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There was much more fighting, but Llewelyn's progress was impeded by difficulties with his own son Griffith, and with the princes of South Wales, who bore impatiently the growing hold of the lord of Gwynedd upon the affections of southern Welshmen.
Two or three had fallen from the Welsh arrows, and not a few had received ugly slashes from their knives; but, with these exceptions, all had come scatheless through the fray. At least two hundred dead Welshmen were scattered on the plain. "You have done your work well, men," Sir John said, "and taught them a lesson that they will not forget.
It was then fair-time at Chester, and the constable collected a miscellaneous rabble of fiddlers, players, cobblers, tailors, and all manner of debauched people, and led them to the relief of the Earl. At sight of this strange army the Welshmen fled; and forever after the Earl assigned to the constable of Chester power over all fiddlers, shoemakers, etc., within the bounds of Cheshire.
Among the Britains or the Welshmen, christianitie as yet remained in force, which from the apostles time had neuer failed in that nation. Augustine to prooue his opinion good, wrought a miracle in restoring sight to one of the Saxon nation that was blind.
It was attack and counter-attack from one hill to another all day long, but the advantage at the end of the day lay with the Welshmen, who simply refused to be beaten and fought the Turks to a standstill. Like the Scotsmen they had to wipe off a few old scores, in addition to which there was the accumulated interest of six months of waiting.
But howsoeuer that name fell first vnto them, now they are called Welshmen, which sometime were called Britains or Brutons, and descended first of the Troians, and after of Brute, and lastlie of Mulmucius Dunwallo: albeit they were mingled with sundrie other nations, as Romans, Picts, &c. And now they be called English that in their beginning were named Saxons or Angles.
I doubt if we could even get these Welshmen to peg out the lists." "That we must see to," I said. "We will have all things fair in some way." Half a mile from the town we came to what they call a carr a woody rise in the level marsh and on the skirts of this two men waited us. They were the seconds of Griffin, Welsh or half Welsh both of them by their looks, and both were well armed.
I went quietly and walked along the lower tables, bidding my men see if more Welshmen were present, but finding none, and then I found the hall steward wringing his hands, with an ashy face, at the far end of the hall. "Master Oswald," he said, almost weeping, "how that man came in here I do not know. I saw him not until he rose up.
A necessary preliminary to the union of Welshmen was the wiping out of all independent Welsh princes except one. Till that happened local feeling would always remain stronger than national feeling; the disintegrating forces of family feuds and personal ambitions and clannish loyalty would always outweigh the sense of national unity.
They were all different, yet all alike; different in their degrees of beefiness, stolidity, and self-sufficiency, but plainly of the same parentage British to the backbone; British of the wrong kind, with a sprinkling of Welshmen, Irishmen, and Jews. Not a Scotsman discoverable in that whole mob of complacent office-jacks.
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