Owen Glyndwr and the Last Struggle for Welsh Independence

About the time of the second of these two victories over the Welsh, the King, encouraged no doubt by such successes, began making great preparations for a personal expedition against Glyndwr. His activity in other parts, for the North was always simmering, had been prodigious. He now arrived at Hereford early in May, full of determination to support in person the zeal so lately aroused in his hard-worked constables and lieutenants, and once and for all to suppress the accursed magician who for five years had so entirely got the better of him.

But Glyndwr previous to these defeats had sent emissaries to the North. Three of his immediate councillors were in Northumberland in secret conclave with its crafty and ill-advised Earl. The King, it will be remembered, had not only forgiven Percy but had restored to him all his confiscated estates. That he was prepared again to risk the substance for the shadow (to say nothing of committing an act of ingratitude that even for those days was indecent) is conclusive evidence that his dead son, Hotspur, was not the evil genius his father had with poor spirit represented him to be when craving mercy from the King. Glyndwr, however, had nothing to do with the old Earl’s conscience when for the second time he seemed anxious for an alliance. Bishop Trevor, with Bifort, Glyndwr’s Bishop of Bangor, and David Daron, Dean of Bangor, were now all in the North intriguing with Northumberland. In the early days of the Welsh rising Glyndwr seemed to have some personal and even sentimental leaning towards the Percys. There was nothing of that, however, in his present attitude, which was purely a business one, seeing that the French, as he thought, and rightly so, were on the point of coming to his assistance, and the North about to rise in arms against Henry. Even the loss of men and of his own prestige, entailed by the defeats of Grosmont and Pwll-Melyn and the falling away of Glamorgan, might be much more than counterbalanced. The first mutterings of the outbreak came from York, but they were loud enough to pull the King up at Hereford and start him at full speed for Yorkshire. Once more his sorely tried servants in Wales had to do as best they could without him, though some compensation in the way of men and supplies was sent to their relief. It is not within my province to follow Henry’s operations this summer in the North, but it is necessary to our narrative to state that Percy escaped from York only just in time, having refused the really magnanimous conditions of pardon that the King sent on to him. He fled to Scotland, taking with him his fellow-conspirator, Earl Bardolph, and Glyndwr’s three emissaries, Trevor, Bifort, and David Daron. Another Welshman of Owen’s party, however, who has not been hitherto mentioned, Sir John Griffith, was caught at York and executed. Many persons besides Percy were implicated in the plot, Archbishop Scrope for one, whose execution, with many accompanying indignities, sent a thrill of horror throughout Britain and Europe; Judge Gascoine’s courageous refusal to sentence the prelate being, of course, one of the familiar incidents of the reign. For the second time the Percy estates were confiscated, while the suppression of the revolt and the punishment of the rebels kept the King lingering for a long time in the North. At the end of July he received the serious news that the French had landed in South Wales, and, hurrying southward, reached Worcester about the 10th of August, to find Glyndwr with some ten thousand Welshmen and nearly half as many French within nine miles of that city.

We must now return to Wales and to the earlier part of the summer, that we may learn how this transformation came about within so short a time. After Glyndwr’s two defeats in March, and the subsequent panic among the men of Glamorgan and no doubt also among those of Gwent and parts of Brycheiniog, the chieftain himself with a following of tried and still trusty men went to North Wales. Welsh historians, following one another, paint most dismal pictures of Owen this summer, representing him as a solitary wanderer, travelling incognito about the country, sometimes alone, sometimes with a handful of faithful followers, now lurking in friends’ houses, now hiding in mountain caverns, but always dogged by relentless foes. All these things he did in after years with sufficient tenacity to satisfy the most enthusiastic lover of romance. That his condition can have come to such a pass in the summer of 1405 is too manifestly absurd to be worth discussion. He had received, it is true, a blow severe enough to discourage the localities near which it happened, and probably to frighten a good many of his friends in other parts. It is possible, too, some may have sued secretly for pardon. But when we consider that in March all Wales except certain castles was faithful, and that his troops were attacking the English border when repulsed; that in May the King and his lieutenants were only preparing to invade Wales; that no operations of moment were so far as we know executed during the early summer against the Welsh; and finally that in July Glyndwr met the French at Tenby with ten thousand men behind him, it is quite incredible that 1405 can have been the season in which he spent months as an outcast and a wanderer. We may, I think, take it as certain that Glyndwr’s star had not yet sensibly declined, and that what he had recently lost might well be considered as more than cancelled by the appearance in Milford Bay of 140 French ships full of soldiers.

While the coming of the French was still an uncertainty, it is probable that there was considerable depression even among Owen’s immediate followers. But neither he nor they were cherishing it in caves and solitudes. On the contrary, another parliament, similarly constituted to the former one at Machynlleth, was summoned to Harlech. Of the result of its deliberations we know nothing, but a letter of the period suggests that Glyndwr was not wholly without thought of making terms in case of the non-arrival of the French. At the same time this is not quite in keeping with the stubborn resistance that in after years, when all hope had fled, he maintained with such heroic fortitude. Two of the county representatives, at any rate, who came to Harlech on this occasion were trimmers or worse. David Whitmore and Ievan ap Meredydd were supposed to represent his interests in Flint, but we are told that, before departing for the West, they held private communication with Sir John Stanley, who was in charge of the important castle of Hope for the King. To be brief, they went as spies rather than as supporters, and with the intention of keeping the English informed of what took place. But it was now already summer and while this season was still at its height, the event which Glyndwr was hoping and looking for took place.

The French had made many attempts in the preceding year to reach Wales; a few, as we know, touched the coast, and lent some slight assistance at Carnarvon and elsewhere. Now, however, a more successful effort and upon an infinitely larger scale was made, and 140 ships found their way from Brest to Milford without any mishap save the loss of their horses from lack of fresh water. The number of troops carried by this fleet is variously estimated at from about 3000 to 12,000 men. Madame De Lussan, the French historian of the period, is very definite so far as she goes, for without mentioning the grand total she states that there were among them 800 men-at-arms, 600 crossbows, and 1200 foot-soldiers, all picked troops. But then, again, the French “man-at-arms” of the period included a squire, a page, and three archers, so that the entire French force probably numbered from 4000 to 5000 men. The command was nominally in the hands of Jean de Rieux, Marshal of France, but the Sire de Hugueville was the leading spirit, not only in the inception but also in the conduct of the enterprise. He had actually sold to the Church his large estate of Agencourt near Montdidier, and devoted the proceeds to the adventure which he had so much at heart. There seems at any rate to have been no stint of money in the undertaking, for it is particularly noted what bravery of apparel and fine trappings distinguished this French army when it landed at Milford Haven. The fleet left Brest on July 22nd and arrived early in August in excellent condition, with the exception, as I have said, of the horses, which had all been thrown overboard. Glyndwr in the meantime had heard that the French were on the sea, and, moving down into Pembrokeshire with 10,000 men, he joined forces with them almost immediately upon their landing.

There was no time to be lost and the united armies turned first to Haverford-west, an Anglo-Flemish centre of some importance. The town was soon taken and burnt, but the great Norman castle proved altogether too hard a task even for so large a force. So, falling back, Glyndwr and his French allies marched to Tenby, laying waste the Flemish settlements, though they had to look helplessly on while an English fleet attacked the French ships and destroyed fifteen of them. Thence under Glyndwr’s guidance the army moved on to Carmarthen, which surrendered without much resistance. Glamorgan, it will be remembered, had fallen away from its allegiance to the Welsh cause, so Glyndwr took it on his route towards England and gave the backsliders of that unfortunate county some experience of his relentless methods. Passing on thence through Herefordshire in a fashion of which we know nothing but may readily guess, the allied forces entered Worcestershire and arrived within nine miles of the capital of that county just as King Henry reached it.

As early as the beginning of July, when the King first heard of the intended French invasion, he had issued proclamation to the sheriffs of several counties to be in readiness with their forces, and it was these that must now have been his chief support at Worcester. On his way south he had issued another summons to the forces of Herefordshire and the lower counties to muster at the city of Hereford. It was now about the middle of August, and without more delay he marched his army out from Worcester to meet the formidable combination that had penetrated so far into his kingdom.

The spot where Glyndwr and Hugueville encamped their forces was an old British fort on the summit of Woodbury hill and is still known as Owen’s camp. Pennant visited it and made careful notes and observations. It covers, he says, about twenty-seven acres and is surrounded by a single foss. The hill itself is lofty and of an oblong form. One end is connected with the Abberly hills, which, with this one of Woodbury, form a crescent, the hollow between constituting an ideal arena for a battle-ground.

When the King arrived he proceeded to take up his position on the northern ridge, and the two armies lay for eight days, both so admirably placed that each feared to give advantage to the other by moving out and risking so great a stake in the gage of battle. Skirmishing, however, went on daily in the valley below. The brave spirits of either army descended into the arena and performed individual deeds of arms between and in sight of both camps. “They had a fine slope,” says Pennant, “to run down, the Welsh having a hollowed way as if formed especially for the purpose.”

Some four or five hundred men in all fell during this week of desultory skirmishing, including some French knights of note. One might well have looked, at this crisis, for some decisive and fierce fight like that of Shrewsbury, which should live in history. Never had Glyndwr penetrated so far into Saxon territory; never before had ten thousand Welshmen threatened Worcester as invaders; never since England had become a united country had a hostile French army sat down in its very heart as this one was now doing.

But the King at any rate showed his wisdom in not venturing on a battle. He had ample provisions behind him and was gathering strength. Glyndwr and Hugueville, on the other hand, had wasted the country on their route, and they were running short of food. Yet even if Glyndwr had struck at once and gained a victory, it is quite certain that with his friends in the North already crushed he would not have been able with what was left of his fifteen thousand or so Welsh and French, to affect in any way the fortunes of England by merely capturing Worcester, and would have himself been in imminent danger. Moreover, as the King clung to the top of the hill and had perhaps nearly as many men with him as the enemy, the risk attending an attack would have been still greater. The Franco-Welsh army, too, had a good deal of booty among them, which to most of the individuals composing it was probably a leading item for consideration.

When his enemies struck their camp and commenced their backward march to Wales, the King essayed to follow them, and found it no easy task in a region already twice traversed by a hungry and hostile army. He took some provisions with him, but after eighteen waggon-loads of these had been captured by Glyndwr’s hungry soldiers he gave up his barren attempts to harass their rapid march. Hall’s account of this campaign does not tally with the account of the invaders, as is perhaps natural, and he probably drew to some extent on his imagination when he described Henry’s pursuit in such curiously quaint language:

“From hills to dales,” he writes, “from dales to woodes, from woodes to marshes, and yet he could never have them at an advantage. A worlde it was to see his quotidian removings, his busy and painful wanderings, his troublesome and uncertayne abiding, his continual mocian, his daily peregrenacion in the desert fells and craggy mountains of that barrenne infertile and depopulate country.”

But the Franco-Welsh army was soon deep in the heart of Wales, and Henry, having given up the pursuit in much more summary fashion than Hall would have us believe in the face of dates, was concentrating his forces at Hereford. Prince Henry had already done something to harass the march of the Welsh through Monmouth. Sir John Grendor was negotiating with Owen’s supporters in the valley of the Usk. Sir John Berkrolles still held the great castle of Coity with the utmost difficulty, and the Bristol captains who had enabled Harlech to hold out so long were now ordered down the Bristol channel with supplies for the still beleaguered garrisons of South Wales.

On September 10th Henry with a large force commenced his fifth invasion of Wales. The reader, wearied no doubt by the chronicle of these futile endeavours, might now well look for some tangible result, some crushing blow. There is nothing, however, but the old, old story to tell. The King entered Glamorgan and succeeded in relieving the single castle of Coity; he then turned tail, and the Welsh at once, as in every case but one, when there was no need for it, sprang upon his back. Besides his spears and arrows Glyndwr once more worked with his magic wand. The heavens descended and the floods came and soaked and buffeted the hapless monarch and his still more wretched and ill-provisioned troops. Every river ran bank-high and every brook was in flood; and the clumsy carts that carried the commissariat were captured by Glyndwr’s men or whirled away in the rapids. The old story of 1402 was repeated in the autumn of 1405. The royal army on their return had to cross the valley of the Rhondda, where the national cause, though more than once suppressed, was always vigorous and responded to its famous war-cry, “Cadwgan, whet thy battle-axe.” This valley runs from the westward into the Taff at Pontypridd and is now astir with the hum of grimy industry and bright with the flare of forges. It was then a hive of fighting stock-farmers fired with a great enthusiasm for Glyndwr.

“There was a certain Cadwgan,” says the old Iolo manuscript already quoted, “who was a leader among the men of the valley and a doughty henchman of Glyndwr, and when it became necessary for him to call the people to battle he used to march up and down the valley whetting his axe. So when Owen came to Glyn Rhondda he would say, ‘Cadwgan, whet thy battle-axe,’ and the moment he was heard to do so all living persons collected about him in military array and from that day to this the battle shout of Glyn Rhondda has been ‘Cadwgan, whet thy battle-axe.’”

By October 1st the King was back at Worcester. It would be of little profit to relate the various orders he gave for resisting and pacifying the Welsh, nor yet to give the names of the various Lord Marchers whom he ordered to proceed upon expeditions with small forces, where he himself had failed with large ones. One is not surprised to find that Owen and his French allies had Wales for the most part to themselves and were unmolested during the winter. The greater part of the French, however, returned home again before Christmas, some seventeen hundred remaining, for whom Glyndwr found comfortable quarters. He seems to have been greatly disappointed at the departure of the others, as well as at the conduct of those who remained. The alliance, indeed, proved unsatisfactory to both parties. The French individually counted on booty as their reward, whereas they found for the most part a plundered and ravaged country. It is possible, too, there may have been some racial friction between the Welsh and their French allies. At any rate the latter, as one of their old chroniclers remarks, did not do much bragging when they got home to Brittany, nor did those who remained in Wales conduct themselves by any means to the satisfaction of Glyndwr, but were altogether too much given up to thoughts of plundering their friends. Upon the whole their motives were too obvious and the prospect of further assistance from them not very cheering.

Western Pembroke in the meantime (Little England beyond Wales), finding itself cut off from all assistance, in spite of the girdle of splendid castles by which it was protected, began to find Glyndwr at last too much for it. The earldom was in abeyance and Sir Francis À’Court was governor of the county and known as Lord of Pembroke. He called together the representatives of the district, who solemnly agreed to pay Glyndwr the sum of £200 for a truce to last until the following May. So Pembroke, having humbled itself and in so doing having humbled England, which had thus failed it in its hour of need, had peace. And Glyndwr, still supreme, but not without some cause for depression, returned to Harlech to take counsel with his friends and prepare for a year that promised to be exceptionally fruitful of good or ill.

CHAPTER IX

THE TRIPARTITE INDENTURE 1406

DURING the lull of this winter of 1405-6 messengers were going backwards and forwards between Harlech and Scotland.

The chief event of the early part of the new year was the signing of that Tripartite Indenture which I have already spoken of as being so often attributed to the period before the battle of Shrewsbury. Pity, for the sake of dramatic effect, that it was not, and as Shakespeare painted it! Hotspur was then alive and the power of the Percys at its height, while Mortimer had not tarnished the splendour of his house and dimmed such measure of reputation as he himself enjoyed, by sinking his individuality in that of his wife’s strenuous father. Glyndwr alone was greater than he had then been, though the zenith of his fortunes had been reached and he was soon to commence that long, hopeless struggle against fate and overwhelming odds that has caused men to forget the ravager in the fortitude of the hero.

Northumberland had outworn, as we have seen, the King’s marvellous forbearance, and was now a fugitive in Scotland with Bardolph, whose estates, like his own, had been confiscated, and whose person, like Northumberland’s, was urgently wanted by Henry. The old Earl had lost his nerve and had taken alarm at certain indications on the part of the Scots that they would not object to hand him over to Henry in exchange for the doughty Lord Douglas who had been held in honourable captivity since the battle of Shrewsbury. Fearing this he and Bardolph took ship from the western coast for France. But either by prior agreement with Glyndwr or on their own initiative they rounded the stormy capes of Lleyn and, turning their ships’ prows shorewards, landed in the sandy and sequestered cove of Aberdaron.

Aberdaron is to this day the Ultima Thule of Wales. It was then a remote spot indeed, though in times long gone by, when pilgrims crept in thousands from shrine to shrine along the coasts of Lleyn to the great abbey, “The Rome of the Welsh,” on Bardsey Island, it had been famous enough. It was not alone its remoteness that recommended this lonely outpost, flung out so far into the Irish Sea, to the two fugitives and irrepressible conspirators. David Daron, Dean of Bangor, a friend of Glyndwr, had been with them in the North as one of his commissioners and seems to have remained longer than his colleagues with Percy. At any rate he was Lord of the Manor of Aberdaron and had a house there to which he welcomed his two English friends. The object of the latter was not merely to fly to France but to stir up its King to renewed efforts against Henry. Glyndwr, too, as we shall see, had been sending messengers to France, and the impending meeting at Aberdaron might be fruitful of great results.

It is an easy run by sea of twenty miles or so from Harlech to the farther capes of Lleyn where the romantic island of Bardsey, sanctified by the bones of its twenty thousand saints, lifts its head to an imposing height above the waves. To Aberdaron, just short of the farthest point of the mainland, then came Glyndwr, bringing with him Mortimer and no doubt others of his court. It was on February 28, 1406, that the meeting took place when the somewhat notable Indenture of Agreement was signed by the three contracting parties. The date of this proceeding has been by no means undisputed, but of all moments this particular one seems the most likely and has the sanction of the most recent and exhaustive historians of the period.

The bards had been prolific and reminiscent during this quiet winter, and there seemed special call as well as scope for their songs and forecasts. The ancient prophecies of Merlin that were never allowed to slumber, regarding the future of Britain and the Welsh race, were now heard as loudly as they had been before the battle of Shrewsbury, interpreted in various ways in uncouth and strange metaphor. Henry was the “mouldwharp cursed of God’s own mouth.” A dragon would come from the north and with him a wolf from the west, whose tails would be tied together. Fearful things would happen upon the banks of the Thames and its channel would be choked with corpses. The rivers of England would run with blood. The “mouldwharp” would then be hunted out of the country by the dragon, the lion, and the wolf, or, in other words, by Glyndwr, Percy, and Mortimer. He would then be drowned and his kingdom divided between his three triumphant foes.

Who framed the Indenture is not known; perhaps Glyndwr himself, since he had been a barrister in his youth and was certainly a ready penman. The chronicler tells us that the contracting parties swore fidelity to each other upon the gospels before putting their names to the articles, and then proceeds to give what purports to be the full text of the latter in Latin, of which the following is a translation.

“This year the Earl of Northumberland made a league and covenant and friendship with Owyn Glyndwr and Edmund Mortimer, son of the late Earl of March, in certain articles of the form and tenor following: In the first place that these Lords, Owyn, the Earl, and Edmund shall henceforth be mutually joined, confederate, united and bound by the bond of a true league and true friendship and sure and good union. Again that every one of these Lords shall will and pursue, and also procure, the honour and welfare of one another; and shall in good faith, hinder any losses and distresses which shall come to his knowledge, by anyone whatsoever intended to be inflicted on either of them. Every one also of them shall act and do with another all and every of those things, which ought to be done by good true and faithful friends to good, true and faithful friends, laying aside all deceit and fraud. Also, if ever any of the said Lords shall know and learn of any loss or damage intended against another by any persons whatsoever, he shall signify it to the others as speedily as possible, and assist them in that particular, that each may take such measures as may seem good against such malicious purposes; and they shall be anxious to prevent such injuries in good faith; also they shall assist each other to the utmost of their power in the time of necessity. Also if by God’s appointment it should appear to the said Lords in process of time that they are the same persons of whom the Prophet speaks, between whom the Government of the Greater Britain ought to be divided and parted, then they and every one of them shall labour to their utmost to bring this effectually to be accomplished. Each of them, also, shall be content with that portion of the kingdom aforesaid, limited as below, without further exaction or superiority; yea, each of them in such proportion assigned to him shall enjoy liberty. Also between the same Lords it is unanimously covenanted and agreed that the said Owyn and his heirs shall have the whole of Cambria or Wales, by the borders, limits and boundaries underwritten divided from Lœgira, which is commonly called England; namely from the Severn Sea as the river Severn leads from the sea, going down to the north gate of the city of Worcester; and from that gate straight to the Ash tree, commonly called in the Cambrian or Welsh language Owen Margion, which grows on the highway from Bridgenorth to Kynvar; thence by the highway direct, which is usually called the old or ancient way, to the head or source of the river Trent: thence to the head or source of the river Mense; thence as that river leads to the sea, going down within the borders, limits and boundaries above written. And the aforesaid Earl of Northumberland shall have for himself and his heirs the counties below written, namely, Northumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire, York, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Stafford, Leicester, Northampton, Warwick, and Norfolk. And the Lord Edmund shall have all the rest of the whole of England, entirely to him and his heirs. Also should any battle, riot or discord fall out between two of the said Lords (may it never be) then the third of the said Lords, calling to himself good and faithful counsel, shall duly rectify such discord, riot and battle; whose approval or sentence the discordant parties shall be held bound to obey. They shall also be faithful to defend the kingdom against all men; saving the oak on the part of the said Owyn given to the most illustrious Prince Charles by the Grace of God King of the French, in the league and covenant between them made. And that the same be, all and singular, well and faithfully observed, the said Lords Owyn, the Earl, and Edmund, by the holy body of the Lord which they now steadfastly look upon and by the holy gospels of God by them now bodily touched, have sworn to observe the premises all and singular to their utmost, inviolably; and have caused their seals to be mutually affixed thereto.”