t 875] 



ANTIQUITIES. 



An Account of Caerphilly Castle. 



c 



/AERPHILLY Castle was once 

 the largest in Great-Britain, next to 

 Windsor, and it is withont excep- 

 tion the most extensive ruin. Its 

 magnitude and strength haVe caused 

 the probability of its origiri to be 

 much controverted ; and it is per- 

 haps too much the custom to ques- 

 tion the authenticity of those docu- 

 ments or traditions, whicli do not ex- 

 actly tally with our own conjectures 

 or pre-concerted hypotheses. The 

 memorials which I have been able 

 to collect, from the Welsh archaeo- 

 logy, extracted for me by Mr. Ed- 

 ward Williams, and from other 

 sources, received as the most authen- 

 tic in that country, furnishing thp 

 following broken and interrupted 

 particulars of this place from very 

 early times. 



Cenydd, the son of Gildas, the 

 celebrated author of the epistle, 

 De Excidio Britannice, founded a 

 church and monastery iu the eastern, 

 and another in the western part of 

 Glamorgan. This anecdote is found 

 ih a very ancient manuscript ac- 

 count of the British saiutsj in the 



Welsh language: but no place is 

 assigned to the first of these. To 

 the second our attention will be 

 drawn hereafter. But Caradoc 

 Lhancarvan, in a copy differing 

 from that which Powcl translated, 

 supplies the deficiency, by inform- 

 ing us, that in the year 831, the 

 Saxons of Mercia came unexpect- 

 edly in the night, and burned the 

 monastery dedicated to St. Cenydd, 

 standing where Caerphilly castle is 

 now ; though there was at that time 

 a sworn truce between the Britons 

 of Glamorgan and the Mercian Sax- 

 ons. In the year 10.Q4., the earls 

 of Arundel and of Glocester, Ar- 

 nold de Harcourt, and Neale le Vi- 

 count, came with an army against 

 the Welsh of Glamorgan, in aid of 

 Robert Fifzhaman. The armies met, 

 and in the battle of Gellygare, which 

 is five miles north of Caerphilly, the 

 natives slew every one of those^Nor- 

 man leaders, and accomplished an 

 exemplary vengeance on their ene- 

 mies, taking from them very rich 

 and copious spoils. Some of the 

 Normans escaped into their castles; 

 but few of them were so fortunate ; 

 for Ednerth ap Cadwgan, with his 

 sons, Gruffyth and Ivor, followed 

 them very closely, and slew great 



numberi 





