Howel Dda own the payment of a yearly tribute by "the prince of Aberffraw"
to "the King of London." The weakness of England during her long struggle
with the Danes revived the hopes of British independence; it was the
co-operation of the Welsh on which the northmen reckoned in their attack on
the house of Ecgberht. But with the fall of the Danelaw the British princes
were again brought to submission, and when in the midst of the Confessor's
reign the Welsh seized on a quarrel between the houses of Leofric and
Godwine to cross the border and carry their attacks into England itself,
the victories of Harold reasserted the English supremacy. Disembarking on
the coast his light-armed troops he penetrated to the heart of the
mountains, and the successors of the Welsh prince Gruffydd, whose head was
the trophy of the campaign, swore to observe the old fealty and render the
old tribute to the English Crown.

[Sidenote: Wales and the Normans]

A far more desperate struggle began when the wave of Norman conquest broke
on the Welsh frontier. A chain of great earldoms, settled by William along
the border-land, at once bridled the old marauding forays. From his county
palatine of Chester Hugh the Wolf harried Flintshire into a desert, Robert
of Belesme in his earldom of Shrewsbury "slew the Welsh," says a
chronicler, "like sheep, conquered them, enslaved them and flayed them with
nails of iron." The earldom of Gloucester curbed Britain along the lower
Severn. Backed by these greater baronies a horde of lesser adventurers
obtained the royal "licence to make conquest on the Welsh." Monmouth and
Abergavenny were seized and guarded by Norman castellans; Bernard of
Neufmarche won the lordship of Brecknock; Roger of Montgomery raised the
town and fortress in Powysland which still preserves his name. A great
rising of the whole people in the days of the second William won back some
of this Norman spoil. The new castle of Montgomery was burned, Brecknock
and Cardigan were cleared of the invaders, and the Welsh poured ravaging
over the English border. Twice the Red King carried his arms fruitlessly
among the mountains against enemies who took refuge in their fastnesses
till famine and hardship drove his broken host into retreat. The wiser
policy of Henry the First fell back on his father's system of gradual
conquest. A new tide of invasion flowed along the southern coast, where the
land was level and open and accessible from the sea. The at