This resourceful prince had already raised himself
to a high position by a statecraft which lacked neither strength nor
duplicity. Though fully conscious of his position as the champion of a
proud nation, and, posing as the peer of the King of Scots, Llewelyn
saw that it was his interest to continue the friendship with the
baronial opposition which had profited him so greatly in the days of
the French invasion. The pacification arranged in 1218 sat rightly upon
him, and he plunged into a war with William Marshal the younger that
desolated South Wales for several years. In 1219 Llewelyn devastated
Pembrokeshire so cruelly that the marshal's losses were currently,
though absurdly, reported to have exceeded the amount of the ransom of
King Richard. There was much more fighting, but Llewelyn's progress was
impeded by difficulties with his own son Griffith, and with the princes
of South Wales, who bore impatiently the growing hold of the lord of
Gwynedd upon the affections of southern Welshmen. There was war also in
the middle march, where in 1220 a royal army was assembled against
Llewelyn; but Pandulf negotiated a truce, and the only permanent result
of this effort was the fortification of the castle and town at
Montgomery, which had become royal demesne on the extinction of the
ancient house of Bollers a few years earlier.
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