The Glyndŵr rebellion was a Welsh rebellion led between 1400 and c. 1416 by Owain Glyndŵr against the Kingdom of England during the Late Middle Ages. During the rebellion's height, Owain exercised control over the majority of Wales after capturing several of the most powerful Ring of Iron castles, and formed a parliament at Machynlleth. The revolt was the last major manifestation of Welsh independence before the annexation of Wales into England in 1542–43.
The uprising began in 1400, when Owain Glyndŵr, a descendant of several Welsh royal dynasties, claimed the title Prince of Wales following a dispute with a neighbouring English lord. In 1404, after a series of successful castle sieges and battlefield victories, Owain summoned a parliament, later announcing plans to reintroduce the traditional Welsh laws of Hywel Dda, establish an independent Welsh church, and build two universities. Owain also formed an alliance with Charles VI of France, and in 1405 a French army landed in Wales to support the rebellion.
Early in 1406, Owain's forces suffered defeats at Grosmont and Usk, in the south east of Wales. Despite the initial successes of the rebellion from 1400 to 1406, the Welsh were severely outnumbered and the Welsh populace increasingly exhausted by an English blockade combined with pillaging and violence by English armies.
By 1407 the English had recaptured Anglesey and large parts of south Wales. In 1408 they seized Aberystwyth Castle, followed by Harlech Castle in February 1409, effectively ending Owain's territorial rule, although Owain himself was never captured or killed. He ignored two offers of a pardon from the new King Henry V and Welsh resistance continued in small pockets of the country for several more years utilising guerrilla tactics. Owain disappeared in 1415, when he was recorded to have died. His son, Maredudd ab Owain, accepted a pardon from King Henry V in 1421, formally ending the rebellion.
Background
Fall of Richard II
In the last decade of the 14th century, Richard II of England had launched a plan to consolidate his hold on his kingdom and break the power of the magnates who constantly threatened his authority. As part of this plan, Richard began to shift his power base from the southeast and London towards the county of Cheshire, and systematically built up his power in nearby Wales. Wales was ruled through a patchwork of semi-autonomous feudal states, bishoprics, shires, and territory under direct royal rule. Richard eliminated his rivals and took their land or gave it to his favourites. As he did so, he raised an entire class of Welsh people to fill the new posts created in his new fiefdoms. For these people, the final years of the reign of Richard II were full of opportunities. To the English magnates, it was a further sign that Richard was dangerously out of control.
In 1399, the exiled Henry Bolingbroke, heir to the Duchy of Lancaster, returned to reclaim his lands. Henry raised an army and marched to meet the king. Richard hurried back from Ireland to Wales to deal with Bolingbroke, but he was arrested by Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland as he was on his way from Conwy Castle to meet Bolingbroke at Flint Castle, supposedly to discuss the restitution of Henry's lands. Richard was imprisoned at the English border city of Chester before being taken to London. Parliament quickly made Henry Bolingbroke Regent and then King. Richard died in Pontefract Castle, shortly after the failed Epiphany Rising of English nobles in January 1400, but his death was not generally known for some time. In Wales, people like Owain Glyndŵr were asked for the first time in their life to decide their loyalties. The Welsh had generally supported King Richard, who had succeeded his father, Edward, the Black Prince, as Prince of Wales. With Richard removed, the opportunities for advancement for Welsh people became more limited. Many Welsh people seem to have been uncertain where this left them and their future.
For some time, supporters of the deposed king remained at large. On 10 January 1400 serious civil disorder broke out in Chester in support of the Epiphany Rising. An atmosphere of disorder was building along the Anglo-Welsh border.
Dispute between Owain Glyndŵr and de Grey
The revolt reportedly began as an argument with Owain Glyndŵr's English neighbour. Successive holders of the title Baron Grey de Ruthyn of Dyffryn Clwyd were English landowners in Wales. Glyndŵr had been engaged in a long-running land dispute with them. He seems to have appealed to Parliament (though which one is not clear) to resolve the issue, with the courts under King Richard finding in his favour. Reginald Grey, 3rd Baron Grey de Ruthyn – loyal to the new king – then appears to have used his influence to have that decision overturned. Owain Glyndŵr possibly had his appeal rejected. Another story is that de Grey deliberately withheld a Royal Summons for Glyndŵr to join the new king's Scottish campaign of August 1400. Technically, as a tenant-in-chief to the English king, Glyndŵr was obliged to provide troops, as he had done in the past. By not responding to the hidden summons he seems, perhaps unwittingly, to have incurred Henry's wrath.
Welsh revolt, 1400–15
On 16 September 1400, Owain acted, and was proclaimed Prince of Wales by a small band of followers who included his eldest son, his brothers-in-law, and the Dean of St Asaph. This was a revolutionary statement in itself. Owain's men quickly spread through north-east Wales. On 18 September, the town of Ruthin and De Grey's stronghold of Ruthin Castle were attacked. Denbigh, Rhuddlan, Flint, Hawarden, and Holt followed quickly afterward. On 22 September the town of Oswestry was badly damaged by Owain's raid. By 23 September Owain was moving south, attacking Powis Castle and sacking Welshpool.
About the same time, the Tudur brothers from Anglesey launched a guerrilla war against the English. The Tudors of Penmynydd were a prominent Anglesey family who were closely associated with King Richard II. Gwilym ap Tudur and Rhys ap Tudur were both military leaders of a contingent of soldiers raised in 1396 to protect North Wales against any invasion by the French. They joined the king in his military expedition to Ireland in 1398. When Glyndŵr announced his revolt, Rhys, Gwilym and their third brother, Maredudd ap Tudur, openly swore allegiance; they were Glyndŵr's cousin on their mother's side.
King Henry IV, on his way back from invading Scotland, turned his army towards Wales. By 26 September he was in Shrewsbury ready to invade Wales. In a lightning campaign, Henry led his army around North Wales. He was harassed constantly by bad weather and the attacks of Welsh guerrillas. When he arrived on Anglesey, he harried the island, burning villages and monasteries including the Llanfaes Friary near Bangor, Gwynedd. This was the historical burial place of the Tudor family. Rhys ap Tudur led an ambush of the king's forces at a place called Rhos Fawr ('the Great Moor'). After they were engaged, the Englishmen fled back to the safety of Beaumaris Castle. By 15 October, Henry was back in Shrewsbury, where he released some prisoners, and two days later at Worcester with little to show for his efforts.
In 1401, the revolt began to spread. Much of northern and central Wales went over to Owain. Multiple attacks were recorded on English towns, castles, and manors throughout the north. Even in the south in Brecon and Gwent reports began to come in of banditry and lawlessness. King Henry appointed Henry "Hotspur" Percy – the warrior son of the powerful Earl of Northumberland – to bring the country to order. An amnesty was issued in March which applied to all rebels with the exception of Owain and his cousins, Rhys and Gwilym ap Tudur.
Most of the country agreed to pay all the usual taxes, but the Tudurs knew that they needed a bargaining chip if they were to lift the dire threat hanging over them. They decided to capture Edward I's great castle at Conwy. Although the Conwy Castle garrison amounted to just fifteen men-at-arms and sixty archers, it was well stocked and easily reinforced from the sea; and in any case, the Tudurs only had forty men. On Good Friday, 1 April, all but five of the garrison were in the little church in the town when a carpenter appeared at the castle gate, who, according to Adam of Usk's Chronicon, "feigned to come for his accustomed work". Once inside, the Welsh carpenter attacked the two guards and threw open the gate to allow entry to the rebels. When Percy arrived from Denbigh with 120 men-at-arms and 300 archers, he knew it would take a great deal more to get inside so formidable a fortress and was forced to negotiate. A compromise was reached which would have resulted in pardons issued, but on 20 April, the king overruled Percy's local decision. It was not until Gwilym ap Tudur began to write directly to the king that an agreement was reached on 24 June. However, this was on the condition that nine of the defenders be turned over to justice.
Owain also scored his first major victory in the field in May or June, at Mynydd Hyddgen near Pumlumon. Owain and his army of a few hundred were camped at the bottom of the Hyddgen Valley when about fifteen hundred English and Flemish settlers from Pembrokeshire ('little England beyond Wales'), charged down on them. Owain rallied his much smaller army and fought back, reportedly killing 200. The situation was sufficiently serious for the king to assemble another punitive expedition. This time he attacked in October through central Wales. From Shrewsbury and Hereford Castle, Henry IV's forces drove through Powys toward the Strata Florida Abbey. The Cistercian house was known to be sympathetic towards Owain, and Henry intended to remind them of their loyalties and prevent the revolt from spreading any further south. After much harassment by Owain's forces he reached the abbey. Henry was in no mood to be merciful. His army partially destroyed the abbey and executed a monk suspected of bearing arms against him. However, he failed to engage Owain's forces in any large numbers. Owain's forces harassed him and engaged in hit-and-run tactics on his supply chain, but refused to fight in the open. Henry's army was forced to retreat. They arrived at Worcester on 28 October 1401 with little to claim for their efforts. The year came to end with the Battle of Tuthill, an inconclusive battle fought during Owain's siege of Caernarfon Castle on 2 November 1401.
The English saw that if the revolt prospered it would inevitably attract disaffected supporters of the deposed King Richard, rumours of whose survival were widely circulating. They were concerned about the potential for disaffection in Cheshire and were increasingly worried about the news from North Wales. Hotspur complained that he was not receiving sufficient support from the king and that the repressive policy of Henry was only encouraging revolt. He argued that negotiation and compromise could persuade Owain to end his revolt. In fact, as early as 1401, Hotspur may have been in secret negotiations with Owain and other leaders of the revolt to try to negotiate a settlement.
Anti-Welsh laws
Due to the ongoing peace negotiations between Hotspur and Glyndwr proving to be fruitless, the core Lancastrian supporters would have none of this hesitancy, and they struck back with anti-Welsh legislation, the Penal Laws against Wales 1402 which were designed to establish English dominance in Wales. The laws included prohibiting any Welshman from buying land in England, from holding any senior public office in Wales, from bearing arms, and from holding any castle or defending any house; no Welsh child was to be educated or apprenticed to any trade, no Englishman could be convicted in any suit brought by a Welshman, Welshmen were to be severely penalised when marrying English women, any Englishman marrying a Welsh woman was disenfranchised, and all public assembly was forbidden. These laws sent a message to any of those who were wavering that the English viewed all the Welsh with equal suspicion. Many Welshmen who had tried to further their careers in English service now felt pushed into the rebellion as the middle ground between Owain and Henry disappeared.
Revolt spreads
In the same year, 1402, Owain captured his arch enemy, Reynald or Reginald Grey, 3rd Baron Grey de Ruthyn in an ambush in late January or early February at Ruthin. He held him for a year until he received a substantial ransom from King Henry. In June 1402, Owain's forces encountered an army led by Sir Edmund Mortimer, the uncle of the Earl of March, at Bryn Glas in central Wales. Mortimer's army was badly defeated and Mortimer was captured. It is reported that the Welsh women following Owain's army killed the wounded English soldiers and mutilated the bodies of the dead, supposedly in revenge for plundering and rape by the English soldiery the previous year. Glyndŵr offered to release Mortimer for a large ransom, but Henry IV refused to pay. Mortimer could be said to have had a greater claim to the English throne than himself, so his speedy release was not an option. In response, Sir Edmund negotiated an alliance with Owain and married one of Owain's daughters, Catrin.