PRINCE HENRY'S EXPEDITION TO SCOTLAND, AND SUCCESS. -- THANKS
PRESENTED TO HIM BY PARLIAMENT. -- HIS GENEROUS TESTIMONY TO THE DUKE
OF YORK. -- IS FIRST NAMED AS PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL. -- RETURNS TO
WALES. -- IS APPOINTED WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS AND CONSTABLE OF
DOVER. -- WELSH REBELLION DWINDLES AND DIES. -- OWYN GLYNDOWR'S
CHARACTER AND CIRCUMSTANCES; HIS REVERSES AND TRIALS. -- HIS BRIGHT
POINTS UNDERVALUED. -- THE UNFAVOURABLE SIDE OF HIS CONDUCT UNJUSTLY
DARKENED BY HISTORIANS. -- REFLECTIONS ON HIS LAST DAYS. -- FACSIMILE
OF HIS SEALS AS PRINCE OF WALES.
1407-1409.
Though our own documents fail to supply us with any further information
as to the proceedings of Henry of Monmouth through the year 1407, and
though he might have been allowed some breathing time by the decreased
energy of the Welsh rebels, yet Monstrelet informs us that he was
actively engaged in a campaign at the other extremity of the kingdom.
The historian thus introduces his readers to this affair: "How the
Prince of Wales, eldest son of the King of England, accompanied (p. 233)
by his two uncles and a very great body of chivalry, went into Scotland
to make war." He then commences his chapter by the not very usual
assurance that he is about to relate a matter of fact. "Then it is the
truth that at this time, 1407, about the Feast of All Saints (1st
November), Henry Prince of Wales[225] mustered an army of one thousand
men-at-arms and six thousand archers; among whom were his two uncles,
the Duke of York, the Earl of Dorset, the Lords Morteines, de Beaumont,
de Rol, and Cornwal, together with many other noblemen; who all
marched towards Scotland, chiefly because the Scots had lately broken
the truce between the two kingdoms, and done great damage by fire and
sword in the duchy of Lancaster, and the district around Roxburgh. The
Scots were not aware of their approach till they were near at hand,
and had committed great devastation. As soon as the King of Scotland,
who was at the town of Saint "Iango" (Andrew's) in the middle of his
kingdom, heard of it, he issued orders immediately to his chiefs; and
in a few days a powerful army was assembled, which he sent under the
command of the Earl of Douglas and Buchan towards the Marches. But,
when they were within six leagues, they learnt that the English (p. 234)
were too strong for them. They consequently sent ambassadors to the
Prince of Wales and his council, who brought about a renewal of the
truce for a year; and thus the aforesaid Prince of Wales, having done
much damage in Scotland, returned into England, and the Scots
dismissed their army."
[Footnote 225: The Pell Rolls record payment (16th
November 1407) to the Prince, by the hand of John
Strange, his treasurer of war, for one hundred and
twenty men-at-arms and three hundred and sixty
archers, then remaining at the abbey of
Stratfleure, to reduce the rebels, and give battle
in North and South Wales.]
Soon after his return from Scotland we find Henry with his father at
Gloucester,[226] where a Parliament was held in the beginning of December;
the records of which enable us to carry on still further the testimony
borne to the Prince's character by his contemporaries, and to speak of
an act of generosity and noble-mindedness placed beyond the reach of
calumny to disparage. The King, on the 1st of December issued a commission
for negociating a peace with France; alleging, as the chief reason for
hastening it, his desire to have more time and leisure to appease the
schism in the church. On the last day of their sitting, the Parliament
prayed the King to present the thanks of the nation to the Prince of
Wales for his great services; in answer to which the King returned
many thanks to the Commons. Immediately on receiving this testimony of
public gratitude, "the Prince fell down upon his knees before the (p. 235)
King, and very humbly mentioning that he had heard of certain
evil-intentioned obloquies and detractions made to the slander of the
Duke of York,[227] declared that, if it were not for the Duke's good
advice and counsel, he, my lord the Prince himself, and others in his
company, would have been in great peril and desolation." "Moreover,"
(continued the Prince,) "the Duke, as though he had been one of the
poorest gentlemen of the realm who would have to toil and struggle for
the acquirement of his own honour and name, laboured, and did his very
best to give courage and comfort to all others around him. He affirmed
also, that the Duke was in everything a loyal and valiant knight."[228]
This generous conduct towards one on whom the royal displeasure had
fallen, but who seems to have always conducted himself as a brave and
faithful and honourable subject, naturally raised in all who witnessed
it a still higher admiration of the character of the Prince, whose
conduct had repeatedly called for their grateful thanks and (p. 236)
warmest eulogies. The Parliament would not separate without first praying
the King, that all who adhered steadily and faithfully to the Prince
of Wales might be encouraged and rewarded, and all who deserted him,
and left his company without his permission, might be punished.
[Footnote 226: The reason assigned by Henry IV. for
convening this Parliament at Gloucester, must not
be overlooked.--He believed that the nearer he
himself, and his nobles, and his court, were to
"his dear son, then commissioned to reduce the
rebels in Wales," the greater probability there was
of a successful issue of the Prince's campaign.]
[Footnote 227: By the Author published as
Otterbourne, we are told, that the Lady Le
Despenser charged the Duke of York with having been
the author of the plot for stealing away the sons
of the Earl of March, and also for attempting the
King's life. On the Pell Roll, beginning Friday,
October 3rd, 1407, payment is recorded to divers
messengers sent to seize for the King's use all the
goods and chattels of Edward, Duke of York, and
Lord Le Despenser: and, subsequently, payment to
one Leget, for the safe conveyance of Lord Le
Despenser from London to the castle of
"Killynworth." The year before this, Edward, Duke
of York, was the King's Lieutenant of South Wales.]
[Footnote 228: Rolls of Parliament, 8 Hen. IV.]
The records of the year 1408 are particularly barren of facts with
regard either to the affairs of the kingdom at large, to the state[229]
of the Principality, or to the occupations and proceedings of Henry of
Monmouth. Shortly after Midsummer he was present as a member of a
council held in the church of St. Paul, when an indenture of agreement
between the King and his son, Thomas of Lancaster, afterwards Duke of
Clarence, was submitted to them for confirmation. Besides the stipulated
conditions on which the Lord Thomas should engage to execute the office
of Viceroy in Ireland, together with the sources of his allowance and
the mode of payment, this agreement contains also a provision that the
Prince[230] should first be paid what was assigned to him for the (p. 237)
safeguard of Wales. The record of this council concludes by adding,
"And it was agreed by my lord the Prince, and the other lords of the
council, and by them promised to the said Lord Thomas, that, as much
as in them lay, the assignments made to him, and specified in that
indenture, should not be revoked or stopped in any way." The closing
paragraph of this minute of the council is very important and interesting,
especially in one particular, presenting Henry of Monmouth to us under
a new aspect: it is the first instance in which we find the name of
the Prince mentioned by itself individually, in contradistinction to
the other members of the council; a practice for some time afterwards
generally observed.
[Footnote 229: A minute of council (20th of
February) states the bare fact that Owyn, late
secretary to Glyndowr, had been committed to the
custody of Lord Grey, from November 4, 1406, and
had remained in ward four hundred and seventy-three
days; and that Gryffyth of Glyndowrdy, (Owyn
Glyndowr's son,) whom the Constable of the Tower
had delivered to the same lord on the 8th of June,
had been in custody two hundred and fifty days.]
[Footnote 230: The custody of the Earl of March and
his brother was given to the Prince of Wales on
February 1st, 1409; and, since he had received
nothing for their sustentation, an assignment of
five hundred marks a year was made to him from the
duties of skins and wool. On the 3rd of July, the
King granted to him "the manors belonging to
Edmund, son and heir of Roger Mortimer, Earl of
March," during the young man's minority. The
Prince's revenues seem to have been scanty in the
extreme, and his father had recourse to many of the
various modes of raising money usually adopted in
those days.]
Henry began at this time, in consequence, no doubt, of the requisition
of the council, to take a prominent part in the government of the
kingdom at large, and to enter upon that life of political activity
which gained for him the confidence and admiration of the great
majority of the people, whilst it exposed him to the envy and jealousy
of some individuals; yet he was not immediately released from the
cares and anxieties and expenses which the disturbed state of his (p. 238)
Principality involved. For in the early part of the autumn of this
year we find him again present at Caermarthen:[231] we have reason,
nevertheless, to believe that, when the winter closed in, he quitted
Wales, never to return to it again either as Prince or King.
[Footnote 231: On the 23rd of September, Henry
executed a deed by which of especial grace he gave
"for the term of life to William Malbon, our valet
de chambre, the office of Raglore [Qu: Regulator?]
of the commotes of Glenerglyn and Hannynyok in our
county of Cardigan. Given under our seal in our
castle of Caermarthen, in the ninth year of the
reign of our lord and father."]
After the Prince, however, had withdrawn from personally exerting
himself in the suppression of the insurgents, Owyn Glyndowr still
carried on a kind of desultory warfare, rallying from time to time his
scattered and dispirited adherents, heading them in predatory
incursions upon the property of his enemies, laying violent hands on
the persons of those who resisted his authority, and depriving them of
their liberty or their lives, as best suited his own views of policy.
On the 16th of May 1409, a mandate issued by the King at Westminster,
to Edward Charleton, Lord Powis, with others,[232] is couched in
language which draws a frightful picture of the terror and confusion
and misery caused by these reckless rebels; conveying, nevertheless,
at the same time the idea of a lawless band of insurgents (p. 239)
resisting the authority of the government to the utmost of their power,
but no longer of an army headed by a sovereign and struggling for
independence. The preamble of the commission runs thus: "Whereas, from
the report of many, we understand that Owyn de Glyndowrdy, and
John,[233] who pretends that he is Bishop of St. Asaph, and other our
rebels and traitors in Wales, together with certain of our enemies of
France, Scotland, and other places, have now recently congregated afresh,
and gone about the lands of us, and of others our lieges, in the same
parts of Wales, day and night wickedly seizing upon some of the said
lands; and capturing, scourging, and imprisoning our faithful lieges;
consuming,[234] carrying away, and devastating their property, (p. 240)
and committing many other enormities against our peace: We, willing to
resist the malice of the aforesaid Owyn, and the aforesaid pretended
Bishop, and to provide for the peace and repose of Wales, give you
this command."
[Footnote 232: The same commission is sent to the
Duke of York, Lords Arundel, Warwick, Reginald Grey
of Ruthyn, Richard Grey of Codnor, Constance, wife
of the late Thomas Le Despenser, William Beauchamp,
and others.]
[Footnote 233: This prelate was John Trevaur, who
was consecrated in 1395, and deposed in 1402. Much
doubt hangs over the appointment of his immediate
successor. Some say David, the second of that name,
was appointed to the see in 1402. Robert de
Lancaster was consecrated in 1411. A similar doubt
exists as to the successor of Richard Young, Bishop
of Bangor. Whether a prelate named Lewis
immediately followed him on his translation to
Rochester in 1404, or not, is very uncertain.]
[Footnote 234: Sir Henry Ellis, having represented
the mischief done to Wales by Owyn to have been
incalculable, enumerates a few instances of the
misery he caused: Montgomery deflourished, (as
Leland expresses himself,) Radnor partly
destroyed,--"and the voice is there, that when he
won the castle he took threescore men that had the
guard, and beheaded them on the brink of the castle
yard." "The people about Dinas did burn the castle
there, that Owyn should not keep it for his
fortress." The Haye, Abergavenny, Grosmont, Usk,
Pool, the Bishop's castle and the Archdeacon's
house at Llandaff, with the cathedrals of Bangor
and St. Asaph, were all either in part or wholly
victims of his rage. The list might be much
augmented. At Cardiff, he burnt the whole town,
except the street in which the Franciscan monks
dwelt. These brethren were reported to have
contributed large sums to support Glyndowr's cause,
and to enable him to invade England.]
Ten Welsh prisoners, under a warrant dated October 18th, were delivered,
as it is supposed for execution, by the Constable of Windsor to
William Lisle, Marshal of England. From this circumstance some writers
have inferred that a considerable engagement took place this summer;
but it may be doubted whether the measures adopted in accordance with
the above commission would not sufficiently account for even a far
greater number of prisoners being at the disposal of the King: for he
strictly charged all those lords and sheriffs to whom his commission
was directed "not to quit Wales till Owyn and the pretended Bishop
should be utterly routed, but to attack them with the whole posse of
the realm night and day." No doubt can be entertained that both their
duty and their interest would induce these persons to put the King's
mandate into execution promptly and vigorously; and probably many of
Owyn's partisans fell into the hands of the government in the (p. 241)
course of the present summer and autumn: Owyn himself, also, either
sued for a truce, or acceded to the proposals made to him. The persons
to whom the King delegated the duty of crushing him, either influenced
by a sense of the misery caused far and wide by the depredations and
havoc carried on by the Welsh rebels on every side, or growing tired
of a protracted struggle which brought to them neither glory nor
profit, made a truce with Owyn without any warrant from the King. So
far, however, was he from sanctioning their proceeding that he
annulled the truce altogether, and (November 23rd, 1409,) issued a new
mandate to divers other persons to hasten with all their powers
against the rebels.
A curious legal document, of a date later by five years than the
circumstance to which it refers, informs us that the King, when
enumerating in his commission to Lord Powis the partisans of Owyn, in
addition to the auxiliaries of Scotland and France, might have
mentioned the malcontents also of England. Owyn's British supporters,
even at so late a period of his rebellion, were not confined to the
Principality, but were found in other parts of the kingdom. In Trinity
Term, 2 Henry V. (1414,) a presentation is found, recording this curious
fact: "John, Lord Talbot,[235] (the Lord Furnivale,) was on his road
towards Caernarvon, there to abide, and resist the malice of (p. 242)
Owyn Glyndowr and other rebels in the parts of Wales. Accompanied by
sixty men-at-arms and seven score archers, he was hastening onward
with all possible speed, in need of victuals, arms, and other necessaries,
intending to pass through Shrewsbury, and there to buy them. On the
Monday before the Nativity of John the Baptist, (17th June,) in the
tenth year of the late King, (1409,) one John Weole, constable of the
town and castle, and Richard Laken of Laken, in the same county, Esquire,
and others, with very many malefactors, of premeditated malice closed
the gates against them, and guarded them, and would not suffer any of
the King's lieges to come out and assist them. By which Lord Furnivale
and his men were much impeded, and many of the King's commands
remained unexecuted."[236]
[Footnote 235: Some documents by mistake represent
Lord Talbot and the Lord Furnivale as two distinct
individuals.]
[Footnote 236: MS. Donat. 4599.]
Of the rebellion in Wales, however, very few circumstances are recorded
after Henry of Monmouth had ceased to resist the rebels in person: the
war gradually dwindled, and sunk at last into insignificance. A few
embers of the conflagration still remained unquenched, and called for
the watchfulness of government; but the flames had been so far
subdued, that all sense of danger to the general peace of the realm
had been removed from the people of England. No precise date can be
assigned to the last show of resistance on the part of Owyn or his
followers. It must have been, at all events, later than our (p. 243)
historians have generally supposed. About Christmas 1411 a free pardon
was granted for all treasons and crimes, with an exception from the
King's grace of Owyn Glyndowr himself, and one Thomas Trumpyngton, who
seems to have made himself very obnoxious to the government. In the
same year payment was made of various sums to defray the expenses of
the late siege of Harlech, the successful issue of which the record
ascribes, to the favour of God. In 1412 the King's licence was given
to John Tiptoft, seneschal, and William Boteler, receiver of Brecknock,
to negociate with Owyn for the ransom of David Gamne, the gallant
Welshman who afterwards fell at the battle of Agincourt. The licence
was granted at the suit of Llewellin ap Howell, David Gamne's father,
and authorised the parties to offer in exchange any Welshmen whom they
could take prisoners. In the same year, about Midsummer, the Pell
Rolls, recording a large sum paid to the Prince for the safeguard of
Wales, at the same time acquaint us with the waning state of the
insurrection; for the money was to enable the Prince to resist the
rebels "now seldom rising in arms."[237] The same expression occurs in
the following December.
[Footnote 237: "Jam raro insurgentium."]
Still, though their rising was even then rare, yet as late as February
19, 1414, payment is registered of a sum "to a certain Welshman coming
to London, and continuing there, to give information concerning (p. 244)
the proceedings and designs of Ewain Glendowrdy."
We gladly bring to a close these references to the last days of the
dying rebellion in Wales, by recording an act of grace on the part of
Henry of Monmouth.[238] It was after he had returned from his victory
at Agincourt, and when, notwithstanding the immense drain of men and
money in his campaign in Normandy, he could doubtless have extirpated
the whole remnant of the rebels, had he delighted in vengeance rather
than in mercy, that he commissioned Sir Gilbert Talbot to "communicate
and treat with Meredith ap Owyn, son of Owyn de Glendowrdy; and as
well the said Owyn, as other our rebels, to admit and receive into
their allegiance, if they seek it." Probably the stubborn heart of
Owyn scorned to sue for pardon, and to share the King's grace.
[Footnote 238: 24th February 1416.]
* * * * *
Of the last years of Owyn Glyndowr history furnishes us with very
scanty information. It is certain that he never fell into the hands of
his enemies: it is probable that, after having been compelled at
length to withdraw from the hopeless struggle in which he had persevered
with indomitable courage, he passed away in concealment his few
remaining years of disappointment and sorrow. Tradition ventures to
hint that friends in Herefordshire threw the shelter of their
hospitality over him in his days of distress and desolation. But (p. 245)
history returns no satisfactory answer to our inquiries whether he was
blessed with the consolations of religion in his calamity; nor whether,
to lighten the dreadful vicissitudes of his eventful life, he was cheered
at the close of his sorrow by any whom he loved. His reverses brought
with them no ordinary degree of suffering. In the very opening of the
rebellion his houses were burnt, and his lands were confiscated. His
brother fell in one of the earliest engagements on the borders. In the
course of the struggle,[239] his wife and his children, sons and
daughters, were carried away captive, and retained as prisoners. His
friends were gone; many had fallen on the field of battle; many had
died under the hand of the executioner; many had provided for their
own safety by deserting him. Every act of grace and pardon, though it
embraced almost all besides, made an exception of his name; till (p. 246)
the above offer of mercy from Henry of Monmouth included Owyn himself.
His sufferings were enough in number and intenseness to satisfy the
vengeance of any one who was not athirst for blood.
[Footnote 239: This is a fact, as the Author
believes, new in history; which, however, is placed
beyond all doubt by the Issue Rolls of the Pell
Office. 1 Henry V. 27th June, money is paid to John
Weele for the expenses of the wife of Owen
Glendourdi, of the wife of Edmund Mortimer, and of
others, their sons and daughters: "et aliorum
filiorum et filiarum suarum." On the 21st of March,
also 1411, Lord Grey of Codnor is authorised, as we
have already stated, by warrant to deliver Gryffuth
ap Owyn Glyndourdy, (that is, Owyn's son Griffith,)
and Owyn ap Griffith ap Rycard, to the constable of
the Tower, till further orders.--MS. Donat. 4599.
This son, however, of Owyn had been a prisoner for
a long time before the date of this warrant. Lord
Grey had payment made for the expenses of Griffin,
son of Owyn Glyndowr, as early as June 1,
1407.--Pell Rolls.]
In estimating the character of this extraordinary man, we must
remember that almost the whole evidence which we have of him has been
derived through the medium of his enemies; in the next place, we must
not allow circumstances over which he had no control to darken his
fame; nor must our zeal in condemning the rebel, bury in oblivion the
patriot, though mistaken; or the hero, though unsuccessful.
Especially, then, must it be borne in mind, that not Henry Bolinbroke,
but Richard II. was the sovereign to whom Glyndowr[240] had owed and
had originally sworn allegiance; that he had been especially and
confidentially employed in that unhappy monarch's immediate service;
that he was one of the very few who remained faithful to him, and
accompanied him through perils and trials to the last; and that he
left him only when Richard's misfortunes prohibited his friends from
giving him any longer assistance or comfort. We must remember also,
that, even had his master Richard been deposed or dead, it was not
Henry Bolinbroke, but the Earl of March, whom the laws of the (p. 247)
country had taught him to regard as his liege lord. We cannot, indeed,
in honesty assign to Glyndowr the crown of martyrdom won in his country's
cause; we cannot justly ascribe his career exclusively to pure
patriotism: there is too much of self[241] mingled in his character to
justify us in enrolling him among the devoted friends of freedom, and
the disinterested enemies of tyranny. He was driven into rebellion by
the sense of individual injury and insult rather than of his country's
wrongs; and he too eagerly assumed to himself the honours, authority,
and power, as well as the title of sovereign of his native land. But
he was not one of those heartless ringleaders of confusion,--he was
not one of those desperate rebels with whom the English too harshly
and too rashly have been wont to number him. He possessed many qualities
of the hero, deserving a better cause and a better fate. It is
impossible not to admire his unconquerable courage, his endurance of
hardships, his faculty of making the very best of the means within his
reach, and his unshrinking perseverance as long as there remained to
him one ray of hope or one particle of strength. The guilt of violated
faith, though laid to his charge, has never been established. He has
been, moreover, often accused of cruelty, and of engaging in savage
warfare; but even his enemies and conquerors, by their actions (p. 248)
and by their despatches, prove, that though Owyn slew, and burnt, and
laid waste far and wide, yet in all this he executed only the law of
retaliation, dreadful as that law is both in its principle and in its
consequences.
[Footnote 240: It does not appear, whether Owyn had
ever sworn allegiance to Henry IV.]
[Footnote 241: Pennant says he caused himself, in
1402, to be acknowledged Prince of Wales by his
countrymen, and to be crowned also.]
Owyn Glyndowr failed, and he was denounced as a rebel and a traitor.
But had the issue of the "sorry fight" of Shrewsbury been otherwise
than it was; had Hotspur so devised, and digested, and matured his
plan of operations, as to have enabled Owyn with his forces to join
heart and hand in that hard-fought field; had Bolinbroke and his son[242]
fallen on that fatal day;--instead of lingering among his native mountains
as a fugitive and a branded felon; bereft of his lands, his friends,
his children and his wife; waiting only for the blow of death to
terminate his earthly sufferings, and, when that blow fell, leaving no
memorial[243] behind him to mark either the time or the place of (p. 249)
his release,--Owyn Glyndowr might have been recognised even by England,
as he actually had been by France, in the character of an independent
sovereign; and his people might have celebrated his name as the
avenger of his country's wrongs, the scourge of her oppressors, and
the restorer of her independence. The anticipations of his own bard,
Gryffydd Llydd, might have been amply realized.[244]
[Footnote 242: How beautifully does the poet
express this same thought in the words of Harry
Percy's widow:
"Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,
To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck,
Have talked of Monmouth's grave."
Second Part of HENRY IV. act ii.
This lady, Elizabeth Percy, had probably either
said or done something to excite the suspicion of
the King; for he issued a warrant for her
apprehension on the 8th of October, after the
battle of Shrewsbury.]
[Footnote 243: The Welsh historians tell of various
traditions relating both to the place and the time
of his death, adding many a romantic tale of his
wanderings among the mountains, and in caves and
dens of the earth. But, unable to trace any grounds
of preference for one tradition above another, the
Author of these Memoirs leaves the question (in
itself of no great importance), without expressing
any opinion beyond what he has offered in the text.
He must, however, add, that the traditions of his
having passed many of his last days at the houses
of Scudamore and Monnington, of his having been
some time concealed in a cavern called to this day
Owyn's Cave, on the coast of Merioneth, and of his
having been buried in Monnington churchyard, are by
no means improbable. The story of his corpse
resting under a stone in the churchyard of Bangor
is evidently a mistake; whilst the legend which
would identify him with John of Kent seems
altogether fabulous.]
[Footnote 244: The Author takes the translation
from the Appendix to Williams' Monmouthshire.]
Strike then your harps, ye Cambrian bards!
The song of triumph best rewards
An hero's toils. Let Henry weep
His warriors wrapt in everlasting sleep:
Success and victory are thine,
Owain Glyndurdwy divine!
Dominion, honour, pleasure, praise,
Attend upon thy vigorous days.
And, when thy evening's sun is set,
May grateful Cambria ne'er forget
Thy noon-tide blaze; but on thy tomb
Never-fading laurels bloom.
By the obliging kindness of Sir Henry Ellis, the Author is enabled (p. 250)
to enrich his work by authentic representations of the Great and Privy
Seals of Owyn Glyndowr as Prince of Wales; he borrows at the same time
the clear and scientific description of them, with which that antiquary
furnished the Archæologia.[245] The originals are appended to two
instruments preserved in the Hôtel Soubise at Paris, both dated in the
year 1404, and believed to relate to the furnishing of the troops
which were then supplied to Owyn by the King of France.
[Footnote 245: Vol. xxv.]
"On the obverse of the Great Seal, Owyn is represented with a bifid
beard, very similar to Richard II, seated under a canopy of Gothic
tracery; the half-body of a wolf forming the arms of his chair on each
side; the back-ground is ornamented with a mantle semée of lions, held
up by angels. At his feet are two lions. A sceptre is in his right hand;
but he has no crown. The inscription, OWENUS ... PRINCEPS WALLIÆ. On the
reverse Owyn is represented on horseback in armour: in his right hand,
which is extended, he holds a sword; and with his left, his shield
charged with four lions rampant: a drapery, probably a _kerchief de
plesaunce_, or handkerchief won at a tournament, pendent from the right
wrist. Lions rampant also appear upon the mantle of the horse. On his
helmet, as well as on his horse's head, is the Welsh dragon. The area of
the seal is diapered with roses. The inscription on this side (p. 251)
seems to fill the gap upon the obverse, OWENUS DEI GRATIA ... WALLIÆ.
The Privy Seal represents the four lions rampant, towards the spectator's
left, on a shield, surmounted by an open coronet; the dragon of Wales
as a supporter on the dexter side, on the sinister a lion. The
inscription seems to have been SIGILLUM OWENI PRINCIPIS WALLIÆ.
No impression of this seal is probably now to be found either in Wales
or England. Its workmanship shows that Owyn Glyndowr possessed a taste
for art far beyond the types of the seals of his predecessors."
[Illustration: Seal]