Owen Glyndwr and the Last Struggle for Welsh Independence

Now, upon the wild upland between the Dee valley and the watershed of the Clwyd, lay the common of Croesau, whose disputed ownership eventually set Wales and England by the ears. This strip of land had originally belonged to Owen’s estate of Glyndyfrdwy. Lord Grey, however, in Richard the Second’s time, had, in high-handed fashion, appropriated it to himself on the sole and poor excuse that it marched with his own domain. Glyndwr, being at that time probably no match for Grey at the game of physical force, possessed his fiery soul in patience, and carried the dispute in a peaceful and orderly manner to the King’s court in London. Here the justice of his claim was recognised; he won his suit and Lord Grey was compelled to withdraw his people from the disputed territory, cherishing, we may well believe, an undying grudge against the Welshman who, before the eyes of all the world and in an English court of justice, had got the better of him.

Now, however, a new King was upon the throne, and Owen apparently out of favour. The opportunity was too good an one to be missed by the grasping Norman, who, driving Owen’s people off the disputed territory, annexed it once more to his own estate. Glyndwr nevertheless, whatever the cause may have been, proved himself even under this further provocation a law-abiding person, and, refraining from all retaliation, carried his suit once more to London and laid it before the Parliament which Henry summoned in the spring of 1400, six months after he had seized the throne. But Owen, though he had been esquire to the King, was now wholly out of favour, so much so as greatly to support the tradition that he had served the unfortunate Richard in a like capacity. His suit was not even accorded the compliment of a hearing, but was dismissed with contemptuous brevity. Trevor, Bishop of St. Asaph, who was then about the King’s person and deeply in his confidence, protested in vain against the unjust and ill-advised course. As a Welshman, familiar with the condition of his own country, he solemnly warned the authorities against provoking a man who, though of only moderate estate, was so powerful and so popular among his own people.

The Bishop’s pleadings were of no avail. “What care we for the barefooted rascals?” was the scornful reply. The Welsh were in fact already in an electrical condition. In spite of their general discontent with English rule, they had been attached to Richard, and with that strength of personal loyalty which in a Celtic race so often outweighs reason, they resented with heartfelt indignation the usurpation of Bolingbroke. They were very far from sure that Richard was even dead. If he were, then Henry had killed him, which made matters worse. But if in truth he actually still lived, they were inclined to murmur as loudly and with as much show of reason at his dethronement. Richard, it will be remembered, after having been compelled publicly and formally to abdicate the throne, had been imprisoned for a time in the Tower, and then secretly conveyed from castle to castle till he reached Pontefract, where he ended his wretched life. The manner of his death remains to this day a mystery, as has been intimated already. Whether he was murdered by Henry’s orders or whether his weakened constitution succumbed to sorrow and confinement or bad treatment, no one will ever know. But his body, at any rate, was brought to London and there exposed in St. Paul’s Cathedral for the space of three days, that all the world might see that he was in truth dead. The men of Wales and the North and West of England had to take all this on hearsay, and were readily persuaded that some trickery had been played on the Londoners and that some substitute for Richard had been exposed to their credulous gaze. For years it was the policy of Henry’s enemies to circulate reports that Richard was still alive, and, as we shall see in due course, his ghost was not actually laid till the battle of Shrewsbury had been fought and won by Henry. Indeed, so late as 1406 the old Earl of Northumberland alleged, in a letter, the possibility of his being alive, while even seven years after this Sir John Oldcastle declared he would never acknowledge Parliament so long as his master, King Richard, still lived.

Glyndwr, after the insults that he had received in London, returned home, as may well be conceived, not in the best of tempers; Grey, however, was to perpetrate even a worse outrage upon him than that of which he had already been guilty and of a still more treacherous nature. It so happened that at this time the King was preparing for that expedition against the Scots which started in July, 1400. Among the nobility and gentry whom he summoned to his standard was Glyndwr, and there is no reason to assume that the Welshman would have failed to answer the call. The summons, however, was sent through Lord Grey, in his capacity of chief Marcher in North Wales; and Grey, with incredibly poor spite, kept Owen in ignorance of it till it was too late for him either to join the King’s army or to forward an explanation. Glyndwr was on this account credited at Court with being a malcontent and a rebel; and as there had been some brawling and turbulence upon the Welsh border the future chieftain’s name was included among those whom it was Grey’s duty, as it was his delight, to punish. There is no evidence that Owen had stirred. It is possible he might have made himself disagreeable to Grey upon the marches of their respective properties. It would be strange if he had not. There is no mention, however, of his name in the trifling racial disturbances that were natural to so feverish a time.

It seems pretty evident that if the malicious Lord Marcher had rested content with his plunder and let sleeping dogs lie, Owen, and consequently Wales, would never have risen. This ill-advised baron, however, was by no means content. He applied for further powers in a letter which is now extant, and got leave to proceed in force against Owen, among others, as a rebel, and to proclaim his estates, having an eye, no doubt, to their convenient propinquity in the event of confiscation.

But before Owen comes upon the scene, and during this same summer, a most characteristic and entertaining correspondence was being carried on between the irascible Lord Grey and a defiant gentleman of North Wales, Griffith ap Dafydd ap Griffith, the “strengest thief in Wales,” Grey calls him, which is to say that he accuses him of carrying off some horses from his park at Ruthin. The letters, which are in Sir Thomas Ellis’s collection, are much too long to reproduce, but they show unmistakably and not without humour, the relations which existed between Lord Grey and some of his Welsh neighbours, who, already turbulent, were later on to follow Glyndwr into the field of battle. The King, before starting for Scotland and before getting Grey’s letters, had commanded his Lord Marchers to use conciliation to all dissatisfied Welshmen and to offer free pardons to any who were openly defying his authority.

Griffith ap Dafydd, it seems, had been prominent among these restive souls, but under a promise, he declares in his letter, of being made the Master Forester and “Keyshat” of Chirkeland under the King’s charter, he had presented himself at Oswestry and claimed both the pardon and the office. In the last matter his claim was scouted, according to his own account, with scandalous breach of faith, and even his bodily safety did not seem wholly secure from the King’s friends. He narrates at some length the story of his wrongs, and tells Grey that he has heard of his intention to burn and slay in whatever country he [Griffith] is in. “Without doubt,” he continues “as many men as ye slay and as many houses as ye burn for my sake, as many will I burn and slay for your sake,” and “doute not that I will have bredde and ale of the best that is in your Lordschip.” There is something delightfully inconsequent in Griffith’s method of ending this fire-breathing epistle: “Wretten in grete haste at the Park of Brunkiffe the XIth day of June. I can no more, but God kepe your Worschipful estate in prosperity.”

Grey of Ruthin was filled with wrath at this impudence and replied to the “strengest thief in Wales” at great length, reserving his true sentiments, however, for the conclusion, where he bursts into rhyme: “But we hoope we shall do thee a pryve thyng: A roope, a ladder and a ring, heigh in a gallowes for to heng. And thus shall be your endyng. And he that made the be ther to helpyng. And we on our behalf shall be well willing for thy letter is knowlechyng.”

It is quite evident that the Greys had not lived, aliens though they were, in the land of bards for five generations for nothing. Full of wrath, and by no means free from panic, Grey writes off in all haste to the young Prince Henry, who is acting as regent during his father’s absence in the north. He encloses a duplicate of his answer to the “strengest thief in Wales” and advises the Prince of the “Misgovernance and riote which is beginning heer in the Marches of North Wales.” He begs for a fuller commission to act against the rebels, one that will enable him to pursue and take them in the “Kyng’s ground”; in the counties, that is to say, where the King’s writ runs, and not merely in the lordships which covered what are now the counties of Denbigh and Montgomery. “But worshipful and gracious Lorde, ye most comaunden the Kynge’s officers in every Cuntree to do the same.” Grey goes on to declare that there are many officers, some in the King’s shires, others in the lordships of Mortimer at Denbigh and of Arundel at Dinas Brân and in Powysland, that are “kin unto these men that be risen, and tyll ye putte these officers in better governance this Countrie of North Wales shall nevere have peese.” He enclosed also the letter of the “strengest thief,” and begs the Prince to read it and judge for himself what sort of people he has to face. He urges him to listen carefully to the full tidings that his poor messenger and esquire Richard Donne will give him, and to take counsel with the King for providing some more sufficient means of curbing the turbulent Welshmen than he now has at his disposal. “Else trewly hitt will be an unruly Cuntree within short time.”

About the same time similar despatches to the Prince sitting in Council were flying across Wales penned by one of the King’s own officers, the Chamberlain of Carnarvon. These informed the authorities, among other things, that the Constable of Harlech had trustworthy evidence of a certain Meredith ap Owen, under whose protection it may be mentioned Griffith ap Dafydd, Grey’s correspondent, lived, being in secret negotiation with the men of the outer isles (“owt yles”) of Scotland, “through letters in and owt,” that these Scottish Celts were to land suddenly at Abermaw (Barmouth), and that Meredith had warned his friends to be in readiness with horses and harness against the appointed time. It was also rumoured from this same source upon the Merioneth coast that men were buying and even stealing horses, and providing themselves with saddles, bows, arrows, and armour. “Recheles men of divers Countries,” too, were assembling in desolate and wild places and meeting privily, though their councils were still kept secret, and by these means the young men of Wales were being greatly demoralised.

No special notice seems to have been taken of these urgent warnings by those whom the King during his absence in the north had left to guard his interests. Tumults and disturbances continued both in Wales and on the Marches throughout the summer, but nothing in the shape of a general rising took place till the luckless Grey, armed perhaps with the fresh powers he had sought for, singled out Glyndwr again as the object of his vengeance. Glyndwr had shown no signs as yet of giving trouble. His name is not mentioned in the correspondence of this summer, although he was the leading and most influential Welshman upon the northern Marches. He or his people may have given Grey some annoyance, or been individually troublesome along the boundaries of the property of which he had robbed them. But the Lord Marcher in all likelihood was merely following up his old grudge in singling out Owen for his first operations, though it is possible that, having regard to the latter’s great influence and the seething state of Wales, he thought it politic to remove a man who, smarting under a sense of injustice, might recommend himself for every reason as a capable leader to his countrymen. One would have supposed that the “strengest thief in Wales” would have claimed Grey’s first attention, but Griffith ap Dafydd, who dates his letter from “Brunkiffe,”[7 - Possibly Brynkir near Criccieth. Back (#Page_120)] a name that baffles identification, was very likely out of ordinary reach. However that may be, the Lord of Ruthin, collecting his forces and joining them to those of his brother Marcher, Earl Talbot of Chirk, moved so swiftly and unexpectedly upon Owen that he had only just time to escape from his house and seek safety in the neighbouring woodlands before it was surrounded by his enemies. Whether this notable incident, so fraught with weighty consequences, took place upon the Dee or the Cynllaeth – at Glyndyfrdwy, that is to say, or at Sycherth – is uncertain; conjecture certainly favours the latter supposition, since Sycherth was beyond a doubt the most important of Owen’s mansions, as well as his favourite residence. Nearly all historians have hopelessly confounded these two places, which are seven or eight miles apart as the crow flies and cut off from each other by the intervening masses of the Berwyn Mountains. Seeing, however, that Pennant, the Welshman of topographical and archeological renown, falls into this curious mistake and never penetrated to the real Sycherth or seemed aware of its existence, it is not surprising that most English and even Welsh writers have followed suit.

It is of no importance to our story which of the two manors was the scene of Owen’s escape and his enemy’s disappointment, but the attack upon him filled the Welshman’s cup of bitterness to the brim. It was the last straw upon a load of foolish and wanton insult; and of a truth it was an evil day for Grey of Ruthin, and for his master, Henry, that saw this lion hunted from his lair; and an evil day perhaps for Wales, for, though it gave her the hero she most cherishes, it gave her at the same time a decade of utter misery and clouded the whole of the fifteenth century with its disastrous effects.

Henry was very anxious to conciliate the Welsh. Sore and angry as they were at the deposition of their favourite, Richard, the desultory lawlessness which smouldered on throughout the summer would to a certainty have died out, or remained utterly impotent for serious mischief, before the conciliatory mood of the King, had no leader for the Welsh been found during his absence in the north. Henry had beyond question abetted his council in their contemptuous treatment of his old esquire’s suit against Grey. But he may not unnaturally have had some personal grievance himself against Owen as a sympathiser with Richard; a soreness, moreover, which must have been still further aggravated if the tradition of his taking service under the late King be a true one. Of the attachment of the Welsh to Richard, and their resentment at Henry’s usurpation, we get an interesting glimpse from an independent source in the manuscript of M. Creton, a French knight who fought with Richard in Ireland and remained for some time after his deposition at the English Court. He was present at the coronation of young Prince Henry as Prince of Wales, which took place early in this year. “Then arose Duke Henry,” he says, “the King’s eldest son, who humbly knelt before him, and he made him Prince of Wales and gave him the land. But I think he must conquer it if he will have it, for in my opinion the Welsh would on no account allow him to be their lord, for the sorrow, evil, and disgrace which the English together with his father had brought on King Richard.”

The Welsh had now found a leader indeed and a chief after their own heart. Owen was forty-one, handsome, brave, and, as events were soon to prove, as able as he was courageous. Above all, the blood of Powys and of Llewelyn ab Iorwerth flowed in his veins. He was just the man, not only to lead them but to arouse the enthusiasm and stir up the long-crushed patriotism of an emotional and martial race. He seems to have stept at once to the front, and to have been hailed with acclamation by all the restless spirits that had been making the lives of the Lord Marchers a burden to them throughout the summer, and a host of others who had hitherto had no thought of a serious appeal to arms. His standard, the ancient red dragon of Wales upon a white ground, was raised either at, or in the neighbourhood of, his second estate of Glyndyfrdwy, possibly at Corwen, where many valleys that were populous even then draw together, and where the ancient British camp of Caer Drewyn, lifted many hundred feet above the Dee, suggests a rare post both for outlook, rendezvous, and defence. Hither flocked the hardy mountaineers with their bows and spears, not “ragged barefoots,” as English historians, on the strength of a single word, nudepedibus, used by an Englishman in London, have called them in careless and offhand fashion, but men in great part well armed, as became a people accustomed to war both at home and abroad, and well clad, as became a peasantry who were as yet prosperous and had never known domestic slavery. From the vales of Edeyrnion and Llangollen; from the wild uplands, too, of Yale and Bryn Eglwys; from the fertile banks of the Ceiriog and the sources of the Clwyd; and from the farther shores of Bala Lake, where beneath the shadow of the Arans and Arenig Fawr population clustered thick even in those distant days, came pouring forth the tough and warlike sons of Wales. In the van of all came the bards, carrying not only their harps but the bent bow, symbol of war. It was to them, indeed, that Glyndwr owed in great measure the swift and universal recognition that made him at once the man of the hour. Of all classes of Welshmen the bardic orders were the most passionately patriotic. For an hundred years their calling had been a proscribed one. Prior to Edward the First’s conquest a regular tax, the “Cwmwrth,” had been laid upon the people for their support. Since then they had slunk about, if not, as is sometimes said, in terror of their lives, yet dependent always for their support on private charity and doles.

But no laws could have repressed song in Wales, and indeed this period seems a singularly prolific one both in poets and minstrels. They persuaded themselves that their deliverance from the Saxon grip was at hand, and saw in the valiant figure of Owain of Glyndyfrdwy the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies that a Welsh prince should once again wear the crown of Britain. Glyndwr well knew that the sympathy of the bards would prove to him a tower of strength, and he met them more than half way. If he was not superstitious himself he understood how to play upon the superstition and romantic nature of his countrymen. The old prophecies were ransacked, portents were rife in sea and sky. The most ordinary occurrences of nature were full of significant meaning for Owen’s followers and for all Welshmen at that moment, whether they followed him or not; and in the month of August Owen declared himself, and by an already formidable body of followers was declared, “Prince of Wales.” His friend and laureate, Iolo Goch, was by his side and ready for the great occasion.

“Cambria’s princely Eagle, hail,
Of Gryffydd Vychan’s noble blood;
Thy high renown shall never fail,
Owain Glyndwr great and good,
Lord of Dwrdwy’s fertile Vale,
Warlike high born Owain, hail!”

Glyndwr would hardly have been human if he had not made his first move upon his relentless enemy, Lord Grey of Ruthin. There is no evidence whether the latter was himself at home or not, but Owen fell upon the little town on a Fair day and made a clean sweep of the stock and valuables therein collected. Thence he passed eastwards, harrying and burning the property of English settlers or English sympathisers. Crossing the English border and spreading panic everywhere, he invaded western Shropshire, capturing castles and burning houses and threatening even Shrewsbury.

The King, who had effected nothing in the North, was pulled up sharply by the grave news from Wales and prepared to hasten southwards. By September 3rd he had retraced his steps as far as Durham, and passing through Pontefract, Doncaster, and Leicester arrived at Northampton about the 14th of the same month. Here fuller details reached him, and he deemed it necessary to postpone the Parliament which he had proposed to hold at Westminster in September, till the beginning of the following year, 1401. From Northampton Henry issued summons to the sheriffs of the midland and border counties that they were to join him instantly with their levies, and that he was proceeding without delay to quell the insurrection that had broken out in North Wales. He wrote also to the people of Shrewsbury, warning them to be prepared against all attacks, and to provide against the treachery of any Welshmen that might be residing within the town. Then, moving rapidly forward and taking his son, the young Prince Henry, with him, he reached Shrewsbury about the 24th of the month.

Henry’s crown had hitherto been a thorny one and he had derived but little satisfaction from it. The previous winter had witnessed the desperate plot from which he only saved himself by his rapid ride to London from Windsor, and the subsequent capture and execution of the Earls of Salisbury, Kent, and Huntington, who had been the ringleaders. From his unsteady throne he saw both France and Scotland awaiting only an opportune moment to strike him. The whole spring had been passed in diplomatic endeavours to keep them quiet till he was sure of his own subjects. Isabella, the daughter of the King of France and child-widow of the late King Richard, had brought with her a considerable dower, and the hope of getting a part of this back, together with the young Queen herself, had kept the French quiet. But Scotland, that ill-governed and turbulent country, had been chafing under ten years of peace; and its people, or rather the restless barons who governed them, were getting hungry for the plunder of their richer neighbours in the South, and, refusing all terms, were already crossing the border. Under ordinary circumstances an English king might have left such matters in the hands of his northern nobles. But it seemed desirable to Henry that he should, on the first occasion, show both to the Scotch and his own people of what mettle he was made. He was also angered at the lack of decent excuse for their aggressions. So he hurried northward, as we have seen, and having hurled the invaders back over the border as far as Edinburgh, he had for lack of food just returned to Newcastle when the bad news from Wales arrived. He was now at Shrewsbury, within striking distance, as it seemed, of the Welsh rebels and their arch-leader, his old esquire, Glyndwr. Neither Henry nor his soldiers knew anything of Welsh campaigning or of Welsh tactics, for five generations had passed away since Englishmen had marched and fought in that formidable country and against their ancient and agile foes. Henry the Fourth, so far as we can judge, regarded the task before him with a light heart. At any rate he wasted some little time at Shrewsbury, making an example of the first Welshman of importance and mischievous tendencies that fell into his hands. This was one Grenowe ap Tudor, whose quarters, after he had been executed with much ceremony, were sent to ornament the gates of Bristol, Hereford, Ludlow, and Chester, respectively. The King then moved into Wales with all his forces, thinking, no doubt, to crush Glyndwr and his irregular levies in a short time and without much difficulty. This was the first of his many luckless campaigns in pursuit of his indomitable and wily foe, and perhaps it was the least disastrous. For though he effected nothing against the Welsh troops and did not even get a sight of them, he at least got out of the country without feeling the prick of their spears, which is more than can be said of almost any of his later ventures. His invasion of Wales, in fact, upon this occasion was a promenade and is described as such in contemporary records. He reached Anglesey without incident, and there for the sake of example drove out the Minorite friars from the Abbey of Llanfaes near Beaumaris, on the plea that they were friends of Owen. The plea seems to have been a sound one, for the Franciscans were without doubt the one order of the clergy that favoured Welsh independence. But Henry, not content with this, plundered their abbey, an inexcusable act, and one for which in after years some restitution appears to have been made. Bad weather and lack of supplies, as on all after occasions, proved the King’s worst enemies. Glyndwr and his people lay snug within the Snowdon mountains, and by October 17th, Henry, having set free at Shrewsbury a few prisoners he brought with him, was back at Worcester. Here he declared the estates of Owen to be confiscated and bestowed them on his own half-brother, Beaufort, Earl of Somerset. He little thought at that time how many years would elapse before an English nobleman could venture to take actual possession of Sycherth or Glyndyfrdwy.

Upon November 20th a general pardon was offered to all Welsh rebels who would come in and report themselves at Shrewsbury or Chester, the now notorious Owen always excepted, and on this occasion Griffith Hanmer, his brother-in-law, and one of the famous Norman-Welsh family of Pulestone had the honour of being fellow-outlaws with their chief. Their lands also were confiscated and bestowed on two of the King’s friends. It is significant, however, of the anxiety regarding the future which Glyndwr’s movement had inspired, that the grantee of the Hanmer estates, which all lay in Flint, was very glad to come to terms with a member of the family and take a trifling annuity instead of the doubtful privilege of residence and rent collecting. The castle of Carnarvon was strongly garrisoned. Henry, Prince of Wales, then only in his fourteenth year, was left at Chester with a suitable council and full powers of exercising clemency toward all Welshmen lately in arms, other than the three notable exceptions already mentioned, who should petition for it. Few, however, if any, seem to have taken the trouble to do even thus much. And in the meantime the King, still holding the Welsh rebellion as of no great moment, spent the winter in London entertaining the Greek Emperor and haggling with the King of France about the return of the money paid to Richard as the dower of his child-queen, Isabella, who was still detained in London as in some sort a hostage.

Parliament sat early in 1401 and was by no means as confident as Henry seemed to be regarding the state of Wales, a subject which formed the chief burden of their debate. Even here, perhaps, the gravity of the Welsh movement was not entirely realised; the authorities were angry but scarcely alarmed; no one remembered the old Welsh wars or the traditional defensive tactics of the Welsh, and the fact of Henry having swept through the Principality unopposed gave rise to misconceptions. There was no question, however, about their hostility towards Wales, and in the early spring of this year the following ordinances for the future government of the Principality were published.

(1) All lords of castles in Wales were to have them properly secured against assault on pain of forfeiture.

(2) No Welshman in future was to be a Justice, Chamberlain, Chancellor, Seneschal, Receiver, Chief Forester, Sheriff, Escheator, Constable of a castle, or Keeper of rolls or records. All these offices were to be held by Englishmen, who were to reside at their posts.

(3) The people of a district were to be held responsible for all breaches of the peace in their neighbourhood and were to be answerable in their own persons for all felons, robbers, and trespassers found therein.

(4) All felons and evildoers were to be immediately handed over to justice and might not be sheltered on any pretext by any lord in any castle.

(5) The Welsh people were to be taxed and charged with the expense of repairing and maintaining walls, gates, and castles in North Wales when wilfully destroyed, and for refurnishing them and keeping them in order, at the discretion of the owner, for a term not exceeding three years, except under special orders from the King.

(6) No meetings of Welsh were to be held without the permission of the chief officers of the lordship, who were to be held responsible for any damage or riot that ensued.

The gifts called “Cwmwrth,” too, exacted by collection for the maintenance of the bards or minstrels, were strictly interdicted. Adam of Usk, one of the few lay chroniclers of this period, was himself present at the Parliament of 1401 and heard “many harsh things” to be put in force against the Welsh: among others, “that they should not marry with English, nor get them wealth, nor dwell in England.” Also that the men of the Marches “might use reprisals against Welshmen who were their debtors or who had injured them,” a truce for a week being first granted to give them the opportunity of making amends.

It was much easier, however, to issue commands and instructions than to carry them out. The King seems to have felt this, and leant strongly towards a greater show of clemency. But there was sufficient panic in parts of England to override the royal scruples or common sense, and so far as intentions went the Welsh were to be shown little mercy.

Owen all this time had been lying quietly in the valley of the upper Dee, preparing for still further endeavours. The short days and the long nights of winter saw the constant passing to and fro of innumerable sympathisers through the valleys and over the hills of both North and South Wales, and a hundred harps, that had long been faint or silent, were sounding high to the glories of the unforgotten heroes of Old Wales. Mere hatred of Henry and tenderness for Richard’s memory were giving place to ancient dreams of Cambrian independence and a fresh burst of hatred for the Saxon yoke. Owen, too strong now to fear anything from isolated efforts of Lord Marchers, seems to have held high festival at Glyndyfrdwy during the winter, and with the assumption of princely rank to have kept up something of the nature of princely state. With the exception of Grey to the north and the lords of Chirk upon the east, it is probable that nearly everyone around him was by now either his friend or in wholesome dread of his displeasure.

Shropshire was panic-stricken for the time. Hotspur was busy at Denbigh, and Glyndwr, among his native hills, had it, no doubt, very much his own way during the winter months, and made full use of them to push forward his interests. His property, it will be remembered, had been confiscated. But so far from anyone venturing to take possession of Glyndyfrdwy, its halls, we are told, at this time rang with revelry and song, while Owen, in the intervals of laying his plans and organising his campaign for the ensuing summer, received the homage of the bards who flocked from every part of the principality to throw their potent influence into the scale. However much Glyndwr’s vanity and ambition may have been stirred by the enthusiasm which surged around him, and the somewhat premature exultation that with wild rhapsody hailed him as the restorer of Welsh independence, he never for a moment lost sight of the stern issues he had to face, or allowed himself to be flattered into overconfidence. Courage and coolness, perseverance and sagacity, were his leading attributes. He well knew that the enthusiasm of the bards was of vital consequence to the first success of his undertaking. It is of little moment whether he shared the superstitions of those who sang of the glorious destiny for which fate had marked him or of those who listened to the singing. It is not likely that a man who showed himself so able and so cool a leader would fail to take full advantage of forces which at this early stage were so supremely valuable.

He knew his countrymen and he knew the world, and when Wales was quivering with excitement beneath the interpretation of ancient prophecies bruited hither and thither and enlarged upon by poetic and patriotic fancy, Glyndwr was certainly not the man to damp their ardour by any display of criticism.

Already the great news from Wales had thrilled the heart of many a Welshman poring over his books at the university, or following the plough-tail over English fallows. They heard of friends and relatives selling their stock to buy arms and harness, and in numbers that yet more increased as the year advanced, began to steal home again, all filled with a rekindled glow of patriotism that a hundred years of union and, in their cases, long mingling with the Saxon had not quenched. Oxford, particularly, sent many recruits to Owen, and this is not surprising, seeing how combative was the Oxford student of that time and how clannish his proclivities. Adam of Usk, who has told us a good deal about Glyndwr’s insurrection, was himself an undergraduate some dozen years before it broke out, and has given us a brief and vivid picture of the ferocious fights upon more or less racial lines, in which the Welsh chronicler not only figured prominently himself, but was an actual leader of his countrymen; “was indicted,” he tells us, “for felonious riot and narrowly escaped conviction, being tried by a jury empanelled before a King’s Judge. After this I feared the King hitherto unknown to me and put hooks in my jaws.” These particular riots were so formidable that the scholars for the most part, after several had been slain, departed to their respective countries.

In the very next year, however, “Thomas Speke, Chaplain, with a multitude of other malefactors, appointing captains among them, rose up against the peace of the King and sought after all the Welshmen abiding and studying in Oxford, shooting arrows after them in divers streets and lanes as they went, crying out, ‘War! war! war! Sle Sle Sle the Welsh doggys and her whelpys; ho so looketh out of his house he shall in good sooth be dead,’ and certain persons they slew and others they grievously wounded, and some of the Welshmen, who bowed their knees to abjure the town,” they led to the gates with certain indignities not to be repeated to ears polite. We may also read the names of the different halls which were broken into, and of Welsh scholars who were robbed of their books and chattels, including in some instances their harps.

It is not altogether surprising, therefore, that Welsh Oxonians should have hailed the opportunity of Owen’s rising to pay off old scores. We have the names of some of those who joined him in an original paper, in the Rolls of Parliament, which fully corroborates the notice of this event; Howel Kethin (Gethin) “bachelor of law, duelling in Myghell Hall, Oxenford,” was one of them; “Maister Morres Stove, of the College of Excestre,” was another, while David Brith, John Lloid, and several others are mentioned by name. One David Leget seems to have been regarded as such an addition that Owen himself sent a special summons that he “schuld com till hym and be his man.” So things in Wales went from bad to worse; Glyndwr’s forces gaining rapidly in strength and numbers, and actively preparing in various quarters for the operations that marked the open season of 1401.

CHAPTER IV

OWEN AND THE PERCYS 1401

NORTH WALES, as already mentioned, was being now administered by the young Prince Henry, with the help of a council whose headquarters were at Chester. Under their orders, and their most active agent at this time, was Henry Percy, the famous Hotspur, eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland. He was Justice of North Wales and Constable of the castles of Chester, Flint, Conway, Denbigh, and Carnarvon, and had recently been granted the whole island of Anglesey. Hotspur, for obvious reasons, made his headquarters at the high-perched and conveniently situated fortress of Denbigh, which Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, had built at the Edwardian conquest. Its purpose was to overawe the lower portion of the Vale of Clwyd, which had fallen to Lacy’s share at the great division of plunder that signalised the downfall of the last of the Welsh native Princes. The lordship of Denbigh, it may be remarked parenthetically, since the fact becomes one of some significance later on, belonged at this time to the Mortimers, into which famous family Henry Percy had married. The latter, to whose house the King was under such great obligations, was the leading exponent of his master’s policy in Wales, both in matters of peace and war, and had been sufficiently loaded with favours to at least equalise the balance of mutual indebtedness between the houses of Northumberland and Lancaster.

Shakespeare’s fancy and dramatic instinct has played sad havoc in most people’s minds with the mutual attitude of some of the leading figures of this stormy period. It has been sufficiently disproved by his biographers, if not, indeed, by the facts of general history, that Henry of Monmouth was no more the dissipated, light-headed trifler and heartless brawler than was Glyndwr the half-barbarous and wholly boastful personage that Shakespeare has placed upon his stage. The King, it will be remembered, is depicted, in the play that bears his name, as bewailing with embittered eloquence the contrast between the characters of Hotspur and his own son, and making vain laments that the infants had not been changed while they lay side by side in their cradles. It is something of a shock to recall the fact that Henry Percy was a little older than the distraught father himself, and a contemporary, not of the Prince, but of the King, who was now about thirty-five, and many years younger than Glyndwr.

Prince Henry, even now, though not yet fourteen, seems to have had a mind of his own. He had, in truth, to face early the stern facts and hard realities of a life such as would have sobered and matured a less naturally precocious and intelligent nature than his. His youth was not spent in frivolity and debauchery in London, but upon the Welsh border, for the most part, amid the clash of arms or the more trying strain of political responsibility, aggravated by constant want of funds. One might almost say that Henry of Monmouth’s whole early manhood was devoted to a fierce and ceaseless struggle with Glyndwr for that allegiance of the Welsh people to which both laid claim. In later years, as we shall see, it was the tenacity and soldier-like qualities of the Prince that succeeded where veteran warriors had failed, and that ultimately broke the back of Glyndwr’s long and fierce resistance. The King, far from deploring the conduct or character of his valiant son, always treated him with the utmost confidence, and invariably speaks of him in his correspondence with unreserved affection and pride. He was of “spare make,” say the chroniclers who knew him, “tall and well proportioned, exceeding the stature of men, beautiful of visage, and small of bone.” He was of “marvellous strength, pliant and passing swift of limb; and so trained to feats of agility by discipline and exercise, that with one or two of his lords he could on foot readily give chase to a deer without hounds, bow, or sling, and catch the fleetest of the herd.”

Either from a feeling that Hotspur was too strong, or that popular fervour had perhaps been sufficiently aroused to the north of the Dovey, Glyndwr now turned his attention to the southern and midland districts of the country. But before following him there I must say something of the incident which was of chief importance at the opening of this year’s operations.

Conway will probably be more familiar to the general reader than any other scene of conflict we shall visit in this volume, from the fact of its being so notable a landmark on the highway between England and Ireland. The massive towers and walls of the great castle which Edward the First’s architect, Henry de Elfreton, raised here at the conquest of Wales, still throw their shadows on the broad tidal river that laps their feet. The little town which lies beneath its ramparts and against the shore is still bound fast within a girdle of high, embattled walls, strengthened at measured intervals by nearly thirty towers, and presenting a complete picture of medieval times such as in all Britain is unapproached, while immediately above it, if anything were needed to give further distinction to a scene in itself so eloquent of a storied past, rise to heaven the northern bulwarks of the Snowdon range. Here, in the early spring of this year, within the castle, lay a royal garrison closely beset by the two brothers, William and Rhys ap Tudor, of the ever famous stock of Penmynydd in Anglesey. They had both been excluded from the King’s pardon, together with Glyndwr, among whose lieutenants they were to prove themselves at this period the most formidable to the English power.

Conway Castle, as may readily be believed by those familiar with it, was practically impregnable, so long as a score or two of armed men with sufficient to sustain life and strength remained inside it. The Tudors, however, achieved by stealth what the force at their command could not at that time have accomplished by other means. For while the garrison were at church, a partisan of the Glyndwr faction was introduced into the castle in the disguise of a carpenter, and after killing the warders he admitted William ap Tudor and some forty men. They found a fair stock of provisions within the castle, though, as will be seen, it proved in the end insufficient. The main body of the besiegers retired under Rhys ap Tudor to the hills overlooking the town to await developments. They were not long left in suspense, for the news of the seizure of the castle roused Hotspur to activity, and he hastened to the spot with all the men that he could collect. Conway being one of Edward’s fortified and chartered English towns, the inhabitants were presumably loyal to the King. But Hotspur brought five hundred archers and men-at-arms and great engines, including almost certainly some of the primitive cannon of the period, to bear on the castle. William ap Tudor and his forty men laughed at their efforts till Hotspur, despairing of success by arms, went on to Carnarvon, leaving his whole force behind, to try the effect of starvation on the garrison.

At Carnarvon Henry Percy held his sessions as Justice of North Wales, openly proclaiming a pardon in the name of his master the Prince to all who would come in and give up their arms. From here, too, he sent word in a letter, still extant, that the commons of Carnarvon and Merioneth had come before him, thanking the King and Prince for their clemency and offering to pay the same dues as they had paid King Richard. He also declared that the northern districts, with the exception of the forces at Conway, were rapidly coming back to their allegiance. How sanguine and premature Hotspur was in this declaration will soon be clear enough.

In the meantime much damage had been done to Conway town by both besiegers and besieged. The latter seem to have overestimated the resources they found within the castle, for by the end of April they were making overtures for terms. William ap Tudor offered on behalf of his followers to surrender the place if a full and unconditional pardon should be granted to all inside. Hotspur was inclined to accept this proposal, but the council at Chester and the King himself, getting word of his intention, objected, and with justice, to such leniency. So the negotiations drag on. The King in a letter to his son remarks that, as the castle fell by the carelessness of Henry Percy’s people, that same “dear and faithful cousin” ought to see that it was retaken without concessions to those holding it, and, moreover, pay all the expenses out of his own pocket. In any case he urges that, if he himself is to pay the wages and maintenance of the besieging force, and supply their imposing siege train, he would like to see something more substantial for the outlay than a full and free pardon to the rebels who had caused it. It was the beginning of July before an agreement was finally arrived at, to the effect that if nine of the garrison, not specified, were handed over to justice, the rest should be granted both their lives and a free pardon. The selection of the nine inside the castle was made on a strange method, if method it can be called. For the leaders, having made an arbitrary and privy choice of the victims, had them seized and bound suddenly in the night. They were then handed over to Percy’s troops, who slaughtered them after the usual brutal fashion of the time.

A second letter of Henry Percy’s to the council demonstrates conclusively how seriously he had been at fault in his previous estimate. This time he writes from Denbigh under date of May 17th, pressing for the payment of arrears in view of the desperate state of North Wales, and further declaring that if he did not receive some money shortly he must resign his position to others and leave the country by the end of the month. But Hotspur rose superior to his threats; for at the end of May, at his own risk and expense, he made an expedition against a force of Glyndwr’s people that were in arms around Dolgelly. He was accompanied by the Earl of Arundel and Sir Hugh Browe, a gentleman of Cheshire. An action was fought of an indecisive nature at the foot of Cader Idris, after which Percy returned to Denbigh. Finding here no answer to his urgent appeal for support, he threw up all his Welsh appointments in disgust and left the country for the more congenial and familiar neighbourhood of the Scottish border. For he held office here also, being joined with his father in the wardenship of the Eastern Marches of Scotland.

Hotspur was even now, at this early stage and with some apparent cause, in no very good humour with the King. It is certain, too, that Glyndwr at this time had some special liking for the Percys, though they were his open enemies, and it is almost beyond question that they had a personal interview at some place and date unknown during the summer.

Leaving North Wales in a seething and turbulent state, with local partisans heading bands of insurgents (if men who resist an usurper can be called insurgents) in various parts of the country, we must turn to Owen and the South. Crossing the Dovey, Glyndwr had sought the mountain range that divides Cardigan from what is now Radnorshire (then known as the district of Melenydd), and raised his standard upon the rounded summit of Plinlimmon. It was a fine position, lying midway between North and South Wales, within sight of the sea and at the same time within striking distance of the fertile districts of the Centre and the South. Behind him lay the populous seaboard strip of Ceredigion created at Edward’s conquest into the county of Cardigan. Before him lay Radnor, and Carmarthen, and the fat lordships of Brycheiniog, to be welded later into the modern county of Brecon. Along the Cardiganshire coast in Owen’s rear a string of castles frowned out upon the Irish Sea, held, since it was a royal county, by the constables of the King, who were sometimes of English, sometimes of Welsh, nationality. Inland, as far as the Herefordshire border, was a confused network of lordships, held for the most part direct from the King on feudal tenure by English or Anglo-Welsh nobles, and each dominated by one or more grim castles of prodigious strength, against which the feeble engines and guns of those days hurled their missiles with small effect. Some of these were royal or quasi-royal property and looked to the Crown for their defence. The majority, however, had to be maintained and held by owners against the King’s enemies, subject to confiscation in case of any deficiency in zeal or precaution. Ordinarily impregnable though the walls were, the garrisons, as we shall see, were mostly small, and they were incapable of making much impression upon the surrounding country when once it became openly hostile and armed.