twentieth of the month came, the earl of Gloucester still absented himself from the tournament at Northampton. According to report, he was encamped with an ominously strong force in the forest of Dean, with John Giffard in his company, and this continued sulking so disquieted Earl Simon that he decided to move to Gloucester himself, and take the king with him, and sent out writs to the baronial forces of the border shires to rally to him at that town. The young earl was headstrong and inexperienced, yet he had shown himself ardent, brave and able, and Earl Simon was grieved at being at odds with him, and very willing to meet him in a conciliatory manner and discuss freely whatever matters rankled with him.
As soon as we heard that the earl had taken his unwieldy court to Gloucester, Llewelyn, restive and uneasy, called up his own levies and moved them down into the central march, to be on the watch for whatever might follow, and ready to act upon it at need. He had a little hunting castle at Aberedw, near Builth, and took up residence there, and he took care to send word to Earl Simon where he could be found.
In the forests and hills round Gloucester, Gilbert of Clare and his fellows camped through the first days of May, and while they received messengers civilly, and even sent replies, they held off from making any closer contact. Earl Simon sent conciliatory envoys to try to arrange a meeting, and Earl Gilbert replied with a long list of bitter complaints, no longer troubling to hide his jealousy, but pouring out all his grievances, over prisoners, ransoms, castles, and the preferment of Earl Simon's sons. This seemed to be some progress, at least, yet all attempts to bring him to the desired meeting were somehow evaded. To us, looking on from Aberedw, it seemed almost that Earl Gilbert was playing for time, while he waited for something to happen.
That whole dolorous court was there with Earl Simon, proof once again that in his heart he trusted none of them. The king, hemmed in with all the officers and ministers who controlled him and spoke in his name, went where he was taken, by then so discouraged and apathetic that I think only his obstinacy kept him alive. And I confess I understand how many who had truly believed in Earl Simon's ideals, but had not his endurance or his responsibility, turned to pitying a tired and ageing man, and felt revulsion at witnessing his plight. Yet I think Earl Simon was as much a victim and a prisoner as he, caught in the same trap, and with even less pos
sibility of escape.
Edward was there, too, accompanied everywhere by his two guardians, Henry de Montfort and Thomas of Clare, Earl Gilbert's brother. No doubt a Clare was added to the warders to try and balance that enmity between Clares and Montforts that was splitting the younger reform party into two, but that must have been an unhappy partnership, damaging to all three. Thomas of Clare slept in Edward's bedchamber. No doubt those two had plenty of time to talk together, while Earl Gilbert was holding off in the forest, and setting the night alight with his camp-fires all round Gloucester.
With all his burdens, Earl Simon did not forget to keep us informed. We heard from him when the bishop of Worcester, eternally hopeful and ardent in the cause of peace-making, undertook to try and bring Gilbert de Clare to a meeting, and felt some relief when news followed, on the fifth day of May, that the young man was softening towards the idea, and had agreed to come down into the city if certain conditions were fulfilled.
"So it may pass over, after all," said Llewelyn, glad but scornful. "He's satisfied with the trouble he has caused, and flattered at having great men and reverend bishops running after him, and no doubt he'll enjoy being gracious after the wooing. We were wrong about him, he's lighter than we thought." For he himself, at twenty, had been joint prince of Gwynedd, tried not only in battle but in the hard discipline of submission for the sake of preserving his constricted birthright, and labouring hard to restore its derelict fortunes. He had no time for tantrums.
So our minds were eased, and Llewelvn hawked and hunted over the uplands that day, without expectation of hearing more until the promised meeting should take place. And we were astonished when another messenger from Earl Simon rode into our narrow bailey the next morning, his horse ridden into a sweat, and his clothes whitened with the dust and pollen of a dry May. He stooped in haste to Llewelyn's hand.
"My lord, Earl Simon sends you word he is gone to Hereford with all his retinue, and begs you will attend him south on your side the border, for he may have good need of you.
"I will well!" said Llewelyn heartily. "But why to Hereford, and so suddenly? Is Gloucester at some new trick?"
"No, my lord, this is no contrivance of Gloucester's; he is still in camp, and has not moved a man. But William of Valence has landed from France in his lordship of Pembroke, with the earl of Surrey and a hundred and twenty fighting men. There'll be others following unless we turn back this onslaught at once. The earl is gone to block the roads into England and stay the flood."
"You go to join him in Hereford?" said Llewelyn. "You may tell him we shall not be far behind him." And he sent the man in to get food and rest, while a fresh horse was saddled for his onward journey. When the prince turned upon me, I knew what was in his mind before ever he spoke, for it was in my mind, too.
"Samson," he said, and his voice was so quiet and so current that it was strange to hear in it what I heard of doubt and entreaty, "will you go back to Earl Simon with his messenger, and be my voice with him as before? I am not easy among these shifting tides. Go to him, and I'll keep pace with you my side the border. For I cannot go myself!" he said, crying out against what drew and denied him.
I said I would go. What else could I say? I did not say, gladly, there was then no gladness, though there may have been gratitude. I cannot tell. Within the hour I rode for Hereford with Earl Simon's messenger, and with Cadell beside me to be my courier with good tidings and ill.
The king's court was installed in the house of the Black Friars in the city of Hereford, and the strange retinue of officials and army filled the town, from the castle to the enclosure of the Franciscans, and spilled into encampments outside the walls. Something of Earl Simon's rigid discipline of body and mind had bled into the veins of those who served him, and there was order and purpose even then, when the foundations of their brief and splendid world were crumbling.
When they let me in to him, on the morning of the seventh day of May, he greeted me with a faint gleam of pleasure that burned through his black preoccupation for a moment, and warmed both him and me. I saw him greyer than before, the close fell of brown hair, like a beast's rich hide, silvered at the temples and above the great cliff of forehead, and his eyes sunk deeper into his skull than I remembered them.
He said: "It is barely a year since you left me, after Lewes. I have found that a man may do ten years' living in one year. But you are not changed. I trust your lord is well?"
I said that he was, and of his own will had again sent me to be his envoy and hold the link close between them. And he made me sit down with him, and told me how the matter stood as at that time. As yet there had been no move from the force which had landed in Pembroke, his only information concerning them was that William of Valence and the earl of Surrey had made very correct and peaceable overtures to the religious houses in Dyfed and Gwent, and seemed to be contemplating an appeal through some such go-between towards the restoration of their lands and right of residence in England. Their numbers were not great, and in themselves they were not a great danger, provided entry could be denied to any others hoping to follow them.
I told him that Llewelyn proposed to be ready to match any moves the earl might make, and keep pace with him on the Welsh side of the border, where he could be very quickly reached at any time. But I repeated yet again that his first concern was the unity and stability of Wales, and that he needed and deserved to have his position made regular by formal acknowledgement, which he would not jeopardise by military adventures into England itself. His stand, as one having no covetous designs on any soil that had not been Welsh from time out of mind, could not be abandoned.
Earl Simon smiled. "I remember," he said, "you told me so once before, and warned me that it might be in my power to tempt him from his resolve. Be easy! I will not lure any man from his own crusade to accomplish mine. It is good to have such a man as the prince keeping my back for me. I ask no more."
In those days of May letters patent and letters close poured out from the city of Hereford, first to the Cinque ports and all the coastal castles, alerting them against the possibility of further attempts at landing troops, then to all the sheriffs of the shires, to hold their forces on the alert to keep the peace, arrest preachers of sedition and rumour-mongers, and insist on the maintenance of the settlement. Then, as stories began to come in of local levies massing in the marches, and brawls and disorder resulting, the sheriffs along the border were ordered to search for and seize those marcher lords who had promised to withdraw for a year of exile to Ireland, but on one excuse or another had contrived to evade keeping their word, and were now openly repudiating it. Rumours were spreading like brush fires along the borders that there was discord and enmity between the earl of Leicester and the earl of Gloucester, and these Earl Simon was intent upon suppressing.
"The man has his grievances, and has said so freely," he said, "and I have promised him redress if I am held to have done him any injustice. God knows I am not so infallible that he may not have just complaint against me. But he is a true man to the Provisions and the settlement, and I will not have his faith called in question because he finds fault with me."
In this he was utterly sincere, for Bishop Walter of Worcester had indeed been successful in bringing de Clare to consent to a conference, but that the landing in Pembroke had caused that matter to be postponed in favour of more urgent business. Yet I could not get it out of my head that Earl Gilbert had been holding off for weeks from such a meeting, as though time, and not a hearing, was what he wanted. Time, perhaps, for the ships from France to put their cargoes ashore in Pembroke? He had not yielded to persuasion until the day before their coming was known, and to him it might have been known before the news came into Gloucester. I said so to young Henry de Montfort, on the one occasion when I saw him in the courtyard of the Dominicans. He bit on the suggestion with some doubt and consternation, as on an aching tooth, but shook his head over it after thought.
"How could he have foreknowledge of it? All the p
orts are under guard; you see they attempted nothing in the south, but went afield as far as Pembroke. And then, he has not made any move to try and join them, or they to make contact with him. We know he is still encamped where he was, close to Gloucester. I cannot believe he is in conspiracy with the exiles, or in sympathy with them, whatever his differences with my father."
"Yet Pembroke's lands were in his care," I said, "and he should have been prepared to repel any such landing."
"True," said Henry, "and he is certainly guilty of negligence, but surely of nothing more. He has neglected his duty to pursue his own quarrel, but he cannot have abandoned the cause he has fought for like the rest of us."
So I pressed the matter no more, but I was not easy, for that very aloofness and stillness of Earl Gilbert caused me, as it were, to listen and hold my breath, as though both he and I were still waiting for some future event. However, there was nothing then to bear me out. The general alert continued, and so did the flares and raids in the marches, and the rumours of secret gatherings, but Gloucester made no move, and all the newly-landed exiles did at that time was to send the prior of Monmouth on a mission to the king's court, to plead for the restoration of their lands. A chill reply was sent from the council, saying that justice was open to all in the king's courts, and could be sought there at will.
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