next come to the group of lordships held about this time by William
de Braose, lord of Bramber in Sussex. They stretched from Radnor to
Gower, from the Monnow to the Llwchwr, and included the castles of
Builth, Brecon, Abergavenny. But he held these lands by different
titles, and they were never welded together. William de Braose began
his public career by calling the princes of Gwent to a conference at
Abergavenny, and massacring them. He was on intimate terms with King
John, who gave Prince Arthur into his keeping; but this was a piece of
work which even De Braose recoiled from, and he refused to burden his
soul with Arthur's murder. A few years later John suddenly turned
against him, and demanded his sons as hostages. His wife, Maud de St.
Valerie, who lived long in the popular memory as a witch, sent back
the answer: she would not entrust her children to a man who had
murdered his nephew. The king chased Braose from his lands, caught his
wife and eldest son, and starved them to death in Windsor Castle. The
Braose family continued to hold Gower, but the rest of their
possessions passed to other houses--Brecon to the Bohuns of Hereford,
Elvael to Mortimer, Abergavenny to Hastings, Builth first to Mortimer
and then to the Crown.

Glamorgan, during our period, was attached to the earldom of
Gloucester. From Fitzhamon the Conqueror it passed, through his
daughter, to Robert of Gloucester, and early in the thirteenth
century to the great house of Clare, Earls of Gloucester and Hertford,
who held the balance between parties in the Barons' War. With the
organisation of Glamorgan and with its great rulers we shall deal
later. At the time represented by our map, it was in the hands of King
John, who obtained it by marriage. John divorced his wife in 1200, but
managed to keep her inheritance till nearly the end of his reign; and
Fawkes de Breaute, the most infamous of his mercenary captains, lorded
it in Cardiff Castle.

Further west, between the Llwchwr and the Towy, lay the lordship of
Kidweli, held by the De Londres family, who had accompanied Fitzhamon
in the conquest of Glamorgan, and were lords of Ogmore and founders of
Ewenny. One episode in the history of this family may be
mentioned--the battle in the Vale of Towy in 1136, when Gwenllian, the
heroic wife of Rhys ap Gruffydd, led her husband's forces against
Maurice and De Londres, and was defeated and slain by the Lord of
Kidweli. Her death was soon avenged by the s