The Last Plantagenets (40 page)

The reason for the success of the Welsh in avoiding clashes with the numerically much superior English was simpler than that. They knew every foot of this wild and strange country; they knew where the deep and tortuous valleys led and where the paths penetrated the seemingly
pathless forests and where the white waters of the roaring streams, pouring down from the mountains, could be crossed. It was relatively easy to disappear quickly in country such as this.

And, of course, there were caves in which scouts could lurk and rear guards take quick refuge. For centuries after these events two caves were pointed out as having been used by Glendower in his successful game of hide-and-seek with the infuriated Henry. They were each called Ogov Owain, or Owen’s Cave. It must have been that he used them in his last days when he played a solitary game, for there were no caves in Wales, or elsewhere, which could conceal an army with horses and wagons and supplies.

Convinced finally that he had the Welsh leader cornered at the base of Snowdon, the great peak of North Wales which is surrounded by the most dense of forests and is accessible only to natives raised in knowledge of their complexities, Henry paraded his hungry troops through the passes and around the beautiful lakes with the greatest difficulty. They saw nothing of the enemy, and the only credit they could claim was that they crossed the water to the Isle of Angelsey and butchered some of the Franciscan friars quartered there, who were suspected of acting as spies for the Welsh patriots.

It was as late in the season as November 9 when a much disgruntled Henry returned to London and in a fit of spleen gave all of Owen’s lands to the Earl of Somerset, one of his greedy and ubiquitous Beaufort half brothers. No one in England was less pleased at this than Reginald Grey, who had expected this loot would come to him. Later, Parliament passed a general pardon for all Welshmen, with the exception of Owen Glendower and his two brothers, Gwilym and Rhys. But no tendency was shown on the part of the wild hillmen to come forward and lay down their arms.

In the spring the English under Harry Hotspur (this was before the Percys turned against the king) won a battle in North Wales at Cader Idris, but Owen had no part in the defeat. He had gone south and had conducted, according to reports which reached the king, a great meeting “with the purpose of invading England and of destroying the English tongue.” Henry came out like an enraged lion at this but he did not succeed in doing much in protection of the English tongue. By autumn the insurrection had spread to all parts of the country, and so again the royal forces took to horse and come galloping through the Marcher country to suppress this persistent and bold Welshman. The tireless Glendower came and went like a wraith, doing much damage to
any royal corps which fell behind or became entangled in the wild forests and swirling streams.

Settling down into winter headquarters somewhere in the safety of the mysterious sentinels of Snowdon, Owen Glendower devoted himself to a full winter of planning and negotiation. He wrote letters to the kings of France and Scotland, soliciting their help, and similar letters to the kings and chiefs of Ireland. Promises came back from both France and Scotland, but nothing very definite; enough, barely, to keep his hopes high and his will strong to go on fighting. He indulged in one foray only, which took him down to the sands of Dee and a systematic harrying of the lands of Grey of Ruthin.

In the Middle Ages comets always aroused fears and strange speculations. When one appeared in the sky that spring, the Welsh people in the deep valleys, who could see little above them, climbed the rocky sides of the mountains and gazed in awe and aroused hope. The shepherds in the hills, who spent many of their nights under this new light in the sky, became filled with a rapt belief that it meant God had sent Owen Glendower to lead them.

The year 1401 saw Glendower accomplishing one success after another. He was as relentless as though fighting a civil war. The southern Welsh, who had comfortable homes and were averse to supporting this fierce leader from the north, were driven out and their homes burned. Anyone not fighting for him was an enemy and must be treated as such. Although the common people saw in his rising star the answer to centuries of prayer, the lords of the manors were not in any sense unanimous. This drove the supposed magician to bitter methods of extermination.

Grey of Ruthin had been in London when his lands were raided, but immediately on his return the Welsh bands swooped down for a second time. Grey came out to face them and fell into an ambush. Many of his men were killed and he himself was taken prisoner. He probably expected a short shrift but instead he was taken to the region at Snowdon where the rebel sanctuary was located. He may have been taken in blindfolded or it may have been that the country thereabouts was so wild that no outsider could hope to find a way through it. The master of Ruthin, at any rate, was kept in extreme anxiety and exasperation throughout the summer, and in great physical discomfort. His sorrowing family had given the captive baron up for lost, knowing that the Welsh
had not been taking prisoners, and so they were astonished when word was received that he was still alive.

Glendower had a crafty twist to his mind and he understood, moreover, the character of his prisoner. He had thought of a better revenge on this personal enemy: he would hold him for ransom and fix the price of freedom at a very high figure. In one contemporary chronicle (Adam of Usk) the ransom is set at £16,000, but the best information places it at a more understandable total, 10,000 marks, of which 6000 were to be paid on Martinmas Day, November 11, on his release. His eldest son was to be turned over as a hostage for the payment of the balance.

Grey was kept in a confinement described as inhumanly harsh, perhaps in a cave but certainly not in the temporary house that Glendower had erected for his family somewhere close to the historic peak. He chafed at the conditions and grew ill with the uncertainty. Finally duly accredited messengers arrived with the first payment concealed in their saddlebags, and with his son John (a brave young fellow who later died in the great Battle of Agincourt) ready to take his place. It seemed that Parliament had met and had agreed to the negotiations. The king had made a personal contribution, but not a large one, for there was never a time during Henry’s brief and unhappy reign when he was not in desperate straits for money.

The crafty Glendower had chosen the punishment hardest for his one-time neighbor to bear. Grey arrived back at Ruthin to find his lands black from burning, his stock driven off, even the Red Castle in neglected condition. Although he succeeded in raising the balance and in getting his son out of rebel hands, he never recovered from the financial difficulties into which he had been plunged. He was to live for thirty years more and to raise a second family, but always he labored unhappily under the shadow of debt.

A more agreeable prisoner in the rebel camp was Edmund Mortimer, uncle to the two sons of the Earl of March, who stood closer in the line of succession than the house of Lancaster. Mortimer had marched against the rebels with a considerable army raised in Herefordshire but, being an indifferent general, had been defeated with heavy losses. Owen took his illustrious captive back into the wilds about Snowdon and lodged him in comfort with the members of his own family.

One of the daughters of Owen, named Joan, was a handsome and agreeable girl and she made such an impression on the prisoner that he asked for her hand in marriage, an alliance which the rebel chief was
only too glad to accept. From that time on, Mortimer remained an ally and was ready to do anything in his power to unseat the king, either in favor of Richard, if he were still alive, or his nephew of March. Some writers speak of Mortimer as “slow of wit, even weak of mind.” It may have been that he concealed a shrewdness of wit under an outer showing of simplicity. It was he who had been heard to say, when told that Henry of Bolingbroke called himself heir to the throne, “Yea, he is so, as a pirate is heir of a merchant whom he has taken or destroyed.”

He was too wary certainly to become involved in a wild plot hatched in the unsettled mind of Lady Constance of York. This daughter of Doña Isabella of Castile was the widow of the Despenser who had been executed at Cirencester. She hated Henry so much that she decided to get the two young sons of the deceased Earl of March out of his hands. They had been removed from the Tower and were being held behind the high walls of Windsor Castle.

This strange member of the royal family, who had a wildness in her hauntingly dark eyes which warned of her mental condition, located a locksmith in the town of Windsor who was able to make keys for all the doors in the castle. Armed with these, she let herself in unobserved one dark night and found her way to the Norman tower where the two boys were sleeping.

They roused uneasily when they saw this fey nocturnal visitor.

“Hear me,” she whispered (or similar words which have not been recorded), “I have come to take you away. There is now a man who can perform magic and he has raised a great army with your good uncle. They will sweep this king off the throne. And you, dear Edmund,” addressing the older of the pair, “will become king in his stead.”

They left by the southern postern without being seen and vanished into the darkness. However, a curious-looking woman and two young boys cannot travel the countryside without attracting attention. The pursuers soon caught up with them and took them back to Windsor.

The lady Constance, under close questioning, charged so many high-placed people with being involved, including her own brother, the Duke of York, that no attention was paid to her. She was not punished.

But the poor locksmith of Windsor was not pardoned. His right arm was fastened to a block and severed with one blow of a butcher’s knife. Later he was taken out and hanged.

Edmund Mortimer died some years later in the defense of Harlech Castle. His widow, with their three daughters, had been captured previously and taken to London. Here, most mysteriously, they all died. The state, however, was generous enough to pay the sum of one pound for their burial in the churchyard of St. Swithin’s.

In the year 1404 it seemed that Owen Glendower had attained his great objective. Only a few of the great castles still held out for Henry. On May 10, in what he claimed to be the fourth year of his reign, Owen began to circulate letters which he signed as “Prince of Wales by the Grace of God.” In one he appointed Griffith Yong as his chancellor and delegated him to go to France as joint ambassador with John Hanmer, the brother of Owen’s wife. Their mission was to conclude a treaty of alliance with the French.

Philip of Orléans, acting for the still intermittently insane king, was glad to promise assistance. The ambassadors returned to Wales with a present for Owen of a jeweled helmet, habergeon, and sword, and an assurance of troops to help him in his struggle against the English.

The Welsh patriot, clearly, was in a vainglorious mood during these days of military prosperity. A seal had been struck for him, showing him seated on a throne with a scepter in his right hand and an orb in the other.

But no good ever came, during the years which preceded this or in the centuries which followed, from the importation of French auxiliaries. The army which landed at Milford Haven a year later under the Comte de la Marche proved of no assistance whatever. Their ships, left unprotected in the harbor, were pounced upon and fifteen of the largest were destroyed. The brave barons who led the land forces were appalled at the wildness of the land. They found the food unpalatable and the wines thin and sour. They faced the English once. Henry had led his forces up to Worcester and for eight days the two armies remained at bay while skirmishing parties battled in the open space between them. Finally Glendower dropped back and drew the king’s army after him. It was the same old story. The English became involved in the valley of the Rhondda with a furious band of rebels who charged them from cover, shouting their battle cry of “Cadwgan, whet thy battle-axe!” At the same time the weather turned hostile (directed by Owen who was believed to control the winds and the clouds) and floods swept down the valleys, making an English advance impossible and a retreat difficult. Henry was back in Worcester by the first of October.

But this kind of victory did not suit the French. In fact, they had no stomach left for fighting of any kind, and all but a handful returned home before Christmas. How they obtained the necessary ships has
never been explained. It was said later that the French were disappointed over the lack of booty. Certainly the Welsh were highly disgruntled with the futile efforts of their allies. The alliance came to an end.

The following year the Welsh armies suffered two severe defeats. The sun which had been so high in the heavens had begun to set. The military supplies, without which the most valiant armies can do nothing, were running short. The people were tiring of the continuous fighting and the hardships from which they suffered. The fiery sword of Glendower seemed to be cutting both ways.

If Owen’s gift for disappearance was due to the possession of a cloak of invisibility, as the people of his day believed, he continued to possess it and to use it during the few remaining years of his life. They were not great years. From the leading of armies he found himself with nothing but small bands engaged in guerrilla operations. Then he seems to have become a fugitive, seen here and there but never visible when any effort was made to capture him. Various places are still pointed out where the once glorious leader sought sanctuary in the days of his decline: a cave at the mouth of the Dysynni and an obscure hiding place on Moel Hebog, a companion peak to Snowdon.

When Henry IV died and his gallant son, Prince Hal, succeeded him on the throne, one of the first acts of the new king was to declare a pardon for all rebels in Wales. Although he was not excluded, the stout old leader refused to benefit by it. The chivalrous young king sent special envoys to find him, including Talbot of the Marcher barons and Owen’s own son, Meredith. They did not succeed in locating him.