difficulty of Wales. Of the three Welsh states into which all that remained
unconquered of Britain had been broken by the victories of Deorham and
Chester, two had long ceased to exist. The country between the Clyde and
the Dee had been gradually absorbed by the conquests of Northumbria and the
growth of the Scot monarchy. West Wales, between the British Channel and
the estuary of the Severn, had yielded to the sword of Ecgberht. But a
fiercer resistance prolonged the independence of the great central portion
which alone in modern language preserves the name of Wales. Comprising in
itself the largest and most powerful of the British kingdoms, it was aided
in its struggle against Mercia by the weakness of its assailant, the
youngest and feeblest of the English states, as well as by an internal
warfare which distracted the energies of the invaders. But Mercia had no
sooner risen to supremacy among the English kingdoms than it took the work
of conquest vigorously in hand. Offa tore from Wales the border-land
between the Severn and the Wye; the raids of his successors carried fire
and sword into the heart of the country; and an acknowledgement of the
Mercian overlordship was wrested from the Welsh princes. On the fall of
Mercia this overlordship passed to the West-Saxon kings, and the Laws of
Howel Dda own the payment of a yearly tribute by "the prince of Aberffraw"
to "the King of London." The weakness of England during her long struggle
with the Danes revived the hopes of British independence; it was the
co-operation of the Welsh on which the northmen reckoned in their attack on
the house of Ecgberht. But with the fall of the Danelaw the British princes
were again brought to submission, and when in the midst of the Confessor's
reign the Welsh seized on a quarrel between the houses of Leofric and
Godwine to cross the border and carry their attacks into England itself,
the victories of Harold reasserted the English supremacy. Disembarking on
the coast his light-armed troops he penetrated to the heart of the
mountains, and the successors of the Welsh prince Gruffydd, whose head was
the trophy of the campaign, swore to observe the old fealty and render the