Despite a frustrated ecclesiastical career - his ongoing failure to secure the See of St David's embittered him - Giraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales Gerald de Barry c. 1146â1220/23) composed many remarkable literary works initially while employed as a royal clerk for Henry II and subsequently in semi-retirement in Lincoln. Eight volumes of his works were compiled as part of the Rolls Series of British medieval material. Volume 8 edited by archivist George F. Warner (1845â1936) and published in 1891 contains his 'Liber de principis instructione' a moral treatise including much invective against the Angevin court. Written while Louis of France - in whose support Giraldus composed a poem - was scheming to replace King John the Latin text in Giraldus' vigorous and anecdotal style gives a vivid picture of contemporary politics while the English introduction illuminates nineteenth-century interest in the period. Language: English