Читать книгу The History of Oswestry онлайн

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The historic facts recorded subsequent to this period are brief and meagre. We are told that in 1233 Oswestry was again destroyed by fire. Llywelyn ab Jorwerth had just made an inroad into the county of Brecknock, destroying all the towns and fortresses belonging to that territory; he then invested the castle, lay before it a month, raised the siege, finding his efforts to be fruitless, set fire to the town, and pursued his way to the Marches. Conflagration and ruin marked his progress: he burnt the town of Clun, in Salop, demolished Redde Castle, in Powys, and laid Oswestry in ashes. A few months afterwards, Llywelyn and Lord Pembroke, having joined their forces, made another inroad into the English Marches, and having rendered all that country a scene of devastation, they finished their fiery career by laying part of the town of Shrewsbury (Frankwell, it is supposed,) in ashes.

Early in the reign of Edward I. that monarch was intent on bowing the stubborn neck of Llywelyn ab Grufydd (the last native sovereign Prince of Wales). Llywelyn was refractory, and ambitious to maintain his order. Edward summoned him to a parliament in London, but Llywelyn refused to comply with the royal command. In reply, he offered (Oct. 14, 1276–7,) to repair to Montgomery, or to “the White Monastery of John Fitz-Alan,” as Oswestry was then called, but declined a journey to the metropolis of England. On the receipt of this answer, by which Edward, resolute to exact a personal obedience, was, or affected to be, greatly enraged, the Parliament immediately condemned Llywelyn as a rebel, for his non-appearance. The melancholy end of the Welsh prince is well known. “If,” says an elegant historian, “the valour of Llywelyn, his talents, and his patriotism, had been exhibited upon a more splendid theatre,—on the plains of Marathon, or in the straits of Thermopylæ,—his name would have been recorded in the classic page, and his memory revered, as an illustrious hero, and as a gallant assertor of the rights of nature.”