THE PROVINCIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND.
cx11.—THE WELSH MARCHES :--SHROPSHIRE.-SINCE THE SAXON CONQUEST. THE history of the conquest of Shropshire by the Saxons is entirely unknown. When it was accomplished, and under what circumstances Unrocom um and the other Roman cities passed into the hands of the Teutonic invaders, may afford subject-matter for ingenious speculation, but with our present means of informa- tion cannot be more than conjecture. Some antiquarians think that Unrocolsrum was destroyed by the Saxons at the close of the fourth century, others that it continued to exist down to a much later period, and was destroyed by the Welsh after it had become a Saxon city. It is most probable that it was burnt and abandoned by the Saxons, though at what period it is impossible to say. Otherwise, it seems difficult to account for the rise of the Saxon town of Shrewsbury in its immediate vicinity, and probably to a great extent from building materials supplied by the ruins. Had the Welsh destroyed a Saxon town at Urieconium, it would probably have been rebuilt by the Saxons on the same site. As it is, they evidently followed their usual practice of abandoning the Brito-Roman city, and establishing themselves in a burp of their own in the immediate neighbourhood. Thirty-four marks, or original Saxon settlements, have been collected by Mr. Kemble from old records or deduced from existing nomencla- ture within the limits of Shropshire. There can be little doubt that the Severn formed for a long time the natural boundary of the two races—Saxon and Welsh. The artificial boundary of Offa's dyke gives us the boundary between the unconquered Britons to the west and the dominions of the great Mercian Confederation. This dyke crossed several portions of the western parts of this county, " and may be traced on the high ground where cultivation and the ploughshare have not levelled it." It passes over a part of Shropshire in its course from Radnor- shire to Montgomeryshire, and is again visible in Shropshire near Llanymenech, crosses the race-course near Oswestry, and descends to the Ceiriog, near Chirk, where it again enters Wales. In 849 the Northmen penetrated to the Severn. In 896 they established themselves at Cwatbrige (Qwatford), on that river, south of Bridgenorth, where they built a fortress and passed the winter. At Cleobury Mortimer are the remains of what is supposed to have been a " Danish " camp. When the tide of victory turned, we find Scrobbesbyrig (the modern Shrewsbury) one of the principal Saxon towns,—the county receiving from it the nameof Scrobbesby- rigscire,—the modern Shropshire,—often called Salop, from the Latinized form Salopia. The boundaries on the western side, how- ever, were still fiercely contested by the Welsh. We have already more than once referred to the campaigns of Gruffydd, son of Rhyddercb, the Welsh Prince, and of Harold, the son of Godwin, in the reign of Edward the Confessor. It is said that in memory of Harold's achievements in his wars in these quarters, great piles of stones were erected on many of the mountains of Wales and Shropshire, with this inscription, " Hic victor fait Haraldus." In the division of England among the great Saxon Earldoms, Shrop- shire continued seemingly under the House of Leofric. After the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror granted nearly the whole of this county to his relative Roger de Montgomery, and to many of his followers all the lauds they might capture from the Welsh. The consequence was a fierce struggle on the borders for upwards of three centuries. As a proof of the great concentration of the property of the soil in a few hands, we may mention that in Domesday Survey we find only 9 tenants-in-chief in this county, while the sub-tenants number 199. There are enumerated 1,157 bordarii, 384 bovarii, 167 radmans, 1,788 villani, and 871 servi, out of a total enumerated population of 5,080. Besides the Earl of Shrewsbury (Da Montgomery), the principal Norman lords who held grants of territory in these and other parts adjoining were Fitzalan for Clun and Oswestry, Fitzmaurice for Whittington, and Roger le Strange for Ellesmere. We have already spoken of the institution and nature of the Government of the Lords Marchers, and of the President and Council of the Marches, the seat of whose government was at Ludlow. The Marches of Wales which were included in Shropshire, according to Domesday, such as the lordships, towns, parishes, commots, hundreds, and cantreds of Oswestry, Whittington, Maesbrook, Knockin, Doun, and Cherbury, were by the statute 27 Henry VIII. made guild- able and annexed to the county of Salop. By a subsequent statute, 34 and 35 of the same reign, the town and hundred of Abberton, till then called parcel of Merionethshire, was annexed to Salop, and all offences committed in that county were to be inquired of in this. The jurisdiction of the President and Council of the Marches was, as we have seen, abolished by Act of Parlia- ment in the 1st of William III.
Besides the castles attached to most of the towns of Shropshire, we may mention that of Acton Burnell, 7 miles from Shrewsbury, founded or restored by Robert Burnell, bishop of Bath and Wells, afterwards Chancellor of England. Here a Parliament was held in 1284, and the Act called Statutum de .31ercatoribus was passed. The remains consist of a square building, with a tower at each corner. Cause Castle, near Westbury, is a mere heap of ruins. Hopton Castle, a little to the south of Clumbury, now a complete ruin, was held for the Parliament in the reign of Charles I. and besieged for nearly a fortnight. The ruins of Whittington Castle, near Oswestry, once a place of great importance, include eight massive towers, and the east wall is washed by a lake. Among the abbeys of Shropshire, we may mention the ruins of Buildas Abbey, founded in 1135, on the right bank of the Severn, eleven miles below Shrewsbury. " The walls are nearly entire. The building is cruciform, with a massive tower rising from the intersection. The lower story of the tower remains, resting on four arches, springing from brackets in the walls." The chapter- house remains of Haughmond Abbey (founded 1100), four miles east of Shrewsbury. Lilleshall Abbey (founded in the reign of Stephen), three miles south of Newport, is a beautiful ruin. The church (cruciform) was 228 feet in length ; and the south door into the cloisters is one of the richest early Norman arches in the kingdom. There are the ruins of New or White Abbey, near Alderbury, founded by Fulke Fitz-Warine in the early part of the thirteenth century. White Ladies' Priory, near Tong, on the borders of Staffordshire, is a picturesque sequestered ruin,—a Cistercian monastery in the time of Richard I. or John. With the neighbouring Boscobel House it afforded concealment to the " King of Scots " after the defeat at Worcester. The parish church at Cherbury, on the borders of Montgomeryshire, was the nave of an Augustine priory of the reign of John.
In 1067 King William had to repair in person to these parts, in order to protect Shrewsbury against an attack from the Welsh prince, Owen Gwinnedd. After the death of Llewellyn, in the 11th year of Edward I., no more Lords Marchers were created. By a statute, 28 Edward III., all the Lords Marchers were to be perpetually attending and annexed to the Crown of England, as they and their ancestors had been at all times past, and not to the Principality of Wales, into whose hands soever it should hereafter come. By the statute 27 Henry VIII., for incorporating Wales with England, all Lords Marchers were to enjoy such liberties and profits as they had or used to have, at the first entry into their lands in times past, notwithstanding that Act. The Court of the President and Council of the Marches of North Wales was re-established by Edward IV., in honour of the Earl of March, from whom he was descended. In consequence of re- peated incursions of the Welsh, in order to be near the seat of war, he removed the Courts of King's Bench and Exchequer to Shrewsbury, where they were held for some time. In 1397, Richard II. adjourned the Parliament from Westminster to Shrewsbury, where it was held with great splendour. The county played an important part in the contests of Owen Grydwr in the reign of Henry IV. What is called the battle of Shrewsbury, between Henry IV. and the Percies, took place on the 21st of July, 1403, at Berwick, within three miles of that city. In the contests between the rival Roses of York and Lancaster, Shrews- bury, Ludlow, and the border county in general, espoused the cause of York. At the close of the reign of Richard III., Henry, Earl of Richmond (afterwards Henry VII.), having assembled his army on the Long Mountain, on the borders of Shropshire, marched to Shrewsbury, where, after some hesitation on the part of the bailiff, he was well received by the inhabitants, and joined by the tenants of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who accompanied him to Bosworth Field. In the time of Charles I., although there was a considerable party in the county who adhered to the Parliament, the preponderating feeling was in favour of the King, and the majority of the gentry and no small part of the lower orders were favourable to his cause.
The earldom of Shrewsbury, or of the county of Salop, descended from Roger de Montgomery to his second son, Hugh, who was slain in 1098 by Magnus, Prince of Norway. His elder brother, Robert, surnamed De Belesme, from his mother's family, then purchased the earldom or county of Salop for £3,000 from William Rufus. He was driven into exile by Henry I. iu 1102, when his vast possessions passed into the King's hands. The earldom does not appear to have been erected again until the year 1442, when it was renewed in favour of John Talbot, 12th Baron Talbot, the hero of the French wars, and the Lord-Lieu- tenant of Ireland, who was slain in the Battle of Chatillon in 1452; and in his descendants the earldom has continued vested ever since. Scarcely any dignity in England has passed through so few changes.
The general history of Shropshire is, in its earlier stages, little more than a record of the incessant incursions and counter-incur- sions of Anglo-Normans and Welsh, the inbursta of the brave but undisciplined mountaineers on the possessions of the Lords of the March and their retainers, and the revengeful raids, frequently ending in disaster, executed by the Anglo-Norman lords on the adjoining Welsh principality. In the succeeding period its history is much bound up with the fortunes of the Mortimers, Earls of March ; but on their absorption in the Royal family, there is little that can be called distinctive in the history of this
county, which, nevertheless; has always retained very marked characteristics of its own, arising no doubt from the historical circumstances which have long ceased to affect its history directly or perceptibly. Its long-continued separate government, the continuance of feudalism in some of its most abused forms down to a period when the rest of England had long escaped from its influence, and the antipathies and yet in some respects the resemblances consequent on its neighbourhood to Wales, are quite sufficient causes to explain any local differences which may be observed in the social characteristics of the county, and give it, even more than its less English associates of the Marches,—the inhabitants of Monmouthshire and Herefordshire,—a title to be considered separately in any Provincial history of England.
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