of grave import. The powers of the Welsh Princes had been abolished, and the custom of the March had to be settled. Between 1284 and 1291 many private wars occurred in Wales and the Marches, arising out of the conduct of the Lords Marchers. Edward the First returned to suppress this lawlessness, and the matter was brought to a head by the remarkable dispute between Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester, who was the ruler of the Lordship of Glamorgan, and the Earl of Hereford, in whose private jurisdiction the lands now forming the County of Brecknock were situate. Edward interfered, and in 1290 formally called on the Earls by proclamation to put an end to their hostilities. He summoned the Lords Marchers in order to determine the question whether they were to be obedient to the Crown or not. A court was convened at Llanthew, near Brecon, in 1291, at which Hereford appeared, but Gloucester did not. The King was at Amesbury in Wiltshire at this time, and hearing of Gloucester's action, he summoned a fresh court at Abergavenny for Michaelmas, 1291, at which both nobles appeared. There Edward presided, and the "scene when the day came, must have been impressive; one of our strongest and most law loving Kings was in full court, sitting in Judgment on the proudest of the old Norman aristocracy, on the deep and difficult question of the royal prerogative to override custom." Both Earls were imprisoned, their estates were confiscated, and by this trial Edward the First crushed the privileges of the Lords Marchers, and curbed their independent and tyrannical jurisdictions during his time. In the reign of Edward the Second, when the Crown was in the hands of a weaker King, the Lords Marchers resumed their old privileges, which were asserted and continued until the Tudor period. For a detailed and valuable account of Wales and the private wars in the Marcher Lordships, the work of Mr. J. E. Morris on the "Welsh Wars of King Edward the First" should be consulted.
