Book account

[1] See Bemont, _Roles Gascons_, i., supplement, pp.
cxvi.-cxviii.
The affairs of Wales and Cheshire involved Edward in responsibilities
even more pressing than those of Gascony. On the death of John the Scot
without heirs in 1237, the palatinate of Randolph of Blundeville became
a royal escheat. Its grant to Edward made him the natural head of the
marcher barons. The Cheshire earldom became the more important since
the Welsh power had been driven beyond the Conway. Since the death of
David ap Llewelyn in 1246, divisions in the reigning house of Gwynedd
had continued to weaken the Welsh. Llewelyn and Owen the Red, the two
elder sons of the Griffith ap Llewelyn who had perished in attempting
to escape from the Tower, took upon themselves the government of
Gwynedd, dividing the land, by the advice of the "good men," into two
equal halves. The English seneschal at Carmarthen took advantage of
their weakness to seize the outlying dependencies of Gwynedd south of
the Dovey. War ensued, for the brothers resisted this aggression.


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