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The falconer was to drink very sparingly in the king's hall, for fear the falcons might suffer; and his lodging was to be in the king's barn, not in the king's hall, lest the smoke from the great fire-place should dim the falcon's sight. On the death of Griffith ap Llywelyn, many princes tried to become supreme. Bleddyn of Powys, a good and merciful prince, became the most important.
In the Severn country the princes of Powys were fighting against the Normans also, especially against the family of Montgomery. The sons of Bleddyn Cadogan, Iorwerth, and Meredith were driving the invaders from the valley of the Severn, and from Dyved, defeating their armies in battle, and storming their castles. Sometimes they would make alliances with them, and defy the King of England.
Among the largest of these were the following British boats: King Malcom, 4,351 tons; Reapwell, 3,417 tons; Luciston, 2,948 tons; Moeraki, 4,392 tons; King Bleddyn, 4,387 tons; Couch, 5,620 tons; Tanfield, 4,358 tons; Avristan, 3,818 tons; Strathalbyn, 4,331 tons; Ursula, 5,011 tons; Bretwalda, 4,037 tons; Westminster, 4,342 tons.
What Griffith did in the north, and the sons of Bleddyn in the east, Griffith ap Rees did in the south; he showed that the Norman army could be beaten in battle, and that a Norman castle could be taken by assault.
The bard in a great fury indited an awdl, in which he invites Reinallt ap Grufydd ap Bleddyn, a kind of predatory chieftain, who resided a little way off in Flintshire, to come and set the town on fire, and slaughter the inhabitants, in revenge for the wrongs he had suffered, and then proceeds to vent all kinds of imprecations against the mayor and people of Chester, wishing, amongst other things, that they might soon hear that the Dee had become too shallow to bear their ships that a certain cutaneous disorder might attack the wrists of great and small, old and young, laity and clergy that grass might grow in their streets that Ilar and Cyveilach, Welsh saints, might slay them that dogs might snarl at them and that the king of heaven, with the saints Brynach and Non, might afflict them with blindness which piece, however ineffectual in inducing God and the saints to visit the Chester people with the curses with which the furious bard wished them to be afflicted, seems to have produced somewhat of its intended effect on the chieftain, who shortly afterwards, on learning that the mayor and many of the Chester people were present at the fair of Mold, near which place he resided, set upon them at the head of his forces, and after a desperate combat, in which many lives were lost, took the mayor prisoner, and drove those of his people who survived into a tower, which he set on fire and burnt, with all the unhappy wretches which it contained, completing the horrors of the day by hanging the unfortunate mayor.
While the Norman was winning valley after valley, the Welsh princes were trying to decide by the issue of battle who was to be chief. Bleddyn was slain in 1075; and his nephews and cousins tried to rule the country. Among these, Trahaiarn was a soldier of ability and energy, and a ruler of real genius.
Griffith was killed by his own people, whereupon Harold gave the government to the dead king's brothers, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon, who swore oaths of fealty both to King Edward and to himself.
The men who opposed the Normans left able successors Owen Gwynedd followed his father, Griffith ap Conan; the Lord Rees followed his father Griffith ap Rees; and in Powys the sons of Bleddyn were followed by the castle builder Howel, and by the poet Owen Cyveiliog. Owen Gwynedd ruled from 1137 to 1169; the Lord Rees from 1137 to 1197. The age was, in many respects, a great one.
In battle, he was full of fury and passion; in peace, he was just and wise. His people saw at first that he could fight a battle; then they found he could rule a country. And it was he that was to say to the Norman: "Thus far shalt thou come, and no further." When Bleddyn died in 1075, Griffith came to Gwynedd, and found that his father's lands were under new rulers.
In the Pipe Roll of Henry I, 1131, Bledri's name is entered as debtor for a fine incurred by the killing of a Fleming by his men; while a highly significant entry records the fine of 7 marks imposed upon a certain Bleddyn of Mabedrud and his brothers for outraging Bledri's daughter.
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