IN GLENDOWER LAND
As the name of Llewelyn is connected with the Snowdon district, so the
name of another Welsh hero, Owen Glendower, lives still in that valley
of the Dee that lies between Corwen and Llangollen.
The valley itself is one of the most interesting in Wales. Almost of
a horseshoe shape, it is bounded by ranges of mountains, not very
high, but beautiful in shape and colour. On one side, a blaze of
yellow gorse, Moel Gamelin rears his rounded head; on the other the
heather-clad heights of the Berwyns invite us to scramble up their
slopes and to walk along the sky-line to the end of the vale. In the
hollow lies the picturesque little market-town of Llangollen, and above
it the steep cone-shaped hill is crowned by the ruined castle of Dinas
Bran.
In the old days this castle must have been of great importance, for it
guarded the entrance to the kingdom of Powys, the middle kingdom of
Wales. It was the stronghold of Madoc, Lord of Powys, and of his son
Griffith, who died in Llewelyn’s last desperate struggle for freedom,
both of whom were the ancestors of Owen Glendower himself.
Nowadays we shall find a relic of olden times in the harpist who sits
upon the summit and plays Welsh airs, full of mournful sweetness, to
those who visit the ruins. Below in the half-hidden Valle Crucis, lies
one of the most famous of Welsh abbeys, which we are going to explore,
in order to find the resting-place of these ancestors of Glendower.
In former days Valle Crucis Abbey, founded by the Lords of Dinas Bran,
was noted for its hospitality--a virtue of which we are reminded by the
ruins of a large hostel, or guest-house, and by the fish-ponds which
still exist. Here are the monks’ dormitories; and here, in the chapel,
below the beautiful remains of the east window, lie the battered tombs
of Madoc, the founder, and his son. Returning to Llangollen, and
passing along the Holyhead road, we presently come to Glyndyfrdwy, that
“glen of the Dee” from which our hero Owen took his surname.
Like most young Welshmen of noble birth after the Conquest of Wales,
Owen Glendower was brought up in England. Shakespeare makes him remind
Hotspur that--
“I can speak English, lord, as well as you,
For I was trained up in the English Court,
Where, being but young, I framed to the harp,
Many an English ditty lovely well.”
[Illustration: DISTANT VIEW OF CARNARVON BAY]
When Henry IV. became King, Owen appealed to him against Lord Grey
of Ruthin, who had seized a piece of his moorland. The King favoured
Lord Grey, and earned the lifelong hatred of his rival, who promptly
recovered his land by force of arms. Grey of Ruthin took a mean
revenge. When Henry summoned his Welsh barons, among others, to aid
him in a war with Scotland, he suppressed the message that summoned
Glendower, and then denounced him to the King as a traitor for not
obeying his call. Glendower’s house was immediately besieged, and he
had only just time to escape to the woods. Now, Owen was no mean and
unknown Welsh knight. He was as learned in books as he was skilled
in warfare, and his house at Sycherth, ten miles from his native
valley, was famous for its hospitality. His wife and children were of
noble breed; as a poet of the day sings: “His wife, the best of wives,
beneficent mother of a beautiful nest of chieftains. Happy am I in her
wine and metheglyn.”
So, after a century of peace, when this descendant of the last Llewelyn
raised the standard of revolt on the banks of the Dee, the Welshmen of
the districts far and wide flocked to his aid, singing with the bard,
Red Iolo:
“Thy high renown shall never fail;
Owen Glendower, the Great, the Good,
Lord of Glyndyfrdwy’s fertile vale,
High born, princely Owen, hail!”
Ruthin, the stronghold of Lord Grey, now a quiet country-town, was
first attacked and burnt to the ground. Before Henry’s army, under the
government of Harry Percy, or Hotspur, and the young Prince Henry,
then a boy of fourteen, could act against them, the revolt had spread
all over Wales, and had declared its aim to be independence of English
rule. The success with which Glendower met soon earned for him the
reputation of a wizard.
“I can call spirits from the vasty deep,” Shakespeare makes him boast
to Hotspur; who rudely replies: “Ay, but will they answer?” But let the
rough Northern Earl scoff as he might, Owen certainly met with almost
uncanny success. The English troops, “bootless and weatherbeaten,”
were driven back across the borders again and again. Not only North
Wales, but the South country also rose under him. Midway between the
two stands “Pumlumon,” better known as Plynlimmon, a five-pointed peak
that rises, almost solitary, from the surrounding plain. Upon this top
Glendower planted his standard, and from thence he managed to capture
Mortimer, the powerful English Earl of royal blood, who became before
long his son-in-law.
Owen was now openly acknowledged as Prince of Wales; castle after
castle fell into his hands, and Parliaments were held by him at
Dolgelly, under the shadow of Cader Idris, and elsewhere. But meantime
Prince Henry, the future Henry V., was growing up and learning the art
of war. It was he who, while Owen was busy in South Wales, came to his
own valley of Glyndyfrdwy, and burnt his house down. For seven years
the war went on, until the land was wellnigh ruined and the people
weary of warfare. Pardons were freely offered and as freely accepted,
until at last Owen Glendower found himself deserted. Still he would
not give in, and when Henry V., soon after he was made King, sent him
an unasked for pardon by the hands of Glendower’s own son, it came too
late; the hero of Wales’ last bid for independence was dead.
Nearly eighty years later Wales recovered her name for loyalty to an
English Sovereign when a certain Henry Tudor, grandson of a Welsh
country gentleman who had married a King’s widow, landed at Milford
Haven, and, with the aid of his fellow-countrymen, won the Battle of
Bosworth, and was crowned King as Henry VII. And so, when Henry VIII.,
his son, wished to bring about the Union of England and Wales by Act
of Parliament, no voice was lifted against it. But if Henry thought
by this Act, and by forbidding all magistrates in Wales to use the
Welsh language, he was going to make the country actually a part of
England, he was greatly mistaken. The upper classes might flock to the
English Court and forget their Welsh homes, but the greater part of
the people--the workers of the nation--kept their own speech, their
own customs, their own traditions. The days of warfare were over; but
still you can tell a Welshman from an Englishman wherever he is found.
He may talk the purest English, but the fall and rise of his voice as
he talks differs from the more monotonous tones of his Anglo-Saxon
companion. He is more excitable, more easily moved to wrath, or tears,
or laughter, and he possesses, as a rule, a far more vivid imagination
than is found anywhere outside the Celtic race of which he forms a part.