The Bowen family web presents :
Project Gutenberg's Short History of Wales, by Owen M. Edwards[ Index ] [ Introduction ] [ Chapters 1 through_5 ] [ Chapters 6 through 10 ]
[ Chapters11 through 14 ] [ Chapters15 through 19 ] [ Chapters 20 through 25 ][ The Fine Print ]A Short history of Wales
by Owen M. EdwardsChapters 15 - 19
CHAPTER XV--OWEN GLENDOWER
See also [ Owain Glyn Dwr ]
The English baron in Wales tried to add to his possessions by
encroaching on the lands of the Welsh freemen. His estate always
remained the same, because it all went to the eldest son, according
to what is called primogeniture; their lands, on the other hand, were
divided between the sons according to what is called gavelkind. He
also, by laws they did not understand, took the waste land--forest
and mountain. As one man can more easily watch his interest than
many, the baron succeeded; but the freemen felt that they were being
robbed.
The tenants of the barons were restless and rebellious; they said
they were free, that they would not work as serfs, that they would
not bring food rents, but that they would pay a fixed rent for every
acre they held.
At Ruthin, in the Vale of Clwyd, there was a baron called Lord Grey;
and in the valley of the Dee there was a Welsh squire called Owen
Glendower. Their lands met, and Grey took part of Owen's sheep walk.
Owen had been a law student at Westminster, and he had served Henry
of Lancaster. In 1399 Richard II. had been dethroned, and the barons
had made Henry of Lancaster king as Henry IV. Owen saw, however,
that the king was too weak to curb his lawless barons, and in 1400 he
attacked Lord Grey, and burnt Ruthin.
The rebellion that had long been smouldering burst into a flame all
over the country. Owen was at once welcomed by the bard, the friar,
and the peasant. The bard hailed his star as that of the heir of the
princes, who had come to deliver his country. The friar welcomed him
as the friend of the poor and of learning; and unruly students from
Oxford, then the centre of a great intellectual awakening, flocked
home to march under his banner. The peasant welcomed him as his
protector against the steward of his lord. The main strength of the
movement was the peasant revolt; and Welsh poets, like the English
ones, sang the praises of the ploughman and of the plough.
Owen's success was most rapid, so rapid that it was put down to
magic. In four years the whole of Wales recognised him as its
prince. Henry IV. and Prince Henry came to Wales, made rapid marches
and retook castles, punished the friars of Llan Vaes and the monks of
Strata Florida. But their victories led to nothing, and the storms
fought against them. Owen's victories were used to the full--that of
the Vyrnwy was followed by an agreement with Grey of Ruthin, that of
Bryn Glas by an alliance with the Mortimers. His marches were nearly
all triumphant; he was welcomed along the whole line of the marches
by the peasants to the furthest corners of Gwent.
Owen was wise enough to see that no abiding power can be based on a
popular rising. He tried to establish a government that the King of
England could not overthrow. He had three institutions in mind--an
independent Wales, governed by him as Prince in a Parliament of
representatives of the commotes; an independent Welsh Church, with an
Archbishop of St David's at its head; and an independent system of
learning and civilisation, guided by two Universities, one in North
Wales and one in South Wales.
The new Wales was to he safeguarded by four alliances--with the
English barons, with the Pope, with Scotland, and with France. He
failed to save the Percies from their defeat at Shrewsbury in 1403;
but he based all his plans on an alliance with the Mortimers, the
enemies of Lancaster and the Percies. The head of the Mortimer
family had died in Ireland in 1398, and had left four young children.
They were the real heirs to the crown, and Owen meant to win their
throne for them. Their uncle, Edmund Mortimer, married Glendower's
daughter. But the young Earl of March, the elder of the Mortimer
boys, had no ambition, and a plot to bring him and his brother to
Owen failed.
The Papacy had always proved to be a broken reed for Welsh princes;
but Owen's alliance with Peter de Luna, the anti-Pope Benedict XIII.,
gave a certain amount of prestige to his title. The alliance with
Scotland, based on common kinship, could bring him no help at that
time: because it was torn between two factions during the reign of
the weak Robert III.; and the next king, the poet James I., was
captured at sea and put into an English prison.
The French alliance was much more promising; it would give what Owen
wanted most--siege engines, a fleet, and an army of trained soldiers.
Charles VI. of France, the father-in-law of the deposed Richard,
refused to make peace with the usurper Henry; his fleet protected the
Welsh coast, and in 1405 a French army of 2,800 men landed at
Milford.
Owen struggled on, with waning power, until his death in 1415. He
came too soon for success, while the power of the House of Lancaster
was increasing.
Of all figures in the history of Wales, that of Owen Glendower is the
most striking and the most popular. The place of his grave is
unknown, his lineage and the date of his death a matter of
conjecture; there is much mystery about even his most brilliant
years. But his majestic figure, his wisdom, and his ideals remained
in the memory of his country. His ghost wandered, it was said,
around Valle Crucis. His spirit, more than that of any hero of the
past, seems to follow his people on their onward march. This is not
on account of his political ideals, but because he was the champion
of the peasant and of education.
CHAPTER XVI--THE WARS OF THE ROSES
The reign of Henry V. was a reign of brilliant victories in France,
and the reign of Henry VI. one of disastrous defeats. During both
reigns the lords were becoming more powerful in Wales as well as in
England. The hold of the king over them became weaker every year;
they packed the Parliament, they appointed the Council, they overawed
the law courts. If a man wanted security, he must wear the badge of
some lord, and fight for him when called upon to do so. In the
marches of Wales there were more than a hundred lords holding castle
and court; and it was easy for a robber or a murderer to escape from
one lordship to the other, or even to find a welcome and protection.
In Wales and in the marches the lords preyed upon their weaker
neighbours, and the country became full of private war.
The selfish families, all fighting for more land and more power,
gradually formed themselves into two parties--the parties of the Red
Rose and of the White Rose. The leading family in the Red Rose party
was that of Lancaster, represented by the saintly King Henry VI.; the
leading family in the White Rose party was that of York. In the Wars
of the Roses, York and Lancaster fought over the crown, and those who
supported them over a castle or an estate.
Wales was divided. The west was for Lancaster, from Pembroke to
Harlech, and from Harlech to Anglesey. The east was for York, from
Cardiff and Raglan to Wigmore, and from Wigmore to Chirk. Lancaster
held estates in Wales and on the border--the castles of Hereford,
Skenfrith, Ogmore, and Kidwelly being centres of strength and wealth.
York's chief country was the march of Wales, with Ludlow as its
centre. The Welsh barons took sides according to their interests.
Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, held the west for his half-brother,
the king. Sir William Herbert, who was very powerful in the country
south of the Mortimers, took the side of his powerful neighbour.
Others wavered, especially Grey of Ruthin and the Stanleys in North
Wales.
One battle was fought between the Welsh Yorkists and the Welsh
Lancastrians. This was the battle of Mortimer's Cross, near Wigmore,
in February 1461. The victor was the young Duke of York, who was
crowned king as Edward IV. later in the year. An old man, Owen
Tudor, the father of Jasper Tudor, and the grandfather of the boy who
was "to rule after them all" as Henry VII., was taken prisoner. They
took him to Hereford, and there they cut his head off and set it on
the market cross. The battles of the Wars of the Roses were very
cruel ones; the noble prisoners that had been taken, even children of
tender age, were murdered in cold blood on the evening of the battle.
"By God's blood," said one, as he killed a child, "thy father slew
mine, and so will I do thee."
The Welsh barons led their men to nearly all the important battles.
North Wales archers, wearing the three feathers of the Prince of
Wales, fought for Lancaster in the snow at the great defeat of Towton
on the Palm Sunday of 1461; the archers of Gwent, led by Herbert,
fought vainly for York at the battle of Edgecote, in the summer of
1469. And the Welsh waverer and traitor was seen in battle also--
Grey of Ruthin led the van for Lancaster at the battle of Northampton
in 1460, and caused the battle to be lost by deserting to York at the
beginning of the fighting. In Wales itself, also, the war was
fought bitterly; and the stubborn defence of Harlech for the
Lancastrians became famous through the whole country. The last
battle fought between Lancaster and York was the battle of
Tewkesbury, in May 1471, and Lancaster lost it; the Prince of Wales,
the king's only son, was killed; and his heroic mother, Margaret of
Anjou, gave the struggle up. A young Welsh noble--Henry Tudor, Earl
of Richmond--became the Lancastrian heir. The fortunes of his house
were hopeless, however; and his uncle, Jasper, sent him in safety to
Brittany.
The Yorkist kings, Edward IV. and Richard III., in spite of cruelty
and murder, ruled well. They broke the power of the barons, and they
made the people rich--by maintaining peace, by repressing piracy, by
protecting the woollen industry of the towns.
In Wales their rule was for peace and order. They made a Court for
Wales at Ludlow, the home of their race. From Ludlow they began to
force the barons to do justice and to obey the king. It seemed as if
the rule of the Yorkists was to be a long one, for they were very
popular in London and the towns.
But the nobles were not willing to see their power taken from them
day by day. Jasper Tudor appealed to the loyalty of the Welsh, and
the men of West Wales wanted a king of their own blood; for the laws
had been made unjust to them ever since the time of Owen Glendower.
Many attempts were made, and they failed. But at last, on August 7,
1485, the fugitive Earl of Richmond came to Milford Haven. He
marched on to the valley of the Teivy, and he was joined by Sir Rees
ap Thomas, and an army of South Wales men; he journeyed on through
the valley of the Severn, and the North Wales men joined him; English
nobles joined him as he marched by Shrewsbury, Stafford, Lichfield,
and Tamworth. Richard's army was also on the march. At Bosworth,
August 22, 1485, the two armies met in the last battle of the Wars of
the Roses. Richard fought fiercely, wearing his crown; and when he
was defeated and killed, the crown was placed on Henry's head.
The people of England did not care who ruled, Richard or Henry, as
long as he kept order, for they were very tired of civil war.
But the people of Wales welcomed Henry as a Welshman who would rule
them kindly and justly.
CHAPTER XVII--TUDOR ORDER
The Tudors--Henry VII., his son, Henry VIII., and his three
grandchildren, Edward VI. and Mary and Elizabeth--ruled England and
Wales from 1485 to 1603. Under them the people became united, law-
abiding, patriotic, and prosperous. The Tudor period is justly
regarded as the most glorious in British history, with its great
statesmen, its great adventurers, and its great poets.
The Tudors were loyally supported by Wales, by the military strength
of men like Sir Rees ap Thomas or the Earl of Pembroke, and by the
diplomatic skill of the Cecils. Under their rule--hard and
unmerciful, but just and efficient--the law became strong enough to
crush the mightiest and to shield the weakest. Welshmen found that,
even under their own sovereigns, their ancient language was regarded
as a hindrance and their patriotism as a possible source of trouble;
but they obtained the privileges of an equal race, and they were
pleased to regard themselves as a dominant one.
They obtained equal political privileges. The laws which denied them
residence in the garrison towns in Wales, or the holding of land in
England, came to an end. The whole of the country, shire ground and
march ground, was divided into one system of shires and given
representation in Parliament, by the Act of Union of 1535. It is
called an Act of Union because, by it, Wales and England were united
on equal terms.
Anglesey, Carnarvon, Merioneth, Flint, Cardigan, and Carmarthen had
been shires since I 284; and small portions of Glamorgan and Pembroke
had been governed like shires, so that some Tudor writers call them
counties. The chief difference between a shire and a lordship is
that the king's writ runs to the shire, but not to the lordship. The
king administers the law in the shire, through the sheriff; the lord
administers the law in the lordship through his own officials.
In 1535 the marches of Wales were turned into shire ground. The bulk
of them went to make seven new shires--Pembroke, Glamorgan, Monmouth,
Brecon, Radnor, Montgomery, and Denbigh. The others were added to
the older English and Welsh counties. Of these, those added to
Shropshire and Herefordshire and Gloucestershire became part of
England. Monmouth also was declared to be an English shire, for
judicial purposes; but it has remained sturdily Welsh, and now it is
practically regarded by Parliament as part of Wales. The whole
country was now governed in the same way, and Wales was represented,
like England, in Parliament. No attempt had been made to do this
before, except by the first English Prince of Wales, the weak and
unfortunate Edward II.
Of even greater value than political equality was the new reign of
law. The Tudors used the Star Chamber, the Court of Wales, and the
Great Sessions of Wales, to make all equal before the law. To the
Star Chamber they summoned a noble who was still too powerful for the
court of law.
But it was the Court of Wales that did most work. It was held at
Ludlow. It had very able presidents, men like Bishop Lee, the Earl
of Pembroke, and Sir Henry Sidney. Bishop Lee struck terror into the
whole Welsh march, between 1534 and 1543. Before his time a lord
would keep murderers and robbers at his castle, protect them, and
perhaps share their spoil. But no man could keep a felon out of the
reach of Bishop Rowland Lee. If he could not get them alive he got
their dead bodies; and you might have seen processions of men
carrying sacks on ponies--they were dead men who were to swing on
Ludlow gibbets. But, severe as Lee was, the peasant was glad that he
could go to the Court at Ludlow instead of going to the court of a
march lord, as he had to do before 1535. The shire had been much
better governed than the lordship. When the lordship of Mawddwy was
added to the shire of Merioneth in 1535, the officers of the shire
found that it was a nest of brigands and outlaws.
In the more peaceful and humane days of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Henry
Sidney became President of the Court of Wales. He was one of the
best men of the day; and he was proud of ruling Wales and the border
counties, "a third part of this realm," because his high office made
him able "to do good every day."
Besides the Court of Wales for the whole country, a court of justice
was held in each of four groups of shires; and these courts were
called the Great Sessions of Wales. So, though the law was the same
for everybody, Wales had a separate system to itself, partly because
there was so much to do, and partly because the central courts in
London were so far away. Much was also done to get wise and learned
justices of the peace, and fair juries.
By the end of the reign of Elizabeth, the last of the Tudors, one may
say that Wales rejoiced in the following:
1. There was no hatred between England and Wales; the Welsh gentry
served the Queen on land and sea, and the people were more happy and
contented than they had been since the time of Llywelyn.
2. There was no danger of private war between lords, to which the
peasant might be summoned. The brigands which infested parts of the
country had been cleared away.
3. The law of land had been fixed. It was determined that land was
to go to the eldest son, according to the English fashion. All the
land became the property of some landlord, and it was decided who was
a landowner, and who was not. The Welsh freemen were held to own
their land; the Welsh serfs, the descendants of an old conquered
race, sometimes became owners and sometimes tenants. They all
thought that Henry VII., the Welsh victor of Bosworth, had set them
free.
4. The Tudors trusted their people, and called upon them to govern
and to administer justice themselves. The squires were to be
justices, the freemen were to be jurors; the shire was to look after
the militia, and the parish after the poor.
CHAPTER XVIII--THE REFORMATION
The Reformation in England was, to begin with, a purely political
movement. Henry VIII. wished to rule his people in his own way, in
religion as well as in politics; and, eventually, he became Supreme
Head of the Church as well as the king of the country. His new power
brought changes. It was necessary to reform the Church, and the
wealth of the monasteries tempted him to do it. There was a new
spirit of enquiry, and the King was led on by that spirit, with
dilatory and hesitating steps, to examine old creeds. The religious
fervour of the Reformation had caught the people; and the King stood
still, if he did not turn back.
But his ministers had no misgivings. Thomas Cromwell tried to hurry
the Reformation on--the monasteries were dissolved, the Bible was
translated, and the sway of Rome was disowned. The king appointed
the bishops, decided church cases, and even determined what the creed
of his country was to be. Somerset, in the reign of Edward VI., made
the movement a doctrinal one, and forced it on with equal vigour.
Wales looked on, with indifference and apathy at first, and then with
murmurs. The movement had no attraction: it had many causes of
offence. In England the political movement became a patriotic, an
intellectual, and a religious movement; and it succeeded. In
Ireland, also, it was political, but it could not appeal to
patriotism, because it was an English movement; and it failed. In
Wales, it was neither welcomed nor opposed; it was simply tolerated,
and with a bad grace.
For one thing, it brought English instead of Latin into public
worship. Latin, the old language of prayer and even of sermon, was
venerated, though not understood. But English was not only not
understood, it was also regarded as inferior to Welsh. The Tudors'
dislike of various tongues was as strong as their dislike of various
jurisdictions. Henry VIII., in giving Welshmen the Act of 1535, says
that the tongue of Owen Tudor is "nothing like ne consonant to the
natural mother-tongue used within this realm," and enacts that all
officials in Wales shall speak English. And, in the same spirit, the
Welshman was told that the Kingdom of Heaven was now open to him, but
that he must seek it in English, or not at all.
Again, the reformers--men of the type of Bishop Barlow--despised and
shocked a people they never understood. The sanctity of St David's,
the theme of the best poets of the Middle Ages and the goal of
generations of pilgrims, was described by its Protestant bishop--who
unroofed the palace in order to get the lead--as a desolate angle
frequented only by vagabond pilgrims. A Welshman is not appealed to
by what is an insult to his country and a shock to his religion at
the same time. The relics were ruthlessly swept away; they were
taken possession of by the agents of Cromwell and destroyed, or sent
to London. The images carried in the village processions were lost--
the images that could keep the superstitious Welshman from hell, or
even bring him back from it, or heal his diseases, or keep his cattle
from the murrain, and his crops from blight. I only know of one of
those relics that can still be seen. It is the healing cup of Nant
Eos, a mere fragment of wood. The people's faith in the relics can
be estimated from the fact that the cup has been used within the last
century.
Again, the monasteries were dissolved. The wealth of the
monasteries, their meadows and barns and sheep-runs and fish ponds,
were coveted by the rich; the poor thought of them as sources of
alms. The monks were good landlords; and they gave freely, not only
the comforts of religion, but of their medicinal herbs and stores of
food. The Welsh monasteries were not so rich as those of England,
and they were all dissolved among the lesser monasteries--those with
an income under 200 pounds a year. But though none of them were very
rich, they nearly all had almost 200 pounds a year. Their loss
affected the whole country, as each part of Wales had one or two of
them--Tintern, Margam, Neath, and Whitland in the south; Strata
Florida, Cwm Hir, Ystrad Marchell, and the Vanner in central Wales;
and Basingwerk and Maenan in the north.
The Reformation brought the poorer classes in Wales, not only insults
to their national and religious feelings, but material loss. It
appealed only to the English bishops who had adopted the new
Protestant tenets, and to the Welsh and English landowners who had
lost their reverence for relics, and had learnt to hunger for land.
The movement was a severe strain on the loyalty of the Welshman to
the Tudors, but he had learnt to look to the king for guidances and
he suffered in silence. Mary was welcomed, and no Welsh blood was
shed for the Protestant faith. The passive resistance to the
Reformation might have broken out into a rebellion if a leader had
come.
In Elizabeth's reign two attempts were made to disturb the religious
settlement. One was made by the Jesuits--the wonderful society
established to check the Reformation movement and to lead a reaction
against it. In 1583 John Bennett came to North Wales; in 1595 Robert
Jones came to Raglan; and several Welsh Jesuits suffered martyrdom.
The other attempt was that of John Penry, who wished to appeal to the
intellect of the people by means of the pulpit and the printing
press. The apostle of the new creed was crushed, like those who
wished to revive the old; he was put to death as a traitor in 1593,
after a short life of importunate pleading that he might preach the
Gospel in Wales.
Before the end of the reign of Elizabeth, however, the Welsh language
was recognised. The last school founded, that of Ruthin in 1595, was
to have a master who could teach and preach in Welsh. And in 1588
there had appeared, by the help of Archbishop Whitgift, the Welsh
Bible of William Morgan. It was the appearance of this Bible that
aroused the first real welcome to the Reformation. But the
Reformation that gave England a Spenser and a Shakespeare aroused no
new life in Wales, not a single hymn or a single prayer.
CHAPTER XIX--THE CIVIL WAR
After the Tudors came the Stuarts. The Tudors did what their people
wanted; the king and the people, between them, crushed the nobles.
The Stuarts did what they thought right, and they did not try to
please the people. Under the Tudors, there was harmony between Crown
and Parliament; and Elizabeth left a prosperous people with strong
views about their rights and their religion. But James I., and
especially his son Charles I., tried to change law and religion.
From the Tudor period of unity, then, we come to the Stuart period of
strife.
From 1603 to 1642 the struggle went on in Parliament. The Welsh
Members nearly all supported the king, and the Welsh people followed
the Welsh gentry in strong loyalty. The most famous Welshman of the
period was John Williams, who became Archbishop of York and Lord
Keeper. He was a wise man; he saw that both sides were a little in
the wrong; and if any one could have kept the peace between them, he
could have done it. But the king did not quite trust him, and the
Parliament almost despised him; and this happens often to wise men
who get between two angry parties.
From 1642 to 1646, the First Civil War was waged. This was a war
between the king and the Parliament over taxation, militia, and
religion. The south-east, and London especially, were for
Parliament; the wilder parts, especially Wales, were for the king.
The only important part of Wales that declared for Parliament was the
southern part of Pembrokeshire, which had been English ever since the
reign of Henry II.
Wales was important to the king for two reasons. For one thing, it
could give him an army, and he came, time after time, to get a new
one. When he unfurled his flag and began the war at Nottingham in
1642, he came to Shrewsbury, and there five thousand Welshmen joined
him. With these and others he marched against London, fighting the
battle of Edgehill on the way. While the king made many attempts to
get London until 1644, and while the New Model army attacked him
between 1645 and 1647, the Welsh fought in nearly all his battles,
their infantry suffering heavily in the two greatest battles, Marston
Moor and Naseby. The war went on in Wales itself also--Rupert and
Gerard being the chief Royalist leaders, and Middleton and Michael
Jones being the chief Parliamentary ones. No great battles were
fought, but there were several skirmishes, and much taking and
retaking of castles and towns.
Wales was important to the king, also, because it commanded the two
ways to Ireland. The King thought, almost to the last, that an Irish
army would save him. Welsh garrisons held the two ports for Ireland,
Chester and Bristol. Bristol was stormed by a great midnight
assault, and Chester was forced to yield. In March 1647 Harlech
yielded, and the war came to an end. By that time the king was a
prisoner in the hands of the army.
The Second Civil War, in 1648 and 1649, was a struggle between the
two sections of the victorious army. The Parliament wished to
establish one religion, the army said that every man must be allowed
to worship God as he liked. One was called the Presbyterian ideal,
the other the Independent. The army was led by Cromwell, and
Parliament was overawed. Then the Presbyterian parts rose in revolt-
-Kent, Pembrokeshire, and the lowlands of Scotland. The New Model
army marched against the Welsh, in order to break the connection
between the northern and southern Presbyterians. The Welsh generals
were Laugharne, Poyer, and Powell, who had all fought for Parliament
in the first war. They were defeated at St Fagans, near Cardiff, and
then driven into Pembroke. They determined to hold out to the last
within its walls. Cromwell besieged them, and the great feature of
the war was the siege of Pembroke. Walls and castles like those of
Pembroke had become useless because of gunpowder. But Cromwell could
not at once bring his guns so far. His difficulties were increasing
daily: the Parliament was trying to come to terms with the king, all
Wales around him was disaffected, the Scotch had crossed the border
and were marching on London. After many weeks of assaults and
desperate defence, the guns came and the old walls were battered
down. Pembroke Castle, whose great round tower still stands, had
protected William Marshall against Llywelyn and had enabled an
important district to remain a "little England beyond Wales," was the
last mediaeval castle to take an important part in war. The Scotch
were soon defeated at the battle of Preston, and the king was brought
to trial and put to death, the death-warrant being signed by two
Welshmen--John Jones of Merioneth and Thomas Wogan of Cardigan. The
date of Charles' execution is January 20, 1649.
The Commonwealth was established immediately, and Wales was looked
upon with much distrust--the Presbyterian parts and the Royalist
parts--by the new Government. It was represented in the English
Parliaments, it is true, but its representatives were often English,
and practically appointed by the Government. When the country was
put under the military dictatorship of the major-generals, Harrison
was sent to rule Wales.
Honest attempts were made to give it an efficient clergy; but the
zeal of Vavasour Powel aroused much opposition. Wales either clung
tenaciously to its old religion; or, if it changed it, the changes
were extreme. Though the country generally returned to its old life
and thought at the Restoration in 1660, much of the new life of the
Commonwealth remained: congregations of Independents still met;
Quaker ideals survived all persecution; and even the mysticism of
Morgan Lloyd permeated the slowly awakening thought of the peasants
whom, in his dreams, he saw welcoming the second advent of Christ.[ Index ] [ Introduction ] [ Chapters 1 through_5 ] [ Chapters 6 through 10 ]
[ Chapters11 through 14 ] [ Chapters15 through 19 ] [ Chapters 20 through 25 ][ The Fine Print ]
Also see : [ A Welsh history synopsis by David Fortin ]
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