As A
Descendant Of The Welsh Princes, He Took Himself Seriously As A
Welsh Patriot.
Destined almost from his cradle, both by the bent of
his mind and the inclination of his father, to don "the habit of
religion," he could not join Prince Rhys or Prince Llewelyn in their
struggle for the political independence of Wales.
His ambition was
to become Bishop of St. David's, and then to restore the Welsh
Church to her old position of independence of the metropolitan
authority of Canterbury. He detested the practice of promoting
Normans to Welsh sees, and of excluding Welshmen from high positions
in their own country. "Because I am a Welshman, am I to be debarred
from all preferment in Wales?" he indignantly writes to the Pope.
Circumstances at first seemed to favour his ambition. His uncle,
David Fitz-Gerald, sat in the seat of St. David's. When the young
scholar returned from Paris in 1172, he found the path of promotion
easy. After the manner of that age - which Gerald lived to denounce
- he soon became a pluralist. He held the livings of Llanwnda,
Tenby, and Angle, and afterwards the prebend of Mathry, in
Pembrokeshire, and the living of Chesterton in Oxfordshire. He was
also prebendary of Hereford, canon of St. David's, and in 1175, when
only twenty-eight years of age, he became Archdeacon of Brecon. In
the following year Bishop David died, and Gerald, together with the
other archdeacons of the diocese, was nominated by the chapter for
the king's choice. But the chapter had been premature, urged, no
doubt, by the impetuous young Archdeacon of Brecon. They had not
waited for the king's consent to the nomination. The king saw that
his settled policy in Wales would be overturned if Gerald became
Bishop of St. David's. Gerald's cousin, the Lord Rhys, had been
appointed the king's justiciar in South Wales. The power of the
Lord Marches was to be kept in check by a quasi-alliance between the
Welsh prince and his over-lord. The election of Gerald to the
greatest see in Wales would upset the balance of power. David Fitz-
Gerald, good easy man (vir sua sorte contentus is Gerald's
description of him), the king could tolerate, but he could not
contemplate without uneasiness the combination of spiritual and
political power in South Wales in the hands of two able, ambitious,
and energetic kinsmen, such as he knew Gerald and the Lord Rhys to
be. Gerald had made no secret of his admiration for the martyred
St. Thomas e Becket. He fashioned himself upon him as Becket did on
Anselm. The part which Becket played in England he would like to
play in Wales. But the sovereign who had destroyed Becket was not
to be frightened by the canons of St. David's and the Archdeacon of
Brecon. He summoned the chapter to Westminster, and compelled them
in his presence to elect Peter de Leia, the Prior of Wenlock, who
erected for himself an imperishable monument in the noble cathedral
which looks as if it had sprung up from the rocks which guard the
city of Dewi Sant from the inrush of the western sea.
It is needless to recount the many activities in which Gerald
engaged during the next twenty-two years. They have been recounted
with humorous and affectionate appreciation by Dr. Henry Owen in his
monograph on "Gerald the Welshman," a little masterpiece of
biography which deserves to be better known. {4} In 1183 Gerald was
employed by the astute king to settle terms between him and the
rebellious Lord Rhys. Nominally as a reward for his successful
diplomacy, but probably in order to keep so dangerous a character
away from the turbulent land of Wales, Gerald was in the following
year made a Court chaplain. In 1185 he was commissioned by the king
to accompany Prince John, then a lad of eighteen, who had lately
been created "Lord of Ireland," to the city of Dublin. There he
abode for two years, collecting materials for his two first books,
the "Topography" and the "Conquest of Ireland." In 1188 he
accompanied Archbishop Baldwin through Wales to preach the Third
Crusade - not the first or the last inconsistency of which the
champion of the independence of the Welsh Church was guilty. His
"Itinerary through Wales" is the record of the expedition. King
Richard offered him the Bishopric of Bangor, and John, in his
brother's absence, offered him that of Llandaff. But his heart was
set on St. David's. In 1198 his great chance came to him. At last,
after twenty-two years of misrule, Peter de Leia was dead, and
Gerald seemed certain of attaining his heart's desire. Once again
the chapter nominated Gerald; once more the royal authority was
exerted, this time by Archbishop Hubert, the justiciar in the king's
absence, to defeat the ambitious Welshman. The chapter decided to
send a deputation to King Richard in Normandy. The deputation
arrived at Chinon to find Coeur-de-Lion dead; but John was anxious
to make friends everywhere, in order to secure himself on his
uncertain throne. He received the deputation graciously, he spoke
in praise of Gerald, and he agreed to accept the nomination. But
after his return to England John changed his mind. He found that no
danger threatened him in his island kingdom, and he saw the wisdom
of the justiciar's policy. Gerald hurried to see him, but John
point blank refused publicly to ratify his consent to the nomination
which he had already given in private. Then commenced the historic
fight for St. David's which, in view of the still active "Church
question" in Wales, is even now invested with a living interest and
significance. Gerald contended that the Welsh Church was
independent of Canterbury, and that it was only recently, since the
Norman Conquest, that she had been deprived of her freedom. His
opponents relied on political, rather than historical,
considerations to defeat this bold claim. King Henry, when a
deputation from the chapter in 1175 appeared before the great
council in London and had urged the metropolitan claims of St.
David's upon the Cardinal Legate, exclaimed that he had no intention
of giving this head to rebellion in Wales.
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