The chieftains of South Wales were drawn from their new allegiance to join the English forces, and Llewelyn, prisoned in his fastnesses, was at last driven to submit.

But the ink of the treaty was hardly dry before Wales was again on fire; a common fear of the English once more united its chieftains, and the war between John and his barons soon removed all dread of a new invasion.

Absolved from his allegiance to an excommunicated king, and allied with the barons under Fitz-Walter--too glad to enlist in their cause a prince who could hold in check the nobles of the border country where the royalist cause was strongest--Llewelyn seized his opportunity to reduce Shrewsbury, to annex Powys, the central district of Wales where the English influence had always been powerful, to clear the royal garrisons from Caermarthen and Cardigan, and to force even the Flemings of Pembroke to do him homage.
[Sidenote: Llewelyn and the Bards] England watched these efforts of the subject race with an anger still mingled with contempt.

"Who knows not," exclaims Matthew Paris as he dwells on the new pretensions of the Welsh ruler, "who knows not that the Prince of Wales is a petty vassal of the King of England ?" But the temper of Llewelyn's own people was far other than the temper of the English chronicler.

The hopes of Wales rose higher and higher with each triumph of the Lord of Snowdon.