he received letters of conduct to go to London (ib. i. 252). But on 1 March 1244 Gruffudd broke his neck in attempting to escape from the Tower, whence the hostages more luckily managed to run away. The restraint of a rival removed, Davydd had the less hesitation in breaking the peace. In June war had been renewed between Davydd and the marchers, to whose assistance Henry sent Herbert FitzMatthew and a force of three hundred knights. Davydd had already invaded Herefordshire. He had an old grievance with Humphrey de Bohun [q. v.], earl of Hereford, his brother-in-law, with respect to the division of the Braose estates. At first he was very successful. In one engagement a hundred men were slain. In another FitzHenry and his reinforcement received a crushing defeat. In November Henry urged the Bishop of Worcester to excommunicate Davydd for breaking the truce and violating his compacts (ib. i. 258). But Davydd had now made a brilliant new move to put himself outside the powers of the English church and crown. It was now rumoured in England that Davydd had effected an agreement with Pope Innocent IV to hold Wales under the holy see at a rent of five hundred marks a year. With great indignation men heard that the abbots of Aberconway and Cymmer (not Cwmhir, as Mr. Luard, in his edition of the ‘Chronica Majora’ of Matt. Paris, iv. 398, says, for that abbey is in the diocese of St. David's) had been appointed inquisitors by the pope to investigate the claims of his new vassal, and that they had actually summoned King Henry before them at Caerwys for 20 Jan. 1245. The king, of course, disobeyed, and prepared for an attack in force on his disloyal nephew. But Davydd spent his money at Rome in vain. An English envoy soon put the facts before Innocent, and fearing to offend the king of England, the pope wrote from Lyons cancelling the commission of the two abbots and repudiating the measures which he had been deceived into adopting (Matt. Paris, iv. 316, 398–400; Fœdera, i. 255). In the spring of 1245 the border warfare continued. The Welsh suffered a great check at Montgomery, but the death of FitzMatthew and the capture of Mold by Davydd himself turned the balance against the marchers. Davydd defied both summonses to Westminster and offers of negotiations. By June he had retired from the borders, but the English leaders feared for the fidelity of the obedient Welsh, and were unable to relieve the castles in the enemy's country (Royal Letters, ii. 38). At last in July a great army of military tenants was summoned against the Welsh. By August the king had advanced to the castle of Gannock or Deganwy, which he strongly fortified. An Irish expedition ravaged Anglesey with ruthless thoroughness; Davydd was shut up in Snowdon between the two armies brought against him. But there he was quite safe, and held his enemies at bay until the autumn. A curious letter preserved by Matthew Paris (Chronica Majora, iv. 481) gives a vivid picture of the distress and inconvenience which the army at Deganwy suffered. A vessel accidentally stranded on the left bank of the Conway was beyond their power to protect. At last, on 29 Oct., Henry was driven by famine from Gannock, though the garrison he left there was ‘a thorn in the eye of the Welsh.’ On this expedition Richard of Cornwall was accused, groundlessly Matthew Paris believed, of having secretly favoured Davydd's side. The practical failure of the campaign was partially atoned for by ruthless pillagings and burnings, and by a systematic attempt to prevent food reaching the Welsh either from Ireland or Chester. A rainy season completed the troubles of the Cymry. But in March 1246 Davydd died at Aber on the first day of Lent. He was buried amidst the lamentations of his subjects at the abbey of Aberconway, by his great father's side. He left no children, and the sons of the injured Gruffudd succeeded to his principality. Davydd was a benefactor of the Cistercian abbey of Basingwerk (Dugdale, Monasticon, v. 263). The bard Davydd Benvras wrote an elegy upon him, and Einiawn Wan a poem styled the ‘Reconciliation of Davydd’ (Myvyrian Archaiology of Wales, ed. 1801, i. 316, 336).
[Rymer's Fœdera, vol. i., Record edition; Matthew Paris's Chronica Majora, vols. iii. and iv., ed. Luard; Annales Monastici, ed. Luard; Shirley's Royal Letters of Henry III; Brut y Tywysogion and Annales Cambriæ, all in Rolls Series; Calendarium Rotulorum Patentium.]
DAVYDD III (d. 1283), son of Gruffudd, son of Llewelyn, son of Iorwerth, last native prince of North Wales, first appears in history in 1241, when his mother Senena agreed to place him and his brother Rhodri in the hands of Henry III as sureties for her performing the agreement she had made with the king respecting her husband and her son Owain, then prisoners (Matt. Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. Luard, iv. 317). Davydd must then have been quite a child. In 1246 his brothers Llewelyn and Owain became rulers of North Wales, and he himself received some territory, the position of which is nowhere stated. All went peaceably for a few years. In the summer of 1253 Davydd
