THE TRIPARTITE INDENTURE
1406
During the lull of this winter of 1405-6 messengers were going
backwards and forwards between Harlech and Scotland.
The chief event of the early part of the new year was the signing of
that Tripartite Indenture which I have already spoken of as being so
often attributed to the period before the battle of Shrewsbury. Pity,
for the sake of dramatic effect, that it was not, and as Shakespeare
painted it! Hotspur was then alive and the power of the Percys at its
height, while Mortimer had not tarnished the splendour of his house
and dimmed such measure of reputation as he himself enjoyed, by
sinking his individuality in that of his wife's strenuous father.
Glyndwr alone was greater than he had then been, though the zenith of
his fortunes had been reached and he was soon to commence that long,
hopeless struggle against fate and overwhelming odds that has caused
men to forget the ravager in the fortitude of the hero.
Northumberland had outworn, as we have seen, the King's marvellous
forbearance, and was now a fugitive in Scotland with Bardolph, whose
estates, like his own, had been confiscated, and whose person, like
Northumberland's, was urgently wanted by Henry. The old Earl had lost
his nerve and had taken alarm at certain indications on the part of
the Scots that they would not object to hand him over to Henry in
exchange for the doughty Lord Douglas who had been held in honourable
captivity since the battle of Shrewsbury. Fearing this he and Bardolph
took ship from the western coast for France. But either by prior
agreement with Glyndwr or on their own initiative they rounded the
stormy capes of Lleyn and, turning their ships' prows shorewards,
landed in the sandy and sequestered cove of Aberdaron.
Aberdaron is to this day the Ultima Thule of Wales. It was then a
remote spot indeed, though in times long gone by, when pilgrims crept
in thousands from shrine to shrine along the coasts of Lleyn to the
great abbey, "The Rome of the Welsh," on Bardsey Island, it had been
famous enough. It was not alone its remoteness that recommended this
lonely outpost, flung out so far into the Irish Sea, to the two
fugitives and irrepressible conspirators. David Daron, Dean of Bangor,
a friend of Glyndwr, had been with them in the North as one of his
commissioners and seems to have remained longer than his colleagues
with Percy. At any rate he was Lord of the Manor of Aberdaron and had
a house there to which he welcomed his two English friends. The object
of the latter was not merely to fly to France but to stir up its King
to renewed efforts against Henry. Glyndwr, too, as we shall see, had
been sending messengers to France, and the impending meeting at
Aberdaron might be fruitful of great results.
It is an easy run by sea of twenty miles or so from Harlech to the
farther capes of Lleyn where the romantic island of Bardsey,
sanctified by the bones of its twenty thousand saints, lifts its head
to an imposing height above the waves. To Aberdaron, just short of the
farthest point of the mainland, then came Glyndwr, bringing with him
Mortimer and no doubt others of his court. It was on February 28,
1406, that the meeting took place when the somewhat notable _Indenture
of Agreement_ was signed by the three contracting parties. The date of
this proceeding has been by no means undisputed, but of all moments
this particular one seems the most likely and has the sanction of the
most recent and exhaustive historians of the period.
The bards had been prolific and reminiscent during this quiet winter,
and there seemed special call as well as scope for their songs and
forecasts. The ancient prophecies of Merlin that were never allowed to
slumber, regarding the future of Britain and the Welsh race, were now
heard as loudly as they had been before the battle of Shrewsbury,
interpreted in various ways in uncouth and strange metaphor. Henry was
the "mouldwharp cursed of God's own mouth." A dragon would come from
the north and with him a wolf from the west, whose tails would be tied
together. Fearful things would happen upon the banks of the Thames and
its channel would be choked with corpses. The rivers of England would
run with blood. The "mouldwharp" would then be hunted out of the
country by the dragon, the lion, and the wolf, or, in other words, by
Glyndwr, Percy, and Mortimer. He would then be drowned and his kingdom
divided between his three triumphant foes.
Who framed the Indenture is not known; perhaps Glyndwr himself, since
he had been a barrister in his youth and was certainly a ready penman.
The chronicler tells us that the contracting parties swore fidelity to
each other upon the gospels before putting their names to the
articles, and then proceeds to give what purports to be the full text
of the latter in Latin, of which the following is a translation.
"This year the Earl of Northumberland made a league and
covenant and friendship with Owyn Glyndwr and Edmund Mortimer,
son of the late Earl of March, in certain articles of the form
and tenor following: In the first place that these Lords,
Owyn, the Earl, and Edmund shall henceforth be mutually
joined, confederate, united and bound by the bond of a true
league and true friendship and sure and good union. Again that
every one of these Lords shall will and pursue, and also
procure, the honour and welfare of one another; and shall in
good faith, hinder any losses and distresses which shall come
to his knowledge, by anyone whatsoever intended to be
inflicted on either of them. Every one also of them shall act
and do with another all and every of those things, which ought
to be done by good true and faithful friends to good, true and
faithful friends, laying aside all deceit and fraud. Also, if
ever any of the said Lords shall know and learn of any loss or
damage intended against another by any persons whatsoever, he
shall signify it to the others as speedily as possible, and
assist them in that particular, that each may take such
measures as may seem good against such malicious purposes; and
they shall be anxious to prevent such injuries in good faith;
also they shall assist each other to the utmost of their power
in the time of necessity. Also if by God's appointment it
should appear to the said Lords in process of time that they
are the same persons of whom the Prophet speaks, between whom
the Government of the Greater Britain ought to be divided and
parted, then they and every one of them shall labour to their
utmost to bring this effectually to be accomplished. Each of
them, also, shall be content with that portion of the kingdom
aforesaid, limited as below, without further exaction or
superiority; yea, each of them in such proportion assigned to
him shall enjoy liberty. Also between the same Lords it is
unanimously covenanted and agreed that the said Owyn and his
heirs shall have the whole of Cambria or Wales, by the
borders, limits and boundaries underwritten divided from
Lœgira, which is commonly called England; namely from the
Severn Sea as the river Severn leads from the sea, going down
to the north gate of the city of Worcester; and from that gate
straight to the Ash tree, commonly called in the Cambrian or
Welsh language Owen Margion, which grows on the highway from
Bridgenorth to Kynvar; thence by the highway direct, which is
usually called the old or ancient way, to the head or source
of the river Trent: thence to the head or source of the river
Mense; thence as that river leads to the sea, going down
within the borders, limits and boundaries above written. And
the aforesaid Earl of Northumberland shall have for himself
and his heirs the counties below written, namely,
Northumberland, Westmoreland, Lancashire, York, Lincoln,
Nottingham, Derby, Stafford, Leicester, Northampton, Warwick,
and Norfolk. And the Lord Edmund shall have all the rest of
the whole of England, entirely to him and his heirs. Also
should any battle, riot or discord fall out between two of the
said Lords (may it never be) then the third of the said Lords,
calling to himself good and faithful counsel, shall duly
rectify such discord, riot and battle; whose approval or
sentence the discordant parties shall be held bound to obey.
They shall also be faithful to defend the kingdom against all
men; saving the oak on the part of the said Owyn given to the
most illustrious Prince Charles by the Grace of God King of
the French, in the league and covenant between them made. And
that the same be, all and singular, well and faithfully
observed, the said Lords Owyn, the Earl, and Edmund, by the
holy body of the Lord which they now steadfastly look upon and
by the holy gospels of God by them now bodily touched, have
sworn to observe the premises all and singular to their
utmost, inviolably; and have caused their seals to be mutually
affixed thereto."
Little, however, was to come of all this. Earl Percy and Bardolph,
after spending some two years partly under Glyndwr's protection and
partly in France, found their way back to Scotland and in the spring
of 1408 played their last stake. Their fatuous attempt with a small
and ill-disciplined force of countrymen to overturn Henry's throne was
easily defeated at Bramham Moor in Yorkshire by the sheriff of that
county, and their heads and limbs were suspended from the gateways of
various English cities as a testimony to the dismal failure which the
great house of Percy had made of its persistent efforts to depose the
King it had created.
Glyndwr for his part was neither now, nor yet to be at any future
time, in a position to help his friends outside Wales. His power had
passed its zenith, though its decline is not marked by any special
incidents in this year 1406. Much the most interesting event to be
noted by the student of his career and period, at this turning-point
of his fortunes, is a letter he wrote to the King of France, almost
immediately after his return from the rendezvous with Northumberland
and Bardolph. His headquarters in the early spring of this year seem
to have been at Machynlleth, for the letter in question was written
from Pennal, a village about four miles from this ancient outpost of
Powys. Before touching, however, on the main object of this memorable
communication, it will be well to recall the fact that the remnants of
the French invaders of the previous year were just leaving Wales, to
the great relief of Owen. But his disappointment at the nature of the
help the French King had sent on this occasion by no means discouraged
him from looking in the same direction for more effectual support.
It was now the period of the Papal Schism. For nearly thirty years
there had been two rival popes, the one at Rome, the other at Avignon,
and Catholic Europe was divided into two camps, the countries who
adhered to the one spiritual chief professing to regard the followers
of the other as heretics unfit to breathe the air of this world and
without hope of pardon in the next. The Christian Church was shaken
to its foundations and degenerated into an arena of venomous strife.
Nor was this only a war of words, beliefs, interdicts, and sacerdotal
fulminations, for 200,000 lives are said to have been lost over this
squabble for the vicarship of Christ. Pious men deplored the
lamentable state to which those who should have been the upholders of
religion had reduced it. France, of course, in common with Spain,
maintained the cause of her own Pope. England held to the Roman
Pontiff, but even apart from the Lollard element, which was now
considerable, regarded the wearisome dispute with a large measure of
contemptuous indifference. Scotland as a matter of course took the
opposite side to England. There was no sentiment about "the island"
among the Anglo-Normans who lived north of the Tweed and who had
resisted successfully every attempt of their kinsmen on the south of
it to include them in their scheme of government. They were all aliens
alike so far as those who had power were concerned, and would not have
understood, probably, that strange sort of lingering loyalty to the
soil that in spite of everything still survived among the remnant of
the Britons. Glyndwr, of course, had acted directly against this
ancient theory, but mercenary soldiers were now such a feature of
military life that the importation of these Frenchmen was perhaps of
less significance, more particularly as foreign troops were
continually serving in England in the pay of various kings. Now,
however, as a bait to the French King and to quicken his interest in
his cause, Glyndwr offered to take Wales over to the allegiance of
the Avignon Pope. In this Pennal letter Owen dwells at some length
upon the details of the elections of the rival popes which the French
King himself had sent over to him, and he excuses himself for
following the English lead in the past and adhering to the Roman
Pontiff on the score of not having hitherto been properly informed
regarding the rights and wrongs of this same election. He
recapitulates the promises made to him by the King if he would
acknowledge Benedict XIII. and not his rival, Gregory XII.
After holding a council of the "princes of his race," prelates, and
other clergy he had decided to acknowledge the Avignon Pope. He begs
the King of France, as interested in the well-being of the Church of
Wales, to exert his influence with the Pope and prevail upon him to
grant certain favours which he proceeds to enumerate:
In the first place, that all ecclesiastical censures pronounced either
by the late Clement or Benedict against Wales or himself or his
subjects should be cancelled. Furthermore that they should be released
from the obligation of all oaths taken to the so-called Urban and
Boniface lately deceased and to their supporters. That Benedict should
ratify ordinations and appointments to benefices and titles (_ordines
collatos titulos_) held or given by prelates, dispensations, and
official acts of notaries, "involving jeopardy of souls or hurt to us
and our subjects from the time of Gregory XI." Owen urges that Menevia
(St. Davids) should be restored to its original condition as a
Metropolitan church, which it held from the time of that saint
himself, its archbishop and confessor, and under twenty-four
archbishops after him, whose names, beginning with Clind and ending
with the significantly Anglo-Saxon patronymic of Thompson, are herein
set forth. Formerly, the writer goes on to say, St. Davids had under
it the suffragan sees of Exeter, Bath, Hereford, Worcester, Leicester
(now transferred to Coventry), Lichfield, St. Asaph, Bangor, Llandaff,
and should rightly have them still, but the Saxon barbarians
subordinated them to Canterbury. In language that in later centuries
was to be so often and so vainly repeated, he represents that none but
Welsh-speaking clergy should be appointed, from the metropolitan down
to the curate. He requests also that all grants of Welsh parish
churches to English monasteries or colleges should be annulled and
that the rightful patrons should be compelled to present fit and
proper persons to ordinaries, that freedom should be granted to
himself and his heirs for their chapel, and all the privileges,
immunities, and exemptions which it enjoyed under their predecessors.
Curiously significant, too, and suggestive, is the point he makes of
liberty to found two universities, one for North and one for South
Wales. Indeed this is justly regarded as one of many bits of evidence
that Owen was not merely a battle-field hero, an avenging patriot, an
enemy of tyrants, but that he possessed the art of constructive
statesmanship had he been given the opportunity to prove it. The
educational zeal that does so much honour to modern Wales is fond of
pointing to Glyndwr as the original mover in that matter of a Welsh
national university which has so recently been brought to a
successful issue. King Henry in this letter is naturally an object of
special invective, and Owen prays that Benedict will sanction a
crusade in the customary form against the usurper Henry of Lancaster
for burning down churches and cathedrals, and for beheading, hanging,
and quartering Welsh clergy, including mendicant friars, and for being
a schismatic. The writer would appear by this to have unladen his
conscience of the burden of the smoking ruins of Bangor and St. Asaph
and of many, it is to be feared, less noteworthy edifices. Indeed, we
find him earlier in his career excusing himself for these sacrilegious
deeds and putting the onus of them on the uncontrollable fury of his
followers. But the verdict of posterity has in no way been shaken by
these lame apologies. Finally he asks the French King to make interest
with Benedict for plenary forgiveness for his sins and those of his
heirs, his subjects, and his men of whatsoever nation, provided they
are orthodox, for the whole duration of the war with Henry of
Lancaster.[14]
[14] This letter, which covers many folio pages, has never been
printed. It is in indifferent Latin with the usual abbreviations.
In the matter of making and elucidating copies of it at the Record
Office, Mr. Hubert Hall gave me some valuable assistance, as also
did Mr. C. M. Bull.
This document, a transcript of which is in the Record Office, is
preserved at Paris among the French government archives and has
attached to it by a double string an imperfect yellow seal, bearing
the inscription, "Owenus Dei Gratia princeps Walliæ." It is dated the
last day of March in the year of our Lord 1406 and "the sixth of our
reign." The original is endorsed with a note in Latin to the effect
that the above is the letter in which Owen, Prince of Wales,
acknowledged obedience to "our Pope."
This year was not a stirring one in Wales. France, to whom Owen was
appealing, was in no condition, or at any rate in no mood, to try a
serious fall with England. The policy of pin-pricks, to adapt a modern
term to the more strenuous form of annoyance in practice in those
times, had been pursued with tolerable consistency since the first
year of Henry's reign, and the most Christian King had never yet
recognised his rival of England as a brother monarch. Richard the
Second's child-Queen and widow, Isabel, had, after much haggling, been
restored by Henry to France, but that portion of her dower which,
according to her marriage settlement, should have been returned with
her, was unobtainable. She was married to the Duke of Orleans's eldest
son, aged eleven, the greater portion of her dower being a lien on
Henry of England for the unpaid balance of the sum above alluded to,
an indifferent security. International combats had been going merrily
on in the Channel and piratical descents upon either coast were
frequent. But this, of course, was not formal war, though a French
invasion of England had been one of the chief nightmares of Henry's
stormy reign. Internal troubles in France, however, now began somewhat
to relax the strained nature of the relationship with England, and
Owen's chances of Gallic help grew fainter. His son Griffith, or
Griffin, was a prisoner in Henry's hands; he had been committed to
the Tower, and by an irony of fate was under the special charge of one
of that powerful family to whom his father's old captive, Reginald
Grey of Ruthin, belonged. This gentleman, Lord de Grey of Cedmore, so
the Issue Rolls of the reign inform us, was paid the sum of three and
fourpence a day for Griffin, son of Owen de Glendowdy, and Owen ap
Griffith ap Richard, committed to his custody. Another companion in
captivity for part of the time, of this "cub of the wolfe from the
west," strange to say, was the boy-king of Scotland, who, like most
monarchs of that factious and ill-governed country, was probably
happier even under such depressing circumstances than if he were at
large in his own country, and his life most certainly was much safer.
The Rolls during all these years show a constant drain on the
exchequer for provisions and money and sinews of war for the
beleaguered Welsh castles. Here is a contract made with certain
Bristol merchants, mentioned by name, for sixty-six pipes of honey,
twelve casks of wine, four casks of sour wine, fifty casks of wheat
flour, and eighty quarters of salt to be carried in diverse ships by
sea for victualling and providing "the King's Kastles of Karnarvon,
Hardelagh, Lampadarn, and Cardigarn." Here again are payments to
certain "Lords, archers and men-at-arms to go to the rescue of Coity
castle in Wales." The rate of pay allowed to the soldiers of that day
for Welsh service is all entered in these old records and may be
studied by the curious in such matters.
"To Henry, Prince of Wales, wages for 120 men-at-arms and 350
archers at 12d. and 6d. per day for one quarter of a year
remaining at the abbey of Stratflur and keeping and defending
the same from malice of those rebels who had not submitted
themselves to the obedience of the Lord the King and to ride
after and give battle to the rebels as well in South as in
North Wales £666.13.4." Again, in the same year: "To Henry
Prince of Wales, for wages of 300 men-at-arms and 600 archers
and canoniers and other artificers for the war who lately
besieged the castle of Hardelagh [Harlech]."
From the latter of these extracts, which are quoted merely as types of
innumerable entries of a like kind, it will be seen that cannons were
used, at any rate in some of these sieges, and it is fairly safe to
assume that those used against Glyndwr were the first that had been
seen in Wales.
As the year 1406 advanced, the star of Owen began most sensibly to
wane. He was still, however, keeping up the forms of regal state along
the shores of Cardigan Bay, and we find him formally granting pardon
to one of his subjects, John ap Howel, at Llanfair near Harlech. The
instrument is signed "per ipsum Princepem," and upon its seal is a
portrait of Owen bareheaded and bearded, seated on a throne-like
chair, holding a globe in his left hand and a sceptre in his right.
Among the witnesses to the instrument are Griffith Yonge, Owen's
Chancellor, Meredith, his younger son, Rhys ap Tudor, and one or two
others. There is much that is hazy and mysterious about the events of
this year, but in most parts of Wales one hears little or nothing of
any shifting of the situation or any loosening of the grip that
Glyndwr's party had upon the country. An armed neutrality of a kind
probably existed between the Royalists in those towns and castles that
had not fallen and the purely Celtic population in the open country,
which had long before 1406 been purged of the hostile and the
half-hearted of the native race, and purged as we know by means of a
most trenchant and merciless kind.
"While quarrels' rage did nourish ruinous rack
And Owen Glendore set bloodie broils abroach,
Full many a town was spoyled and put to sack
And clear consumed to countries foul reproach,
Great castles razed, fair buildings burnt to dust,
Such revel reigned that men did live by lust."
Old Churchyard, who wrote these lines, lived at any rate much nearer
to Glyndwr's time than he did to ours, and reflects, no doubt, the
feeling of the border counties and of no small number of Welshmen
themselves who were involved in that ruin from which Wales did not
recover for a hundred years. In this year 1406, say the Iolo
manuscripts, "Wales had been so impoverished that even the means of
barely sustaining life could not be obtained but by rewards of the
King," referring, doubtless, to the Norman garrisons. "Glamorgan,"
says the same authority, "turned Saxon again at this time though two
years later in 1408 they were excited to commotions by the extreme
oppressions of the King's men," and when Owen returned once more to
aid them, their chiefs who had forsaken his cause burnt their barns
and stack-yards, rather than that their former leader and his people
should find comfort from them. They themselves then fled, the
chronicler continues, to England or the extremities of Wales, where in
the King's sea-washed castles they found refuge from Owen's vengeance
and were "supported by the rewards of treason and strategem."
More serious, however, than Glamorgan, bristling as it was with Norman
interests and Norman castles and always hard to hold against them, the
powerful and populous island of Anglesey in the north and the Vale of
the Towy in the south fell away from Glyndwr. Sheer weariness of the
strife, coupled perhaps with want of provisions, seems to have been
the cause. It was due certainly to no active operations from the
English border. Pardons upon good terms were continually held out in
the name of Prince Henry and the King throughout the whole struggle to
any who would sue for them, always excepting Owen and his chief
lieutenants, though even his son, as we have seen, was well treated in
London. Anglesey was threatened all the time by the great castles of
Conway, Carnarvon, and Beaumaris, which held out steadily for the
King. Though there was no fighting in the island it is not unnatural
that Glyndwr's supporters from thence, being cut off from their homes,
which were liable to attacks by sea even when the castles were
impotent, were among the first to give in. The strength of the
following which he gathered from beyond the Menai is significant of
the ardour of national enthusiasm in this old centre of the Princes of
Gwynedd, no less than 2112 names of Anglesey men being submitted at
one time in this year for pardon. It is possible that these
backsliders did not all go home empty-handed, but that a fair amount
of plunder from the sack of Marcher castles and the ravage of Marcher
lands found its way back with them. However that may be, a royal
commission was opened at Beaumaris on November 10th of this year 1406
for the granting of pardons and the assessment of fines to be paid
therefor. There is a list still extant in manuscript of the whole two
thousand-and-odd names. It will be sufficient to notice, as a point
not without interest, that the six commotes of Anglesey paid £537.7.0.
in fines upon this account. The goods of those slain in battle were
forfeited to the King, to be redeemed at prices ranging from 2s. for a
horse to 4d. for a sheep. A few were outlawed, among whom was David
Daron, Dean of Bangor, at whose house the Tripartite Convention was
signed early in the year, while Bifort, Bishop of Bangor, Owen's agent
as he might almost be called, together with the Earl of
Northumberland, was naturally excluded from purchasing his pardon.
Henceforward we hear little of Anglesey in connection with Owen,
though the remaining years of his resistance are so misty in their
record of him that it would be futile to attempt a guess at the part
its people may or may not have played in the long period of his
decline.
The defection of Ystrad Towy, the heart and life of the old South
Welsh monarchy and always a great source of strength to Owen, must
have been still more disheartening, but it seems likely that the
submission of his allies between Carmarthen, Dynevor, and Llandovery
was of a temporary nature. Mysterious but undoubtedly well-founded
traditions, too, have come down concerning the movements of Glyndwr
himself during the latter part of this year. He is pictured to us as
wandering about the country, sometimes with a few trusty followers,
sometimes alone and in disguise. This brief and temporary withdrawal
from publicity does not admit of any confusion with the somewhat
similar circumstances in which he passed the closing years of his
life. All old writers are agreed as to this hiatus in the midst of
Glyndwr's career, even when they differ in the precise date and in the
extent of his depression. One speaks of him as a hunted outlaw, which
for either the year 1405 or 1406 is of course ridiculous. Another,
with much more probability, represents him as going about the country
in disguise with a view to discovering the inner sentiments of the
people. A cave is shown near the mouth of the Dysanni between Towyn
and Llwyngwril, where during this period he is supposed to have been
concealed for a time from pursuing enemies by a friendly native. Upon
the mighty breast of Moel Hebog, over against Snowdon, another
hiding-place is connected with his name and with the same crisis in
his fortunes. A quite recently published manuscript[15] from the
Mostyn collection contains a story to the effect that when the abbot
of Valle Crucis, near Llangollen, was walking on the Berwyns early one
morning he came across Glyndwr wandering alone and in desultory
fashion. The abbot, as head of a Cistercian foundation, was
presumably unfriendly to the chieftain whose iconoclasms must have
horrified even his friends the Franciscans. There is nothing of
interest in the actual details of this chance interview. The fact of
Glyndwr being alone in such a place is suggestive and welcome merely
as a little bit of evidence recently contributed to the strong
tradition of his long wanderings. The abbot appears from the narrative
to have been anything but glad to see him and told him that he had
arisen a hundred years too soon, to which the Welsh leader and Prince
made no reply but "turned on his heel and departed in silence."
[15] _A Soldier of Calais._
A much fuller and better-known story, however, of this mysterious
period of Glyndwr's career survives in the Iolo manuscripts. Sir
Laurence Berkrolles of St. Athan was a famous scion of that
Anglo-Norman stock who had carved up Glamorganshire in Henry the
First's time. He had inherited the great castle and lordship of Coity
from his mother's family, the Turbervilles, whose male line had only
just failed after three centuries of such occupation as must have made
men of them indeed. Sir Laurence, it need hardly be remarked, had
experienced a stormy time for the past few years, battling for his
patrimony with Glyndwr's sleepless legions. There was now a lull,
presumably in this year 1406, and Sir Laurence was resting in his
castle and rejoicing doubtless in the new sense of security to which
Glamorgan had just settled down. Hither one day came a strange
gentleman, unarmed and accompanied by a servant, and requested in
French a night's lodging of Sir Laurence. The hospitable Marcher
readily assented and placed the best that the castle afforded before
his guest, to whom he took so great a fancy that he ended in begging
him to prolong his stay for a few days. As an inducement he informed
the traveller that it was quite possible he might in such case be
fortunate enough to see the great Owen Glyndwr, for it was rumoured
that he was in that neighbourhood, and he (Sir Laurence) had
despatched his tenants and servants and other men in his confidence to
hunt for Owen and bring him in, alive or dead, under promise of great
reward.
"It would be very well," replied the guest, "to secure that man were
any persons able to do so."
Having remained at Sir Laurence's castle four days and three nights
the stranger announced his intention of departing. On doing so he held
out his hand to his host and thus addressed him:
"Owen Glyndwr, as a sincere friend, having neither hatred, treachery,
or deception in his heart, gives his hand to Sir Laurence Berkrolles
and thanks him for his kindness and generous reception which he and
his friend (in the guise of a servant) have experienced from him at
his castle, and desires to assure him on oath, hand in hand, and hand
on heart, that it will never enter his mind to avenge the intentions
of Sir Laurence towards him, and that he will not, so far as he may,
allow such desire to exist in his own knowledge and memory, nor in the
minds of any of his relations or adherents." Having spoken thus and
with such astonishing coolness disclosed his identity, Glyndwr and
his pseudo-servant went their way. Sir Laurence was struck dumb with
amazement, and that not merely in a metaphorical but in a literal
sense, for the story goes on to say that he lost the power of speech
from that moment! Glyndwr's faithful laureate, Iolo Goch, strengthens
the tradition of his master's mysterious disappearance at this time by
impassioned verses deploring his absence and calling on him to return
to his heartbroken poet:
"I saw with aching heart
The golden dream depart;
His glorious image in my mind,
Was all that Owain left behind.
Wild with despair and woebegone
Thy faithful bard is left alone,
To sigh, to weep, to groan.
"Thy sweet remembrance ever dear,
Thy name still ushered by a tear,
My inward anguish speak;
How could'st thou, cruel Owain, go
And leave the bitter tears to flow
Down Gryffydd's furrowed cheek?"
[Decoration]
[Decoration]