"What Can Be More Unjust
Than That This People Of Ancient Faith, Because They Answer Force By
Force In Defence Of Their Lives, Their Lands, And Their Liberties,
Should Be Forthwith Separated From The Body Corporate Of
Christendom, And Delivered Over To Satan?"
The story of the long fight between Gerald on the one hand and the
whole forces of secular and ecclesiastical authority on the other
cannot be told here.
Three times did he visit Rome to prosecute his
appeal - alone against the world. He had to journey through
districts disturbed by wars, infested with the king's men or the
king's enemies, all of whom regarded Gerald with hostility. He was
taken and thrown into prison as King John's subject in one town, he
was detained by importunate creditors in another, and at Rome he was
betrayed by a countryman whom he had befriended. He himself has
told us
Of the most disastrous chances
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
which made a journey from St. David's to Rome a more perilous
adventure in those unquiet days than an expedition "through darkest
Africa" is in ours. At last the very Chapter of St. David's, for
whose ancient rights he was contending, basely deserted him. "The
laity of Wales stood by me," so he wrote in later days, "but of the
clergy whose battle I was fighting scarce one." Pope Innocent III.
was far too wary a politician to favour the claims of a small and
distracted nation, already half-subjugated, against the king of a
rich and powerful country. He flattered our poor Gerald, he
delighted in his company, he accepted, and perhaps even read, his
books. But in the end, after five years' incessant fighting, the
decision went against him, and the English king's nominee has ever
since sat on the throne of St. David's. "Many and great wars," said
Gwenwynwyn, the Prince of Powis, "have we Welshmen waged with
England, but none so great and fierce as his who fought the king and
the archbishop, and withstood the might of the whole clergy and
people of England, for the honour of Wales."
Short was the memory and scant the gratitude of his countrymen.
When in 1214 another vacancy occurred at a time when King John was
at variance with his barons and his prelates, the Chapter of St.
David's nominated, not Gerald, their old champion, but Iorwerth, the
Abbot of Talley, from whose reforming zeal they had nothing to fear.
This last prick of Fortune's sword pierced Gerald to the quick. He
had for years been gradually withdrawing from an active life. He
had resigned his archdeaconry and his prebend stall, he had made a
fourth pilgrimage, this time for his soul's sake, to Rome, he had
retired to a quiet pursuit of letters probably at Lincoln, and
henceforward, till his death about the year 1223, he devoted himself
to revising and embellishing his old works, and completing his
literary labours. By his fight for St. David's he had endeared
himself to the laity of his country for all time.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 7 of 103
Words from 3188 to 3701
of 54608
