ether, than that we should in
future times, as so often in the past, be tormented by rebellions of
this kind at their good pleasure."

The "Principality" now became shire land--under English laws and
English administration. The rest of Wales remained divided up into
Marcher Lordships for another two hundred and fifty years, under
feudal laws--a continual source of disturbance and scene of disorder.
These were the lands in which the King's Writ did not run, where (to
summarise the description in the Statute of 1536) "murders and
house-burnings, robberies and riots are committed with impunity, and
felons are received, and escape from justice by going from one
lordship to another."

Yet the Marcher Lords did something for Welsh civilisation in their
earlier centuries. Guided by enlightened self-interest, they often
founded towns, granting considerable privileges to them in order to
attract burgesses--such as low rents, and freedom from arbitrary
fines. Fairs, too, were established and protected by the Lords
Marchers. The early lords of Glamorgan seem to have been specially
successful in this respect; in the twelfth century immigrants from
other parts of Wales are said to have come to reside in Glamorgan,
owing to the privileges and comparative security which were to be
found there. Nor perhaps has it been sufficiently recognised how soon
the Lords of the Marches began drilling their Welsh subjects in
Anglo-Norman methods of local self-government. Most of the greater
Marcher Lords possessed estates in England; not a few of them, such as
William de Braose, served as sheriffs in English shires; some, such as
John de Hastings, were judges in the royal courts. They introduced
into Wales methods of government which they learnt in England, and
institutions with a great future before them, like the Franco-Roman
"inquest by sworn recognitors," from which trial by jury was
developed, were soon acclimatised in the Marches of Wales.

II

GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH

When Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote, Norman influence in Wales was at its
height. In the old days we used to begin English history with William
the Conqueror; since Freeman wrote his five thick volumes and
proved--not that the Norman Conquest was unimportant--but that it did
not involve a breach of continuity, a new start in national life, the
pendulum has swung too much the other way, and the tendency of late
years has been to underestimate the importance of the Norma