the basis of the settlement.  Even the marchers maintained an unwonted tranquillity.  They had lost so much during the recent war that they had no great desire to take up arms again.  Llewelyn himself was the chief obstacle to peace.  The brilliant success of his arms and diplomacy seems somewhat to have turned his brain.  Visions of a wider authority constantly floated before him.  His bards prophesied the expulsion of the Saxon, and he had done such great deeds in the first twenty years of his reign, that a man of more practical temperament might have been forgiven for indulging in dreams of future success.  Three obstacles stood in the way of the development of his power.  These were his vassalage to the English crown, the hostility of the marcher barons, and the impatience with which the minor Welsh chieftains submitted to his authority.  For five years he impatiently endured these restraints.  He then took advantage of the absence of the new king to rid himself of them.

Five days after the accession of Edward I., the lieutenants of the king received the last payment of the indemnity which Llewelyn condescended to make.  Their demand that the Welsh prince should take an oath of fealty to his new sovereign was answered by evasive delays.  Arrears of the indemnity accumulated, and the state of the march became more disturbed.  The regents showed moderation, though one of them, Roger Mortimer, had himself been the greatest sufferer from the treaty of Shrewsbury.  In the south, Humphrey Bohun, grandson of the old Earl of Hereford and earl himself in 1275 by his grandfather’s death, was engaged in private war with Llewelyn.  In direct defiance of the terms of 1267, Humphrey strove to maintain himself in the march of Brecon, which had been definitely ceded to Llewelyn.  It was to the credit of the regents that they refused to countenance this glaring violation of the treaty.  Meanwhile Llewelyn busied himself with erecting a new stronghold on the upper Severn, which was a menace alike to the royal castle of Montgomery and to his own vassal, Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn, the tributary lord of Powys.  Yet the regents were content to remonstrate, and to urge on all parties the need of strict adherence to the terms of the treaty.  The Earl of Warwick was appointed in the spring of 1274 as head of a commission, empowered to do justice on all transgressions of the peace, and Llewelyn was ordered to meet him at Montgomery Ford.  But Llewelyn was busy at home, where his brother David had joined hands with Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn in a plot against him.  Llewelyn easily crushed the conspiracy; David, after a feeble attempt to maintain himself in his own patrimony, took flight to England, and Griffith of Powys, driven from his dominions, was also obliged to seek the protection of Edward.  Henceforth Llewelyn ruled directly over Powys as well as Gwynedd.  His success encouraged him to persevere in defying his overlord.