OWEN AND THE PERCYS
1401
North Wales, as already mentioned, was being now administered by the
young Prince Henry, with the help of a council whose headquarters were
at Chester. Under their orders, and their most active agent at this
time, was Henry Percy, the famous Hotspur, eldest son of the Earl of
Northumberland. He was Justice of North Wales and Constable of the
castles of Chester, Flint, Conway, Denbigh, and Carnarvon, and had
recently been granted the whole island of Anglesey. Hotspur, for
obvious reasons, made his headquarters at the high-perched and
conveniently situated fortress of Denbigh, which Lacy, Earl of
Lincoln, had built at the Edwardian conquest. Its purpose was to
overawe the lower portion of the Vale of Clwyd, which had fallen to
Lacy's share at the great division of plunder that signalised the
downfall of the last of the Welsh native Princes. The lordship of
Denbigh, it may be remarked parenthetically, since the fact becomes
one of some significance later on, belonged at this time to the
Mortimers, into which famous family Henry Percy had married. The
latter, to whose house the King was under such great obligations, was
the leading exponent of his master's policy in Wales, both in matters
of peace and war, and had been sufficiently loaded with favours to at
least equalise the balance of mutual indebtedness between the houses
of Northumberland and Lancaster.
Shakespeare's fancy and dramatic instinct has played sad havoc in most
people's minds with the mutual attitude of some of the leading figures
of this stormy period. It has been sufficiently disproved by his
biographers, if not, indeed, by the facts of general history, that
Henry of Monmouth was no more the dissipated, light-headed trifler and
heartless brawler than was Glyndwr the half-barbarous and wholly
boastful personage that Shakespeare has placed upon his stage. The
King, it will be remembered, is depicted, in the play that bears his
name, as bewailing with embittered eloquence the contrast between the
characters of Hotspur and his own son, and making vain laments that
the infants had not been changed while they lay side by side in their
cradles. It is something of a shock to recall the fact that Henry
Percy was a little older than the distraught father himself, and a
contemporary, not of the Prince, but of the King, who was now about
thirty-five, and many years younger than Glyndwr.
Prince Henry, even now, though not yet fourteen, seems to have had a
mind of his own. He had, in truth, to face early the stern facts and
hard realities of a life such as would have sobered and matured a less
naturally precocious and intelligent nature than his. His youth was
not spent in frivolity and debauchery in London, but upon the Welsh
border, for the most part, amid the clash of arms or the more trying
strain of political responsibility, aggravated by constant want of
funds. One might almost say that Henry of Monmouth's whole early
manhood was devoted to a fierce and ceaseless struggle with Glyndwr
for that allegiance of the Welsh people to which both laid claim. In
later years, as we shall see, it was the tenacity and soldier-like
qualities of the Prince that succeeded where veteran warriors had
failed, and that ultimately broke the back of Glyndwr's long and
fierce resistance. The King, far from deploring the conduct or
character of his valiant son, always treated him with the utmost
confidence, and invariably speaks of him in his correspondence with
unreserved affection and pride. He was of "spare make," say the
chroniclers who knew him, "tall and well proportioned, exceeding the
stature of men, beautiful of visage, and small of bone." He was of
"marvellous strength, pliant and passing swift of limb; and so trained
to feats of agility by discipline and exercise, that with one or two
of his lords he could on foot readily give chase to a deer without
hounds, bow, or sling, and catch the fleetest of the herd."
Either from a feeling that Hotspur was too strong, or that popular
fervour had perhaps been sufficiently aroused to the north of the
Dovey, Glyndwr now turned his attention to the southern and midland
districts of the country. But before following him there I must say
something of the incident which was of chief importance at the opening
of this year's operations.
Conway will probably be more familiar to the general reader than any
other scene of conflict we shall visit in this volume, from the fact
of its being so notable a landmark on the highway between England and
Ireland. The massive towers and walls of the great castle which Edward
the First's architect, Henry de Elfreton, raised here at the conquest
of Wales, still throw their shadows on the broad tidal river that laps
their feet. The little town which lies beneath its ramparts and
against the shore is still bound fast within a girdle of high,
embattled walls, strengthened at measured intervals by nearly thirty
towers, and presenting a complete picture of medieval times such as in
all Britain is unapproached, while immediately above it, if anything
were needed to give further distinction to a scene in itself so
eloquent of a storied past, rise to heaven the northern bulwarks of
the Snowdon range. Here, in the early spring of this year, within the
castle, lay a royal garrison closely beset by the two brothers,
William and Rhys ap Tudor, of the ever famous stock of Penmynydd in
Anglesey. They had both been excluded from the King's pardon, together
with Glyndwr, among whose lieutenants they were to prove themselves at
this period the most formidable to the English power.
Conway Castle, as may readily be believed by those familiar with it,
was practically impregnable, so long as a score or two of armed men
with sufficient to sustain life and strength remained inside it. The
Tudors, however, achieved by stealth what the force at their command
could not at that time have accomplished by other means. For while the
garrison were at church, a partisan of the Glyndwr faction was
introduced into the castle in the disguise of a carpenter, and after
killing the warders he admitted William ap Tudor and some forty men.
They found a fair stock of provisions within the castle, though, as
will be seen, it proved in the end insufficient. The main body of the
besiegers retired under Rhys ap Tudor to the hills overlooking the
town to await developments. They were not long left in suspense, for
the news of the seizure of the castle roused Hotspur to activity, and
he hastened to the spot with all the men that he could collect. Conway
being one of Edward's fortified and chartered English towns, the
inhabitants were presumably loyal to the King. But Hotspur brought
five hundred archers and men-at-arms and great engines, including
almost certainly some of the primitive cannon of the period, to bear
on the castle. William ap Tudor and his forty men laughed at their
efforts till Hotspur, despairing of success by arms, went on to
Carnarvon, leaving his whole force behind, to try the effect of
starvation on the garrison.
At Carnarvon Henry Percy held his sessions as Justice of North Wales,
openly proclaiming a pardon in the name of his master the Prince to
all who would come in and give up their arms. From here, too, he sent
word in a letter, still extant, that the commons of Carnarvon and
Merioneth had come before him, thanking the King and Prince for their
clemency and offering to pay the same dues as they had paid King
Richard. He also declared that the northern districts, with the
exception of the forces at Conway, were rapidly coming back to their
allegiance. How sanguine and premature Hotspur was in this declaration
will soon be clear enough.
In the meantime much damage had been done to Conway town by both
besiegers and besieged. The latter seem to have overestimated the
resources they found within the castle, for by the end of April they
were making overtures for terms. William ap Tudor offered on behalf of
his followers to surrender the place if a full and unconditional
pardon should be granted to all inside. Hotspur was inclined to accept
this proposal, but the council at Chester and the King himself,
getting word of his intention, objected, and with justice, to such
leniency. So the negotiations drag on. The King in a letter to his son
remarks that, as the castle fell by the carelessness of Henry Percy's
people, that same "dear and faithful cousin" ought to see that it was
retaken without concessions to those holding it, and, moreover, pay
all the expenses out of his own pocket. In any case he urges that, if
he himself is to pay the wages and maintenance of the besieging force,
and supply their imposing siege train, he would like to see something
more substantial for the outlay than a full and free pardon to the
rebels who had caused it. It was the beginning of July before an
agreement was finally arrived at, to the effect that if nine of the
garrison, not specified, were handed over to justice, the rest
should be granted both their lives and a free pardon. The selection of
the nine inside the castle was made on a strange method, if method it
can be called. For the leaders, having made an arbitrary and privy
choice of the victims, had them seized and bound suddenly in the
night. They were then handed over to Percy's troops, who slaughtered
them after the usual brutal fashion of the time.
[Illustration: INTERIOR CONWAY CASTLE.
Copyright
F. Frith & Co.]
A second letter of Henry Percy's to the council demonstrates
conclusively how seriously he had been at fault in his previous
estimate. This time he writes from Denbigh under date of May 17th,
pressing for the payment of arrears in view of the desperate state of
North Wales, and further declaring that if he did not receive some
money shortly he must resign his position to others and leave the
country by the end of the month. But Hotspur rose superior to his
threats; for at the end of May, at his own risk and expense, he made
an expedition against a force of Glyndwr's people that were in arms
around Dolgelly. He was accompanied by the Earl of Arundel and Sir
Hugh Browe, a gentleman of Cheshire. An action was fought of an
indecisive nature at the foot of Cader Idris, after which Percy
returned to Denbigh. Finding here no answer to his urgent appeal for
support, he threw up all his Welsh appointments in disgust and left
the country for the more congenial and familiar neighbourhood of the
Scottish border. For he held office here also, being joined with his
father in the wardenship of the Eastern Marches of Scotland.
Hotspur was even now, at this early stage and with some apparent
cause, in no very good humour with the King. It is certain, too, that
Glyndwr at this time had some special liking for the Percys, though
they were his open enemies, and it is almost beyond question that they
had a personal interview at some place and date unknown during the
summer.
Leaving North Wales in a seething and turbulent state, with local
partisans heading bands of insurgents (if men who resist an usurper
can be called insurgents) in various parts of the country, we must
turn to Owen and the South. Crossing the Dovey, Glyndwr had sought the
mountain range that divides Cardigan from what is now Radnorshire
(then known as the district of Melenydd), and raised his standard upon
the rounded summit of Plinlimmon. It was a fine position, lying midway
between North and South Wales, within sight of the sea and at the same
time within striking distance of the fertile districts of the Centre
and the South. Behind him lay the populous seaboard strip of
Ceredigion created at Edward's conquest into the county of Cardigan.
Before him lay Radnor, and Carmarthen, and the fat lordships of
Brycheiniog, to be welded later into the modern county of Brecon.
Along the Cardiganshire coast in Owen's rear a string of castles
frowned out upon the Irish Sea, held, since it was a royal county, by
the constables of the King, who were sometimes of English, sometimes
of Welsh, nationality. Inland, as far as the Herefordshire border, was
a confused network of lordships, held for the most part direct from
the King on feudal tenure by English or Anglo-Welsh nobles, and each
dominated by one or more grim castles of prodigious strength, against
which the feeble engines and guns of those days hurled their missiles
with small effect. Some of these were royal or quasi-royal property
and looked to the Crown for their defence. The majority, however, had
to be maintained and held by owners against the King's enemies,
subject to confiscation in case of any deficiency in zeal or
precaution. Ordinarily impregnable though the walls were, the
garrisons, as we shall see, were mostly small, and they were incapable
of making much impression upon the surrounding country when once it
became openly hostile and armed.
South Wales had as yet shown no great disposition to move. Some riots
and bloodshed at Abergavenny had been almost the sum total of its
patriotic activity. Now, however, that the Dragon Standard was
actually floating on Plinlimmon and the already renowned Owen, with a
band of chosen followers, was calling the South to arms, there was no
lack of response. The bards had been busy preparing the way on the
south as well as on the north of the Dovey. In the words of Pennant:
"They animated the nation by recalling to mind the great
exploits of their ancestors, their struggles for liberty,
their successful contests with the Saxon and Norman race for
upwards of eight centuries. They rehearsed the cruelty of
their antagonists, and did not forget the savage policy of the
first Edward to their proscribed brethren. They brought before
their countrymen the remembrance of ancient prophecies. They
showed the hero Glyndwr to be descended from the ancient race
of our Princes, and pronounced that in him was to be expected
the completion of our oracular Merlin. The band of minstrels
now struck up. The harp, the 'crwth,' and the pipe filled up
the measure of enthusiasm which the other had begun to
inspire. They rushed to battle, fearless of the event, like
their great ancestry, moved by the Druids' songs, and scorned
death which conferred immortality in reward of their valour."
Glyndwr now fell with heavy hand upon this southern country, crossing
the headwaters of the Severn and the Wye, and pressing hard upon the
Marches of Carmarthen. The common people rose on every side and joined
the forces that acted either under his leadership or in his name.
Those who did not join him, as was certainly the case with a majority
of the upper class at this early period, had to find refuge in the
castles or to fly to safer regions, leaving their property at the
mercy of the insurgents. But a battle was fought at the opening of
this campaign on the summit of Mynydd Hyddgant, a hill in the
Plinlimmon group, that did more, perhaps, to rouse enthusiasm for
Glyndwr than even the strains of the bards or his own desolating
marches.
The Flemings in Wales at that time were not confined to Western
Pembroke, but had still strong colonies below Carmarthen, in the
Glamorgan promontory of Gower, and some footing in South
Cardiganshire. Whether they had actually felt the hand of Glyndwr upon
their borders, or whether they deemed it better to take the
initiative, they at any rate collected a force of some fifteen hundred
men, and marching northward to the Cardigan mountains, surprised the
Welsh leader as he was encamped on the summit of Mynydd Hyddgant, with
a body of less than five hundred men around him. The Flemish strategy
was creditable, seeing that it was carried out by slow-witted and
slow-footed lowlanders against nimble mountaineers and so astute a
chieftain. Owen found himself surrounded by a force thrice the number
of his own, and either death or capture seemed inevitable. As the
latter meant the former, he was not long in choosing his course, and
putting himself at the head of his warriors he attacked the Flemings
with such fury that he and most of his band escaped, leaving two
hundred of their enemies dead upon the mountain slope. This personal
feat of arms was worth five thousand men to Owen. It was all that was
wanted to fill the measure of his prestige and decide every wavering
Welshman in his favour.
For this whole summer Glyndwr was fighting and ravaging throughout
South and Mid-Wales. The lands of the English as well as of those
Welshmen who would not join him were ruthlessly harried. Stock was
carried off, homesteads were burned, even castles here and there were
taken, when ill-provisioned and undermanned. New Radnor under Sir John
Grendor was stormed and the sixty defenders hung upon the ramparts by
way of encouragement to others to yield. The noble abbey of Cwmhir
too, whose ruins still slowly crumble in a remote Radnorshire valley,
felt Glyndwr's pitiless hand, being utterly destroyed. His animosity
to the Church was intelligible, though for his method of showing it
nothing indeed can be said. The Welsh Church, though its personnel was
largely native, was, with the exception of the Franciscan order,
mostly hostile to Glyndwr and upon the side of the English Government.
Bards and priests, moreover, were irreconcilable enemies. The latter
had in some sort usurped the position the former had once held, and
now the patron and the hero of the bards, who were once more lifting
up their heads, was not likely to be acceptable to the clergy. This,
however, would be a poor excuse for an iconoclasm that would set a
Welsh torch to noble foundations built and endowed for the most part
with Welsh money.
Glyndwr in the meantime swept down the Severn valley, burning on his
way the small town of Montgomery, and coming only to a halt where the
border borough of Welshpool lay nestling between the high hills
through which the Severn rushes out into the fat plains of Shropshire.
The great Red Castle of Powys, then called "Pole," overlooked in those
days, as it does in these, the town it sheltered. The famous
Shropshire family of Charlton were then, and for generations
afterwards, its lords and owners. From its walls Glyndwr and his
forces were now driven back by Edward Charlton with his garrison and
the levies of the neighbourhood, which remained throughout the war
staunch to its lord and the King. The repulse of Owen, however, was
not accomplished without much hard fighting and the destruction of all
the suburbs of the town.
But these sallies from castles and walled towns could do little more
than protect their inmates. Mid- and South Wales literally bristled
with feudal castles containing garrisons of, for the most part, less
than a hundred men. These scattered handfuls were unable to leave
their posts and act in unison, and when the abandonment of North Wales
by Hotspur gave further confidence to those who had risen, or would
like to rise, for Glyndwr, the greater part of South Wales fell into
line with the Centre and the North. From the border to the sea Owen
was now, so far as the open country was concerned, irresistible. Nor
was it only within the bounds of Wales that men who were unfriendly to
Glyndwr had cause to tremble. The rapid progress of his arms had
already spread terror along the border, and created something like a
panic even in England. The idea of a Welsh invasion spread to
comparatively remote parts, and urgent letters carried by hard-riding
messengers went hurrying to the King from beleaguered Marchers and
scared abbots, beseeching him to come in person to their rescue.
All this happened in August. As early as the preceding June, when
Conway was in Welsh hands, the King had meditated a second invasion in
person, and had issued summonses to the sheriffs of fourteen counties
to meet him at Worcester, but the approaching surrender of Conway and
the optimistic reports from Wales that met him as he came west turned
him from his purpose. There was no optimism now; all was panic and the
King was really coming. The Prince of Wales in the meantime was
ordered forward with the levies of the four border counties, while the
forces of twenty-two of the western, southern, and midland shires were
hurriedly collected by a proclamation sent out upon the 18th of
September.
One reads with constant and unabated surprise of the celerity with
which these great levies gathered from all parts of the country to the
appointed tryst, fully equipped and ready for a campaign. One's
amazement, however, is sensibly modified as the narrative proceeds and
discovers them after a week or two of marching in an enemy's country
reduced to their last crust, upon the verge of disaster and
starvation, and leaving in their retiring tracks as many victims as
might have fallen in quite a sharp engagement.
By the opening of October the King and Prince Henry had entered Wales
with a large army. The proclamation of September the 18th, calling out
the forces of England, had stated that the greater part of the
able-bodied men of Wales had gone over to Owen. Now, however, as this
great host pushed its way to Bangor, as had happened before, and would
happen again, not a Welshman was to be seen. On every side were the
sparse grain-fields long stripped of their produce, the barns empty,
the abundant pastures bare of the small black cattle and mountain
sheep with which in times of peace and safety they were so liberally
sprinkled. On the 8th of October the army was at Bangor, on the 9th at
Carnarvon, whose tremendous and impregnable fortress John Bolde
defended for the King with about a hundred men. Still seeing no sign
of an enemy, they swept in aimless fashion round the western edges of
the Snowdon mountains (for the route through them, which was even then
a recognised one, would have been too dangerous), arriving in an
incredibly short space of time in Cardiganshire, where the King called
a halt at the great and historic abbey of Ystradfflur or Strata
Florida.
The weather for a wonder favoured the English, and we might be excused
for giving our imagination play for a moment and painting in fancy the
gorgeous sight that the chivalry of half England, unsoiled by time or
tempests or war, with its glinting steel, its gay colours, its
flaunting pennons, shining in the October sun, must have displayed as
it wound in a long, thin train through those familiar and matchless
scenes. The great Cistercian house of Ystradfflur had shared with
Conway in olden days the honour of both making and preserving the
records of the Principality. Around the building was a cemetery shaded
by forty wide-spreading and venerable yew trees. Beneath their shade
lay the bones of eleven Welsh Princes of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries and perhaps those of the greatest Welsh poet of the age,
Dafydd ab Gwilim. Henry cared for none of these things. He allowed the
abbey to be gutted and plundered, not sparing even the sacred vessels.
He turned the monks out on to the highway, under the plea that two or
three of them had favoured Owen, and filled up the measure of
desecration by stabling his horses at the high altar.
Meanwhile, Owen and his nimble troops began to show themselves in
Cardiganshire, harrying the flanks and rear and outposts of the royal
army, cutting off supplies, and causing much discomfort and
considerable loss, including the whole camp equipage of the Prince of
Wales.
Henry did his best to bring Owen to action, but the Welsh chieftain
was much too wary to waste his strength on a doubtful achievement
which hunger would of a certainty accomplish for him within a few
days. An eminent gentleman of the country, one Llewelyn ab Griffith
Vychan of Cayo, comes upon the scene at this point and at the expense
of his head relieves the tedium of this brief and ineffectual campaign
with a dramatic incident. His position, we are told, was so
considerable that he consumed in his house no less than sixteen casks
of wine a year; but his patriotism rose superior to his rank and
comforts. He offered to guide the royal troops to a spot where they
might hope to capture Owen, but instead of doing this he deliberately
misled them, to their great cost, and openly declared that he had two
sons serving with Glyndwr, and that his own sympathies were with them
and their heroic leader. He then bared his neck to the inevitable axe
of the executioner, and proved himself thereby to be a hero, whose
name, one is glad to think, has been rescued from oblivion.
The King, having attended to the mangling and quartering of this
gallant old patriot, crossed the Montgomery hills with his army and
hurried down the Severn valley, carrying with him, according to Adam
of Usk, a thousand Welsh children as captives. Beyond this capture,
he had achieved nothing save some further harrying of a land already
sufficiently harried, and the pillaging of an historic and loyal
monastery.
Arriving at Shrewsbury before the end of October he disbanded his
army, leaving behind him a Wales rather encouraged in its rebellious
ways than otherwise, Glyndwr's reputation in no whit diminished, and
his own and his Marchers' castles as hardly pressed and in as sore a
plight as when he set out, with so much pomp and circumstance, less
than a month before. It must have been merely to save appearances that
he issued a pardon to the "Commons of Cardigan," with leave to buy
back the lands that had been nominally confiscated. He was also good
enough to say that on consideration he would allow them to retain
their own language, which it seems he had tabooed; this, too, at a
time when the life of no Englishman in Cardigan was safe a bowshot
away from the Norman castles, when the Welsh of the country were
practically masters of the situation and Glyndwr virtually their
Prince.
Still Henry meant well. Since he was their King, his manifest duty was
to reconquer their country for the Crown, and this was practically the
task that lay before him. But then again this is precisely what he did
not seem for a long time yet to realise. He was a good soldier, while
for his energy and bodily activity one loses oneself in admiration.
But he persistently underrated the Welsh position and gave his mind
and his energies to other dangers and other interests which were far
less pressing. And when he did bend his whole mind to the subjection
of Glyndwr, his efforts were ill-directed, and the conditions seemed
to be of a kind with which he not only could not grapple but which his
very soul abhorred. It remained, as will be seen, for the gallant son,
whose frivolity is popularly supposed to have been the bane of his
father's life, by diligence as well as valour, to succeed where the
other had ignominiously failed.
Lord Rutland was now appointed to the thorny office of Governor of
North Wales, while the Earl of Worcester, a Percy and uncle to
Hotspur, was left to face Glyndwr in the southern portion of the
Principality. The winter of 1401-2 was at hand, a season when Owen and
his Welshmen could fight, but English armies most certainly could not
campaign. The castles in the Southern Marches were put in fighting
trim, revictualled and reinforced. The chief of those in the interior
that Glyndwr had now to face were Lampeter, Cardigan and Builth,
Llandovery and Carmarthen, while upon the border the massive and
high-perched towers of Montgomery and Powys looked down over the still
smoking villages by the Severn's bank, and girded themselves to stem
if need be any repetition of such disaster. Owen seemed to think that
his presence in the North after so long an absence would be salutary;
so, passing into Carnarvonshire, he appeared before its stubborn
capital.
But John Bolde had been reinforced with men and money, and, joined by
the burghers of the town, he beat off Glyndwr's attack and slew three
hundred of his men. This was early in November. All North Wales but
the castles and the walled towns around them, where such existed, was
still friendly to Owen. The chief castles away from the English
border, Criccieth, Harlech, Carnarvon, Conway, Snowdon (Dolbadarn),
Rhuddlan, and Beaumaris, complete the list of those in royal keeping
and may be readily reckoned up, unlike those of South Wales, whose
name was legion; while Denbigh and Ruthin were the only Marcher
strongholds, apart from those which were in immediate touch with Salop
and Cheshire. Now it so happened that, before most of the events
narrated in this chapter had taken place, before, indeed, Hotspur had
retired in such seeming petulance from North Wales during the
preceding summer, he had contrived a meeting with Glyndwr. The scene
of the interview is not known; that it occurred, however, is not
merely noted by the chroniclers, but Glyndwr's attitude in connection
with it is referred to in the State papers. A council called in
November, while Owen was making his attempt on Carnarvon, has upon its
minutes, "To know the king's will about treaty with Glyndwr to return
to his allegiance seeing his good intentions relating thereto." In the
interview with Percy, Owen is said to have declared that he was
willing to submit, provided that his life should be spared and his
property guaranteed to him. Later in the year, as a well-known
original letter of the period affirms, "Jankyn Tyby of the North
Countre bringeth letteres owt of the North Countre to Owen as thei
demed from Hen^r. son Percy."
In answer Owen expressed his affection for the Earl of Northumberland
and the confidence he felt in him. The King was then informed of the
proceedings, and with his consent a messenger was sent from Earl Percy
to Mortimer, whose sister, as Hotspur's wife, was his daughter-in-law.
Through the medium of Mortimer, soon to become so closely allied to
Glyndwr, the latter is reported to have declared his willingness for
peace, protesting that he was not to blame for the havoc wrought in
Wales, and that he had been deprived of his patrimony, meaning no
doubt the northern slice of Glyndyfrdwy which Grey, after being
defeated at law, had annexed by force, with connivance of the King's
council. He added that he would readily meet the Earl of
Northumberland on the English border, as was required of him, but that
he feared outside treachery to his person, as a man who had made such
a host of enemies may well have done. He also declared that, if he
came to Shropshire, the Commons would raise a clamour and say that he
came to destroy all those who spoke English. That Hotspur had seen
Glyndwr earlier in the summer is distinctly stated by Hardyng, who was
Hotspur's own page. The fact that Percy did not take the opportunity
to treacherously seize the Welsh chieftain was afterwards made one of
the grievances urged by the King when he had other really serious ones
against his old comrade. It may well, however, be suspected that some
of these mysterious overtures in which the Percys and Mortimer figured
so prominently contained the germs of the alliance that followed
later between Glyndwr and the two great English houses.
[Illustration: OLD BRIDGE AT LLANSANTFFRAID, GLYNDYFRDWY.
Copyright
Miss Walker.]
No such suspicions, however, were as yet in the air, and Glyndwr
retired, with his captains and his bards, into winter quarters at
Glyndyfrdwy. Here, through the short days and long nights, the sounds
of song and revelry sounded in the ancient Welsh fashion above the
tumbling breakers of the Dee. The very accessibility of the spot to
the strong border castles showed the reality at this time of Owen's
power. The great pile of Chirk was not a dozen miles off, Dinas Brân
was within easy sight, and the Arundels, who held them both, were no
less mighty than the Greys who lay amid the ashes of Ruthin across the
ridges to the north. But the whole country towards England, to Wrexham
upon the one hand and to Oswestry on the other, and even to Ellesmere
and that detached fragment of Flint known then as "Maelor Saesnag,"
was in open or secret sympathy with what had now become a national
movement. More men of note, too, and property were with Owen this
winter. The rising in its origin had been markedly democratic. The
labour agitations that during the century just completed had stirred
England, had not left Wales untouched. There, too, the times had
changed for the lower orders. The Norman heel pressed more heavily
upon them than it did upon their native masters, who were often on
friendly terms and connected by marriage with the conquerors'
families, while the very fact that Norman feudal customs had grown so
general made it harder for the poor. The Welsh gentry as a class had
hitherto fought somewhat shy of the Dragon Standard. Many, especially
from South Wales, had fled to England. Now, however, everyone outside
the immediate shelter of the castles had to declare himself for Owen
or the King. And at this moment there was not much choice,--for those,
at any rate, who set any store by their safety.
To make matters worse for Henry, the Scots had again declared war in
November, and in December Glyndwr made a dash for the great stronghold
of Harlech. This was only saved to the King, for the time being, by
the timely despatch of four hundred archers and one hundred
men-at-arms from the Prince of Wales's headquarters at Chester. Owen,
however, achieved this winter what must have been, to himself at any
rate, a more satisfactory success than even the taking of Harlech, and
this was the capture of his old enemy, Reginald, Lord Grey of Ruthin.
It was on the last day of January, according to Adam of Usk, that
Glyndwr crossed the wild hills dividing his own territory from that of
Grey, and, dropping down into the Vale of Clwyd, appeared before
Ruthin. There are several versions of this notable encounter. All
point to the fact that Owen exercised some strategy in drawing his
enemy, with the comparatively small force at his command, out of his
stronghold, and then fell on him with overpowering numbers.
An old tale recounts that the Welsh leader drove a number of stakes
into the ground in a wooded place and caused his men to hang their
helmets on them to represent a small force, while the men themselves
lurked in ambush upon either side; and that he caused the shoes of his
horses to be reversed to make Grey think that he had retreated. The
fight took place, according to one tradition, close to Ruthin; another
declares that Brynsaithmarchog ("the hill of the seven knights"), half
way to Corwen, was the scene of it. But this is of little moment to
other than local antiquaries. Grey's force was surrounded and cut to
pieces; that haughty baron himself was taken prisoner, and carried off
at once, with a view to making so notable a captive secure against all
attempt at rescue, to the Snowdon mountains. The tables were indeed
turned on the greedy and tyrannical Lord Marcher who had been the
primary cause of all this trouble that had fallen upon Wales and
England. Glyndwr would not have been human had he not then drained to
the last drop the cup of a revenge so sweet, and Grey was immured in
the castle of Dolbadarn, whose lonely tower, still standing between
the Llanberis lakes and at the foot of Snowdon, is so familiar to the
modern tourist. His treatment as a prisoner, amid the snows of those
cold mountains, was not indulgent, if his friends in England are to be
believed. But such a captive was too valuable to make experiments upon
in the matter of torture or starvation. Owen regarded him as worth
something more than his weight in gold, and gold was of infinite value
to his cause. So he proceeded to assess Grey's ransom at the
formidable sum of ten thousand marks, no easy amount for even the
greater barons of that time to realise.
The King was greatly distressed when he heard of his favourite's fate
and pictured him as chained to the wall in some noisome dungeon in the
heart of those dreary mountains, at the thought of which he shuddered.
Rescue was impossible, for the very frontiers of Wales defied him,
while the heart of Snowdonia, the natural fortress of the Welsh
nation, was at that time almost as far beyond the reach of his arm as
Greenland; moreover he had the Scots just now upon his hands.
Grey's captivity lasted nearly a year. Greatly concerned in the matter
though the King was, it was not till the following October that he
appointed a commission to treat with Glyndwr for his favourite's
ransom. This commission consisted of Sir William de Roos, Sir Richard
de Grey, Sir William de Willoughby, Sir William de Zouche, Sir Hugh
Hals, and six other less distinguished people. Glyndwr agreed to
release his prisoner in consideration of ten thousand marks, six
thousand to be paid within a month, and hostages, in the person of his
eldest son and others, to be delivered to him as guaranty for the
remaining four thousand. The Bishop of London and others were then
ordered to sell the manor of Hertleigh in Kent, and Grey was to be
excused for six years from the burdensome tax then laid on absentee
Irish landowners amounting to one-third of their rentals. These
payments left him, we are told, a poor man for life. His Ruthin
property had been destroyed by Glyndwr himself, and the latter's
triumph was complete when the Lord Marcher had to make a humiliating
agreement not to bear arms against him for the rest of his life.
Hardyng, the rhyming chronicler, does not omit this notable incident:
"Soone after was the same Lord Grey in feelde
Fightyng taken and holden prisoner,
By Owayne, so that him in prison helde,
Tyll his ransome was made and finance
Ten thousand marke, and fully payed were dear
For whiche he was _so poor than all his lyfe
That no power he had to werr ne strife_."
An unfounded, as well as quite improbable, tradition has found its way
into many accounts, which represents Owen as compelling Grey to marry
one of his daughters.
While these stirring events were taking place, Glyndwr's thoughts and
his correspondence were busy travelling oversea. He was sending
letters both to the King of Scotland and the native chieftains of
Ireland, soliciting their aid. At this time, too, a certain knight of
Cardiganshire named David ap Tevan Goy, who for twenty years had been
fighting against the Saracens, with various Eastern Christians, was
sent on Owen's behalf by the King of France to the King of Scotland.
He was captured, however, by English sailors and imprisoned in the
Tower of London.
Glyndwr's own messengers were equally unfortunate, for letters he sent
to Robert of Scotland and the Irish chieftains were seized in Ireland
and their bearers beheaded. Adam of Usk has fortunately left us a copy
of them. Glyndwr had as yet no chancellor or secretary at his side
that we know of. And, indeed, being a man of the world and a
well-educated one, it may safely be assumed that he wrote these
letters himself. We have so little from his own hand; his personality
is in some respects so vague and shadowy; his deeds and their results
comprise such a vast deal more of the material from which the man
himself has to be judged than is usually the case, that one feels
disinclined to omit the smallest detail which brings him, as an
individual, more distinctly to the mind. I shall therefore insert the
whole text of the captured letters. The first is to the King of
Scotland, the second to the lords of Ireland.
"Most high and Mighty and redoubted Lord and Cousin, I commend
me to your most High and Royal Majesty, humbly as it beseemeth
me with all honour and reverence. Most redoubted Lord and
Sovereign Cousin, please it you and your most high Majesty to
know that Brutus, your most noble ancestor and mine, which was
the first crowned King who dwelt in this realm of England,
which of old times was called Great Britain. The which Brutus
begat three sons; to wit, Albanact, Locrine, and Camber, from
which same Albanact you are descended in direct line. And the
issue of the same Camber reigned loyally down to Cadwalladar,
who was the last crowned King of the people, and from whom I,
your simple Cousin am descended in direct line; and after
whose decease, I and my ancestors and all my said people have
been and still are, under the tyranny and bondage of mine and
your mortal enemies, the Saxons; whereof you most redoubted
Lord and very Sovereign Cousin, have good knowledge. And from
this tyranny and bondage the prophecy saith that I shall be
delivered by the help and succour of your Royal Majesty. But
most redoubted Lord and Sovereign Cousin, I make a grievous
plaint to your Royal Majesty, and most Sovereign Cousinship,
that it faileth me much in soldiers, therefore most redoubted
Lord and very Sovereign Cousin, I humbly beseech you kneeling
upon my knees, that it may please your Royal Majesty to send
me a certain number of soldiers, who may aid me and withstand,
with God's help, mine and your enemies, having regard most
redoubted Lord and very Sovereign Cousin to the chastisement
of this mischief and of all the many past mischiefs which I
and my ancestors of Wales have suffered at the hands of mine
and your mortal enemies. And be it understood, most redoubted
Lord and very Sovereign Cousin that I shall not fail all the
days of my life to be bounden to do your service and to repay
you. And in that I cannot send unto you all my business in
writing, I send these present bearers fully informed in all
things, to whom be pleased to give faith and belief in what
they shall say to you by word of mouth. From my Court, most
redoubted Lord and very Sovereign Cousin, may the Almighty
Lord have you in his keeping."
The letter to the Irish lords runs thus:
"Health and fulness of love most dread Lord and most trusty
Cousin. Be it known unto you that a great discord or war hath
arisen between us and our and your deadly enemies, the Saxons;
which war we have manfully waged now for nearly two years
past, and henceforth mean and hope to wage and carry out to a
good and effectual end, by the grace of God our Saviour, and
by your help and countenance. But seeing that it is commonly
reported by the prophecy, that before we can have the upper
hand in this behalf, you and yours, our well beloved Cousins
in Ireland must stretch forth thereto a helping hand,
therefore most dread Lord and trusty Cousin, with heart and
soul we pray you that of your horse and foot soldiers, for the
succour of us and our people who now this long while are
oppressed by our enemies and yours, as well as to oppose the
treacherous and deceitful will of those same enemies, you
despatch to us as many as you shall be able with convenience
and honour, saving in all things your honourable State, as
quickly as may seem good to you. Delay not to do this by the
love we bear you and as we put our trust in you, although we
be unknown to you, seeing that, most dread Lord and Cousin, so
long as we shall be able to manfully wage this war in our
borders, as doubtless is dear to you, you and all the other
Chiefs of your land of Ireland will in the meantime have
welcome peace and calm repose. And because, my Lord Cousin,
the bearers of these presents shall make things known to you
more fully by word of mouth, if it please you, you shall give
credence to them in all things which they shall say to you on
our behalf, and you may trustfully confide to them whatsoever
you will, dread Lord and Cousin, that we your poor cousin
shall do. Dread Lord and Cousin, may the Almighty preserve
your reverence and Lordship in long life and good fortune.
"Written in North Wales on the twenty-ninth day of November
[1401]."
[Decoration]