Glyndŵr

“ GLYNDWR was now, by the lowest estimate, in his forty-sixth year. For that period, when manhood began early, and old age, if it came at all, came quickly, he certainly carried his years with remarkable lightness. Who can say, however, with what feelings he surveyed his handiwork? From end to end, with almost the sole exception of Anglesey and Carnarvonshire and western Pembroke, Wales lay desolate and bleeding. Owen’s hands were red, not only with the blood of Saxons, but with that of old friends and even kinsmen. ”

“ To another daughter of Glyndwr, probably an illegitimate one, Gwenllian, wife of Phillip ap Rhys of Cenarth, the famous bard, Lewis Glyncothi, wrote various poems, in one of which he says: “Your father was a potent prince, all Wales was in his council.”
No intelligent person of our day could regret the failure of Glyndwr’s heroic effort. That Welshmen of the times we have been treating of should have longed to shake off the yoke of the Anglo-Norman was but human, for he was not only a bad master, but a foreigner and wholly antipathetic to the Celtic [Pg 307] nature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is not likely that a man who showed himself so able and so cool a leader would fail to take full advantage of forces which at this early stage were so supremely valuable.
He knew his countrymen and he knew the world, and when Wales was quivering with excitement beneath the interpretation of ancient prophecies bruited hither and thither and enlarged upon by poetic and patriotic fancy, Glyndwr was certainly not the man to damp their ardour by any display of criticism. ”

“ It is fortunate for England, beyond a doubt, that Hotspur fell at Shrewsbury and that Glyndwr was not there, but from the point of view of his after reputation, one cannot resist the feeling that a great triumph upon the open plains of Shropshire, in an historic fight, would have set that seal upon Glyndwr’s renown which some perhaps may think is wanting. Reckless deeds of daring and aggression are more picturesque attributes for a popular hero. ”

“ It may well indeed have been the ubiquitous Glyndwr himself from whom the sagacity of the Duke delivered them in the wilds of Radnor or Carmarthen. Though Aberystwith and Harlech were safe for this winter, the Prince, with a deliberation perhaps emphasised by chagrin at his failure, made arrangements for a second attempt to be undertaken in the following summer.
The winter of 1407-1408 was the most terrible within living memory. It is small wonder that no echo of siege or battle or feat of arms breaks the silence of the snow-clad and war-torn country. ”

“ OF the last six years of Owen’s life, those from 1410 to 1416, there is little to be said. His cause was hopelessly lost and he had quite ceased to be dangerous. Wales was reconquered and lay sick, bleeding, and wasted beneath the calm of returning peace. Thousands, it is to be feared, cursed Glyndwr as they looked upon the havoc which the last decade had wrought. The unsuccessful rebel or patriot, call him what you will, has far more friends among those yet unborn than among his own contemporaries, above all in the actual hour of his failure. ”

“ Glyndwr, after the insults that he had received in London, returned home, as may well be conceived, not in the best of tempers; Grey, however, was to perpetrate even a worse outrage upon him than that of which he had already been guilty and of a still more treacherous nature. It so happened that at this time the King was preparing for that expedition against the Scots which started in July, 1400. Among the nobility and gentry whom he summoned to his standard was Glyndwr, and there is no reason to assume that the Welshman would have failed to answer the call. ”

“ Mortimer’s alliance was indeed of immense value to Glyndwr. He was not only the guardian and natural protector of the rightful heir to the throne, his nephew, but he was a possibly acceptable candidate himself, in the event of a fresh shuffling of the cards. He had moreover large possessions and castles in the South Wales Marches, and in the Vale of Clwyd, whose occupants would now be irrevocably committed to the Welsh cause. ”

“ They brought before their countrymen the remembrance of ancient prophecies. They [Pg 144] 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. ”

“ There is a charm about Machynlleth. Its wide central street is planted with trees. In most Welsh towns, History, though she has lived in them so long, has rather an uneasy air: tales of valour, or of treachery on a large scale, blend rather incongruously with prim grey houses and slate roofs. But in Machynlleth we are quite prepared to learn that these quaint and quiet streets—and some of the houses, even—are bound up very closely with the picturesque life of the last of the Welsh princes: so closely indeed, that Owen Glyndwr’s royal seal figures in the arms of the town. ”

“ What we do know of him, apart from his work, might well suggest infinite possibilities to the novelist and the poet. It is my business, [Pg iv] however, to deal only with facts or to record legends and traditions for what they are worth, as illustrating the men and the time.
Glyndwr is without doubt the national hero of the majority of Welshmen. Precisely why he takes precedence of warrior princes who before his day struggled so bravely with the Anglo-Norman power and often with more permanent success, is not now to the point. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet even if Glyndwr had struck at once and gained a victory, it is quite certain that with his friends in the North already crushed he would not have been able with what was left of his fifteen thousand or so Welsh and French, to affect in any way the fortunes of England by merely capturing Worcester, and would have himself been in imminent danger. Moreover, as the King clung to the top of the hill and had perhaps nearly as many men with him as the enemy, the risk attending an attack would have been still greater. ”

“ IF this little book purported to be a biography in the ordinary sense of the word, the scantiness of purely personal detail relating to its hero might be a fair subject of criticism. But men of the Glyndwr type live in history rather by their deeds, and the deeds of those they lead and inspire. This is peculiarly the case with the last and the most celebrated among the soldier patriots of Wales. Though so little remains to tell us of the actual man himself, this very fact has thrown a certain glamour and mystery about his name even in the Principality. ”

“ Never had Glyndwr penetrated so far into Saxon territory; never before had ten thousand Welshmen threatened Worcester as invaders; never since England had become a united country had a [Pg 258] hostile French army sat down in its very heart as this one was now doing.
But the King at any rate showed his wisdom in not venturing on a battle. He had ample provisions behind him and was gathering strength. Glyndwr and Hugueville, on the other hand, had wasted the country on their route, and they were running short of food. ”

“ After this time Owen’s fortunes appeared to decline, [86] and the fatal battle of Husk, fought on the 15th of March, in which Glyndwr’s son was taken, and more than fifteen hundred of his men slain, seems to have sealed his doom. p. 87But Glyndwr, although reduced, was not subdued, and he continued a predatory and harassing warfare, most annoying and destructive; sometimes making a sudden eruption into the marches, and sometimes into the heart of the country; for now, the Welch having submitted to the King, and being reconciled, Glyndwr considered his countrymen his enemies. ”

“ Western Pembroke in the meantime (Little England beyond Wales) , finding itself cut off from all [Pg 262] assistance, in spite of the girdle of splendid castles by which it was protected, began to find Glyndwr at last too much for it. The earldom was in abeyance and Sir Francis À’Court was governor of the county and known as Lord of Pembroke. He called together the representatives of the district, who solemnly agreed to pay Glyndwr the sum of £200 for a truce to last until the following May. ”

“ The Commote of Glyndyfrdwy, which formed Owen’s Dee property, lay in the then newly formed county of Merioneth, though it was wedged in by the Marcher lordships of Chirk, Bromfield, and Yale on the east; while to the north, Denbighshire as yet having no existence, it touched the Norman lordships of Ruthin and Denbigh in the Vale of Clwyd. But Glyndwr held his estates direct from the King, having manor courts of his own, and resorting in more important matters to the assize towns of Dolgelly and Harlech. ”

“ He informs his father that Glyndwr is preparing to invade England, and Henry communicates the disquieting news to his council, though this is somewhat [Pg 186] later, since in May the Prince is writing urgent letters for relief. In these he declares that his soldiers will remain no longer with him unless they are paid, and that Glyndwr is levying all the power of North and South Wales to destroy the Marches and the adjoining counties of England. The Prince goes on to say: “If our men are withdrawn from us we must retire to England and be disgraced forever. ”

“ There is really no authority at all for making him a follower of Richard. All Wales and Cheshire were indignant at the King’s deposition and treatment, and Glyndwr, even supposing his Irish expedition to have been mythical, may well have shared this indignation. But in such a case his antecedents were, from private attachments, wholly Lancastrian. Not only had he been Bolingbroke’s squire, but his former master, the Earl of Arundel, had been a pronounced foe of the late King. ”

“ Carnarvonshire and western Merioneth and the Plinlimmon Mountains were full of booty, stock, and valuables brought from Norman-Welsh lordships and from beyond the English border. The admirers of Glyndwr would fain believe, and there is something to be said for the [Pg 238] theory, that passion and revenge had no part in the havoc which the Welsh hero spread throughout his native land, but that it was due to a deliberate scheme of campaign by which the country was to be made not only too hot, but too bare, to hold the Saxon. ”

“ Glyndwr, as soon as he heard of the disaster on the Monnow, pushed up fresh forces under his brother Tudor to meet the fugitives from Grosmont, with a view to wipe out, if possible, that crushing defeat. What strength they got, if any, from Rhys Gethin’s [Pg 249] scattered army there is no evidence, but in less than a week they encountered the Prince himself advancing into Wales with a considerable force, and at Mynydd-y-Pwll-Melyn, in Brecon, received a defeat more calamitous than even that of Grosmont. Fifteen hundred of the Welsh were killed or taken prisoners. ”

“ Nature showed even a wilder aspect to Glyndwr and the then lord of Nannau as they took their memorable walk together upon these same heights five centuries ago.
At that time there stood in the meadows beneath, near the confluence of the Wnion and the Mawddach, the noble abbey of Cymmer, whose remains are still a conspicuous object in the landscape. Howel Sele was by no means an admirer or follower of his cousin Owen, and if latterly he had not dared openly to oppose him, he had at least held back ”

“ English people have a tendency to underestimate, or rather to take into small consideration, the wide gulf which, not only in former days, but to some extent even yet, divides the two countries. They are apt to think that after the abortive rising of Glyndwr, provided even this stands out clearly in their minds, everything went smoothly and Wales became merely a geographical expression with an eccentric passion for maintaining its own language. ”