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Updated: May 5, 2025
The race of Gryffyth were re- established on the tributary throne of that hero, in the persons of his brothers, Blethgent and Rigwatle, "and they swore oaths," says the graphic old chronicler, "and delivered hostages to the King and the Earl that they would be faithful to him in all things, and be everywhere ready for him, by water, and by land, and make such renders from the land as had been done before to any other king."
This day, greeting Algar, he told me he meditated bestowing his daughter on Gryffyth, the rebel under-King of North Wales. Therefore," continued the old Earl, with a smile, "thou must speak in time, and win and woo in the same breath. No hard task, methinks, for Harold of the golden tongue."
In a few moments one of the Welch scouts came into the enclosure, and the chiefs of the royal tribes followed him to the carn on which the King stood. "Of what tellest thou?" said Gryffyth, resuming on the instant all the royalty of his bearing. "At the mouth of the pass," said the scout, kneeling, "there are a monk bearing the holy rood, and a chief, unarmed.
As soon as Gryffyth is subdued, Algar will be crushed in his retreat, like a bloated spider in his web; and then England will have rest, unless our liege, as thou hintest, set her to work again." The Norman knight mused a few moments, before he said: "I understand, then, that there is no man in the land who is peer to Harold: not, I suppose, Tostig his brother?"
The King too, poor man! is not so ill-pleased at my outbursts as he would fain have it thought; he thinks, by pitting earl against earl, that he himself is the stronger . While Edward lives, therefore, Harold's arm is half crippled; wherefore, Meredydd, ride thou, with good speed, back to King Gryffyth, and tell him all I have told thee.
One single defeat may lose us two years of victory. Gryffyth may break from the eyrie, regain what he hath lost, win back our Welch allies, ever faithless and hollow. Wherefore, I say, go on as we have begun. Beset all the country round; cut off all supplies, and let the foe rot by famine or waste, as he hath done this night, his strength by vain onslaught and sally."
It was this Gryffyth who received and sheltered Fleance, the son of Banquo, when flying from Macbeth, and gave him in marriage his daughter Nesta, who became the mother of Walter, the ancestor of the line of kings shadowed in Macbeth's mirror. In the early part of Gryffyth's reign, the Welsh flourished greatly.
With all his hot errors, the claims of no other Earl, whether from his own capacities or his father's services, were so strong; and his election probably saved the state from a great danger, in the results of that angry mood and that irritated ambition with which he had thrown himself into the arms of England's most valiant aggressor, Gryffyth, King of North Wales.
"A brave man and true king, then, this Gryffyth," said the Norman, with some admiration; "but," he added in a colder tone, "I confess, for my own part, that though I pity the valiant man beaten, I honour the brave man who wins; and though I have seen but little of this rough land as yet, I can well judge from what I have seen, that no captain, not of patience unwearied, and skill most consummate, could conquer a bold enemy in a country where every rock is a fort."
Heaven holds thee guilty of all the blood thou shalt cause to be shed." "Be dumb! hush thy screech, lying raven!" exclaimed Gryffyth, his eyes darting fire and, his slight form dilating.
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