This month’s illustration from Alina, The White Lady of Oystermouth is a dark and brooding Oystermouth Castle, symbolic of the tempestuous times that the Lordship of Gower went through.
Alina lost everything in the barons rebellion and ended up in the Tower of London. Not only that, but she was given into the care of Hugh Despenser the Elder, the father of the king’s favourite. He gave her a hard time and she had to give him the only inheritance remaining to her: the Sussex estates, including Bramber, that she had from her father. Her son John was permitted to inherit the Mowbray estates.