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One episode in the history of this family may be mentioned the battle in the Vale of Towy in 1136, when Gwenllian, the heroic wife of Rhys ap Gruffydd, led her husband's forces against Maurice and De Londres, and was defeated and slain by the Lord of Kidweli. Her death was soon avenged by the slaughter of the Normans at Cardigan.
Every day brought accessions to their number; they were in communication with similar centres of disaffection in all parts of the midlands; and they confidently hoped for the day when the Normans should be expelled, and England be England again.
They come, not only to ruin us, but to ruin our descendants also, and to take from us the country of our ancestors. And what shall we do whither shall we go, when we have no longer a country? The English promised, by a unanimous oath, to make neither peace nor truce nor treaty with the invader, but to die or drive away the Normans."
Afterwards, when Henry had changed his policy, the Normans smote the French with a great slaughter at Mortemer, neither of the contending princes being personally present. Val-ès-dunes, we must confess the fact, was in truth a victory of the Roman over the Teuton.
KINGDOM OF FRANCE. In 841 Rouen fell into the hands of the Normans, and Paris lay open to their attacks. In 861 Charles the Bald invested a brave soldier, Robert the Strong, whose descent is not known, with the county of Paris, that he might resist the invaders. He held the country between the Seine and the Loire, under the name of the Duchy of France.
During the second quarter of this century, an extraordinary change became apparent in the manners and customs of the descendants of the Normans, Flemings, and Cambrians, whose ancestors an hundred years earlier were strangers in the land. Instead of intermarrying exclusively among themselves, the prevailing fashion became to seek for Irish wives, and to bestow their daughters on Irish husbands.
All Thomond rose in arms, under Donogh, son of Brian, to revenge this infamous murder. Near Ennis the Normans met a terrible defeat, from which de Clare and Fitzgerald fled for safety into the neighbouring Church of Quin. But Donogh O'Brien burned the Church over their heads, and forced them to surrender at discretion.
The two justiciars, William of Warenne and Richard of Bienfaite, after summoning the earls to answer in the king's court, with the aid of Bishop Odo and the Bishop of Coutances, who was also a great English baron, raised an army of English as well as Normans, and went to meet Earl Ralph, who was marching westwards. Something like a battle took place, but the rebels were easily defeated.
The duke of the Normans heard mass, and received the communion in both kinds, and drew forth his troops for their march against the English post. Then in full armour, and seated on his noble Spanish war-horse, William led his host forth in three divisions. The Normans from the hill of Telham first caught sight of the English encamped on the opposite height of Senlac.
Some bold men, the favourite heroes of our oldest ballads, betook themselves to the woods, and there, in defiance of curfew laws and forest laws, waged a predatory war against their oppressors. Assassination was an event of daily occurrence. Many Normans suddenly disappeared leaving no trace. The corpses of many were found bearing the marks of violence.
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