ANTIQUITIES. 



881 



marshes, with ruinous walls of v/on- 

 derlu! thickness, and a tower kept 

 up for prisoners. 



In the first Yoliime of the Archas- 

 ologia, published by the antiquarian 

 society, there is a paper by the late 

 Daines Harrington, at that time one 

 of the judges on the circuit of North 

 Wales. In this coinniiinication, he 

 offers some reasons for supposing 

 that Caerphilly cattle was built by 

 Edward I. on the ground of the 

 probability, that as he had thought 

 it necessary to construct the castles 

 of Conway and Caernarvon, for the 

 purpose of controlling the northern 

 inhabitants of the principality, he 

 might also have erected other castles 

 in South Wales for the same pur- 

 pose. I belicvfi that the reputation 

 of the author, and the ingenious 

 reasoning of the paper, are general- 

 ly considered as having setthe ques- 

 tion at rest ; lor it is attributed to 

 Edward I. in most modern publica- 

 tions, on this authority specifically, 

 without the slightest hint of suspici- 

 ons or uncertainty. But I appre- 

 hend that a closer inquiry into the 

 subject would have led that acute 

 and learned antiquary into a train 

 of observation, not altogether con- 

 sistent with his hypothesis, and hare 

 induced him at least to doubt. Gla- 

 morgaji was ojie of those petty so- 

 Tcreignties, called lordship's marchers 

 Its loids were its sovereigns. They 

 had their parliaments, their courts 

 of justice, and their other offices, 

 executive and jurisprudential, in 

 which they, and not the king of 

 England, were supreme. They ex- 

 ercised j(/rrt regalia, and did not hold 

 of the crown, but per gladiiun, as 

 their term was. They were gene- 

 rally, for their greater safety, in 

 clohe alliance with the king of Eng- 

 land, but not his subjects. This 



Voi. XLVII. 



distinction, however, is to be under- 

 stood in reference to these lordships 

 onjy ;' for with respect to their ba- 

 ronies and estates in England, they 

 were to all intents and purposes 

 subjects. King Edward had no ju- 

 risdiction at that time in Glamorgan. 

 He could not possess an acre of 

 land there, but as a subject to the 

 lord of the country. It happened, 

 indeed, in subsequent ages, that in 

 consequence of intermarriages, the 

 lordship of Glamorgan devolved on 

 the king of England, and he in that 

 case granted it to others on such 

 terms as he thought proper, till, in 

 the time of Henry VII. it was, united 

 to the crown of England, as were 

 most of the other lordship's marchers 

 in the same manner : and this as- 

 sumption enabled Henry VIII. to 

 incorporate the whole of Wales 

 with England. Edward I. had 

 tinited North Walos, by conquestj 

 with the crown of England. He had 

 done the same by that part of South 

 Wales, which had been subject to 

 the house of. Dinevowr, and its 

 princes ; but those most powerful of 

 the lordship's marchers, Glamorgan 

 and Pembroke, in South Wales, with 

 those of Denbigh and Flint, in North 

 Wales, part of the lordships belong- 

 ing to the earls of Chester, that of 

 Shrewsbury, and possibly somd 

 others, continued independent of the 

 crown of England till the time of 

 Henry VIII. when the incorpora- 

 tion took place. These circun^ 

 stances go to prove, that it could n(,i 

 have been F^dward I. who built Ca- 

 erphilly castle. We have already 

 seen from historical documents, de- 

 duced from the Welsh authors, that 

 John de Bruse built it in 1221; that 

 after it had been taken, and of 

 course partly ruined, it had after- 

 wards been rebuilt in greater strength 



3 L than 



