Laurel for Gwenhwyvar verch Owen ap Morgan

Right trusty friend,

Being given to understand from those in our service how honorably you, our subject Gwenhwyvar verch Owen ap Morgan, hath provided, created, constructed, and endorsed works to benefit the Crown and populace in the giving and conveying of our favor, we should do you great wrong, in case we should not let you understand how thankfully we accept generosity by your hands.

Therefore, we think for the securing of the Kingdom’s credit, to make you a proportion of materials to be used in the creation of these letters, which, with the hope of balancing the ledger at some day in the future, we mean in no case you shall exceed,

And that is to allow you by the day for your brushes, two hairs from a squirrel

for your ink, the twentieth part of a vial to comfort your soul,

and as much as the griffin’s sacred water as you care to use.

On occasion, as is fit for a lady of your quality, we can be content to enlarge your diet for your work, pigments purchased at the lowest cost from the most middling of merchants.

And only the smallest trimmings of vellum shall be used, for the stockmen have notified us with great alarm of the need for conservation of our sheep, cattle, and goats for consumption in the coming winter, and not for correspondence.

To assist in the settling of the Kingdom’s debt, on this 12th day of September, in the 50th year of our Society, being 2015 in the common reckoning, we do hereby invite and induct you into our ancient and honorable order of the Laurel to ensure the future thrifty dispensation of your wealth of knowledge.

This order, our meaning is, you shall inviolably observe, and so may you right well assure yourself of a most thankful debtor to a so well deserving creditor.

Cewn Aethelflaed

Toyaoka Tenno