army the Normans could put in the field. In 1137 he died, and they
said of him that he had shown his people what they ought to do, and
that he had given them strength to do it.

The work of Griffith ap Conan and Griffith ap Rees was this: they
set bounds to the Norman Conquest, and saved Deheubarth and Gwynedd
from the stern rule of the alien. But, though the Norman was not
allowed to bring his stone castle and cruel law, what good he brought
with him was welcomed. The piety of the Norman, his intellectual
curiosity, and his spirit of adventure, conquered in Welsh districts
where his coat of mail and his castle were not seen.



CHAPTER IX--OWEN GWYNEDD AND THE LORD REES



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.

It was, of course, an age of war. Up to 1154, during the reign of
Stephen, the English barons were fighting against each other, and the
king had very little power over them. The most important Norman
barons in Wales were the Earls of Chester in the valley of the Dee,