Chapter Fifty-Eight

Nos reddemus filium Lewelini statim, et omnes obsides de Wallia, et cartas que nobis liberate fuerunt in securitatem pacis.

We will immediately give up the son of Llywelyn and all the hostages of Wales, and the charters delivered to us as security for the peace.

The treatment of hostages in general and Welsh hostages in particular has already been fully illustrated.[1042] The patent and close rolls of the reign show a constant coming and going of these living pledges of the peace. A writ of 18th December, 1214, for example, bade Engelard de Cygony restore three Welsh nobles to Llywelyn.[1043] Since then, new hostages, including Llywelyn’s own son, had been handed over; and charters also had apparently been pledged. John now promised unconditionally to restore all of these; and the Welsh Prince must have breathed more freely when this was fulfilled, allowing him, his son by his side, with a light heart to prepare for the hostilities against the English Crown, long seen to be inevitable and now to be resumed in alliance with the disaffected English barons.

The Articles of the Barons had to some extent treated this question of the Welsh hostages and charters as an open one, referring its final determination to the arbitration of Stephen Langton and such others as he might nominate to act with him. The point had apparently been decided in favour of the Welsh before the Charter was engrossed in its final form.[1044]