households to two courses of meat, and fixing the price of the chief
sorts of victuals. The only result was that dealers refused to bring
their produce to market. Then the legislation, passed in a panic, was
repealed in a panic. "It is better," said a chronicler, "to buy things
at a high rate than not to be able to buy them at all."

Private wars raged from end to end of south Britain. On the upper
Severn, Griffith of Welshpool, the younger son of Griffith ap
Gwenwynwyn, laid regular siege to Powys castle, the stronghold of John
Charlton, his niece's husband and his rival for the lordship of upper
Powys. As Charlton was a courtier, Griffith attached himself to the
ordainers. After Bannockburn, the captivity of Hereford, the lord of
Brecon, and the death without heirs of Gloucester, the lord of
Glamorgan, removed the strongest restraints on the men of south Wales.
The royal warden of Glamorgan, Payne of Turberville, displaced
Gloucester's old officers. One of the sufferers was Llewelyn Bren, "a
great and powerful Welshman in those parts," who had held high office
under Earl Gilbert. In 1315 Llewelyn, after seeking justice in vain at
the king's court, rose in revolt against Turberville. He gathered the
Welshmen on the hills, burst upon Caerphilly, while the constable was
holding a court outside the castle, took the outer ward by surprise and
burnt it to ashes. There was fear lest this revolt should be the
starting-point of a general Welsh rising. Llewelyn's hill strongholds
threatened Brecon on the north and the vale of Glamorgan on the south;
and Hereford, then released from his Scottish captivity, was entrusted
with the suppression of the revolt. Before long all the lords of the
march joined Hereford in stamping out the movement. Among them were the
two Roger Mortimers, the Montagues and the Giffords, and Henry of
Lancaster, Earl Thomas's brother, and lord in his own right of Monmouth
and Kidwelly. Overwhelmed by such mighty opponents, Llewelyn