magnates who were allowed to raise and maintain armies of their own and to make private war at will.
But throughout the Norman period the greater part of the Principality remained in the hands of Welsh princes, who ruled, according to their own customs and laws, over the territories which had not been seized by the marauding Barons of the Marches. Within these lands, the nominal political superiority of England was fitfully accepted, but practical independence was enjoyed by the Welsh chieftains in the internal government of their own provinces, and there the old national laws and customs were of full force and effect.
Magna Charta and Wales.
A.D. 1215.—In the great Charter of Liberties, sealed by King John on June 15, 1215, we find the first mention of Wales in the constitutional documents of our Realm. Although not a parliamentary statute, it has been printed at the commencement of the English Statutes, and requires notice inasmuch as the whole of the constitutional history of England has been described as being a commentary on this Charter. This Great Charter is the commencement of the formal history of English constitutional liberty. It secured from the astute sovereign who was forced to submit to it, a definite recognition of the old constitutional rights which he had constantly violated, and a pledge that he would not further evade them. In three of the clauses of this Charter, we find the evidence of the power and influence of Llywelyn the Great, who reigned in Wales from 1194 to 1240, the most important figure in Welsh mediæval history. He seized his opportunity when England was divided and weakened, and stemmed the English tide of conquest by destroying some of the most important of the Norman-English castles in Wales. He was, although married to King John's daughter, allied to the English Barons in their struggle with that sovereign, with the result that three
