On 4 December 1281, at Chester, a report was submitted to the king concerning the laws and customs of the Welsh. This was part of an ongoing survey, called the Hopton Commission, into the nature of the Welsh legal system and which laws and customs they ought to be governed by.
Goronwy ap Heilyn had been appointed as one of four Welshmen on the original seven-man commission in 1278. The personnel changed over the years, but Goronwy remained in favour and was re-appointed as a royal justice in the Marches.
The final report of the Hopton Commission takes up several pages in the Welsh Rolls. It is essentially a report of a long list of witnesses, Welsh and English, who were asked to describe their experience of native law and custom. The answers varied, sometimes depending on the attitude of the witnesses. One Welsh lord, for instance, remarked:
“Of the other articles he knows nothing, because he gives more attention to hunting than to the discussion of law.”
The responses of the cantref of Rhos in northeast Wales make for interesting reading. Goronwy was bailiff of Rhos, one of the first Welsh communities to rebel against Edward I only a few months later. This powder-keg situation is not evident in the report, in which one individual after another declared in favour of English common law over the law of Cyfraith Hywel (Hywel Dda).
Goronwy himself was key to promoting this attitude. One witness stated that the people of Rhos were well content with the new law, because their bailiff encouraged them. The ‘community of the country’ also desired common law over Cyfraith Hywel. This trend was repeated all over Wales, even among the princes: Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd himself, for instance, made use of the English law of dower on behalf of his sister, Margaret.
It was not, therefore, an issue of law that drove the North Welsh into revolt. For the real cause we must look to individuals in the royal administration of Wales. The chief culprit was Reynold de Grey, justice of Chester.
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