Edward I and Wales, 1254–1307

By David Pilling

The late 13th century witnessed the conquest of Wales after two hundred years of conflict between Welsh princes and the English crown. In 1282 Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the only native Prince of Wales to be formally acknowledged by a King of England, was slain by English forces. His brother Dafydd continued the fight, but was eventually captured and executed. Further revolts followed under Rhys ap Maredudd, a former crown ally, and Madog ap Llywelyn, a kinsman of the defeated lords of Gwynedd. The Welsh wars were a massive undertaking for the crown, and required the mobilization of all resources. Edward’s willingness to direct the combined power of the English state and church against the Prince of Wales, to an unprecedented degree, resulted in a victory that had eluded all of his predecessors. This latest study of the Welsh wars of Edward I will draw upon recently translated archive material, allowing a fresh insight into military and political events. Edward’s personal relationship with Welsh leaders is also reconsidered. Traditionally, the conquest is dated to the fall of Llywelyn in December 1282, but this book will argue that Edward was not truly the master of Wales until 1294. In the years between those two dates he broke the power of the great Marcher lords and crushed two further large-scale revolts against crown authority. After 1294 he was able to exploit Welsh manpower on a massive scale. His successors followed the same policy during the Scottish wars and the Hundred Years War. Edward enjoyed considerable support among the ‘uchelwyr’ or Welsh gentry class, many of whom served him as diplomats and spies as well as military captains. This aspect of the king’s complex relationship with the Welsh will also feature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781526776426

Book preview

Chapter 1

By This Great Victory

On 14 February 1254 the Lord Edward, King Henry’s eldest son, was granted a spectacular endowment of lands by his father. It included the duchy of Gascony, most of Ireland, the Ile d’Oléron, the Channel Isles, and great swathes of territory in Wales. These territories were granted to enable Edward to marry Eleanor, daughter of the king of Castile. Eleanor’s father drove a hard bargain and would not allow the English prince to marry his daughter unless he was properly endowed with lands. Born in 1239, Edward was just 15 years old and already a major lord in his own right.

The grant of 1254 gave him much territory in North and South Wales. These included the Perfeddwlad, the Honour of the Three Castles, called the Trident (Grosmont, Skenfrith and White Castle), the castles of Carmarthen and Cardigan in the south-west, and Montgomery and Builth in mid-Wales. Edward did not visit his territories in Wales until the summer of 1256, when he journeyed to the Perfeddwlad. Shortly after Edward’s departure the Perfeddwlad exploded in revolt and the Welsh called upon the aid of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, lord of Snowdon.

Tensions were already running high in the area before Edward’s visit. The trouble had started in the late 1240s, when the local Welsh sent complaints to King Henry of the oppressive behaviour of John Grey, justice of Chester. Grey was replaced in 1250 by Alan la Zouche, who proved to be even worse. In the next year King Henry tried to find a new borough town at Deganwy in the commote of Creuddyn in Rhos, above the estuary of the Conwy. The king granted privileges to Englishmen and their families that chose to settle there, but the experiment proved a disaster. Within two years the borough was abandoned and the settlers departed in poverty. This was probably due to the interference of Zouche, whom Henry had warned against attacking the privileges of the new town.

Zouche was under heavy financial constraints, required to pay twice as much to the Crown for the right to hold his office as his predecessor. In his efforts to screw as much money as possible from the Welsh tenantry, Zouche overplayed his hand. Within a year of his appointment complaints flooded in to King Henry from the men of the cantrefi. They alleged that Zouche had introduced alien customs, in response to which Henry ordered the justiciar not to introduce laws nor levy taxes other than those already established in the time of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth.

The justiciar apparently ignored the king’s instruction, for in the autumn of 1252 Henry summoned him to a meeting with members of the Welsh community. Here Zouche was again warned to respect the Welsh liberties and customs under which the inhabitants were used to living under. He was to do nothing against the agreement made between the king and community after the last war in North Wales in 1246. Once more Zouche refused to listen, and by 1253 Henry found it necessary to organise another commission to investigate disturbances in the Perfeddwlad. The king was about to embark upon a campaign in Gascony, and for the sake of peace ordered Zouche not to recruit men from the region. He also told him – for a third time – to respect Welsh laws and customs. The justiciar continued to treat royal commands as interesting suggestions, and seemed to have a high opinion of his own importance. He allegedly went to London and boasted that he had forced the Welsh to humble acceptance of English laws.

Despite his arrogance and tyrannical ways, Zouche remained in office until 1255. He was replaced by Geoffrey Langley, who served as justiciar under the new lord of the Perfeddwlad, Edward. Langley was said to be another violent, grasping character, and informed King Henry that he held the Welsh in the palm of his hand. His policy in Wales was to introduce English laws and customs, especially the shire system of land division. At the same time he feathered his own nest and built up a considerable private estate. Langley’s corruption and self-seeking may have been no worse than the majority of royal officials, but it can only have increased resentment among the Welsh.

At last, goaded beyond measure, the Welsh sent envoys to Llywelyn:

This year the Lord Edward, the son of the illustrious King Henry of the English and then Earl of Chester, about 1 August came to his castles, namely Degannwy and Dyserth, to see them and his lands. When he withdrew from his visitation the nobles of Wales in the fashion of Maccabeus were indignant at his plundering of their liberties and freedoms. This inflamed their ardent love for justice and they chose that it was better to die in battle with honour, to die for their freedom, rather than to be trampled underfoot by foreign and unworthy enemies; so they approached the noble juvenile, that is Llywelyn ap Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, and to him they explained their captivity and tribulations with tears and groans.¹

According to this account, Edward was directly responsible for plundering the ‘liberties and freedoms’ of the Welsh. The actual extent of his responsibility is difficult to judge. How much authority he wielded over the officers who ruled the Perfeddwald in his name is unclear; Geoffrey Langley, for example, was not his appointment. Instead he had been installed by the king, queen and royal council. It is also obvious that royal seneschals had been trampling on Welsh customs for much of the past decade. Possibly Edward failed to restrain these officers in his brief visit to the lordship, and this was remembered and added to the resentment of the Welsh community.

Wherever responsibility lay, the consequences were disastrous. The Welsh told Llywelyn they would rather die in battle than in slavery, and invited him to come and reconquer the land east of the Conwy. Towards the end of 1256 Llywelyn took his army across the river and swept into the Perfeddwlad. He made astonishingly rapid progress and within weeks had conquered the whole of the region except Edward’s castles at Deganwy and Dyserth. While these were placed under siege, he marched on to invade Meirionydd, Builth and South Wales. The Welsh lord of Meirionydd, Llywelyn ap Maredudd, was driven to seek refuge in England. Prince Llywelyn then stormed into northern Ceredigion, another of Edward’s territories, and gave it to Maredudd ab Owain, one of his supporters.

Edward was unable to mount an effective response. Short of money and men, the best he could do was ship over small numbers of troops from his lordship in Ireland. Over the winter counter-operations against Llywelyn were led by the earls of Gloucester and Hereford, who made little progress in the foul weather. Edward got scant support from his father, who donated the paltry sum of 50 marks to the prince’s war-chest. When Edward asked him for help, the king replied ‘What has this to do with me? It is your land by gift.’ Edward received more joy from his rich uncle, Richard of Cornwall, who loaned him 4,000 marks. Cornwall also tried to open peace talks with Llywelyn, but was firmly rebuffed.

The prince was badly served by his allies on the March. The Annales Cambriae records a string of victories by pro-Gwynedd forces over royal armies at this time. In January Llywelyn moved on from the Perfeddwlad and carried war into Powys Fadog, where local forces gathered under Edward’s banner to repel his invasion. They were led by Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, lord of Powys Fadog and a Crown loyalist at this time:

After 6 January Llywelyn ap Gruffudd invaded the land of Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn and they encamped in the town of Welshpool, and he burned it all. There he summoned to help him two South Welsh barons, Maredudd ap Rhys Gryg and Maredudd ab Owain. On the other side of the (River) Severn near to Montgomery many English barons gathered together, that is John Lestrange, Gruffudd ap Gwenwynwyn, Fitz Alan and many others with the banneret of the Lord Edward and a well-armed army. Truly the English force advanced over the Severn and in a great field between the Severn and Eberriw they stood to in battle order. Truly the English were greatly scorned by the Welsh as unprepared for battle and so with an innumerable number of men they entered the field, and the English saw the Welsh army with exceeding strength gain the battlefield boldly and manfully. Immediately the English were struck by terror and took themselves to flight and they fled all the way to the castle of Montgomery.²

From this it appears that Edward’s allies made an undignified retreat without attempting to engage the more numerous Welsh in battle. As a result of this victory Llywelyn gained most of the lordship, leaving Gruffudd with the castle of Welshpool and some of the adjacent lands. Flushed with success, Llywelyn drove on southward and invaded Gwerthrynion. By doing so, he triggered a conflict that would have enormous long-term consequences for both him and Wales.

Gwerthyrnion was held by the Mortimers of Wigmore, a powerful and aggressive March family. The young lord of Wigmore, Roger Mortimer, was a direct descendant of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, whose daughter Gwladus Ddu had married Roger’s father, Ralph. Llywelyn ap Gruffudd was a grandson of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, so he and Roger were cousins. Via their descent from the female line, the Mortimers had their own blood claim to the principality of Wales.

In 1241 Llywelyn ap Gruffudd had made a solemn pledge to Ralph Mortimer, quitclaiming his rights in Maelienydd and Gwerthyrnion. The terms of the treaty are worth quoting:

Let everyone know that I, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd the son of the Llywelyn who was once Prince of North Wales, quitclaim for myself and my heirs to Ralph Mortimer and Gwladys his wife and their heirs in perpetuity all right and claim which I have ever had or am able to have in their lands of Maelienydd and Gwrtheyrnion [sic[ with purtenances or in anything of theirs, whereas accordingly Ralph and Gwladys and their heirs in Maelienydd and Gwrtherynion may well and peacefully hold and possess without complaint by anyone or me and my heirs....³

Oddly, in this Llywelyn calls himself the ‘son’ of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth rather than his grandson. This is probably a scribal error. In the winter of 1256 he broke his promise to allow Ralph Mortimer and his heirs to hold Gwerthyrnion in peace, and overran the lordship at the head of an army. Llywelyn’s oath-breaking should come as no surprise: like most other great political leaders of his time (Edward was no exception) he only kept pacts for as long as they were politically useful. At the same time, his decision to break the treaty made a lifelong enemy of the Mortimers, who from this moment on were Llywelyn’s deadly enemies. On 26 December, after waging a triumphant campaign, Llywelyn returned home to Gwynedd.

Some months later, in the summer of 1257 a royal army was sent into South Wales on Edward’s behalf. It was led by Stephen Bauzan, a Gascon knight and favourite of the prince’s mother, Eleanor of Provence. Bauzan was joined by several important Marcher lords; Nicholas of Cemais, Patrick of Kidwelly and the lord of Carew. Edward remained at Westminster. King Henry was evidently not prepared to risk the heir to the throne on a dangerous sortie into Wales.

Bauzan and his allies behaved with pointless brutality. In early February they marched into Carmarthenshire and sacked the abbey of Whitland, beat the monks and robbed the lay brethren as well as taking all the horses and treasure of the abbey. They also chased the servants of the monastery into the cemetery and slaughtered them. This was no isolated incident, and it cannot be said that Llywelyn’s men behaved any better. Shortly before Palm Sunday some noblemen of Llywelyn’s household burnt the town of Montgomery and massacred the garrison and townsfolk, including women and children. There was also fighting in Cardiganshire, where four young Welsh lords were killed by the English garrisons at Carmarthen and Ystlwyf. Llywelyn himself besieged the castle of Bodyddon in Powys, where he allowed the garrison to go free after they surrendered. The castle was then burnt.

Finally, on the Wednesday after Pentecost (27 May) the English gathered their main host at Carmarthen. Under the overall command of Stephen Bauzan, they marched east to devastate the lands of Ystrad Tywi, home to one of Llywelyn’s allies, Maredudd ap Rhys Gryg. Their other purpose was to assist Rhys Fychan, a Welsh ally of the Crown, or so he pretended. At first Rhys accompanied the army, but soon afterwards either deserted or was seized by the garrison at Dinefwr Castle. There is a possibility that Rhys deliberately led Bauzan’s army into a trap, which would imply he was in secret communication with his uncle, Maredudd. Be that as it may, Bauzan and his men soon found themselves in difficulty:

The next day all the renowned armed men with many horses and coats of mail and other instruments prepared for war, marched to devastate the land of Ystrad Tywi; and not without hindrance they came to Llandeilo Fawr, and there they spent the night without any fear; and the Welsh of Ceredigion and Ystrad Tywi, that is Maredudd ap Rhys and Maredudd ab Owain with all their forces, in the woods and forests and valleys surrounded the English with a great battle roar. And the Welsh all that Friday molested and opposed the troops of the Saxons in that place by throwing spears and arrows.⁴

These accounts must be used with caution. The B text of the Annales is notably pro-Llywelyn and tends to represent the conflicts of 1257–58 as straightforward clashes between Welsh and English (or even Saxons). Other versions of the chronicle are more nuanced. The C text for the battle of Cymerau states: ‘Many English and many Welsh from the parts favouring the English, were killed at Cymerau in Ystrad Tywi on the day before Trinity (29 May).’⁵ The D text reads: ‘This year many Welsh were killed at Cymerau in Ystrad Tywi on the day before Trinity (30 May).’⁶

As well as slight confusion over the date, the differing versions of the Annales present a confused picture of the ‘ethnic’ identity of the forces at Cymerau. The likelihood is that Bauzan’s knights were English, while his infantry were largely Welsh, drawn from Marcher lordships loyal to the Crown. B provides by far the fullest account of the destruction of Bauzan’s host:

Truly the English protected by their iron were not afraid to defend themselves. However they were not able to kill those whose arms consisted mainly of linen garments, because they placed more faith in their pride than God. In truth the armed men and knights began to talk of boldly making their way towards Cardigan, fearing nothing of the Welsh who everywhere attacked them manfully from the woods. From dawn until noon they fought against the English from the forests. And at the wood of Llanarthne [Coed Llathen] the English lost all their victuals, all their packhorses which were carrying their arms and necessities as well as their palfreys; and the Welsh on account of this were gladdened. Truly about the hour of midday at Cymerau the hour of battle arrived and the Welsh, with the help of God, erupted into the English. The celebrated Saxons were thrown manfully to the ground from their armoured horses and as infantry were trampled under the horses’ feet, and so the knights in the bushes and the ditches and the valleys were trampled under foot, and more than 3,000 Saxons were killed that day; for truly none or only a very few of the armoured knights escaped from this battle. And the Welsh by this great victory gained spoils and horses and many coats of mail as well as the weapons of their enemies and so they thanked God for his favour, and returned sound and uninjured to their homes.⁷

B also explicitly names the leaders of the Welsh host as Maredudd ap Rhys and Maredudd ap Owain. The lord of Ystrad Tywi, former ally of the English Crown, had successfully lured a royal army onto ground of his own choosing, in the heart of his ancestral territory, and inflicted a terrible defeat. Exact casualty figures for Bauzan’s army are uncertain, though somewhere between 2–3,000 is likely. Casualties among Maredudd’s army were unrecorded and probably negligible.

Cymerau was a serious blow to the power of the English Crown in West Wales. Though he was not present at the battle, it represented a severe humiliation for the Lord Edward and one he never forgot. In 1287, thirty years later, he authorised a payment of 105 shillings for a monument to Stephen Bauzan and Richard Giffard, another casualty of these Welsh wars. The accounts of the constable of Bristol show that two stones were taken to Carmarthen for these monuments. Presumably they were erected on the site of the battle, though their fate is unknown. Further, on 15 May 1290 Edward ordered masses to be sung daily in the church at Carmarthen for the souls of Stephen Bauzan, Richard Giffard and ‘other faithful men slain in those parts in the service of the king and his ancestors.’

Edward had learned an important lesson. Little could be achieved in West Wales without the support of the native lords. Their enmity could be fatal. As we shall see, Edward’s later Welsh campaigns demonstrate he had committed that lesson to heart, no doubt due to the slaughter of his ‘faithful men’ at Cymerau.

The destruction of the royal host at Cymerau compelled King Henry to respond. To shore up his crumbling authority in Wales, he had no choice but to raise another army and lead it against Llywelyn in person. Matthew Paris, an acid-tongued chronicler persistently hostile towards Edward, claimed the heir to the throne was reluctant to join his father on the campaign. He even (according to Paris) suggested that Wales should be left to the Welsh – a deeply ironic statement, given Edward’s later history. While Paris cannot be relied on, it may be true that Edward resented his father taking over affairs in Wales, especially after Henry had failed to provide his son with adequate resources.

Henry planned to invade Gwynedd, Llywelyn’s heartland. He set the muster date for his army at Chester on 1 August and turned up a week late. This set the tone for the campaign. In late August the king moved slowly out of Chester and headed for the Welsh border. His progress was hampered by defences organised by the Welsh to meet the invasion:

Thus the Welsh ploughed the meadows and even the mills, which were in any case made by the English. They broke the bridges up into pieces, they dug holes in the fords and returned to water, they drove off all types of good, or they buried or drowned it, and so the warlike work was furthered by their hands. Even doing this they saw their cause as just against their enemy. And this gave them the greatest strength, and for the love of their ancestor’s laws and their liberty, firmly and the customs of the Trojans from whom they were descended, they fought steadfastly for their race.⁸

While Henry advanced at a crawl towards North Wales, there were at least four other royal armies active in Wales. Humphrey Bohun, earl of Hereford, was given command of the Marches, assisted by various other Marchers including Roger Mortimer of Wigmore. Mortimer himself held a semi-independent command, while Hamo Lestrange had command of an army based at Montgomery, north of Hereford. The fourth army was under the command of Richard Clare, earl of Gloucester, who was ordered to attack the Welsh in the south on 1 August. Before he could move Prince Llywelyn attacked the earl’s lordships in Glamorgan. In early July Llywelyn advanced to Margam Abbey and then destroyed Clare’s castle at Llangynwyd, where twenty-four of the earl’s men were killed. To meet this threat Clare marched to Llanblethian with his army. A stand-off ensued. Both armies were just fifteen miles apart, but neither cared to risk a pitched battle. The fighting in the south ground to a halt, and efforts by the Marchers to make further headway met with little success. In September the king asked the tenants of Lord Nicholas Fitz Martin of Cemais to raise a ransom for his release, since he had been captured by the Welsh.

King Henry’s northern army reached Deganwy by 29 August. He had ordered his men to destroy all the crops along the line of march, which turned out to be a bad decision when supply ships failed to turn up from Ireland. If the Welsh were condemned to starve, so too were the king’s soldiers, and soon the army fell prey to disease and famine. Henry’s heart wasn’t in the campaign, and he decided to turn back and return the next year with a larger navy. He trudged back towards Chester, harried all the way:

But Llywelyn himself for a long time followed them, to see if anybody was detached or fell behind from the royal army and then these were taken and killed. And thus the inglorious king, his treasure much squandered, laughed at and mocked by the enemy, returned to his own land. Truly he marched well among his elegant army, with his royal banner briskly unfurled to arouse them, encouraging his men that the Welsh, the dregs of men, might be slaughtered.⁹

Henry behaved with considerable personal bravery, riding at the head of his army to encourage his men against the Welsh. He had a special banner made for the campaign, wonderfully decorated with eyes made of sapphires and a tongue that flickered in and out as the wind caught the banner. Splendid as it was, the dragon had good cause to droop now, as Henry’s battered, dysentery-struck army struggled back to Chester, harried by Welsh guerrilla fighters.

The great campaign of 1257 petered out in October. Henry and his son had achieved little at great expense, and were simply not capable of dealing with the rise of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd. The Welsh prince was a man of enormous ambition, energy and ability, and at this point in his career could not be stopped.

Yet there was a chink in Llywelyn’s armour. He had previously quarrelled with two of his brothers, Owain Goch and Dafydd, and defeated them in battle at Bryn Derwin in 1256. Owain was now in Llywelyn’s prison at Dolbadarn, but he had decided to give Dafydd another chance. The young man, embittered at losing his share of Gwynedd, was soon hatching fresh plots. In August, before he set out for North Wales, King Henry issued a safe-conduct for Dafydd to come to him at Chester. This implies the Welshman had already made contact with the king, or at any rate Henry was aware of his disaffection with Llywelyn. In the event Dafydd failed to appear, and the safe-conduct was torn up by Henry’s chancellor.

Edward was among those who witnessed the document drawn up at Chester. From an early stage he was aware of the disloyalty of Llywelyn’s brothers, and how this might be exploited. On this occasion the ploy had failed, but Edward and Dafydd would have many future dealings together.

The English prince did not return to Wales for another six years. He was kept away by affairs in England, as the personal feud between his father and Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, soured into civil war. For five years England was convulsed by domestic conflict. In the meantime Llywelyn made hay and continued to win a string of victories in Wales.

The Welsh prince concentrated his efforts on Builth in mid-Wales. This was another of Edward’s lordships and held on his behalf by Llywelyn’s own cousin, Roger Mortimer. Mortimer had succeeded in driving out the Welsh tenants of Maredudd ap Owain, a lord of Ceredigion and one of Llywelyn’s chief allies in the south. On 10 January 1260, taking advantage of the deadlock in English politics, Llywelyn marched into the lordship. He met no resistance and left part of his army to besiege the castle. On 17 July, after months of resistance, the garrison surrendered. It was said that three of the defenders let the Welsh enter by night, out of hatred for a clerk placed in authority over them.

As keeper of Builth, Mortimer was directly responsible for its security. Llywelyn had inflicted another humiliation upon him, and one that threatened to bring about his downfall. Not for the last time, rumours swirled about the March that Mortimer was secretly allied with Llywelyn, and that the castle had fallen by his connivance. This is extremely unlikely, given Mortimer’s active service against the Welsh before and after the loss of Builth. Even so it was enough to damage his credibility, not least with Edward. Later in the month Mortimer was formally acquitted by King Henry of any responsibility for the loss of Builth; he was too important a member of the government to be dismissed for incompetence. This was done in the teeth of furious protests from Edward, who placed the blame squarely on Mortimer. The breach between them was only temporary, and in future years Mortimer would do much to regain Edward’s trust.

In August, a month after the fall of Builth, Llywelyn and King Henry agreed to a two-year truce. Edward was packed off abroad to work off his excess energy on the French tournament circuit. An uneasy stalemate ensued, punctuated by disturbances on the March and accusations flung by both sides of breaking the peace. In the early winter of 1262 the truce expired and hostilities resumed.

Llywelyn again targeted Mortimer lands. At the end of November he stormed into Powys and attacked Mortimer’s castles of Cefnllys, Bleddfa, Knucklas and other strongholds. Hywel ap Meurig, Mortimer’s bailiff and constable of Cefnllys, was taken prisoner along with his wife and children after the Welsh of Maelienydd stormed the gates. Maelienydd was a Mortimer lordship, and it seems the local tenantry had revolted against their lord. They sent word to Llywelyn’s seneschal and constable, who came rushing to burn the castle.

Mortimer was not slow to respond. He and Humphrey Bohun junior quickly raised an army and marched to recover Cefnllys. They reoccupied the burned-out shell of the castle, only to be surrounded by a much larger Welsh army led by Llywelyn in person. The size of the Welsh prince’s host was truly impressive by this point, reckoned at 30,000 infantry and 300 cavalry. The Marchers were starved into surrender, and after negotiation Llywelyn permitted Mortimer and his men to withdraw. This again led to charges to treachery and conspiracy against Mortimer. Llywelyn did not spare his cousin’s other lands and castles, and before Christmas had taken Knucklas, Knighton, Norton, and Presteigne. Meanwhile a separate Welsh army under Rhys Fychan devastated the lands of Gwent and Brycheiniog (Brecknock).

In early 1263 Llywelyn had the entire March in a state of terror. There were panicked reports of Welsh tenantry deserting their lordships in droves and flocking to join Llywelyn. All ‘the men of the Welsh nation’, it was said, in the lands of Abergavenny had turned to the prince. Unless money and men were sent to the March, King Henry was warned, the whole of the March would be lost.

Henry had been informed of the situation when he landed at Dover on 20 December. The news drove him to distraction. Only a few months earlier he had confidently rejected an officer of assistance from the king of Castile, stating that his opponents in England had made peace with him and the Welsh had made a new truce. Now the March was in turmoil and Llywelyn was making fresh conquests, with none apparently capable of stopping him. Henry sent an angry letter to Edward, who had lingered in Gascony despite promising to return home by Christmas.