Part 7

THE town of Llanrwst is situated on the eastern bank of the river Conway, in the beautiful and luxuriant vale to which it lends its name. The river is broad, smooth, and shallow, except when swollen by the mountain floods, which rise and fall with wonderful rapidity. One of the most celebrated objects here is the famous shaking bridge, built from a design of Inigo Jones. It consists of three arches, the centre sixty feet span, and, if the crowns of the arches were not too high, would be a light, beautiful, and ingenious work. The ceremony of shaking is performed by two persons upon the crown of the centre arch, first rocking themselves sufficiently to acquire a gentle momentum, and then falling back against the great centre stone of the battlements; a person leaning against the opposite battlement will feel the tremulous motion communicated through the whole masonry of the bridge. The view of Llanrwst vale from the bridge, and from the road leading to it on the Denbighshire side of the river is of unexampled beauty. The Gwydyr woods clothe a precipitous mountain on the west, for a length of five miles, through which a bold crag here and there is seen protruding with a fine effect. The opposite side is also finely wooded, and variegated with mansions, parks, meadow, corn-land, and all that enriches a landscape. This perspective of the vale presents a composition embracing grandeur and magnificence in a high degree, combined with scenes of great pastoral beauty.

The town possesses no architectural or other peculiar attractions, and from the lowness of its situation does not participate in the exquisite scenery with which it is surrounded. Its recommendations are of a less romantic though not less useful character, consisting in the excellence of its fairs and markets, and its convenient position for the conduct of a profitable inland trade. The town and market-hall, the free school, and the almshouses {91} are its most ancient institutions of a public class. The church is picturesquely placed on the bank of the river; and the view of the valley, with the famous bridge in the foreground, enjoyed from the churchyard, is eminently beautiful. The church is dedicated to Saint Rystyd or Rwst, archbishop of London in the year 361, and one of those who were present at the council of Arles. The ground on which it is built was given by Rhun ap Nefydd, in expiation of the foul murder of Prince Idwal, who was slain in Cwm Idwal, by order of his foster-father Nefydd Haradd. The chief object of interest here is the Gwydyr chapel, adjoining the church, of which Inigo Jones was the architect, A.D. 1663, the expense being defrayed by Sir Richard Wynne. The design is much admired, and its restitution by Lord Willoughby D’Eresby, representative of the ancient house of Gwydyr, is characteristic of a happy exertion of munificence and taste. The carved roof is not part of Jones’s design, it was brought hither from the dissolved abbey of Maenan, three miles from Llanrwst. In this mausoleum of the Wynnes are some curious monuments, illustrative of history, and no mean specimens of the progress of the arts at the period of their execution. A white marble tablet contains a pedigree of the family from the time of Edward the First down to the year in which the chapel was erected. Underneath this pedigree is an exquisite portrait, engraved on brass, of Dame Sarah Wynne, daughter of Sir Thomas Myddleton, of Chirk Castle, executed in a masterly style by William Vaughan in the year 1671. On the south side are two pyramidal columns of variegated marble adorned with military insignia, one to the memory of Meredyth; the other of Sir John Wynne, and his consort the Lady Sidney, daughter of Sir William Gerard, chancellor of Ireland; and between the columnar monuments is a simple tablet to John ap Meredydd who died in 1559.

A fine effigiated tomb, sunk in the floor, represents Howel Coetmore ap Gryffydd Vychan ap Dafydd Gam, in complete armour, his feet resting on a lion couchant. He was grandson of Gryffydd, {93} who lies interred in the church of Bettws-y-coed, and proprietor of the Gwydyr estates, which were purchased from one of his descendants by the Wynnes.

Here also is preserved the stone coffin in which the remains of Llewellyn the Great were deposited in the abbey of Conway; upon the dissolution of religious houses in Wales it was removed here. A singular Latin inscription, of which the following is a translation, appears on a monument in the pew belonging to the Davises of Cyffddû; it is dedicated to the memory of Gryffydd Lloyd of Bryniog, and is supposed to have been written by himself,

“Once the undeserving schoolmaster, Then the more undeserving lecturer, And last of all the most undeserving rector of this parish. Do not think, speak, or write any thing evil of the dead.”

FLINTSHIRE,

THE smallest of the six shires included within North Wales. It occupies an area of one hundred and ninety-seven thousand seven hundred and sixty acres, and extends thirty-three miles in length and ten at its mean or average breadth. The estuary of the river Dee and the waves of the Irish sea lave its shores on the east and north. Denbighshire joins it on the west and south, and Cheshire on the east. A range of hills, the loftiest of which, Moel y Gaer, attains a height of one thousand and twenty feet above the sea-level, extends from Prestatyn to Hawarden, and bisects the surface of the county longitudinally. The section on the sea side is the richest mineralogical district in the principality, and that on the land side yields an abundant agricultural return. The coal field occupies the parishes of Whitford, Holywell, Flint, Northop, and part of Hawarden; and considerable quantities are exported from Mostyn quay for the consumption of the principality. Pure limestone exists along the sea coast, and constitutes a valuable export. Lead ore, lapis calaminaris, zinc, pseudo-galena, petro-silex, and other valuable minerals are found in the Holywell and Mold districts. Many of these are wrought at the towns along the coast, the supply of fuel being abundant, from which circumstance this small county has acquired considerable wealth. The Marquis of Westminster, Lord Mostyn, Lord Dinorben, and Sir Edward Mostyn are amongst the wealthy mineral proprietors. The scenery here is less interesting than in the adjoining shires; it possesses less variety of surface, less plantation, fewer rivers, and there is a partial denudation of the surface from the mine waste, which completely poisons vegetation. The termination of the beautiful vale of Clwyd, and the embouchure of its meandering river, lie within the county boundaries, and the Allen makes a circuitous, but not picturesque, course through the south-eastern hundreds. Flintshire includes the respectable manufacturing towns of Holywell, Mold, and Hawarden, and returns one member to the imperial parliament. The boroughs of Flint, Caergwrle, St. Asaph, and Holywell, enjoy the privilege of electing a second; the two last mentioned places deriving that advantage from a clause in the Reform Bill of 1832.

FLINT CASTLE.

FLINT, an ancient borough town and the capital of the shire, is situated upon the banks of the navigable estuary of the river Dee, and was anciently an important military position and valuable maritime situation. It was probably a Roman citadel or encampment, afterwards adopted by the ancient British as being happily circumstanced both for commerce and secure habitation; and, lastly, selected by the conqueror of Wales, Edward the First, as an appropriate site for the erection and establishment of a vast military depôt. The borough was erected in the year 1283, and is contributory with Holywell, Rhuddlan, Caerwys, Caergwrle, and St. Asaph in returning one member to parliament. The decay of trade here, and the vast increase of commercial prosperity in the vicinity of Mold, in addition to its more central position, have occasioned the transfer of the great sessions from Flint to that town. Here, however, all prisoners are confined, and the county jail, an admired and clever design by Turner, stands in a healthy elevated position within the courtyard, of the ancient castle. Provision has been made in the interior for the infliction of that most cruel of all species of earthly punishments, solitary confinement; but the habitual morality of the Cambrians has superseded the necessity of its operation, and the constitution of Britain, which disclaims all species of torture, must assuredly shrink from this, the most merciless of all. The following inscription, which is engraven on a tablet above the principal gate, was written by the learned and accomplished Mr. Pennant:—

“In the twenty-fifth year of his Majesty, George the Third, in the Sheriffalty of Thomas Hanmer, Bart. this prison was erected, instead of the ancient loathsome place of confinement, in pity to the misery of even the most guilty, to alleviate the sufferings of lesser offenders, or of the innocent themselves, whom the chances of human life may bring within these walls. Done at the expense of the country: aided by the subscriptions of several of the gentry, who, in the midst of most distressful days, voluntarily took upon themselves part of the burden, in compassion to such of their countrymen on whom fortune had been less bounteous of her favours.”

The castle, build by Edward the First, and the outer walls of which are still entire, is placed upon a freestone rock jutting into the river Dee, in a north-east direction from the town, with which it was originally connected by a drawbridge falling against the barbacan, a fine remain of the Norman style, but now nearly demolished. The first design consisted of a square building, flanked at three corners by massive towers, with a keep or citadel, called the double tower, removed a little distance from the remaining angle of the square. This must have been an inaccessible prison before the invention of gunpowder; it was approached from the castle court by a drawbridge, and was formed by concentric walls six feet in thickness, the intermural gallery being eight feet wide, and encircling a central apartment of about twenty feet in diameter.

The foundation of Flint Castle is attributed by all chroniclers to Edward the First, and dated in 1275. About six years after its completion it was surprised, and nearly wrested from Edward, in a sudden insurrection of the Welsh, and was only relieved by the greatest activity and courage on the part of the English king. The reception of Piers Gaveston, in the year 1302, was the next historic event of consequence that occurred here, this was followed by the appointment of the Black Prince as governor, A.D. 1335. In the year 1385 Flint Castle, with some lands of the Lord Audley, were granted, by Richard the Second, to De Vere, Earl of Oxford, whom he farther honoured by creating Earl of Dublin and Lord Chief Justice of Chester. On the attainder of De Vere, Percy, Earl of Northumberland, extorted a grant of this castle from his unsuspecting monarch, where he afterwards basely betrayed him into the hands of his rival Bolingbroke.

Richard was in Ireland when he received an invitation from the treacherous Percy to meet his rival, who professed his only objects to be the restoration of his property, inquiry into the death of his uncle, and that the kingdom should be allowed a parliament. To all which reasonable requests the king consented; and passing over to Conway, and thence, at the pressing solicitation of the false Northumberland who accompanied him, advancing towards Flint, he met, in the recesses of the hills at Penmaen Rhôs, a party of soldiers assembled. At length, perceiving that treachery was meant, he attempted to turn his horse round, but Percy springing forward, grasped the bridle, and in this forcible manner conducted him to Rhuddlan Castle, where they dined, and thence to Flint. Stowe details the interview at Flint between Richard and Lancaster in the following circumstantial manner: “The Duke of Lancaster entered the castle all armed, his helmet excepted; King Richard came down to meet him, and the Duke, as soon as he saw the king, fell on his knees, and coming nearer unto him, he kneeled a second time, with his hat in his hand; and the king then put off his hoode, and spoke first. ‘Fair cousin of Lancaster, you are right wellcome.’ The duke, bowing low to the ground, answered, ‘My lord, I am come before you sent for me, the reason why I will shewe you. The common fame among your people is such, that ye have for the space of twenty, or two and twenty, years ruled them very rigorously: but, if it please our lord, I will helpe you to govern better.’ The king answered, ‘Fair cousin of Lancaster, sith it pleaseth you, it pleaseth me well!’ The duke then, with a high sharp voyce, bad bring forth the king’s horses, and two little naggs, not worth fourtie franks, were brought forthe; the king was set on the one, and the Earl of Salisbury on the other; and thus the duke brought them from Flint to Chester; from whence, after one night’s rest, they were conveyed to London.”

In the civil wars of Charles the First’s reign this fortress was garrisoned for the king, having been repaired at the expense of Sir Roger Mostyn, the governor. It was closely invested in 1643, by Colonel Brereton and Sir Thomas Myddleton, and held out until compelled to surrender from want of food and ammunition, having obtained from the enemy the most honourable conditions. The royalists a second time crept into possession, and defended themselves for a while, but yielded at last to the disciplined forces of General Mytton. In the month of December, 1646, the castles of Flint, Hawarden, and several others in the principality, were dismantled by the orders of parliament.

RHUDDLAN CASTLE.

THE time-decayed honours of Rhuddlan frown over the fragments of monastic greatness, and throw the little dwellings of the village into an insignificant obscurity by the effect of contrast. The lofty and substantial towers of this military relic are rendered more conspicuous by the remarkable flatness of the circumjacent district, and as its accompaniments are devoid of any picturesque attractions, it relies wholly on historic and classic recollections for the interest it uniformly excites. The little place itself, though an ancient contributary borough, retains nothing of wealth or comfort in its exterior. It boasts but one tolerable street, a range of warehouses for the storage of goods landed at the quays, and a handsome bridge of one large arch, and one auxiliary, erected in 1598. The Clwyd, which flows below the castle walls, and passes by the town, is navigable by vessels of small burden up to the wharfs of Rhuddlan, to which fortunate circumstance the continuance of a modern settlement here is probably to be attributed.

Near the centre of the town, and on the north side of the high street, are situated the scanty remains of the hall in which King Edward once convoked a parliament. They are now incorporated with the gabel of a cottage; one small doorway and the architrave of a pointed window forming all the witnesses that can be produced to identify the court in which the never to be forgotten statute of Rhuddlan was enacted. The late Dean of St. Asaph caused a tablet to be inserted in the only remaining wall of the Rhuddlan Council Hall bearing this inscription: “This fragment is the remains of the building where King Edward the First held his parliament, in 1283, {101} in which was passed the statute of Rhuddlan, securing to the principality of Wales its judicial rights and independence.”

The abbey belonged to a monastery of black friars, and was founded about the year 1268, it stood a little to the south-east of the castle, and its remains form part of the enclosure of a farmyard. Two pointed arches are still entire, and an effigy in alto relievo, but much effaced, occupies a niche in one of the walls. An eminence, called Twt Hill, rises between the castle and the site of the old abbey. It appears to have been originally fortified and surrounded by a deep fosse, which embraced the abbey in its circuit. There is a tradition that it was from this mount the castle was battered.

[Picture: Rhuddlan Castle; Mostyn; St. Winifred’s Well. London. Published by T. T. & J. Tegg, Cheapside, Oct. 1st 1832]

The castle of Rhuddlan, its sole surviving monument of grandeur, stands on a rock overhanging the river Clwyd, and within a short distance of an ancient British fortress, built by Llewellyn ap Sitsylt, who chose this as his chief place of residence, at the commencement of the eleventh century. In the year 1063, when Gryffydd ap Llewellyn was Prince of North Wales, this fortress was attacked and burned by Harold (afterwards King of England), son of Godwin, Earl of Kent, in retaliation for injuries committed by the Welsh upon some of the Saxon borderers. The Britons soon repaired a hold of so much consequence; it was their asylum whenever they desired to avoid a conflict with the Saxons, and the depository of spoils probably courageously, but not honourably, carried off from the borders. Robert, sirnamed De Rhuddlan from the event, the nephew and lieutenant of Hugh, Earl of Chester, unable to endure any longer the incursions of the Rhuddlan men, took a signal vengeance upon them, and even wrested the fortress out of their hands. He enlarged, strengthened, and garrisoned the old castle; and having made this his principal quarters, here received the solicitations and importunities of Gryffydd ap Cynan for aid against some of his own countrymen. Robert granted Gryffydd’s request, but learned too late that the interference of the stranger in allaying domestic quarrels is not only thankless, but often even multiplies the number of our enemies. The Welsh, who had just before been at variance with each other, combining all their efforts, directed their united power against Robert, burned his castle to the ground, slew numbers of his men, and compelled him to consult his safety by flight.

The great fortress of Rhuddlan, which still exhibits the powerful resources of the founder, was erected by Henry the Second, from the very foundation, and is completely Norman in its character. It is built of red stone, in a quadrangular form: the curtain walls are flanked by six enormous rounders, the walls of which are nine feet in thickness, having but few loops or arrow slits. One of these, distinguished by the name of the king’s tower, is still entire, as well as three of the others. In fact, such is the amazing strength and thickness of the walls, the tenacity of the mortar with which they are cemented so great, the freedom from doors, windows, or any weakening aperture so complete, that the ruins will not probably present a farther appearance of decay for centuries to come. It is even a matter of uncertainty where the principal entrance was situated, the aperture between the two north-western turrets resembling, at this day, an accidental breach of small extent, more than the entrance of so vast a pile. Security alone appears to have been consulted by the founder; a sortie from the castle was impracticable; the intromission of light was even jealously permitted, and the design seems to express a great prison erected to immure some royal captive for the residue of his life.

Hugh Beauchamp was either grantee or governor, in the year 1169, when Owen Gwynedd and his brother Cadwalader, assisted by Rhys ap Gryffydd, sat down before the walls, and after a close blockade of two months continuance, compelled the famished garrison to surrender. It reverted again in some peaceful moment to the English; but the Welsh having driven King John almost wholly from the principality, compelled this, his last fortress in their country, to give way to the vigorous assaults of Llewellyn ap Jorwerth in the year 1214.

From the expulsion of King John the Welsh continued in quiet possession of this border castle, until Llewellyn ap Gryffydd, declining to do homage to Edward the First at Chester, called down the vengeance of that great king upon his fellow countrymen. Edward, at the head of a powerful army immediately directed a march into Wales, when he laid the country waste, and seizing Rhuddlan, amongst other places of strength, placed a strong garrison within it. Here Edward resided for some time, and during his sojourn taught the too credulous Welsh that candour is not always a quality inseparable from the character of princes. He here again performed the conjurer who was to call up a prince of British birth, their fellow countryman, to preside over the Welsh. Here he enacted his politic statute, and here his queen gave birth to a princess, the second of the royal race then born in Wales. {104} The possession of Rhuddlan was included in the grant extorted from Richard the Second by the faithless Percy, who detained the injured monarch here to dine, while he was conveying him to Flint to deliver to his rival.

In the civil wars Rhuddlan held out for the king with that zeal which characterized the loyalty of the ancient Britons, through all that unnatural and bloody conflict. And the Cromwelians, as a further security to their usurpation, dismantled every castle that had rendered itself conspicuous in the royal cause. In this general devastation the castle of Rhuddlan shared, being dismantled in the month of December, 1646.

Morfa Rhuddlan, or Rhuddlan Marsh, is an extensive tract lying between the town and the sea, and possessing a melancholy notoriety in the history of Wales. Here a most desperate and bloody battle was fought between the ancient Britons, headed by Caradoc, and the Saxons under Offa, King of Mercia, in which the former were defeated with frightful loss, and their king and general slain upon the field. The Saxons gave no quarter to those that fell into their hands after the battle, and even carried their barbarous revenge still farther, by the cowardly assassination of all the children of their enemies who were so unfortunate as to become their captives. There is a pathetic air, preserved in the relics of Welsh poetry, which was composed by the bards upon the death of the brave Caradoc. It possesses a remarkable solemnity, simplicity, and plaintive harmony. The custom of celebrating the fame of heroes, who fell in defence of their country, is of very ancient date in other nations as well as in Cambria. “Celtæ Hymnorum suorum argumentum faciunt, viros qui in præliis fortiter pugnantes occubuerunt.” Ælian.

MOSTYN HALL, FLINTSHIRE,