But he had one aim ever before him—to recover his father's kingdom and to make his people free. Castle after castle rose—at Swansea, Carmarthen, Llandovery, Cenarth, Aberystwyth—to warn him that the hold of the Norman on the land was tightening. He came to the forests of the Towy; his people rallied round him, and his power extended from the Towy to the Teivy, and from the Teivy to the Dovey. His wife, the heroic Gwenllian—who died leading her husband's army against the Normans—was Griffith ap Conan's daughter. The great final battle between Griffith and the Normans was fought at Cardigan in 1136, in which the great prince won a memorable victory over the strongest army the Normans could put in the field. In 1137 he died, and they said of him that he had shown his people what they ought to do, and that he had given them strength to do it.
The work of Griffith ap Conan and Griffith ap Rees was this: they set bounds to the Norman Conquest, and saved Deheubarth and Gwynedd from the stern rule of the alien. But, though the Norman was not allowed to bring his stone castle and cruel law, what good he brought with him was welcomed. The piety of the Norman, his
