The Brothers of Gwynedd by Edith Pargeter Page A

so it was, for money entered into every transaction. After all their conferring, King Henry undertook, in the campaign he intended against the prince of Gwynedd, to bring about the release of the Lord Griffith from imprisonment in consideration of the sum of six hundred marks, and to restore him to his rightful share of the inheritance for three hundred more, one third of the whole sum to be paid in coin, and the remainder in cattle and horses. And a commission of lawful appraisers was to view the stock so rendered in payment, when they were delivered to the sheriff here in Shrewsbury, to make doubly sure that their value was equal to the sum due. To this document many of the marcher lords and Welsh princes also added their signatures as security. And the Lady Senena placed herself and her children under King Henry's protection, and her two youngest sons specifically in his charge, as hostages for her and her husband's future fealty.
      Whether she was fully content with this arrangement I do not know, but it was the best she could get, and I think she felt secure that it would be of short term and soon resolved, and the restoration of half Gwynedd to her lord would make payment a light matter. For she listened with great eagerness to all the talk within the town, and paid attention to all the news she could get of the king's preparations, which indeed were impressive. And the season still continued bright without a cloud, and the rivers shrank into mere trickles in the meandering middles of their beds, even the Severn so low that a man could ford it where no fords were at other times. So all men said it was but a matter of marching into Wales, and the elusive warfare the Welsh favoured and excelled at would be impossible, for an army could go in force where normally marsh and mountain stream would prevent. And in a month all would be over. And for once men said truth, for in a month all was over.
      We stayed in our lodgings in Shrewsbury, King Henry's pensioners, when the army marched. After they were gone, the town seemed quiet indeed, but with a most ominous quietness, and for some time no news came. They marched to Chester, where the nobles of the north with their knights were ordered to join the muster, and from there advanced westwards into Tegaingl without hindrance, and reached the river Clwyd, which was no let to them, and crossed the great marshes that surround Rhuddlan dry-shod as on a drained field, so rapidly, that Prince David was forced to withdraw or be cut off from his mountains. But even the mountains betrayed him, for they provided him neither rain nor cloud nor mist to cover him. Such a season had never been known in Snowdon. He razed to the rock his castle of Degannwy, on the hither side of Conway, when it was plain that he must abandon it, and he kept his army from the direct clash which must see it shattered. In the end he preferred to sue for peace rather than continue a war which could not be won, but only lost with great bloodshed or with none.
      At Gwern Eigron on the river Elwy, the twenty-ninth day of August, the prince of Gwynedd made a complete surrender on terms to the king, and in King Henry's tent at Rhuddlan the pact was confirmed two days later. And a hard and bitter meeting that must have been between these two, uncle and nephew but very much of an age, kinsmen and enemies. And very hard and bitter were the terms of the surrender, though David kept his rank and the remnants of his principality.
      Rumour of the end of the fighting came back to us in Shrewsbury early in September, while the army was still at Chester. The Lady Senena sent daily to the sheriff or the bailiffs for news of what most concerned her, her lord's fortunes, and I well remember the day when her steward came back from the castle glowing with the details at last. She was in the hall when he came, and I was taking down for her one more letter of the many with which she had throughout continued to solicit the