Owain Glyndŵr
O
wain Glyndŵr c. 1359 – c. 1415), was a Welsh ruler and the last native Welshman to hold the title Prince of Wales (Tywysog Cymru). He instigated a fierce and long-running but ultimately unsuccessful revolt against the English rule of Wales. Glyndŵr was a descendant of the Princes of Powys through his father Gruffydd Fychan II, hereditary Tywysog of Powys Fadog and Lord of Glyndyfrdwy, and of those of Deheubarth through his mother Elen ferch Tomas ap Llywelyn. On 16 September 1400, Glyndŵr instigated the Welsh Revolt against the rule of Henry IV of England. The uprising was initially very successful and rapidly gained control of large areas of Wales, but it suffered from key weaknesses – particularly a lack of artillery, which made capturing defended fortresses difficult, and of ships, which made their coastlands vulnerable. The uprising was eventually suppressed by the superior resources of the English. Glyndŵr was driven from his last strongholds in 1409, but he avoided capture and the last documented sighting of him was in 1412. He twice ignored offers of a pardon from his military nemesis, the new king Henry V of England, and despite the large rewards offered, Glyndŵr was never betrayed to the English. His death was recorded by a former follower in the year 1415. Glyndŵr is portrayed in William Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part 1 as a wild and exotic man ruled by magic and emotion.With his death Owain acquired a mythical status along with Cadwaladr, Cynan and Arthur as the hero awaiting the call to return and liberate his people. In the late 19th century the Cymru Fyddmovement recreated him as the father of Welsh nationalism. Glyndŵr was born around 1349 (possibly 1359) to a prosperous landed family, part of the Anglo-Welsh gentry of the Welsh Marches (the border between England and Wales) in northeast Wales. This group moved easily between Welsh and English societies and languages, occupying important offices for the Marcher Lords while maintaining their position as uchelwyr — nobles descended from the preconquest Welsh royal dynasties — in traditional Welsh society. His father, Gruffydd Fychan II, hereditary Tywysog of Powys Fadog and Lord of Glyndyfrdwy, died some time before 1370, leaving Glyndŵr’s mother Elen ferch Tomas ap Llywelyn of Deheubarth a widow and Owain a young man of 16 years at most.
Names from the past
The young Owain ap Gruffydd was possibly fostered at the home of David Hanmer, a rising lawyer shortly to be a justice of the Kings Bench, or at the home of Richard FitzAlan, 3rd Earl of Arundel. Owain is then thought to have been sent to London to study law at the Inns of Court. He probably studied as a legal apprentice for seven years. He was possibly in London during the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. By 1383, he had returned to Wales, where he married David Hanmer’s daughter, Margaret, started his large family and established himself as the Squire of Sycharth and Glyndyfrdwy, with all the responsibilities that entailed. Glyndŵr entered the English king’s military service in 1384 when he undertook garrison duty under the renowned Welshman Sir Gregory Sais, or Sir Degory Sais, on the English–Scottish border at Berwick-uponTweed. In August 1385, he served King Richard under the command of John of Gaunt again in Scotland. On 3 September 1386, he was called to give evidence in the Scrope v. Grosvenor trial at Chester. In March 1387, Owain was in southeast England under Richard Fitzalan, 11th Earl of Arundel, in the English Channel at the defeat of a Franco-Spanish-Flemish fleet off the coast of Kent. Upon the death in late 1387 of his father-in-law, Sir David Hanmer, knighted earlier that same year by Richard II, Glyndŵr returned to Wales as executor of his estate. He possibly served as a squire to Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV of England), son of John of Gaunt, at the short, sharp Battle of Radcot Bridge in December 1387. He had gained three years concentrated military experience in different theatres and seen at first è hand some key events and people.
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Views of Machynlleth
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King Richard was distracted by a growing conflict with the Lords Appellant from this time on. Glyndŵr’s opportunities were further limited by the death of Sir Gregory Sais in 1390 and the sidelining of Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, and he probably returned to his stable Welsh estates, living there quietly for ten years during his forties. The bard Iolo Goch (“Red Iolo”), himself a Welsh lord, visited him in the 1390s and wrote a number of odes to Owain, praising Owain’s liberality, and writing of Sycharth, “Rare was it there / to see a latch or a lock.” In the late 1390s, a series of events began to push Owain towards rebellion, in what was later to be called the Welsh Revolt, the Glyndŵr Rising or (within Wales) the Last War of Independence. His neighbour,Baron Grey de Ruthyn, had seized control of some land, for which Glyndŵr appealed to the English Parliament. Owain’s petition for redress was ignored. Later, in 1400, Lord Grey informed Glyndŵr too late of a royal command to levy feudal troops for Scottish border service, thus enabling him to call the Welshman a traitor in London court circles. Lord Grey was a personal friend of King Henry IV. Glyndŵr lost the legal case, and was under personal threat. The deposed king, Richard II, had support in Wales, and in January 1400 serious civil disorder broke out in the English border city of Chester, after the public execution of an officer of Richard II. These events led to Owain formally assuming his ancestral title of Prince of Powys on 16 September 1400. With a small band of followers which included his eldest son, his brothers-inlaw, and the Bishop of St Asaph in the town of Corwen, possibly in the church of SS Mael & Sulien, he launched an assault on Lord Grey’s territories. After a number of initial confrontations between King Henry IV and Owain’s followers in September and October 1400, the revolt began to spread in 1401. Much of northern and central Wales went over to Owain. Henry IV appointed Henry Percy – the famous “Hotspur” – to bring the country to order. Hotspur issued an amnesty in March which applied to all rebels with the exception of Owain and his cousins, Rhys ap Tudurand Gwilym ap Tudur, sons of Tudur ap Gronw (forefather of King Henry VII of England). Both the Tudurs were pardoned after their capture of Edward I’s great castle at Conwy. In June, Owain scored his first major victory in
the field at Mynydd Hyddgen on Pumlumon. Retaliation by Henry IV on the Strata Florida Abbey followed, but eventually led to Henry’s retreat. In 1402, the English Parliament issued the Penal Laws against Wales, designed to establish English dominance in Wales, but actually pushing many Welshmen into the rebellion. In the same year, Owain captured his arch enemy, Baron Grey de Ruthyn. He was to hold him for almost a year until he received a substantial ransom from Henry. In June 1402, Owain defeated an English force led by Sir Edmund Mortimer at the Battle of Bryn Glas, and Mortimer was captured. Glyndŵr offered to release Mortimer for a large ransom but, in sharp contrast to his attitude to de Grey, Henry IV refused to pay. Mortimer’s nephew could be said to have had a greater claim to the English throne than Henry himself, so his speedy release was not an option. In response, Mortimer negotiated an alliance with Owain and married one of Owain’s daughters. It is also in 1402 that mention of the French and Bretons helping Owain was first heard. The French were certainly hoping to use Wales as they had used Scotland: as a base to fight the English.
In 1403 the revolt became truly national in Wales. Royal officials reported that Welsh students at Oxford University were leaving their studies to join Owain, and Welsh labourers and craftsmen were abandoning their employers in England and returning to Wales. Owain could also draw on Welsh troops seasoned by the English campaigns in France and Scotland. Hundreds of Welsh archers and experienced men-at-armsleft English service to join the rebellion. In 1404, Owain held court at Harlech and appointed Gruffydd Young as his Chancellor. Soon afterwards, he called his first Parliament (or Cynulliad or “gathering”) of all Wales at Machynlleth, where he was crowned Prince of Wales and announced his national programme. He declared his vision of an independent Welsh state with a parliament and separate Welsh church. There would be two national universities (one in the south and one in the north) and a return to the traditional law of Hywel Dda. Senior churchmen and important members of society flocked to his banner. English resistance was reduced to a few isolated castles, walled towns and fortified manor houses.l
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Uploaded on 12 Jan 2009 Part 1 of 8 uploads of a great BBC documentary about the hero the world needs to know more about. An intellectual, cultured, last Welsh-born Prince of Wales who reluctantly led his countrymen to war against England in the 15th century and came so close to achieving a remarkable transformation of his country. Click to view
Names from the past
Names from the past
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