Of the most disastrous chancesOf moving accidents by flood and field, which made a journey from St. David's to Rome a more perilous adventure in those unquiet days than an expedition "through darkest Africa" is in ours. At last the very Chapter of St. David's, for whose ancient rights he was contending, basely deserted him. "The laity of Wales stood by me," so he wrote in later days, "but of the clergy whose battle I was fighting scarce one." Pope Innocent III. was far too wary a politician to favour the claims of a small ...
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Of the most disastrous chancesOf moving accidents by flood and field, which made a journey from St. David's to Rome a more perilous adventure in those unquiet days than an expedition "through darkest Africa" is in ours. At last the very Chapter of St. David's, for whose ancient rights he was contending, basely deserted him. "The laity of Wales stood by me," so he wrote in later days, "but of the clergy whose battle I was fighting scarce one." Pope Innocent III. was far too wary a politician to favour the claims of a small and distracted nation, already half-subjugated, against the king of a rich and powerful country. He flattered our poor Gerald, he delighted in his company, he accepted, and perhaps even read, his books. But in the end, after five years' incessant fighting, the decision went against him, and the English king's nominee has ever since sat on the throne of St. David's. "Many and great wars," said Gwenwynwyn, the Prince of Powis, "have we Welshmen waged with England, but none so great and fierce as his who fought the king and the archbishop, and withstood the might of the whole clergy and people of England, for the honour of Wales."Short was the memory and scant the gratitude of his countrymen. When in 1214 another vacancy occurred at a time when King John was at variance with his barons and his prelates, the Chapter of St. David's nominated, not Gerald, their old champion, but Iorwerth, the Abbot of Talley, from whose reforming zeal they had nothing to fear. This last prick of Fortune's sword pierced Gerald to the quick. He had for years been gradually withdrawing from an active life. He had resigned his archdeaconry and his prebend stall, he had made a fourth pilgrimage, this time for his soul's sake, to Rome, he had retired to a quiet pursuit of letters probably at Lincoln, and henceforward, tillhis death about the year 1223, he devoted himself to revising and embellishing his old works, and completing his literary labours. By his fight for St. David's he had endeared himself to the laity of his country for all time. The saying of Llewelyn the Great was prophetic. "So long as Wales shall stand by the writings of the chroniclers and by the songs of the bards shall his noble deed be praised throughout all time." The prophecy has not yet been verified. Welsh chroniclers have made but scanty references to Gerald; no bard has ever yet sung an Awdl or a Pryddest in honour of him who fought for the "honour of Wales." His countrymen have forgotten Gerald the Welshman. It has been left to Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Foster, Professor Brewer, Dimmock, and Professor Freeman to edit his works. Only two of his countrymen have attempted to rescue one of the greatest of Welshmen from an undeserved oblivion. In 1585, when the Renaissance of Letters had begun to rouse the dormant powers of the Cymry, Dr. David Powel edited in Latin a garbled version of the "Itinerary" and "Description of Wales," and gave a short and inaccurate account of Gerald's life. In 1889 Dr. Henry Owen published, "at his own proper charges," the first adequate account by a Welshman of the life and labours of Giraldus Cambrensis. When his monument is erected in the cathedral which was built by his hated rival, the epitaph which he composed for himself may well be inscribed upon it -Cambria Giraldus genuit, sic Cambria mentemErudiit, cineres cui lapis iste tegit.And by that time perhaps some competent scholar will have translated some at least of Gerald's works into the language best understood by the people of Wales.It would be impossible to exaggerate the enormous services which three great Welshmen of the twelfth century rendered to England and to the world - such services as we may securely hope will be emulated by Welshmen of the next generation, now that we have lived to witness what Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton has called "the great recrudescence of Cymric energy.
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