In danger, prayer shall more avail Or brand to take the foeman's life. That prayer is more than mortal might.* The third little poem is from the pen of one whose loss is still fresh in the recollection of his sorrowing fellow-countrymen, the Rev. John Jones, vicar of Nevern, Pembrokeshire, and prebendary of St. David's, best known as "Tegid." A brief but very interesting notice of this patriotic and excellent man appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine," July 1852, contributed by a hand to which Welsh literature owes so much for so many years' unremitting exertions in her cause, that of the Rev. William Jenkins Rees, prebendary of Brecon, and editor of the "Liber Llandavensis." TRANSLATION. Mother, what bird is this? A lark, my son, That heavenwards, in the dawn, begins her strain, Nor, till her morning orisons be done, Doth she revisit this sad earth again. And thus she teaches man, that ne'er should he Rise to his daily task of toil and care, Till with uplifted hands and bended knee He pours to God the reverential prayer. Then imitate the lark, my son, through all thy future days, But, like the dove's, let all thy life be pure as it is now, And peace shall dwell within thy soul, and beam upon thy brow. Mother, what bird is this? A snow-white swan, That sails in beauty o'er the heaving surge, To that blest waveless haven winds ne'er fan, Where she may chant her last and sweetest dirge O sweeter far than highest minstrel's tongue! Thus she, reclining on her liquid bed, Pours out her soul in music and in song; Her gleaming wings in ecstacy outspread. Oh! like the swan's, my gentle boy, such be thy couch of death, Jesus Col. Oxon. E. DAVIES. *Cambrian Mag. vol. i. p. 384. CHAPTER VII. THE WELSH CHURCH. Norman Kings oppressed the Church-The Welsh Church in bad odour with the Pope-Hervé, bishop of Bangor-Becket supported by the Welsh-Giraldus did not speak the Welsh Language-Tithe de faulters-Marriage of the Clergy denounced as Concubinage-Right of Marriage preserved in the British Church-Madoc Hên Gwylt's Latin Verses-Dispensations to Marry-Character of Archbishop Baldwin-Devotion of the People shown by the "Itinerary"- Lay Abbots-Strange Scenes in the Church and Churchyard of St. Almedha-Legends-Spirited Conduct of the Chapter of St. David's -Henry II. afraid of a conscientious Bishop-Canons of St. David's send a Deputation to Prince Rhys-Canons maintain Independence of St. David's-Roger de Hoveden's Account of the Pope's Decision on Giraldus's Claim-Eminent Bishops of St. David'sJorwerth-Thomas of Lincoln-Thomas Becke-Henry of Abergavenny, bishop of Llandaff-Robert of Shrewsbury, bishop of Bangor -Richard, bishop of Bangor-Reyner, bishop of St. Asaph-Einion the Black Friar of Nanny, bishop of St. Asaph-Archbishop Peckham's Pastoral Letter to the Bishop of St. Asaph-The Allegations confuted-The Eueggulthen- Bishop Martin builds Lady Chapel at St. David's-Munificence of Bishop Gower-Bishop ThoresbyBishop Hoton-Why Giraldus ran down St. David's-Regalities and Jurisdiction of Bishops of St. David― The Reader recommended to avail himself of the privileges attached to two visits to St. David's. OUR Norman kings were not very considerate of the rights and liberties of the Church; indeed, right and liberty were, to their minds, words expressing ideas plainly revolutionary and anarchical. In England, they encountered considerable opposition to their arbitrary proceedings: in Wales, they expected to carry all before them. Here they gave full scope to their despotism, and showed without disguise that they conceived the chief end and aim of a religious system to be to aid in bringing a recalcitrant race into subjection, and ac custom their necks to the yoke. The popes, as the conservators of the spiritual liberties of Christendom, might have interposed in behalf of the oppressed Welsh Church, had not the apostolic sympathies been deadened by artful insinuations, that "the entire body of the native priests and bishops were heretics and bad Christians."* Yet it was no lack of reverence to the holy see which took Howel the Good, attended by a train of clergy, twice to Rome: the first time, to study the laws of antiquity; the second, to lay the fruits of his studies, adapted to the wants of the country which he governed so well and wisely, at the feet of the sovereign pontiff. King Henry I. made a Norman ecclesiastic, named Hervé, bishop of Bangor. The new prelate, anxious to do credit to the royal choice, immediately set to work with consistent missionary zeal. He began by excommunicating all round. Having fleshed his spiritual sword, he drew from its scabbard the temporal weapon. He performed the visitations of his diocese armed cap-à-pié, at the head of a strong body of menat-arms. His charges were just a spear's length. Upon the indocile Welsh these pastoral lessons were quite thrown away. They flew to arms, defeated the bishop in a pitched battle, and killed one of his brothers. He himself had to fly for his life. On Bishop Hervé's return to England, Henry received him with reverence and admiration, as if he had been another St. Augustine; and the reigning pope, Pascal, in an autograph letter to the king, "recommended more especially to his favour the man of religion, who had thus become the victim to the persecution and ferocity of barbarians." In reward for his travail and pains, Hervé was translated to the bishopric of Ely. The deep interést which the Welsh nation felt in the memorable struggle between Archbishop Becket and Henry II. has been noticed in a former series. How changed are we from our forefathers in our sentiments towards this inflexible prelate! By his contemporaries he was looked upon as the man of the people; the champion of right against the tyrant and the oppressor; the martyr blessed indeed by the untutored lips of the poor, the weak, and the defenceless. By the inferior ranks, whether clergy or laity, he was loved, * Thierry's Norman Conquest, p. 155. Whittaker's edition. + Ibid. he was pitied. Silent yet fervent prayers were offered up for his success in whatever he should undertake. One of the men who most courageously exposed themselves to persecution to follow him, was a Welshman named Cuelin."* A royal decree to prevent the exiled archbishop from keeping up a correspondence with his friends in England is pointed against Welshmen, as if they had been Becket's chief and most trusted agents. "If any Welshman, either clerk or lay, shall enter England, unless he have letters of passage from the king, he is to be seized and kept in prison; and all the Welsh shall be expelled from the schools of England." The Welsh hoped much from Becket. His cruel murder cut off their just expectations. His great and noble thoughts perished with him. "To receive the sacraments of the church from the hands of a stranger and a foe, was an intolerable annoyance to the Welsh, and formed the most cruel of the tyrannical grievances inflicted on them by the conquest." Had Becket lived, that courageous man, who turned from political expediency to right and justice, in return for Welsh sympathy and support, might have realised the object of this nation's dearest wish, "the re-establishment of priests," and, I may add, bishops, "born in Wales and speaking the language of the country.' From the life and writings of Giraldus Cambrensis we may get a good insight into the condition and tone of the church of Wales. In my first series a short chapter is given to the principal events in the history of this strenuous assertor of the ecclesiastical independence of Cambria. Going as little as possible over the same ground, we will recur to the sayings and doings of the bishop-elect of St. David's. Giraldus de Barri, born at Manorbeer Castle, Pembrokeshire (the castle may be seen still, a fine ruin)-of a Norman father and Welsh mother, was brought up at St. David's, under the care and direction of his uncle, David Fitzgerald, bishop of that see. The pupil had the best education which Wales could give, and here was laid the foundation of that learning and scholarship in which he is allowed to have excelled. But he was not taught, or made very little progress in the Welsh language, his mother's native tongue. When he * Thierry, p. 179. |