=Source.=--_Chronicle of Adam of Usk_, edited by Sir E. Maunde
Thompson, pp. 237, 238, 246, 247.
In this autumn (1401), Owen Glendower, all North Wales and Cardigan and
Powis siding with him, sorely harried with fire and sword the English
who dwelt in those parts, and their towns, and specially the town of
Pool. Wherefore the English, invading those parts with a strong power,
and utterly laying them waste and ravaging them with fire, famine,
and sword, left them a desert, not even sparing children or churches,
nor the monastery of Strata-Florida, wherein the King himself was
being lodged, and the church of which and its choir, even up to the
high altar, they used as a stable, and pillaged even the patens; and
they carried away into England more than a thousand children of both
sexes to be their servants. Yet did the same Owen do no small hurt to
the English, slaying many of them, and carrying off the arms, horses
and tents of the King's eldest son, the prince of Wales, and of other
lords, which he bare away for his own behoof to the mountain fastnesses
of Snowden.
In these days, southern Wales, and in particular all the diocese
of Llandaff, was at peace from every kind of trouble of invasion
or inroad.... The commons of Cardigan, being pardoned their lives,
deserted Owen, and returned, though in sore wretchedness, to their
homes, being allowed to use the Welsh tongue, although its destruction
had been determined on by the English, Almighty God, the King of Kings,
the unerring Judge of all, having mercifully ordained the recall of
this decree at the prayer and cry of the oppressed....
... On the day of St. Alban (22nd June, 1402) near to Knighton in
Wales, was a hard battle fought between the English under sir Edmund
Mortimer and the Welsh under Owen Glendower, with woeful slaughter
even to eight thousand souls, the victory being with Owen. And alas!
my lord, the said sir Edmund ... was by the fortune of war carried
away captive. And, being by his enemies in England stripped of all
his goods and hindered from paying ransom, in order to escape more
easily the pains of captivity, he is known by common report to have
wedded the daughter of the same Owen; by whom he had a son Lionel, and
three daughters, all of whom, except one daughter, along with their
mother are now dead. At last, being by the English host beleagured in
the castle of Harlech, he brought his days of sorrow to an end, his
wonderful deeds being to this day told at the feast in song.
In this year also the lord Grey of Ruthin,[2] being taken captive by
Owen, with the slaughter of two thousand of his men, was shut up in
prison; but he was set free on payment of ransom of sixteen thousand
pounds in gold. Concerning such an ill-starred blow given by Owen
to the English rule, when I think thereon, my heart trembles. For,
backed by a following of thirty thousand men issuing from their lairs
throughout Wales and its marches, he overthrew castles, among which
were Usk, Caerleon, and Newport, and fired the towns. In short, like
a second Assyrian, the rod of God's anger, he did deeds of unheard-of
cruelty with fire and sword.
[2] Glendower's revolt arose out of a quarrel with Lord Grey of Ruthin.