host, "that your people of rebels can withstand my army?" "My people,"
replied the chieftain, "may be weakened by your might, and even in great
part destroyed, but unless the wrath of God be on the side of its foe it
will not perish utterly. Nor deem I that other race or other tongue will
answer for this corner of the world before the Judge of all at the last day
save this people and tongue of Wales." So ran the popular rime, "Their Lord
they will praise, their speech they shall keep, their land they shall
lose--except wild Wales."


[Sidenote: The Provisions of Oxford]

Faith and prophecy seemed justified by the growing strength of the British
people. The weakness and dissensions which characterized the reign of Henry
the Third enabled Llewelyn ap Jorwerth to preserve a practical independence
till the close of his life, when a fresh acknowledgement of the English
supremacy was wrested from him by Archbishop Edmund. But the triumphs of
his arms were renewed by Llewelyn the son of Gruffydd, who followed him in
1246. The raids of the new chieftain swept the border to the very gates of
Chester, while his conquest of Glamorgan seemed to bind the whole people
together in a power strong enough to meet any attack from the stranger. So
pressing was the danger that it called the king's eldest son, Edward, to
the field; but his first appearance in arms ended in a crushing defeat. The
defeat however remained unavenged. Henry's dreams were of mightier
enterprises than the reduction of the Welsh. The Popes were still fighting
their weary battle against the House of Hohenstaufen, and were offering its
kingdom of Sicily, which they regarded as a forfeited fief of the Holy See,
to any power that would aid them in the struggle. In 1254 it was offered to
the king's second son, Edmund. With imbecile pride Henry accepted the
offer, prepared to send an army across the Alps, and pledged England to