The invectives in which Gerald poured out his resentment against the Angevins are the cause of half the scandal about Henry and his sons which has found its way into history.

His life was wasted in an ineffectual attempt to secure the see of St.David's, but his pungent pen played its part in rousing the nation to its later struggle with the Crown.
[Sidenote: Romance] A tone of distinct hostility to the Church developed itself almost from the first among the singers of romance.

Romance had long before taken root in the court of Henry the First, where under the patronage of Queen Maud the dreams of Arthur, so long cherished by the Celts of Britanny, and which had travelled to Wales in the train of the exile Rhys ap Tewdor, took shape in the History of the Britons by Geoffry of Monmouth.
Myth, legend, tradition, the classical pedantry of the day, Welsh hopes of future triumph over the Saxon, the memories of the Crusades and of the world-wide dominion of Charles the Great, were mingled together by this daring fabulist in a work whose popularity became at once immense.

Alfred of Beverley transferred Geoffry's inventions into the region of sober history, while two Norman _trouveurs_, Gaimar and Wace, translated them into French verse.

So complete was the credence they obtained that Arthur's tomb at Glastonbury was visited by Henry the Second, while the child of his son Geoffry and of Constance of Britanny received the name of the Celtic hero.