History of the English People, Volume III | Page 4

Some hold that
he had escaped to Scotland, and an impostor who took his name was
long maintained at the Scottish Court. In Wales it was believed that he
was still a prisoner in Chester Castle. But the trouble would have died
away had it not been raised into revolt by the energy of Owen Glyndwr
or Glendower. Owen was a descendant of one of the last native Princes,
Llewelyn-ap-Jorwerth, and the lord of considerable estates in
Merioneth. He had been squire of the body to Richard the Second, and
had clung to him till he was seized at Flint. It was probably his known
aversion from the revolution which had deposed his master that brought
on him the hostility of Lord Grey of Ruthin, the stay of the Lancastrian
cause in North Wales; and the same political ground may have existed
for the refusal of the Parliament to listen to his prayer for redress and
for the restoration of the lands which Grey had seized. But the refusal
was embittered by words of insult; when the Bishop of St. Asaph
warned them of Owen's power the lords retorted that "they cared not
for barefoot knaves." They were soon to be made to care. At the close
of 1400 Owen rose in revolt, burned the town of Ruthin, and took the
title of Prince of Wales.
[Sidenote: Owen Glyndwr]
His action at once changed the disaffection into a national revolt. His
raids on the Marches and his capture of Radnor marked its importance,
and Henry marched against him in the summer of 1401. But Glyndwr's
post at Corwen defied attack, and the pressure in the north forced the
king to march away into Scotland. Henry Percy, who held the castles of
North Wales as Constable, was left to suppress the rebellion, but Owen
met Percy's arrival by the capture of Conway, and the king was forced
to hurry fresh forces under his son Henry to the west. The boy was too
young as yet to show the military and political ability which was to find
its first field in these Welsh campaigns, and his presence did little to
stay the growth of revolt. While Owen's lands were being harried Owen
was stirring the people of Caermarthen into rebellion and pressing the
siege of Abergavenny; nor could the presence of English troops save

Shropshire from pillage. Everywhere the Welshmen rose for their
"Prince"; the Bards declared his victories to have been foretold by
Merlin; even the Welsh scholars at Oxford left the University in a body
and joined his standard. The castles of Ruthin, Hawarden, and Flint fell
into his hands, and with his capture of Conway gave him command of
North Wales. The arrival of help from Scotland and the hope of help
from France gave fresh vigour to Owen's action, and though Percy held
his ground stubbornly on the coast and even recovered Conway he at
last threw up his command in disgust. A fresh inroad of Henry on his
return from Scotland again failed to bring Owen to battle, and the
negotiations which he carried on during the following winter were a
mere blind to cover preparations for a new attack. So strong had
Glyndwr become in 1402 that in June he was able to face an English
army in the open field at Brynglas and to defeat it with a loss of a
thousand men. The king again marched to the border to revenge this
blow. But the storms which met him as he entered the hills, storms
which his archers ascribed to the magic powers of Owen, ruined his
army, and he was forced to withdraw as of old. A raid over the northern
border distracted the English forces. A Scottish army entered England
with the impostor who bore Richard's name, and though it was utterly
defeated by Henry Percy in September at Homildon Hill the respite had
served Owen well. He sallied out from the inaccessible fastnesses in
which he had held Henry at bay to win victories which were followed
by the adhesion of all North Wales and of great part of South Wales to
his cause.
[Sidenote: The Percies]
What gave life to these attacks and conspiracies was the hostility of
France. The influence of the Duke of Burgundy was still strong enough
to prevent any formal hostilities, but the war party was gaining more
and more the ascendant. Its head, the Duke of Orleans, had fanned the
growing flame by sending a formal defiance to Henry the Fourth as the
murderer of Richard. French knights were among the prisoners whom
the Percies took at Homildon Hill; and it may have been through their
intervention that the Percies themselves were now brought into
correspondence with the court of France. No house had played a