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 A HISTORY OF HEREFORDSHIRE who, about Michaelmas, 1208, compelled de Braose to flee to Ireland and seized his estates for the king."° In the struggle which occupied the later part of John's reign and which had among its results the granting of Magna Carta, the earl of Hereford was amongst those who opposed the king. He was one of the nobles who assembled at Stamford in Easter week, 1215,"^ to enforce their demands by an armed demonstration, and was one of the twenty-five barons appointed to ensure the observance of the charter.^** When the strife broke out again in September, Hereford opposed the king,^" and with his party invited Louis, the son of the French king, to assume the crown. With the other leaders of the party he was excommunicated by name by Innocent III in January, 1 2 1 6."" Remaining attached to Louis's party after John's death he was taken prisoner at the battle of Lincoln on 20 May, 1217,"^ but enjoyed the benefit of the general amnesty at the Treaty of Lambeth on 1 1 September. Although the Marcher lords had joined the general confederacy against John, a great political change began to make the support of the crown neces- sary to them even before his death. This was the revival of the Welsh power under Llywelyn ab lorwerth, largely in consequence of dissensions in England. After gaining complete possession of North Wales by reducing the royal castles, Llywelyn, in 121 5, when the barons were marching from Stamford on London, took Shrewsbury in conjunction with the bishop of Hereford, Giles de Braose, head of his great house since the death of his father William de Braose in exile. Llywelyn was then in alliance with the barons, and clauses in his interest were inserted in the Articles of the Barons and in Magna Carta (arts. 56—8),"' but in reality nothing could be less pleasing to the Marchers than the establishment of a strong Welsh state. By the end of the year Llywelyn had captured all the great castles of South Wales from the borders of Pembrokeshire to the confines of the earl of Gloucester's lordship of Gla- morgan, and in the following year he occupied Upper Powys. Appalled by the prospect of a united Wales, Reginald de Braose, who had succeeded to the family possessions on 26 May, 12 16,"* reconciled himself with the central government. In the meantime towards the end of July John himself retreated before Louis of France from Corfe to the neighbourhood of Hereford, making the city his head quarters from 24 to 31 July and remaining in the valleys of the Severn and Wye for about a month, ravaging and destroying, and endeavouring without success to form a league of Welsh princes."* He exercised no permanent influence on the situation, and in 12 17 Llywelyn attacked Brecknock and forced De Braose to make his submission."^ But when later in the same year the Treaty of Lambeth put an end for the time to the civil war in England, Llywelyn was wise enough to desist from '" Roger of Wendover, Fkres Hist. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 49 ; Jnn. Wav. (ibid.), 261-2. "' Roger of Wendover, op. cit. ii, 1 14. He appears as ' H. Comes Clarensis ' ; see Luard's emendation in Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 585 note. '" Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 604 ; cf. Rot. Litt. Claus. (Rec. Com.), i, 115^, 200^7, 216^ ; Dugdale, Baronage, i, 180. '" Walter of Coventry, Memoriale (Rolls Ser.), ii, 225. "» Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 643. '" Ibid, iii, 22 ; Ann. Wav. (Rolls Ser.), 287. '" Stubbs, Select Charters, 294, 303-4. "' Rot. Pat. 18 John, m. 9. '" Brut y Tyuiysogion (Rolls Ser.), 293 ; Hardy, Itinerary of King John (Rec. Com.). "^ Bruty Tytvysogion (Rolls Ser.), 299-301. 362