Another old soldier

Another petition from an old Welsh soldier, c.1322-34:

RIRID AP CARWET TO THE KING AND COUNCIL:

He served King Edward I in Aragon, Gascony and other places and lands loyally all his days. The said King, after his conquest in the parts of North Wales, ordained and granted to all freemen of those parts to hold from that time forward their lands and tenements of which they were then seised in the same manner as they held them before, as is contained in the Statute of Rhuddlan. Ririd, a free tenant of the King, by this grant, this statute and his ancient seisin, held peaceably after the conquest a fishery near Aberglaslyn in the commote of Eifionydd, as his father and ancestors held it all their times, which fishery is situated in a fresh water river running there, lying between the lands of Ririd on the one part and the other. Notwithstanding this statute, Sir William Trumwyn, formerly sheriff of Caernarvon, came and, without any trespass or forfeit of Ririd, wrongfully and voluntarily deprived and diseissed him of his fishery and took it into the King’s hands; so that from that time, from year to year, the King had received all the issues of the fishery and Riris has been entirely deprived of the same. For which wrong Ririd seeks a remedy.

This is essentially another complaint against Roger Mortimer of Chirk, who held the office of Justice in Wales from 1308-15 and then again from 1316-22. Trumwyn was sheriff of Caernarvon from 1309-14, and would have deprived Ririd of his land under Mortimer’s auspice. Edward II’s response to Ririd’s plea was vague, and it may be the king wished to avoid offending Mortimer. For all his apparent popularity in Wales, Edward had no qualms about re-appointing a notoriously corrupt and oppressive nobleman to govern the Welsh. 

Ririd must have been getting on in years. His claim to have served in Aragon can only relate to 1282-3, when Philip III of France summoned Edward I as his vassal to do military service against the king of Aragon. In 1283 troops were raised in Bordeaux for the campaign, though it isn’t clear whether any were actually sent to Aragon. If Ririd’s petition is correct, at least one Welshman made his way over the Pyrenees (pictured above).