Owen Glyndwr and the Last Struggle for Welsh Independence

But all this earlier period of the summer, while Glyndwr was marching this way and that throughout South Wales, now repelling the Flemings on the west, now ravaging the English border on the east, matters in England closely connected with his own fortunes were quickly ripening for one of the most critical events of this period of English history. The Prince of Wales, after his brief raid on Sycherth and Glyndyfrdwy, had remained inactive at Shrewsbury, unable from lack of means to move the levies of the four border counties, who remained in whole or part, and somewhat discontented, beneath his banner. The Pell Rolls show a note for July 17th, of the sum of £8108 for the wages of four barons, 20 knights, 476 esquires, and 2500 archers. The King, who had been by no means deaf to the frantic appeals which had come pouring in upon him from Wales, had fully intended to act upon them in person. He was always as ready, however, to answer a summons from the North as he was reluctant to face the truth in the West. Wales had been virtually wrested from him by Glyndwr, and he had ample warning that the latter was even preparing for an invasion of England, where there existed a growing faction, wearied by his ceaseless demands for money, which produced so little glory and so much disgrace.

But once again he turned from scenes that for a long time had been a standing reproach, both to himself and England, and started for the North. Even if he had been only bent on assisting the Percys in stemming a threatened invasion of the Scots, one might well suppose that the virtual loss of what was a considerable portion of his dominions near home, together with an equally imminent invasion from that quarter, would demand his first attention. But there is not even this much to be said. The King cherished aspirations to be another Edward the First; he had already achieved a precarious footing in Scotland and made grants of conquered territory across the border to English subjects, always providing, of course, they could maintain themselves there. One has the strange picture of an otherwise sensible and long-headed monarch accepting perennial defeat and defiance in Wales, while straining after the annexation of distant territories that were as warlike as they were poor. The Percys had in fact for the past few months been playing at war with the Scots, and deceiving Henry, while laying plans for a deep game in quite another part of Britain. The King, stern and at times even cruel towards the world in general, was astonishingly complacent and trustful towards that arch-plotter, the Earl of Northumberland, who in defiance of his master, though in strict accord with equity, had kept his hold upon the Scottish prisoners of Homildon; answering the King’s letters of remonstrance in light and even bantering vein. But now all trace of ill-feeling would seem to have vanished, as Henry and his forces, on July 10th, rest for a day or two at Higham Ferrers, on their way to the assistance of the Percys; not to stem an invasion of the Scots, but to further the King’s preposterous and ill-timed designs upon their territory. But this mad project was nipped in the bud at the Northamptonshire town in a manner that may well have taken Henry’s breath away and brought him to his senses.

He has just informed his council that he has received news from Wales telling him of the gallant bearing of his beloved son, and orders £1000 to be paid to his war chest. He then proceeds to tell them that he is on his way to succour his dear and loyal cousins, the Earl of Northumberland and his son Henry, in the conflict which they have honourably undertaken for him, and as soon as that campaign shall have ended, with the aid of God he will hasten to Wales. The next day he heard that his “beloved and loyal cousins” were in open revolt against him, and, instead of fighting the Scots, were hastening southwards with all their Homildon prisoners as allies and an ever gathering force to join Glyndwr.

What was the exact nature of this alliance, whose proclamation fell upon the King like a thunderclap, can only be a matter of conjecture. There are whispers, as we know, of messages and messengers passing between Glyndwr and Mortimer on the one hand and the Percys on the other, this long time. That they intended to act in unison there is, of course, no doubt. Shakespeare has anticipated by some years and used with notable effect the famous “Tripartite Alliance,” which was signed by Glyndwr, Mortimer, and the Earl of Northumberland at the Dean of Bangor’s house at Aberdaron on a later occasion. One regrets that in this particular he is not accurate, for the dramatic effect, which as a poet he had no reason to resist, is much more telling before the field of Shrewsbury than it can be at any subsequent time.

The well-known scene, where Glyndwr, Mortimer, and Hotspur stand before an outspread map of England, and divide its territory between them, is probably to thousands of Englishmen their only distinct vision of the Welsh chieftain as an historical character. But though this formal indenture, as we shall see, was entered into much later, there is no doubt that some very similar intention existed even now in the minds of the allies. Glyndwr’s reward was obvious. As to the throne of England, Richard’s ghost was to be resuscitated for the purpose of creating enthusiasm in certain credulous quarters and among the mob; but the young Earl of March was the real and natural candidate for the throne. Edmund Mortimer, however, stood very near to his young nephew. He was Hotspur’s brother-in-law, and who could tell what might happen? He had the sympathy of the Welsh, not only because his property lay in their country, but because he could boast the blood of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, to say nothing of his intimate connection with the Welsh hero himself. The Earl of Northumberland may have had some understanding with regard to northern territory, such as he bargained for in later years, but of this we know nothing. It was an ill-managed affair in any case, and it is probable that the conditions in case of victory were loosely defined.

The King had reached Lichfield when the astounding news burst upon him that he was betrayed, and that he had not only to fight Glyndwr and the Scotch, but to wrestle with the most powerful of his subjects for his crown. Glyndwr was, of course, in the secret, but plans had miscarried, or messengers had gone astray. Without wearying the reader with proofs and dates, it will be sufficient to recall the fact that on July 12th Owen was negotiating with Carew, and for the next few days his hands and head were busily at work before the castle of Dynevor. He had at that time no thought of leaving South Wales, and this was within four or five days of the great fight at Shrewsbury, nearly a hundred miles off, which poets and romancists have painted him, of all people, as cynically regarding from the safe vantage-point of a distant oak tree!

Henry, prompt in an emergency and every inch a soldier when outside Wales, lost not a moment. He had with him but a moderate force, mostly his loyal Londoners. The Prince of Wales was near Shrewsbury with his recent reinforcements, and quickly summoned. Urgent orders were sent out to the sheriffs of the home counties, and on Friday, July 20th, in the incredibly short space of five days, the King and Prince entered Shrewsbury with an army of nearer thirty than twenty thousand men. They were just in time, for that same evening Hotspur (for his father had been detained in Northumberland by illness) with a force usually estimated at about 15,000, arrived at the city gates, only to find to his surprise the royal standard floating from the castle tower, and the King already in possession. It was then late in the afternoon and Hotspur led his army to Berwick, a hamlet three miles to the north-west of Shrewsbury. Though his father was not present, his uncle, Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, had lately joined him, having stolen away from the side of Prince Henry, whose chief adviser he had lately been. The Scottish Earl Douglas, who had been his prisoner at Homildon, was now his ally, having, together with his comrades in misfortune, purchased liberty in this doubtless congenial fashion. Percy had left Northumberland with 160 followers. His force had now grown, as I have already remarked, to something like 15,000 men.

The County Palatine of Chester, always turbulent and still faithful to Richard’s memory, was most strongly represented in his ranks, and its archers were among the best in England.10 Numbers, too, of Glyndwr’s supporters from Flint and the Powys lordships joined his standard, and Richard’s badge of the White Hart was prominent on their shields and tunics. But Hotspur had assuredly reckoned on meeting Glyndwr, and now where was he? He had certainly never counted on being stopped by the King with a superior force upon the borders of Wales. He had now no choice but to fight, and even Hotspur’s fiery spirit must have drooped for a moment when he counted the odds.

The morning of the 21st broke and there was still no Glyndwr and no alternative but battle; so, marching his troops to Heytely or Bull field, a short three miles to the north of Shrewsbury on the Wem road, he drew them up in order of battle, near the place where the church that was raised above their graves now stands.

Hotspur for the moment was depressed. He had just discovered that the hamlet where he had spent the night was called Berwick, and a soothsayer in the North had foretold that he should “fall at Berwick,” meaning, of course, the famous town upon the Tweed. The coincidence affected Percy and showed that if Glyndwr was superstitious so also was he; for, turning pale, he said: “I perceive my plough is now drawing to its last furrow.” But the most lion-hearted soldier in England soon shook off such craven fears and proceeded to address his men in a speech which Holinshed has preserved for us: a spirited and manly appeal which we must not linger over here. The King was curiously slow in moving out against his foes, and even when, after noontide, he had drawn up his formidable army in their front, he gave his faithless friends yet one more chance, sending the Abbot of Shrewsbury to offer them good terms even at this eleventh hour, and it was certainly not fear that prompted the overture. Hotspur was touched and inclined to listen, but his hot-headed or mistrustful uncle of Worcester overruled him, even going himself to the King’s army and using language that made conciliation impossible. It must have been well into the afternoon when the King threw his mace into the air as a signal for the bloodiest battle to open that since the Norman conquest had dyed the soil of England.

With such a wealth of description from various authors, more or less contemporary, it is not easy to pick out in brief the most salient features of this sanguinary fight. It will be sufficient to say that the shooting of Percy’s Cheshire archers was so terrific at the opening of the battle that the royal army was thrown into confusion and only saved from rout by the valour and presence of mind of the King, who rallied his shaken troops and bore upon the smaller forces of his enemy with irresistible pressure; that the desperate charges of Hotspur and Lord Douglas, cleaving lanes through their enemy as they sought the King’s person, were the leading personal features of a fight where all were brave. The valour of the young Prince Henry, too, seeing how prominent a figure he is in our story, must be recorded, and how, though badly wounded by an arrow in the face, he resisted every effort to drag him from the field and still sought the spot where the fight was fiercest and the dead thickest. The courage and coolness of the King, too, whose crown and kingdom were at stake, shone brightly in the deadly mêlée, where his standard was overthrown, its bearer slain, and the Constable of England, Lord Stafford, killed at his feet. Hotspur, who had fought like a lion with a score of knightly opponents, fell at length, pierced by a missile from some unknown hand; and before sunset his army was in full flight. The slaughter was tremendous, and lasted far into the dark hours; for it is curiously significant that as an early moon rose over that bloody field, its face was quickly hidden by an eclipse that may well have excited the already strained imaginations of so superstitious an age. About four thousand men lay dead upon the field, among them two hundred knights and gentlemen of Cheshire alone, who had followed Percy. The Earl of Worcester and Lord Douglas were both captured, the former receiving a traitor’s death. The corpse of the gallant Hotspur, after being buried by a kinsman, was dug up again and placed standing upright between two millstones in Shrewsbury market-place, that all men might know that the fierce Northumberland whelp, the friend of Glyndwr, was dead. His quarters were then sent, after the manner of the time, to decorate the walls of the chief English cities, the honour of exhibiting his head over the gates being reserved for York.

Under Henry’s patronage

The more illustrious dead were buried in the graveyards of Shrewsbury. The rest were, for the most part, huddled into great pits adjoining the spot where the old church, that was raised under Henry’s patronage as a shrine wherein masses might be said for their souls, still lifts its grey tower amid the quiet Shropshire fields.11

And all this time Glyndwr, in far Carmarthen, was in total ignorance of what a chance he had missed, and what a calamity had occurred. If Hotspur had been better served in his communications, or fate in this respect had been kinder, and Glyndwr with 10,000 men had stood by the Percys’ side, how differently might the course of English history have run! It is fortunate for England, beyond a doubt, that Hotspur fell at Shrewsbury and that Glyndwr was not there, but from the point of view of his after reputation, one cannot resist the feeling that a great triumph upon the open plains of Shropshire, in an historic fight, would have set that seal upon Glyndwr’s renown which some perhaps may think is wanting. Reckless deeds of daring and aggression are more picturesque attributes for a popular hero. But Glyndwr’s fame lies chiefly in the patience of his strategy, his self-command, his influence over his people, his tireless energy, his strength of will, and dogged persistence. He had to do a vast deal with small means: to unite a country honeycombed with alien interests, to fight enemies at home and beyond the mountain borders of his small fatherland, and to struggle with a nation that within man’s memory had laid France prostrate at its feet. Private adventures and risky experiments he could not afford. A great deal of statecraft fell to his share. His efforts for Welsh independence could not ultimately succeed without allies, and while he was stimulating the irregular military resources of the Principality, and making things safe there with no gentle hand, his mind was of necessity much occupied with the men and events that might aid him in the three kingdoms and across the seas. His individual prowess would depend almost wholly on tradition and the odes of his laureate, Iolo Goch, if it were not for his feat against the Flemings when surrounded by them on the Plinlimmon Mountains:

“Surrounded by the numerous foe,Well didst thou deal the unequal blow,How terrible thy ashen spear,Which shook the bravest heart with fear.More horrid than the lightning’s glance,Flashed the red meteors from thy lance,The harbinger of death.”

But Glyndwr’s renown, with all its blemishes, rests on something more than sword-cuts and lance-thrusts. He had been three years in the field, and for two of them paramount in Wales. Now, however, with the rout and slaughter of Shrewsbury, and the immense increase of strength it gave to Henry, a crushing blow had surely been struck at the Welsh chieftain and his cause. Numbers of Owen’s people in Flint and the adjoining lordships, cowed by the slaughter of half the gentry of sympathetic Cheshire, and their own losses, came in for the pardon that was freely offered. The King had a large army, too, on the Welsh border, and the moment would seem a singularly propitious one for bringing all Wales to his feet, while the effect of his tremendous victory was yet simmering in men’s minds. But Henry was too furious with the Percys for cool deliberation. The old Earl had not been absent from the field of Shrewsbury from disinclination, but from illness; and he was now in the North stirring up revolt upon all sides. But the ever active King, speeding northward, checkmated him at York in such a way that there was no option for the recusant nobleman but to throw himself at his injured prince’s feet and crave forgiveness. It is to Henry’s credit that he pardoned his ancient friend. Perhaps he thought the blood of two Percys was sufficient for one occasion; so the old Earl rode out of York by the King’s side, under the festering head of his gallant son, on whom he had been mean enough to throw the onus of his own faithlessness, and was placed for a time out of mischief at Coventry.

By the time, however, that Henry came south again the battle of Shrewsbury, so far as Wales was concerned, might never have been fought. Glyndwr’s confidence in the South was so great that he had himself gone north to steady the men of Flint and the borders in their temporary panic. His mission seems to have been so effective that by the time the King was back it was the town of Chester and the neighbouring castles that were the victims of a panic. An edict issued by Prince Henry, who lay recovering from his wound at Shrewsbury, ordered the expulsion of every Welshman from the border towns, the penalty for return being death. Strenuous efforts were again made to stop all trade between England and Wales, but it was useless; a continuous traffic in arms and provisions went steadily on, the goods being exchanged for cattle and booty of all kinds in which Owen’s mountain strongholds now abounded. On the Welsh side of Chester, hedges and ditches were hastily formed as a protection against invasion, and watchers were kept stationed night and day along the shores of the Dee estuary.

It was the 8th of September when Henry arrived from the north and prepared at Worcester for his long-deferred expedition against Glyndwr. He first issued formal orders to the Marcher barons to keep their castles in readiness against assault and in good repair! – a superfluous warning one would have thought, and not devoid of irony, when addressed to men who for a year or two had just managed to maintain a precarious existence against the waters of rebellion that surged all round them. Henry was at his very wits’ end for money, and all those in his interest were feeling the pinch of poverty. It so happened that at this juncture the Archbishop of Canterbury was attending the Court at Worcester, and the sight of his magnificent retinue aroused dangerous thoughts in the minds of the barons around the King, who had spent so much blood and treasure in his service and were now sorely pinched for want of means. The same ideas occurred to Henry, if indeed they were not suggested to him, and in no uncertain voice he called upon the Church for pecuniary aid against Glyndwr. The Archbishop took in the situation and sniffed spoliation in the air. At the bare idea of such intentions he grew desperate, and with amazing courage bearded the King himself, swearing that the first man who laid a finger on church property should find his life no longer worth living and his soul for ever damned. The King was forced to soothe the excited cleric, who in later and calmer moments came to the conclusion that it would be perhaps prudent for the Church to offer some pecuniary assistance to the Crown. This was ultimately done, and the sum contributed was about enough to pay the expenses of one of the forty or fifty castles that were gradually falling into Owen’s hands.

In the meantime, Glyndwr had invaded Herefordshire, penetrating as far as Leominster, and had compelled that county to make special terms with him and pay heavily for them too. The King, however, had now everything in train for a general advance through South Wales. What he did there and what he left undone must be reserved for another chapter.

CHAPTER VII

OWEN AND THE FRENCH 1403-1404

KING Henry’s fourth expedition against Glyndwr, in spite of all the talk, the preparations, the hard-wrung money grants, the prayers and supplications for aid, will make but scant demands upon our space. He spent some days at Hereford, issuing orders for stores to be forwarded to the hard-pressed castles of South Wales from the port of Bristol, though it is obvious that only some of them could be relieved by sea. The names of a few of these may interest Welshmen. They were Llandovery, Crickhoell, Tretower, Abergavenny, Caerleon, Goodrich, Ewyas Harold, Usk, Caerphilly, Ewyas Lacy, Paines, Brampton Bryan, Lyonshall, Dorston, Manorbier, Stapleton, Kidwelly, Lampeter, Brecon, Cardiff, Newport, Milford, Haverford-west, Pembroke, and Tenby.

The King left Hereford about the 15th of September and he was seated a few days later among the ruins of Carmarthen, the very centre of the recent wars and devastations. Glyndwr and his people were, of course, nowhere to be seen, nor did the King show any disposition to hunt for them. He remained about two days at Carmarthen, and contented himself with issuing all kinds of orders, proclamations, pardons, and confiscations, which were for the most so much waste paper. Leaving behind him the Earl of Somerset with an inefficient garrison and no money to pay them, he then faced about, and made the best of his way back again, arriving at Hereford within four days. When one recalls Edward the First, who considered nearly three years of personal residence none too short a time in which to establish order in Wales, which was at that time by no means so wholly hostile as now, the feebleness of Henry’s Welsh policy strikes one with singular force. Had he been his cousin Richard or an Edward the Second, a man sluggish in war and a slave to luxury, the explanation would be simple enough; but though his Court was extravagant, almost culpably so, the King himself was an energetic, serious-minded soldier, and a man of affairs rather than of pleasure. One might well have supposed, after the decisive victory at Shrewsbury, and the firm grip on the throne which the destruction of his domestic enemies gave to the King, that Glyndwr’s hour had at last come.

It is almost wearisome to tell the same old tale of “scuttle,” the same trumpeting forth of orders to captains and governors of castles and Marcher barons to do, with scant men and means, what their master had so conspicuously flinched from with the power of England, such as he had made it, at his command. It is needless to say that the King’s homeward tracks through Wales were obliterated, when his back was turned, like those upon sand, before the returning tide of Owen and his Welshmen, who had swept through Glamorgan and were pressing Cardiff, even while Henry was still travelling homewards. He had hardly reached London before he received piteous letters from the chiefs of the garrison that had been left at Carmarthen, begging him to send the Duke of York there with strong reinforcements or they were lost men, and protesting that in no case could they stay there a day longer than the stipulated month, for their men would not stand by them.

Glyndwr had received some sort of consolation from the French for the blow struck at his English allies on the plains of Shrewsbury. Their corsairs had been harrying the shores of England throughout the summer. Plymouth, Salcombe, and other places had been raided, while flotillas were even now hovering round the coast of Wales, in the interests of Owen. Herefordshire, which had received the long-looked-for King with such unbounded joy in September, and hailed him as its deliverer, was, in October, in as bad a plight as ever, for Glyndwr’s men had again poured over the borders. And though the King with his thousands had come and gone like a dream, the people of Hereford and Gloucester were now glad enough to welcome the Duke of York with nine hundred spearmen and archers. The Courtenays with a force of Devonshire men had been ordered across the Severn sea to relieve Cardiff, but this they failed in doing, as now not only that fortress, but Caerphilly, Newport, Caerleon, and Usk fell into Owen’s hands.

The number of men that Glyndwr had with him at various times is difficult to estimate. Now and then contemporary writers quote the figures. In South Wales lately it will be remembered he had nearly ten thousand. In Carmarthen at another time the number from an equally credible source is estimated at thirty thousand. His spearmen were better than his archers. The Welsh archers, till the Union and the wars with France, had used short bows made generally of twisted twigs and formidable only at a close range. Archery, however, in its highly developed state must have become familiar by this time, through the co-operation of the Welsh in the French wars. The Welsh spears were exceptionally long, and the men of Merioneth had a special reputation for making efficient use of them. They were all, however, eminently light troops, though equipped with steel caps, breastplates, and often with greaves. “In the first attack,” says Giraldus Cambrensis, “the Welsh are more than men, in the second less than women,” and he knew them well. But their want of staunchness under repulse, he takes care to tell us, was temporary. They were a people well-nigh impossible to conquer, he declares, from the rapidity with which they recovered from defeat and the tenacity with which they returned, not always immediately, but sooner or later, to the attack, refusing to acknowledge ultimate defeat, and desperately attached to liberty. Glyndwr had practically no cavalry. Horses were very widely in use, perhaps ponies still more so, amid the mediæval Welsh, and their gentry and nobility went mounted to war from the earliest times. But it is likely that in Wales itself, at any rate, all ranks did their actual fighting on foot.