1211 he assembled a large army at Oswestry, and was there joined by many
of the Welsh Chieftains, his vassals, with whom he marched to Chester;
resolving to exterminate the people of North Wales. It is revolting to
trace the history of this feeble-minded and capricious king. His
reckless attacks upon Wales, and his inveterate quarrel with his
son-in-law, Prince Llywelyn ab Jorwerth, added to his troubles, and
probably hastened his end. As a last effort against Wales, resenting
Llywelyn’s stern defence of Cambrian independence, John demolished the
castles of Radnor and Hay; and then, proceeding to the Marches, he set
fire to Oswestry Castle, then under the governorship of John Fitz-Alan,
(who had united with the barons of England in renouncing allegiance to
the English Monarch, on his refusal to confirm their constitutional
rights,) and burnt it to the ground.
In the reign of Henry III. John Fitz-Alan, who was reconciled to the
king, procured for his Manor of Blanc-Minster the grant of a Fair on the
eve, the day, and the day after St. Andrew’s feast. The Bailiffs were
also made clerks of the market, with privilege to imprison any person
detected in forestalling; for which they were paid twenty marks as a
consideration. These petty officers, “dressed in a little brief
authority,” abused their power, and gave occasion to frequent
remonstrances from the inhabitants. Powel, who seems to have paid great
deference to “the powers that be,” concludes, not very logically, we
think, that it was “no wonder that so many of the grievances which the
Welsh so much complained of to Edward I. should originate from this
place.”
The historic facts recorded subsequent to this period are brief and
meagre. We are told that in 1233 Oswestry was again destroyed by fire.
Llywelyn ab Jorwerth had just made an inroad into the county of
Brecknock, destroying all the towns and fortresses belonging to that
territory; he then invested the castle, lay before it a month, raised the
siege, finding his efforts to be fruitless, set fire to the town, and
pursued his way to the Marches. Conflagration and ruin marked his
progress: he burnt the town of Clun, in Salop, demolished Redde Castle,
in Powys, and laid Oswestry in ashes. A few months afterwards, Llywelyn
and Lord Pembroke, having joined their forces, made another inroad into
the English Marches, and having rendered all that country a scene of
devastation, they finished their fiery career by laying part of the town
of Shrewsbury (Frankwell, it is supposed,) in ashes.
Early in the reign of Edward I. that monarch was intent on bowing the
stubborn neck of Llywelyn ab Grufydd (the last native sovereign Prince of
Wales). Llywelyn was refractory, and ambitious to maintain his order.
Edward summoned him to a parliament in London, but Llywelyn refused to
comply with the royal command. In reply, he offered (Oct. 14, 1276–7,)
to repair to Montgomery, or to “the White Monastery of John Fitz-Alan,”
as Oswestry was then called, but declined a journey to the metropolis of
England. On the receipt of this answer, by which Edward, resolute to
exact a personal obedience, was, or affected to be, greatly enraged, the
Parliament immediately condemned Llywelyn as a rebel, for his
non-appearance. The melancholy end of the Welsh prince is well known.
“If,” says an elegant historian, “the valour of Llywelyn, his talents,
and his patriotism, had been exhibited upon a more splendid theatre,—on
the plains of Marathon, or in the straits of Thermopylæ,—his name would
have been recorded in the classic page, and his memory revered, as an
illustrious hero, and as a gallant assertor of the rights of nature.”
Edward did not confine his attention to Wales only, but extended it to
the Borders, and included in his eagle-eyed glance the town of Oswestry.
“Provision was made,” says Pennant, “against future insults; for in the
reign of Edward I. the town (Oswestry) was surrounded with walls. This
happened when that politic monarch meditated the conquest of Wales; he
therefore thought proper to secure this town, one of the keys of the
country, with proper defence.” He commenced the erection of the walls in
1277. They are said to have been about a mile in circumference, with an
intrenchment on the outside, which could be filled with water from the
numerous streams in the vicinity. Edward’s order to put Oswestry into a
state of defence issued from Shrewsbury—the seat of his government for
several months—and his letters patent, directed to the Bailiffs and
Burgesses of the ancient town, are worthy of record, as they show the
mode in which taxation was levied in early days. This curious document
is as follows:—
“Of the Murage of Oswaldestre. The King to the Bailiffs and
Burgesses, and the other good men of Oswaldestre greeting.
“Know ye that we have granted in aid of enclosing our town of
Oswaldestre, that from the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle in the
twelvth year of our reign to the end of twenty years thence ensuing,
ye may take in the same Town, to the reparation of the walls of the
same Town, of every horse-load of corn to be sold, one halfpenny; of
every horse and mare, ox and cow sold, one halfpenny; of every hide
of horse and mare, ox and cow, fresh, salt, or tanned, one farthing;
of every cart bringing salted flesh to sell, twopence; of five bacons
sold, one halfpenny; of a salmon fresh sold, one halfpenny; of ten
sheep, goats, or pigs sold, one penny; of ten fleeces of wool, one
penny; of one hundred skins of sheep, goats, stags, hind bucks and
does, one penny; of every hundred skins of lambs, kids, hares,
rabbits, foxes, cats, and squirrels, one halfpenny; of every cart of
salt to sell, one penny; of every horse-load of salt to sell by the
week, one farthing; of every horse-load of cloth to sell, one penny;
of every entire cloth to sell in the town of Gloucester, one penny;
of every cloth of silk brocaded and diapered with gold, one penny; of
every cloth of silk without gold and chef de cendall, one halfpenny;
of every dole of wine to sell, two pence; of every horse-load of
honey to sell, one penny; of every dole of honey to sell, four pence;
of every sack of wool to sell, four pence; of every truss of cloth to
sell brought by cart, four pence; of every horse-load of cloth to
sell, or other diverse and small things coming to be sold in the same
town, one halfpenny; of every cart of iron to sell, one penny; of
every horse-load of iron to sell, one halfpenny; of every carriage of
lead to sell, two pence; of tallow and lard to sell, one farthing; of
every hundred of alum and copperas to sell, one halfpenny; of two
thousand onions, a farthing; of every thousand of herrings to sell,
one halfpenny; of every hundred of boards to sell, one halfpenny; of
every mill sold, one penny; of every thousand of laths sold, one
penny; of every new cart sold, one halfpenny; of every hundred of
faggots to sell, one halfpenny; of every quarter of salt, one
farthing; of every twelve horse-loads of coal sold, one halfpenny; of
every thousand of all manner of nails to sell, except cart nails, one
farthing; of a thousand of cart nails to sell, one halfpenny; of
every hundred of horse shoes and clouts to carts to sell, one
halfpenny; for every truss of any sort of merchandise coming for sale
to the aforesaid town, of the value of two shillings, one farthing;
of every cauldron sold to brew, one penny; of every quarter of
oatmeal to sell, one halfpenny: And we therefore command that ye take
the said custom to the end of the term aforesaid, but the term of the
said twenty years being compleat, the said custom ceases and is done
away. In witness, &c.”
Pennant states that the walls were begun in the sixth of Edward I., and
that “the murage or toll was granted on the inhabitants of the county,
which lasted for six years, in which time it may be supposed the walls
were completed.”
Archbishop Peckham visited Oswestry, June 12, 1284. He was received with
great respect by Anian, Bishop of St. Asaph, the clergy, and others.
Anian obtained from the king a confirmation of the rights and privileges
of his church, and received from John Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, and
Baron of Oswestry and Clun, the grant to his church of one hundred acres
of land at St. Martins, paying yearly at Midsummer, for ever, a pair of
gilt spurs; with the condition, that neither the bishop nor his
successors should alienate the same. This grant is dated at _Album
Monasterium_, 1271. Richard, son of the said John Fitz-Alan, afterwards
confirmed it, and also gave forty-five acres more, with the manor-house
belonging thereto. Anian had a long dispute at Rome respecting the
placing of a vicar in Blanc-Monasterium, the tithes of which his
predecessor had given to the Abbey of Shrewsbury. The issue was, that
the abbot, for the peaceable enjoyment of his tithes, gave the whole of
his lands at St. Martins, upon paying two _Welsh knives_ yearly. These
said knives, if now produced at Sheffield, would doubtless disturb the
risible faculties of the keen knife-manufacturers there.
Edward II. was much annoyed and harassed in the latter part of his reign,
partly from his want of fidelity to many of his most distinguished
nobles, the two Mortimers, uncle and nephew, among their number. A
revolution broke out against the king, in 1325, concocted, it is said, by
the queen and her favourite, Roger Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore, in which
the French monarch also took part. A strong feeling for and against
Edward was manifested in Shrewsbury, where the Mortimers were well known.
Edmund, Earl of Arundel, was one of the few peers who had preserved their
loyalty to the crown. He assembled a multitude of his Welsh tenantry at
Oswestry, with a view of seizing Shrewsbury for the king. Arundel was,
however, apprehended near Shrewsbury, with certain of his adherents,
after an obstinate struggle. The Earl was taken from that town to
Hereford, where he expiated his loyalty on the scaffold. For this
“service” the “good men of Salop” had all the goods and chattels found
upon him. After his execution, the queen, to show her attachment to her
paramour, Lord Mortimer, obtained the Castle of Oswestry for that
favourite. In 1324, Edmund, Earl of Arundel, granted two shops in
Leg-street, to the burgesses of Oswestry for ever, on payment of 13s. 4d.
yearly. This grant is witnessed by “Lord Richard, Abbot of Haggemon,”
and others, and “dated at Oswaldestre, on the feast of St. Michael, in
the 18th year of the reign of King Edward, the son of King Edward.”
Edward III.’s reign was long and glorious. It was distinguished by the
ever-memorable battle of Cressy. Part of the inhabitants of this town
doubtless contributed to the victory thus obtained; for in 1346 the king
directed Richard Fitz-Alan to raise two hundred of his vassals from
Oswestry and Clun, to attend him in the French wars.
In 1397 Richard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, was attainted and executed,
when Richard II. seized all his lands and manors, and granted them to
William le Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire. In the _Historia Regum Angliæ_ we
find the following bit of superstition entertained at this period. On
this occasion the Earl of Arundel must, of course, have deeply regretted
his contempt of the marvellous stone of which John Ross, the Antiquary,
of Warwick, writes. “The earl,” says this grave author, “kept a raven in
his court; and one day, as he was playing at chess in the garden, the
bird,” or, as Ross suggests, “a spirit in that form, brought up
(_eructavit_) a stone having the virtue of invisibility. The earl set no
value upon it, contrary to the advice of his nobles; and soon after,
being arrested by strong hand, he was committed to ward, and finally
beheaded.”
The king, having put down all opposition to certain measures which he was
resolved to carry, by the execution of Arundel, and the murder of his
uncle of Gloucester, adjourned his Parliament at Westminster to
Shrewsbury, and from thence to Oswestry. An apprehension of tumult among
the Earl of Arundel’s tenantry in this county, from his violent death,
and the seizure of his estates, was probably the reason for making both
Shrewsbury and Oswestry the scene of that national assembly. The
Parliament met at Shrewsbury Jan. 29, 1397–8, and was designated THE
GREAT PARLIAMENT. In this regal visit he displayed great magnificence,
and entertained the members with a sumptuous banquet, he appearing among
the people in his costly royal robes. Whilst in Shrewsbury Richard made
Chester a Principality, and annexed to it the Castle of Holt, the
lordship of Bromfield and Yale, Chirkland, and various other places in
Wales and on the Borders. During the proceedings in Parliament it was
ascertained that deadly hatred subsisted between the Dukes of Hereford
and Norfolk. These noblemen had been jointly concerned in the
impeachment of Arundel and his fellow-sufferers, at Westminster.
Norfolk, touched by remorse for his share in the ruin of a patriotic
peer, or desirous of ensnaring his late confederate, who had charged
Norfolk with using words disrespectful to the king, fell into open
quarrel with Hereford, who made the matter a subject of public accusation
in the Parliament against his antagonist. The king, unwilling that any
discourse about himself should be made the subject of open discussion,
suddenly closed the proceedings of Parliament, and adjourned to Oswestry.
In the assembly there the dispute between the two Dukes was recommenced,
and the king resolved that it should be ended by a duel between the
belligerent parties at Coventry. The combat did not take place, as the
Duke of Norfolk refused to fight; upon which Norfolk was banished from
the kingdom for ever, and Hereford for ten years. As a mark of the royal
favour, Richard granted, before the Parliament closed, the first Charter
conferred upon Oswestry, by which the town was incorporated by the name
of “_The Bailiffs and Burgesses of Oswestry_, _infra Palatinatum Cestriæ
in Marchia inter Angliam et Walliam_.” The Charter, which was founded
upon the one granted just before at Shrewsbury, exempted the Burgesses
from all contributions and exactions whatsoever, throughout the kingdom,
the city of London excepted. It bears date, August 14, 1399.
The close of Richard’s kingly rule was near. His love of idle show and
magnificence, his delight in popular applause, the buzzing about him of
parasites and flatterers, and his indulgence in pleasures, were followed
by a brief scene of bitter existence, which ended in degrading
humiliation and painful death. The eyes of Henry of Lancaster, Duke of
Hereford, had long been directed towards the throne, and he actively
employed his agents to place him upon it. The classic historians of
Shrewsbury assure us that, either from the disgust occasioned by outrages
perpetrated upon the Burgesses, by Richard’s body-guard, or disorderly
multitudes brought into the town during the sittings of his Parliament,
“it is certain that the revolution which placed Henry of Lancaster on the
throne had the entire concurrence of the inhabitants of these parts
(Shropshire). When the Duke proceeded into Wales to circumvent the
unhappy Richard, he passed through Ludlow and Shrewsbury, and was joined
here (Shrewsbury) by the Lords Scales and Bardolph, Sir Robert and Sir
John Legh, and other gentlemen of Cheshire.” Richard, after suffering
much indignity, was secured a prisoner in Flint Castle, by the great
conspirator Lancaster, and from thence was led in the Duke’s train to
Chester. Here Bolingbroke delivered the subdued monarch to the Duke of
Gloucester and Thomas, Earl of Arundel, saying, “Here is the murderer of
your father, you must be answerable for him.” He was subsequently
conveyed to Pontefract Castle, where he was basely assassinated by a band
of armed ruffians, four of whom he killed with a battle-axe before he
fell.
The untimely death of Richard caused an immediate change in the
government of Oswestry. Its newly-created lord, the Earl of Wiltshire,
fell a victim to popular fury, and Thomas, son of the attainted Earl of
Arundel, was restored to the manorial rights and dignities of Oswestry.
The Earl of Huntington, the king’s brother, fled into the county of
Essex; but passing through a village belonging to the Countess of
Hereford (sister of the deceased Richard, Earl of Arundel), he was
discovered, and arrested. The countess apprized the new monarch, Henry,
of the capture, and desired him to send to her the young Earl of Arundel,
her nephew, that he might witness the mode in which she intended to
avenge herself of her brother’s death. The Earl of Arundel posted to the
place where Huntington was prisoner, and loaded him with reproaches. The
countess delivered the captive nobleman, bound with chains, into the
hands of eight thousand of her vassals, whom she called together for the
occasion. The wretched prisoner, struck with terror at the preparations
made to take away his life, sued for mercy, and protested that he had not
committed the foul act of which he was accused. Had the countess
restrained her rage, and listened to reason and justice, she would have
found that Huntington was not a guilty murderer, but that Richard, Earl
of Arundel, was brought to the block mainly by the treachery of the Earl
of Nottingham. Heedless of his protestations and cries for mercy, she
commanded her vassals to cut him to pieces. His assembled executioners
are said to have taken pity upon him; whilst the countess and young earl
strenuously urged his death. Maddened by rage, she exclaimed, “Curse on
ye all, villains; you have not the courage to put a man to death.” This
violent exclamation roused an esquire, who offered himself as
executioner. He seized the hatchet, and approached Huntington, but was
so touched with his tender complaints, that he trembled with emotion; and
returning to the countess, his eyes being filled with tears, he said, “I
would not put the earl to death for all the gold in the world.” The
countess, full of indignation, looking at him “unutterable things,”
exclaimed, “Do what thou hast promised, or thy own head shall be cut
off.” When he heard this he was so afraid that he knew not what to do,
and approaching the earl again said, “Sir, I entreat your pardon; forgive
me your death.” He then struck him a violent blow on the shoulder, which
felled him to the ground. Huntington sprang up again, and said, “Alas,
man, why do you treat me thus? For God’s sake kill me more easily.” The
esquire then struck him eight times on the shoulder, being so terrified
that he could not aim his blows at the neck. Another blow followed,
which fell on the neck, when the wretched nobleman, suffering pain and
agony from his cruel treatment, cried out, “Alas, dear friend, have pity
upon me, and free me from my pain.” The executioner then seized a knife,
and cut the Earl’s throat, separating his head from the body.
The Glyndwr or Glendower insurrection arose about this period, and the
town of Oswestry greatly suffered from it. Owain Glyndwr was descended
on the mother’s side from Llywelyn, the last sovereign Prince of Wales,
his father, Grufydd Vychan, having married Helen, a grand-daughter of
that puissant chieftain. He studied the law at one of the Inns of Court
in London, and finally was admitted as a barrister. He may have quitted
his profession, for we find he was appointed an esquire to Richard II.,
to whom he was devotedly attached, and whose fortunes he followed even to
Flint Castle, and till his royal master’s household was dissolved. He
had been knighted by King Richard, and was married early in life to
Margaret, daughter to Sir David Hanmer, of Hanmer, in Flintshire, one of
the Justices of the Court of the King’s Bench. His resentment against
Henry IV. was strong and implacable. He had suffered deep private wrongs
from the usurpation of the king, and burned with indignation to avenge
himself.
Owain Glyndwr’s sudden appearance as a military leader of his countrymen
roused their ancient martial spirit, and thousands flocked to his
standard. In the year 1400 the town of Oswestry was burned, the Welsh
having attacked it; and in 1403 Owain Glyndwr assembled his forces in the
town, that he might join Lord Percy (surnamed Henry Hotspur) against the
king. The Welsh leader dispatched to the “tented field” his first
division only, amounting to 4000 men, whose prowess was distinguished on
the day of battle. The great body of his troops, about 12,000 in number,
did not approach nearer than Oswestry, they having been detained at the
siege of Kidweli Castle. It is thought by some writers, that Owain did
not remain inactively at Oswestry. Gough, the historian, mentions, that
about two miles from Shrewsbury, where the Pool road diverges from that
leading to Oswestry, “there stands an ancient decayed Oak Tree, of which
there is a tradition, that Glyndwr ascended it to reconnoitre; but
finding that the king was in great force, and that the Earl of
Northumberland had not joined his son, he fell back to Oswestry, and
immediately afterwards retreated into Wales.”
In the “_Beauties of England and Wales_,” the Shropshire history edited
by Mr. Rylance, we find the following passage on Glyndwr’s alledged
abandonment of Hotspur “at his utmost need:”—
“The army of Glyndwr, amounting to twelve thousand men, had remained
inactive at Oswestry during the battle. There is a tradition that he
himself quitted that place in disguise, and hastening to Shrewsbury,
hid himself in a gigantic oak, which commanded a full view of the
field; and that after witnessing the discomfiture of his friends,
returning with speed to Oswestry, he withdrew his forces into Wales,
whither he was pursued by Prince Henry.”
Hulbert, too, in his “_History of the Town and County of Salop_,”
referring to the famous battle, says, “Owain Glyndwr _beheld_ the battle
of Shrewsbury, instead of _sustaining_, by his arms, the cause of his
ally, the gallant and intrepid Hotspur.” Another writer on this
memorable event declares, that had Glyndwr brought up his reserved troops
when Hotspur by his impetuous onslaughts was within an ace of victory, or
when the brave warrior was slain, the battle would have been won, and the
royal forces entirely routed. Taking these allegements to be truths,
Glyndwr perpetrated a baseness which all faithful men must condemn.
Many writers have taken pains to solve the question, “Did Owain Glyndwr
act merely as an idle spectator at the battle of Shrewsbury; or did he
actually lead his _corps de reserve_ to Shelton, to aid the gallant
Hotspur?” No author that we have read has settled that doubtful inquiry.
Owain’s hatred of Henry, and his ardent efforts to give freedom to his
countrymen, with his chivalrous bearing in the rebellion he had created,
would suggest no evidence that Glyndwr was pusillanimous; and yet history
furnishes alleged facts strongly reflecting upon his heroic spirit, and
almost charging him with craven cowardice. To conclude that Glyndwr was
actuated by base and unmanly curiosity in perching himself upon a branch
of the Shelton Oak would be to brand his name with infamy; and yet, if he
were espying the battle from that famous tree, his troops being close in
reserve, but not in action, an accusation no less severe must ever rest
upon his character as a chieftain and a man. On this interesting
subject, which will always engage the attention of historical readers, a
poet of bright fancy and manly sentiment—Dovaston of Westfelton—has given
sarcastic expression to an opinion, in a Miltonic sonnet on the Shelton
Oak, that Owain Glyndwr, at the battle of Shrewsbury, was a traitor to
gallantry and faith:—
“Tradition says, and why not trust Tradition,
When many a haunt breathes, hallowed by her song,
From this Great Oak, backed by twelve thousand men,
Wrung at their country’s wrongs and murdered king,
Glyndwr, the wise, the bountiful, the brave,
_Beheld young Percy fall_: and conquest crown
The perjured Bolingbroke.—‘Bright youth, he cried,
Thy spur is cold. One thoughtless act hath lost
An Empire’s tide. Mark what the great have said—
‘The better part of valour is discretion,’
For safe on prudence every good attends.”
“The Battle of Shrewsbury” is not only “clad,” as the same poet
fancifully describes, “in cold-hearted History’s homely weeds,” but
“garlanded with Avon’s dewy flowers.” The conflict is part of the
history of this district; and the narrative we subjoin, from the able
pens of the historians of Shrewsbury, will attract the attention of all
who value “pure English, undefiled:”—