REVIEW OF ANCIENT HISTORY.
The British Period.
For ages the site of the town, with the surrounding district, was the theatre of brutal contention, rapine, and aggrandisement. Here, as in the Border-Lands of Scotland, it was
“The good old rule,
* * * the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can.”
Education had not spread her benign wings over the people, to hush them into peace; and too commonly they who possessed the strongest physical power and the wildest barbarism became, in turns, “Lords of the Ascendant.” There is no record extant that the Roman invaders of Britain pitched their tents within the Oswestrian district; and yet it is more than probable that part of the legion, which traversed from the south of our island, actually touched at Llanymynech Hill (a Roman settlement beyond doubt), and most likely constituted a portion of the army which, under Suetonius, found its way along the mountain-passes of North Wales into Anglesey, may have halted there, if the ground was pre-occupied by the invaded Britons, or the ancient encampment, Hen Dinas, had then stood. We can produce nothing more than conjectural evidence of such a visit. There is no Roman architecture in the town, to mark the presence of the invaders, nor are there Roman relics rich as those discovered at Llanymynech. If the Britons occupied Hen Dinas during the Roman visit to the district, the destruction of that encampment may have been accomplished by the Roman marauders; and yet it is believed by some that the Britons possessed Oswestry, intact, from before the death of Oswald to the invasion of Offa. A Roman invasion of Oswestry, and the real history of Hen Dinas (or Old Oswestry, as it is termed,) are therefore alike still involved in mystery.
On this “vexed question” we may add the following:—“Remarking to a gentleman,” says Mr. Hutton, “that I had gleaned some anecdotes relative to Oswald, he asked me if I had seen Old Oswestry, where, he assured me, the town had formerly stood. I smiled, and answered him in the negative. He then told me, ‘that the town had travelled three quarters of a mile to the place where it had taken up its present abode.’ This belief, I found had been adopted by others with whom I conversed.”
The earliest sovereign possession of Oswestry, noted in the Welsh historic page, was in the beginning of the fifth century, as already referred to. Oswal, son of Cunedda Wledig, is there represented to have been its first monarch. The Welsh Chroniclers, however, furnish no details of his reign; and no event connected with the town is subsequently recorded, till the memorable one of King Oswald’s attack upon the Mercian King Penda, August 5th, A.D. 642. Oswald and Oswy were sons of Adelfrid, the seventh King of Northumberland. These young Princes had been driven out of the kingdom of their father by Cadwallawn, who had before been expelled from Wales, his rightful possession, by Edwin. Oswald, after seventeen years’ exile in Scotland, was restored to his kingdom by the overthrow and death of Cadwallawn. During his exile Oswald is said to have been baptized in a Christian church. He brought with him from Scotland a Christian bishop, Aidan, who preached Christianity to the people, and Oswald assisted him in his ministrations. The young Northumbrian King appears to have been zealous in the Christian cause, both in the pulpit and the field. Penda was a pagan prince, and had united with Cadwallawn in laying Northumbria waste. Oswald’s Christianity was not strong enough, it would seem, to subdue his revenge against Penda. The two monarchs at length met, a bloody conflict ensued, and Oswald was slain. The site of the closing scene of this memorable battle is said to have been a field called Cae Nef (Heaven’s Field), “situated on the left of the turnpike road leading to the Free School.” The writer from whom we quote mentions, that “Oswald approached with his army to what is called Maes-y-llan, or Church Field, then open.” “About four hundred yards west of the church,” he adds, “is a rising ground, where the battle began. The assailant appears to have driven Penda’s forces to a field nearer the town, called Cae Nef. Here Oswald fell.” These minute particulars give increased interest to the combat; but the writer does not state any authority for the details. We suppose it must have been merely traditionary. At the present time the sites of Cae Nef, and Church or Chapel Field, are well known to most of the inhabitants of the town. Oswald’s remains were first interred in the monastery of Bradney, in Lincolnshire, and afterwards, in 909, removed to St. Oswald’s, in Gloucestershire. The memory of the deceased King seems to have been held in great veneration, for churches, in various parts of the kingdom, still bear his name, as patron saint. Speed, in his “History of Great Britaine,” with his accustomed quaintness and minute graphic description, sums up Oswald’s closing scene in the following language:—
“But as the sunne hath his shadow, and the highest tide her ebbe, so Oswald, how holy soeuer, or gouernment how good, had emulators that sought his life, and his Countries mine: for wicked Penda the Pagan Mercian, enuying the greatnesse that King Oswald bare, raised warres against him, and at a place then called Maserfeild, in Shrop-shire, in a bloudie and sore fought battle slew him; and not therewith satisfied, in barbarous and brutish immanitie, did teare him in peeces, the first day of August, and yeere of Christ Iesus six hundred forty two, being the ninth of his raigne, and the thirty eighth of his age: whereupon the said place of his death is called to this day Oswaldstree, a faire Market Towne in the same Countie. The dismembred limmes of his body were first buried in the Monastery of Bradney, in Lincolnshire, shrined with his standard of Gold and Purple erected ouer his Tombe, at the industry and cost of his neece Offryd, Queene of Mercia, wife vnto king Ethelred, and daughter to Oswyn that succeeded him. From hence his bones were afterwards remooued to Glocester, and there in the north side of the vpper end of the Quire in the Cathedrall Church, continueth a faire Monument of him, with a Chapell set betwixt two pillers in the same Church.”
From the death of Oswald to 777, Oswestry is reported, as already mentioned, to have been in undisputed possession of the Britons. What its faithful history was during that long period we are unable to state. If the Britons did really occupy it, no event worthy of record seems to have occurred. If the Britons were preserved in peace, no chronicle is handed down to us of their social or industrial habits within the halcyon time. Whether they improved their land, instructed their minds in arts useful to their tribe, or were sunk in ignorance, sloth, and selfishness, there is no voice or pen to inform us. Three centuries later than this period the domestic architecture of the Cymry was in the lowest state of rudeness. One of the regal mansions of Hywel Dda, their great law-giver, was made of peeled rods; the people lived in wattled huts; and a gentleman’s hall was valued according to the number of posts it contained. These were filled up with wattled twigs and clay. The only notice we have of the period is in the Welsh Chronicles, and from them we learn that Cadwaladr (son of the Cadwallawn who was defeated and slain in a battle with King Oswald, near Denisbourne, in Northumberland,) the last of the Welsh Princes who assumed the title of Chief Sovereign of Britain, reigned over the Britons from A.D. 634 to 703, and was succeeded by Idwal Iwrch, or the Roe. In one of the Welsh Triads, Cadwaladr is called “one of the three canonized kings of Britain,” for the protection which he gave to the primitive Christians when dispossessed by the pagan Saxons; and his long reign is mentioned as having been peaceable, mainly in consequence, we are told, of his mother being sister to Penda, the Mercian king. Rhodri Molwynog, a brave and warlike prince, and grandson of Cadwaladr, succeeded to the western part of Britain about the year 720, and was engaged in constant hostilities with the Saxons until near the close of his life, in 755. These dottings from Welsh history show that the Britons had not peace within their borders during the long period already mentioned, and that “battles and murders” were still the constant theme and employment of the Britons and Saxons. It is hardly probable that the Britons possessed this district peaceably, and not unlikely that they still had to fight for their lives and property, inch by inch, and foot to foot. War, even in the present day, is the curse of nations; it fosters animosities, engenders ignorance and vice, and brutalizes man. What, then, must have been the effect of constant wars and incursions upon the British people by their invaders? The Britons had among them, about this period, their great bard, Llywarch Hen, a man ranked among the wise bards of the Court of Arthur, and whose poetical effusions display profound talent, if not genius, for so rude an age; but we have no proofs that they profited much by his vigorous instructions, although his life was lengthened out to one hundred and fifty years. The art of printing was unknown in Llywarch’s days, otherwise his humanizing productions might have wrought peace and harmony amongst both the oppressors and the oppressed.
The period had now arrived when the sovereignty of the Britons was so powerfully disputed that they were compelled to yield to the cohort strength of the impetuous Offa, King of the Mercians. Mercia was the largest of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and London was its capital. Offa passed the Severn with a mighty force, drove the Britons from their fertile and lovely plains, and limited the princedom of Powys to the western side of the celebrated ditch still known by the name of Offa’s Dyke. Offa enjoyed a victorious reign, from the year 755 to 794. During that period the finest part of Powys became a confirmed part of the Mercian territory, and Shropshire was permanently annexed to England. Owen and Blakeway, in their invaluable “History of Shrewsbury,” remark, “Though there can be no doubt that the cession of Shropshire was obtained from the British Prince (Eliseg, it is supposed,) only by the military preponderance of the Saxon, yet it seems equally certain that it must finally have been the subject of a pacific negociation. A work of so much labour as Offa’s Dyke, evidently designed, according to his practice in other places, as the line of demarkation between two kingdoms, could never have been carried into execution without the concurrence of the sovereign on each side of that boundary. * * * * The prince, thus despoiled of the fairest portion of his dominions, retired to Mathrafal, on the Vyrnwy, five miles beyond Welshpool, while Pengwern, degraded from the dignity of a metropolis, passed under the yoke of an English conqueror, and henceforth to be known by the name of Shrewsbury, a name of Saxon origin.”
Offa’s Dyke, called by the Britons Clawdd Offa, extended nearly a hundred miles along the mountain border of Wales, from the Clwydian hills to the mouth of the Wye. Part of the Dyke may be traced at Brachy Hill, and Leintwardine, in Herefordshire, continuing northward from Knighton, in Radnorshire, over part of Shropshire, entering Montgomeryshire between Bishop’s Castle and Newtown. It again appears in Shropshire, near Llanymynech, crosses Cern-y-bwch (the Oswestry race-course), descends to the Ceiriog, near Chirk, where it again enters Wales, and terminates in the parish of Mold, beyond which no traces of it are discovered. Offa may have imagined that the Clwydian hills, and the deep valley that lies at their base, would serve as a continuance of the prohibitory line. Pennant tells us, that in all parts the Dyke was constructed on the Welsh side, and that there are numbers of small artificial mounts, the sites of small forts along its course. In the MS. “Historia Wallica,” we are informed, that the work of forming this Dyke, forty feet in height, occupied a numerous band of men, “able and accustomed to work in the fields,” more than seven years. This great line of demarcation answered but little purpose as a line of defence, or even of boundary. The Border Lands were still the scenes of sanguinary contests, and superior force alone repelled the Britons. Severe laws were enacted against any that should transgress the limits prescribed by Offa; and one of these enactments declared, that “the Welshman who was found in arms on the Saxon side of the Dyke was to lose his right hand.” These laws, however, were unheeded by the Britons. They deeply felt their injuries, and concerted means of revenge, and, as they hoped, emancipation. They formed an alliance with the kings of Sussex and Northumberland, broke through the boundary, attacked Offa’s camp, slew great numbers, and the Mercian king himself narrowly escaped with a small remnant of his army. On this disaster Offa retired into his own dominions, meditating vengeance. Hostages having been given to him by the Britons, a short time before, during a brief period of peace, he now dealt out to them severe treatment, strictly confining them, and selling, or reserving for perpetual slavery, their wives and children. Still breathing destruction he marched into the confines of Wales with a powerful army, but for years was gallantly repelled by the Britons. At length the contending forces met on Rhuddlan Marsh (now the scene of peaceful arts, the Chester and Holyhead Railway passing over it), and the Britons, under the command of Caradog, were entirely defeated with terrific slaughter, their leader being slain in the conflict. The fury of the Saxon prince did not cease with victory. He savagely massacred the men, women, and children who fell into his hands; and, according to tradition, the remaining Britons, who had escaped the enemy’s sword, fleeing with haste over the marsh, perished in the waters by the flowing of the tide. This tragedy has been carried down to posterity by a plaintive Welsh melody, called Morva Rhuddlan, the notes of which are amongst the most touching and deeply-pathetic of Cambrian minstrelsy.
Having traced Offa’s Dyke, it is necessary to describe the course of Watt’s Dyke, as the space between these two great lines of demarcation was deemed neutral ground both by the Britons and their invaders, and subsequently, during the Norman period, became part of what is denominated the Marches, although it is difficult to define correctly the precise extent of territory they occupied. Watt’s Dyke is supposed by various writers to have been constructed anterior to the time of Offa. Its course is marked by Pennant as follows:—
“It appears at Maesbury, in the parish of Oswestry, and terminates at the river Dee, below Basingwerk Abbey. The southern end of the line is lost in morassy grounds; but was probably continued to the river Severn. It extends its course from Maesbury to the Mile Oak [on the old road from Oswestry to Shrewsbury]; from thence through a field [now belonging to Edward Williams, Esq., Solicitor, of Oswestry], called Maes-y-garreg-llwyd, between two remarkable pillars of unhewn stone [strongly resembling Druidic altar stones]; passes by the town [below the Shelf-bank’ Field], and from thence to Old Oswestry, and by Pentreclawdd to Gobowen, the site of a small fort called Bryn-y-Castell, in the parish of Whittington; runs by Prys Henlle and Belmont; crosses the Ceiriog, between Brynkinallt and Pont-y-blew Forge, and the Dee, below Nant-y-Bela; from whence it passes through Wynnstay Park, by another Pentreclawdd, to Erddig, where there was a strong fort on its course; from Erddig it runs above Wrexham, near Melin Puleston, by Dolydd, Maesgwyn, Rhos-ddû, Croes-oneiras, &c.; goes over the Alûn, and through the township of Llai, to Rhydin, in the county of Flint, above which is Caer-estyn, a British post; from hence it runs by Hope church along the side of Molesdale, which it quits towards the latter place, and turns to Mynydd Sychdyn, Monachlog, near Northop, by Northop Mills, Bryn-Moel, Coed-y-Llys, Nant-y-Flint, Cefn-y-Coed, through the Strand Fields, near Holywell, to its termination below the Abbey of Basingwerk.”
The Chester and Shrewsbury Railway intersects these two ancient dykes. At the junction of the branch line to Brymbo, Minera, &c., the railway crosses Watt’s Dyke, and continues to run on the left side of it, travelling from Chester, for about fourteen miles, until Gobowen is reached, where the line again crosses the dyke; the superintendants of modern improvements, especially railway engineers and contractors, paying little if any deference to mere antiquities. By this route the railway traveller passes a considerable distance on the neutral ground, where alone, for many years, the trade and commerce of the Britons, the Saxons, and the Danes, were transacted. Offa’s Dyke at Brymbo is about two miles to the right, from Chester, and runs parallel with the railway for about eighteen miles. Churchyard, in his “Worthies of Wales,” thus chronicles, in his quaint verse, the use to which the “free ground” was applied in early days:—
“Within two miles, there is a famous thing
Called Offa’s Dyke, that reacheth farre in lengthe;
All kind of ware the Danes might thither bring;
It was free ground, and called the Britaines’ strength.
Watt’s Dyke, likewise, about the same was set,
Between which two, both Danes and Britaines met.”
For many years after Offa’s memorable defeat of the Britons on Rhuddlan Marsh, the history of the district conveys but little information interesting in the present day. “Wars, and rumours of wars,” are the only topics on which past historians have filled their pages in reference to this period. Rhodri Mawr (Rhoderick the Great), one of the most celebrated warriors and princes of Wales, succeeded to the sovereignty of North Wales and Powys in 843. In the year of his succession his territories were invaded by Berthred, King of Mercia, whom he defeated with great loss. Rhodri left three sons, and, according to the law of gavel-kind, he divided his dominions among his children. His son Mervyn had the principality of Powys, with the palace of Mathraval. His three sons were called y tri thywsog taleithiog, or diademed princes, from their wearing diadems of gold set with precious stones; and Anarawd, his eldest son, received a yearly tribute from the Prince of Powys. Contentions still continued, and intestine divisions kept the Britons in as violent commotion as if they were battling with their avowed enemies on the border. Mervyn did not long enjoy his dominion, as he was slain in 892 by his own subjects, headed by his brother Cadell, who took possession of the throne. The reign of Cadell was also brief, and his son Hywel Dda (Howel the Good) succeeded him. The Welsh Justinian, as Hywel has been called, died in 984, deservedly honoured by his subjects, and leaving four sons, all of whom perished in the desolating wars to which his country soon after fell a prey.
The Norman Period.
Saxon dominance was now rapidly approaching to its close; and the Britons were about to be exposed to the incursions of a new body of invaders, under the usurpation of William, surnamed the Conqueror. Bleddyn ab Cynvyn, with his brother, obtained in 1062 the sovereignty of North Wales and Powys, through the influence of the Saxon King Edward. Bitter hostilities subsequently occurred between Bleddyn and his kindred; at length the succession to the whole principality passed from his children, but Powys-land devolved to his sons, and came at length entire to Meredydd, the eldest born, after the contentions and slaughter incident in those days to such partitions. Oswestry, we are told, was called Trefred (a contraction of Tre Meredydd, Meredydd’s Town), in honour of this prince, but after his death the name was soon discontinued, and the town resumed its former appellation of Oswald’s-tree, or Oswestry. His eldest son, Madog, inherited from his father the tract known by the name of Powys Vadog, which consisted, according to the division of the times, of five cantrevs, or hundred townships; and these were subdivided into fifteen commots, or cwmwds:
CANTREVS. | CWMWDS. | COUNTIES. |
Y Barwn, | Dinmael | Denbighshire. |
Edeyrnion | Merionethshire. | |
Glyndyfrdwy | Ibid. | |
Y Rhiw, | Yale, or Ial | Denbighshire. |
Ystrad Alun, or Mold | Flintshire. | |
Hope | Ibid. | |
Uwchnant, | Merffordd | Ibid. |
Maelor Gymraeg, or Bromfield | Denbighshire. | |
Maelor Saesnaeg | Flintshire. | |
TREFRED, | Croes-Vaen | Denbighshire. |
Tref-y-Waun, or Chirk | Ibid. | |
Croes-oswallt, or Oswestry | Shropshire. | |
Rhaiadr, | Mochnant-is-Rhaiadr, Cynllaeth, &c. | Denbighshire. |
Nanheudwy | Ibid. | |
Whittington | Shropshire. |
To Madog is assigned the honour of erecting the Castle of Oswestry. Whether he is entitled to this distinction it would be difficult now to prove. Welsh historians assert, that he built also the Castles of Overton (Flintshire) and Caereinion, and that in the former, which received the additional name of Madog, he resided. Powell says of him, that he was “ever the King of England’s friend, and was one that feared God, and relieved the poor.” Madog married Susanna, daughter of Grufydd ab Cynan, Prince of North Wales, by whom he had two sons, Grufydd Maelor and Owain ab Madog. To the first he gave the two Maelors, Yale, Hopedale, Nanheudwy, Mochnant-is-Rhaiadr, &c.: to Owain, the land of Mechain-is-Coed; and to his natural son, Owain Brogyntyn, a nobleman of distinguished talents, he granted the lordships of Edeirnion and Dinmael. The last-named Owain resided at Brogyntyn, near Oswestry, now called Porkington, whence he assumed his surname. His dagger and cup are still preserved at Rûg: and many families in Merionethshire and Denbighshire are directly descended from him. Madog’s second wife was Maud Verdon, an Englishwoman of noble lineage. He died in 1159 at Winchester, whence his body was conveyed to Meivod, in Montgomeryshire, where it was deposited in the Church of St. Mary, which he himself had built some years before. His widow is stated to have been married to William Fitz-Alan, Lord of Clun, and he, in right of his wife, obtained the town and castle of Oswestry. Fitz-Alan was a descendant of Alan, one of the companions of the Conqueror, and was the first of his name who bore the title of “Baron of Oswaldestre.” Alan was progenitor of the entire noble family which from him derived the name of Fitz-Alan, and for many succeeding centuries were the most distinguished personages in Shropshire. From this powerful race is descended the present Duke of Norfolk, who holds the title of “Baron of Oswaldestre,” in addition to his other patrician honours. His Grace’s ancestor, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, married Lady Mary, daughter of Henry, the last Earl of Arundel named Fitz-Alan, 13th Elizabeth, when the barony of “Oswaldestre” was conveyed to the Duke.
The Norman conquest was “a heavy blow and great discouragement” to the impetuous Britons. During that eventful period almost the whole of Shropshire was parcelled out, and bestowed by William the Conqueror on his kinsman, Roger de Montgomery, as a reward for his great military services in the conquest. The Earl of Shrewsbury, whilst thus taking possession of Powys, among his other newly-acquired lands, brought under his subjection the town and castle of Trefaldwyn, (from Baldwin, Montgomery’s lieutenant,) which fortress he strongly fortified, and afterwards called it after his own family name. Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, (the founder of the Grosvenor family,) likewise did homage for Englefield and Rhûvoniog, with the country extending along the sea shore from Chester to the waters of Conway. Ralph Mortimer did the same for the territory of Elvel; as did Hugh de Lacie for the lands of Eulas; and Eustace Cruer for Mold and Hopedale. Brady relates out of Domesday, that William the Conqueror granted to Hugh Lupus North Wales in farm, at the rent of £40 per annum, besides Rhos and Rhûvoniog. These Norman Barons erected fortresses on their lands, and, so far as they were able, settled in them English and Norman defenders. In a MS., relating to the Welsh Marches, from the library of the late Philip Lloyd Fletcher, Esq., of Gwernhaylod, in Flintshire, it is stated “that about this time, Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester, Shrewsbury, and Chester were rebuilt and fortified, and formed a line of military posts upon the frontiers.” Thus the last asylum of the Welsh was invested on almost every side, or broken into by their enemies. The kingdom of North Wales, reduced to the island of Anglesey, to Merioneth and Caernarvonshire, and to part of the present counties of Denbigh and Cardigan, still preserved the national character and importance. The natives of Wales, aided by the virtue and courage of their Princes, became more formidable than ever to the English; and at times, as they acquired union with additional vigour from despair, their invaders, instead of being able to make new conquests, held those which they had already obtained by a precarious tenure. William’s policy, in giving to his barons the power to make such conquests in Wales as they were able, led to the erection of the Marches Lordships, of which Oswestry formed a part. These lordships consisted of more than a hundred petty sovereignties, and were the fruitful source of innumerable disorders, till their partial suppression in the reign of Henry VIII. Pennant says, that William’s design was, in establishing these seignories and jurisdictions, to give to those whom he had brought over to England the power of providing for themselves, and to reduce, at the same time, the opposition of the Welsh people. The precise extent of the Marches Lordships it is difficult, as we have already said, to define. During the Saxon period the Severn was considered the ancient boundary between England and Wales. The lands conquered by Offa on the western side of that river were annexed to Mercia, and afterwards incorporated with the monarchy by Alfred the Great. The term Marches signifies generally the limits or space between England and Wales, of which the western part of Shropshire, Oswestry included, formed a principal portion. Of the Norman Barons, besides the first Earl of Shrewsbury, who did homage for royal grants of territory, were Fitzalan for Oswestry and Clun; Fitz-Gwarine for Whittington; and Roger le Strange for Ellesmere. The tenure by which the Baronies Marches were held, was, that—
“in case of war the lords should send to the army a certain number of their vassals; that they should garrison their respective castles, and keep the Welsh in subjection. In return for these services the lords had an arbitrary and despotic power in their own domains. They had the power of life and death, in their respective courts, in all cases except those of high treason. In every frontier manor a gallows was erected; if any Welshman passed the boundary line fixed between the two countries, he was immediately seized and hanged. Every town within the Marches had a horseman armed with a spear, who was maintained for the express purpose of taking these offenders. If any Englishman was caught on the Welsh side of the line, he suffered a similar fate. The Welsh considered everything that they could steal from their English neighbours as lawful prize.”
After the conquest of Wales by Edward I. the Baronies Marches were continued, but under regulations somewhat different from the former. In the reign of Edward IV. they were governed by a Lord President and Council, consisting of the Chief Justice of Chester, and three Justices of Wales. In cases of emergency other parties were called in. By a statute passed in the reign of Henry VIII. the principality and dominion of Wales became formally annexed to England; and all the Welsh laws, and most of their peculiar customs and tenures, were by this statute entirely abolished. By this statute also four new counties were formed, Brecknockshire, Denbighshire, Montgomeryshire, and Radnorshire. The Marches became annexed partly to England, and partly to the new counties of Wales. The President and Council of the Marches were however allowed to continue as before, and their general court was held at Ludlow. A statute was passed in the reign of William III., by which the government of the entire principality was divided between two peers of the realm, on whom was conferred the title of Lords Lieutenant of North and South Wales. From that period the Lordship Marches were entirely abolished.
There is another salient point in the history of Wales which it will not be inappropriate here to mention. Many of our readers have heard or read of the Royal Tribes of Wales.
“The five regal Tribes, and the respective representative of each, were considered as of royal blood. The fifteen common Tribes, all of North Wales, and the respective representative of each, formed the nobility, were lords of distinct districts, and bore some hereditary office in the palace. Grufydd ab Cynan, Prince of North Wales, Rhys ab Tewdwr, of South Wales, and Bleddyn ab Cynvyn, of Powys, regulated both these classes, but did not create them; as many of the persons, placed at their head, lived before their times, and some after. Their precedence, as it stands, is very uncertain, and not governed by dates; the last of them were created by Davydd ab Owain Gwynedd, who began his reign in 1169. We are left ignorant of the form by which they were called to this rank. Mr. Vaughan, of Hengwrt, informs us that Grufydd ab Cynan, Rhys ab Tewdwr, and Bleddyn ab Cynvyn made diligent search after the arms, ensigns, and pedigrees of their ancestors, the nobility and kings of the Britons. What they discovered by their pains in any paper or records, was afterwards by the Bards digested, and put into books, and they ordained five Royal Tribes, there being only three before, from whom their posterity to this day can derive themselves, and also fifteen special Tribes, of whom the gentry of North Wales are for the most part descended!’”
It will be seen from the foregoing pages that we have abstained from all minute detail in our description of the continued struggles for mastery between the Welsh and their own kindred, as well as of the strife for power and dominion between the Cambrian princes and their foreign invaders. These scenes in the history of Wales are nothing more, to use the eloquent language of Warrington, than “a recital of reciprocal inroads and injuries—a series of objects unvaried and of little importance, which pass the eye in a succession of cold delineations, like the evanescent figures produced by the camera obscura. The characters and events are not brought distinctly into view, nor are they sufficiently explained, to enable the historian to judge of their proportions, their beauty, or defects; whence he can neither develope the principles of action, nor trace the connection of causes with effects, by leading incidents, or by the general springs which govern human affairs.” “The story of our country under its native princes,” observes another impartial writer on Welsh history, “is a wretched calendar of crimes, of usurpations, and family assassinations; and in this dismal detail we should believe ourselves rather on the Bosphorus than the banks of the Dee.” The British or Welsh rulers had doubtless much to complain of against their Roman, Saxon, and Norman invaders; but their own conduct towards their own people—to those who by affinity claimed their protection and regard—was quite as guilty as that of their foreign foes.
Throughout the entire reign of Henry I. we read in the Welsh annals of nothing but “a series of retaliated injuries arising in regular succession; evils naturally springing from the passions, where they usurp the sword of justice.” Henry died about the year 1135, and Stephen succeeded to the English throne, and was soon embarked in a sea of troubles. Engaged in continual hostilities, and in supporting a doubtful title, he prudently concluded a peace with the Welsh, and allowed them to retain the territories they had lately recovered, free of homage or tribute. The incidents of Stephen’s reign were marked by no feature of national interest; and the only reference made to it in connection with this district is William Fitz-Alan’s espousal of the claim made by the Empress Maud to the English crown. His union with other noblemen, to dethrone Stephen, exposed him to danger, and he was compelled to leave the kingdom, abandoning his lands and other property to the incensed monarch. Whilst an exile from England he remained faithful to the interests of the Empress; and on his return to this country on the death of Stephen, and the accession to the throne of Henry II., he reaped the reward of his spirit and fidelity, by receiving back all his forfeited honours and estates, including the Castles of Oswestry and Clun. Of Oswestry Castle we shall speak particularly in subsequent pages. Of Clun we may at present say, that it remained in the direct line of William Fitz-Alan down to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when the last Earl died. By the marriage of Mary Fitz-Alan with Philip Howard, the son of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, it became vested in that noble family. From them it passed to the Walcotts, and afterwards, by purchase, to Lord Clive, in whose family it continues. The Duke of Norfolk still retains the title of “Baron of Clun,” as well as that of “Baron of Oswaldestre.”
Henry was an inveterate and formidable enemy to the interests of Wales. He speedily employed his utmost force in attempting to subjugate the Cambrian people; and it is recorded of Madog ab Meredydd, Prince of Powys, who had united with the enemies of his country, that he incited the English king to an invasion of North Wales. Henry listened to the solicitations of the Powysian prince, and eagerly exerted every means for the conquest of the country. He quickly raised a powerful army, and marched without delay into North Wales. Mathew Paris states that the levy of Henry, raised at this time, amounted to 30,000 men. Owain Gwynedd, in this campaign, gallantly led the Welsh, and in one of the actions, at Coed Euloe, near Hawarden, Flintshire, the monarch himself, who had encamped near the field of battle, escaped from the hands of the Welsh with the greatest difficulty. The English forces, having been strengthened, pursued the Welsh, and at length Prince Owain, fearful that his army would perish for want of provisions, concluded a peace with the King of England. He himself and his chieftains submitted to do homage to Henry, and to yield up the castles and districts in North Wales which, in the last reign, had been obtained from the English. Lord Lyttleton tells us, that to complete this humiliating position, Owain was obliged to deliver up two of his sons as pledges of his future obedience. The year after this important event a general peace took place between England and Wales; the princes and all the chieftains of South Wales repaired to the court of England, where Henry granted peace, on the Welsh doing homage for their own territories, and formally ceding to him the districts recovered from the English in the last reign. This peaceful state of things was but of short duration. Rhys, the son of Grufydd ab Rhys, immediate heir to the sovereign power of South Wales, having been outraged by several English lords, threw off his allegiance, commenced a revolt, and rallied around him a numerous force, which perplexed and baffled the English monarch. Shortly afterwards, fired by the gallant example of Rhys, the Prince of North Wales (Owain Gwynedd), and all his sons, his brother Cadwaladr, and the chieftains of Powys, united with him, in the endeavour to regain their independence and honour. After some slight skirmishes with the Welsh, Henry gathered together a formidable force, with which he marched into Powys, breathing slaughter and extermination against the inhabitants. All the historical writers, in describing this fearful onslaught, admit that few events of ancient times were more deeply stained with the blood of innocence. The English army, formed of the choicest troops, from Normandy, Anjou, Flanders, Brittany, and other territories which Henry possessed in France, entered the Welsh confines at Oswestry, where it was encamped for some time. The forces of North Wales were collected under the command of Owain Gwynedd and his brother Cadwaladr; the army of South Wales was headed by the chivalrous Rhys ab Grufydd; and the men of Powys were led by Owain Cyveiliog, and the sons of Madog ab Meredydd. The combined forces of the Welsh assembled at Corwen, where they awaited the approach of the English. Henry, burning with ardour to attack the enemy, marched his army to the banks of the Ceiriog, near the present village of Chirk, and at once ordered that the woods on each side of the river be cut down, to prevent ambuscades and sudden approaches of the enemy. It is related by some writers, that on the passage of the Ceiriog Henry was in imminent danger of losing his life: attempting to force a bridge, an arrow aimed at him by the hand of a Welshman must inevitably have pierced his body, if Hubert de St. Clare, Constable of Colchester, perceiving the danger, had not in a moment sprang before his sovereign and received it into his own bosom, and thereby met with his death-wound. Whilst the English soldiers were employed in felling the woods, a detachment of the Welsh forces forded the river, and suddenly attacked the van of Henry’s army, composed of pikemen, considered to be the most daring and gallant portion of his soldiers. A fierce battle ensued; many were killed on both sides, but at length Henry gained the passage, and advanced onward to the Berwyn mountains, to recruit his troops. There he remained in camp for several days. The Welsh were posted on the mountain-heights opposite, watching with lynx-eyed care every movement of the enemy. They succeeded in cutting off his supplies, and his army was reduced to extreme distress and privation, for want of food for man and horse. To increase his difficulties, sudden and heavy rains fell, which rendered the country on the Berwyn side so slippery and dangerous, that neither men nor horses could stand on their feet. Torrents of water, from the incessant rains, poured down from the mountains into the vale where Henry was encamped; and, unable to maintain his ground amidst all these unexpected disasters, he retired, with great loss of men, and, what was more annoying to his vaunting spirit, with defeat and disgrace. Fired with revenge, and urged by the barbarism which ever marks the tyrant, he commanded that the eyes of all the hostages which had been placed in his hands should be put out. The two sons of Rhys ab Grufydd, Prince of South Wales, and the two sons also of Owain Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales, became the unfortunate victims of Henry’s cruelty. Holinshead, in his Chronicles, tells us, that besides these young chieftains, the atrocious monarch caused the sons and daughters of several Welsh lords to be treated with the same severity; ordering the eyes of the young striplings to be pecked out of their heads, and the ears of the gentlewomen to be stuffed.
In the annals of Wales this battle is ranked among the brightest achievements of the Welsh, in their long-continued struggles for liberty. The site is known by the mournful designation of Adwy’r Beddau, or the Pass of the Graves. The conflict is called in most of the ancient books, “The Battle of Crogen.” Yorke observes, “it has been erroneously said that the term Crogen was used in contempt and derision of the Welsh; but that was not the truth: the English meant to express by it animosity, and the desire of revenge.” “Many of the English,” he adds, “were slain, and buried in Offa’s Dyke, below Chirk Castle, and the part so filled up is to be seen, and forms a passage over it, called to this day Adwy’r Beddau, or the Pass of the Graves.” The late Mr. William Price, in an annotated edition of his “History of Oswestry,” published in 1815, has the following note on the Battle of Crogen:—
“Owain Gwynedd slept at Tyn-y-Rhos, the present residence of Richard Phillips, Esq., who has still in preservation the bedstead he at that time lay upon. Likewise a Deed or Lease of a piece of land, of five acres, for 2s. 8d. per year; with a cock and hen at Christmas, and a man a day in the harvest; which still preserves the name.”
Turning for a moment to the civil government of Oswestry, it may be mentioned that in the reign of Henry II, the first Charter was granted to Oswestry, by William, Earl of Arundel. The Welsh called it “Siarter Cwtta,” the Short Charter. It was a Charter of protection, of which there were many granted about this period. It states, “I have received in protection my Burgesses of Blanc-Minster. Richard de Chambre was Constable of White-Minster. Thomas de Rossall held Rossall, of John Fitz-Alan, in chief, of one knight’s fee at White-Minster.” Guto (y Glyn), an excellent poet who flourished from 1430 to 1460, a native of Llangollen, and domestic bard to the Abbot of Llanegwestl, or Valle Crucis, near that romantic town, speaks of White-Minster in his days. He says, “I know not of any Convent of Monks superior to White-Minster.”
About the year 1188, William Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, gave a sumptous banquet in the Castle of Oswestry, to Giraldus Cambrensis, and Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, on their return from Wales, the bleak and barren mountains of which they had just travelled over, in an attempt to incite the people to the intended Crusade to the Holy Land. Giraldus seems to have considered that the entertainment given by the Norman Earl was too luxurious for saintly personages. He speaks, however, with much complacency of the comfortable accommodations provided for him and the Archbishop at Shrewsbury, whither they repaired from this town. “From Oswestry,” says he, “that Prelate and his retinue came after Easter (1188) to Slopesbury, where they remained some days to recruit and refresh themselves, and many assumed the cross in obedience to the precepts of the Archbishop, and the gracious sermon of the Archdeacon of St. David’s. Here also they excommunicated Oen de Cevelioc (Owain Cyveiliog, Prince of Powys), because he alone of all the Welsh princes, had not advanced to meet the Archbishop.” The visit of Giraldus and Baldwin to Oswestry might have been induced by a two-fold motive, namely, to partake of the princely hospitality of Fitz-Alan, in his baronial castle, and to hold “ghostly communication” with Regner, Bishop of St. Asaph, who at this period resided in Oswaldestre.
The succeeding portion of Henry II’s long reign was largely occupied with plans and movements to subdue the Welsh princes and their people. After repeated struggles, the English monarch saw, with exulting spirit, that he had reduced Cambrian independence to a bye-word of contempt, by seducing them from patriotism and virtue, and rendering them a disunited and improvident people. When he had accomplished this signal victory over them, and hoped to enjoy further years of sovereign power in comparative ease and tranquillity, the fate even of monarchs was dealt out to him. His mortal career was ended, and he was “gathered to his fathers:”—
“The glories of our blood and state are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate; Death lays his icy hand on kings.”
Henry was succeeded by Richard, his son, surnamed Cœur-de-Lion, whose reign continued for about ten years, when he was slain at the siege of Chalons, in France, and John, his brother, ascended the throne. During Richard’s monarchy the town of Oswestry was not marked by any event worthy the record of the contemporary historian.
The reign of John was distinguished by strong enmity to the Welsh. In 1211 he assembled a large army at Oswestry, and was there joined by many of the Welsh Chieftains, his vassals, with whom he marched to Chester; resolving to exterminate the people of North Wales. It is revolting to trace the history of this feeble-minded and capricious king. His reckless attacks upon Wales, and his inveterate quarrel with his son-in-law, Prince Llywelyn ab Jorwerth, added to his troubles, and probably hastened his end. As a last effort against Wales, resenting Llywelyn’s stern defence of Cambrian independence, John demolished the castles of Radnor and Hay; and then, proceeding to the Marches, he set fire to Oswestry Castle, then under the governorship of John Fitz-Alan, (who had united with the barons of England in renouncing allegiance to the English Monarch, on his refusal to confirm their constitutional rights,) and burnt it to the ground.
In the reign of Henry III. John Fitz-Alan, who was reconciled to the king, procured for his Manor of Blanc-Minster the grant of a Fair on the eve, the day, and the day after St. Andrew’s feast. The Bailiffs were also made clerks of the market, with privilege to imprison any person detected in forestalling; for which they were paid twenty marks as a consideration. These petty officers, “dressed in a little brief authority,” abused their power, and gave occasion to frequent remonstrances from the inhabitants. Powel, who seems to have paid great deference to “the powers that be,” concludes, not very logically, we think, that it was “no wonder that so many of the grievances which the Welsh so much complained of to Edward I. should originate from this place.”
The historic facts recorded subsequent to this period are brief and meagre. We are told that in 1233 Oswestry was again destroyed by fire. Llywelyn ab Jorwerth had just made an inroad into the county of Brecknock, destroying all the towns and fortresses belonging to that territory; he then invested the castle, lay before it a month, raised the siege, finding his efforts to be fruitless, set fire to the town, and pursued his way to the Marches. Conflagration and ruin marked his progress: he burnt the town of Clun, in Salop, demolished Redde Castle, in Powys, and laid Oswestry in ashes. A few months afterwards, Llywelyn and Lord Pembroke, having joined their forces, made another inroad into the English Marches, and having rendered all that country a scene of devastation, they finished their fiery career by laying part of the town of Shrewsbury (Frankwell, it is supposed,) in ashes.
Early in the reign of Edward I. that monarch was intent on bowing the stubborn neck of Llywelyn ab Grufydd (the last native sovereign Prince of Wales). Llywelyn was refractory, and ambitious to maintain his order. Edward summoned him to a parliament in London, but Llywelyn refused to comply with the royal command. In reply, he offered (Oct. 14, 1276–7,) to repair to Montgomery, or to “the White Monastery of John Fitz-Alan,” as Oswestry was then called, but declined a journey to the metropolis of England. On the receipt of this answer, by which Edward, resolute to exact a personal obedience, was, or affected to be, greatly enraged, the Parliament immediately condemned Llywelyn as a rebel, for his non-appearance. The melancholy end of the Welsh prince is well known. “If,” says an elegant historian, “the valour of Llywelyn, his talents, and his patriotism, had been exhibited upon a more splendid theatre,—on the plains of Marathon, or in the straits of Thermopylæ,—his name would have been recorded in the classic page, and his memory revered, as an illustrious hero, and as a gallant assertor of the rights of nature.”
Edward did not confine his attention to Wales only, but extended it to the Borders, and included in his eagle-eyed glance the town of Oswestry. “Provision was made,” says Pennant, “against future insults; for in the reign of Edward I. the town (Oswestry) was surrounded with walls. This happened when that politic monarch meditated the conquest of Wales; he therefore thought proper to secure this town, one of the keys of the country, with proper defence.” He commenced the erection of the walls in 1277. They are said to have been about a mile in circumference, with an intrenchment on the outside, which could be filled with water from the numerous streams in the vicinity. Edward’s order to put Oswestry into a state of defence issued from Shrewsbury—the seat of his government for several months—and his letters patent, directed to the Bailiffs and Burgesses of the ancient town, are worthy of record, as they show the mode in which taxation was levied in early days. This curious document is as follows:—
“Of the Murage of Oswaldestre. The King to the Bailiffs and Burgesses, and the other good men of Oswaldestre greeting.
“Know ye that we have granted in aid of enclosing our town of Oswaldestre, that from the feast of St. Thomas the Apostle in the twelvth year of our reign to the end of twenty years thence ensuing, ye may take in the same Town, to the reparation of the walls of the same Town, of every horse-load of corn to be sold, one halfpenny; of every horse and mare, ox and cow sold, one halfpenny; of every hide of horse and mare, ox and cow, fresh, salt, or tanned, one farthing; of every cart bringing salted flesh to sell, twopence; of five bacons sold, one halfpenny; of a salmon fresh sold, one halfpenny; of ten sheep, goats, or pigs sold, one penny; of ten fleeces of wool, one penny; of one hundred skins of sheep, goats, stags, hind bucks and does, one penny; of every hundred skins of lambs, kids, hares, rabbits, foxes, cats, and squirrels, one halfpenny; of every cart of salt to sell, one penny; of every horse-load of salt to sell by the week, one farthing; of every horse-load of cloth to sell, one penny; of every entire cloth to sell in the town of Gloucester, one penny; of every cloth of silk brocaded and diapered with gold, one penny; of every cloth of silk without gold and chef de cendall, one halfpenny; of every dole of wine to sell, two pence; of every horse-load of honey to sell, one penny; of every dole of honey to sell, four pence; of every sack of wool to sell, four pence; of every truss of cloth to sell brought by cart, four pence; of every horse-load of cloth to sell, or other diverse and small things coming to be sold in the same town, one halfpenny; of every cart of iron to sell, one penny; of every horse-load of iron to sell, one halfpenny; of every carriage of lead to sell, two pence; of tallow and lard to sell, one farthing; of every hundred of alum and copperas to sell, one halfpenny; of two thousand onions, a farthing; of every thousand of herrings to sell, one halfpenny; of every hundred of boards to sell, one halfpenny; of every mill sold, one penny; of every thousand of laths sold, one penny; of every new cart sold, one halfpenny; of every hundred of faggots to sell, one halfpenny; of every quarter of salt, one farthing; of every twelve horse-loads of coal sold, one halfpenny; of every thousand of all manner of nails to sell, except cart nails, one farthing; of a thousand of cart nails to sell, one halfpenny; of every hundred of horse shoes and clouts to carts to sell, one halfpenny; for every truss of any sort of merchandise coming for sale to the aforesaid town, of the value of two shillings, one farthing; of every cauldron sold to brew, one penny; of every quarter of oatmeal to sell, one halfpenny: And we therefore command that ye take the said custom to the end of the term aforesaid, but the term of the said twenty years being compleat, the said custom ceases and is done away. In witness, &c.”
Pennant states that the walls were begun in the sixth of Edward I., and that “the murage or toll was granted on the inhabitants of the county, which lasted for six years, in which time it may be supposed the walls were completed.”
Archbishop Peckham visited Oswestry, June 12, 1284. He was received with great respect by Anian, Bishop of St. Asaph, the clergy, and others. Anian obtained from the king a confirmation of the rights and privileges of his church, and received from John Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel, and Baron of Oswestry and Clun, the grant to his church of one hundred acres of land at St. Martins, paying yearly at Midsummer, for ever, a pair of gilt spurs; with the condition, that neither the bishop nor his successors should alienate the same. This grant is dated at Album Monasterium, 1271. Richard, son of the said John Fitz-Alan, afterwards confirmed it, and also gave forty-five acres more, with the manor-house belonging thereto. Anian had a long dispute at Rome respecting the placing of a vicar in Blanc-Monasterium, the tithes of which his predecessor had given to the Abbey of Shrewsbury. The issue was, that the abbot, for the peaceable enjoyment of his tithes, gave the whole of his lands at St. Martins, upon paying two Welsh knives yearly. These said knives, if now produced at Sheffield, would doubtless disturb the risible faculties of the keen knife-manufacturers there.
Edward II. was much annoyed and harassed in the latter part of his reign, partly from his want of fidelity to many of his most distinguished nobles, the two Mortimers, uncle and nephew, among their number. A revolution broke out against the king, in 1325, concocted, it is said, by the queen and her favourite, Roger Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore, in which the French monarch also took part. A strong feeling for and against Edward was manifested in Shrewsbury, where the Mortimers were well known. Edmund, Earl of Arundel, was one of the few peers who had preserved their loyalty to the crown. He assembled a multitude of his Welsh tenantry at Oswestry, with a view of seizing Shrewsbury for the king. Arundel was, however, apprehended near Shrewsbury, with certain of his adherents, after an obstinate struggle. The Earl was taken from that town to Hereford, where he expiated his loyalty on the scaffold. For this “service” the “good men of Salop” had all the goods and chattels found upon him. After his execution, the queen, to show her attachment to her paramour, Lord Mortimer, obtained the Castle of Oswestry for that favourite. In 1324, Edmund, Earl of Arundel, granted two shops in Leg-street, to the burgesses of Oswestry for ever, on payment of 13s. 4d. yearly. This grant is witnessed by “Lord Richard, Abbot of Haggemon,” and others, and “dated at Oswaldestre, on the feast of St. Michael, in the 18th year of the reign of King Edward, the son of King Edward.”
Edward III.’s reign was long and glorious. It was distinguished by the ever-memorable battle of Cressy. Part of the inhabitants of this town doubtless contributed to the victory thus obtained; for in 1346 the king directed Richard Fitz-Alan to raise two hundred of his vassals from Oswestry and Clun, to attend him in the French wars.
In 1397 Richard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, was attainted and executed, when Richard II. seized all his lands and manors, and granted them to William le Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire. In the Historia Regum Angliæ we find the following bit of superstition entertained at this period. On this occasion the Earl of Arundel must, of course, have deeply regretted his contempt of the marvellous stone of which John Ross, the Antiquary, of Warwick, writes. “The earl,” says this grave author, “kept a raven in his court; and one day, as he was playing at chess in the garden, the bird,” or, as Ross suggests, “a spirit in that form, brought up (eructavit) a stone having the virtue of invisibility. The earl set no value upon it, contrary to the advice of his nobles; and soon after, being arrested by strong hand, he was committed to ward, and finally beheaded.”
The king, having put down all opposition to certain measures which he was resolved to carry, by the execution of Arundel, and the murder of his uncle of Gloucester, adjourned his Parliament at Westminster to Shrewsbury, and from thence to Oswestry. An apprehension of tumult among the Earl of Arundel’s tenantry in this county, from his violent death, and the seizure of his estates, was probably the reason for making both Shrewsbury and Oswestry the scene of that national assembly. The Parliament met at Shrewsbury Jan. 29, 1397–8, and was designated The Great Parliament. In this regal visit he displayed great magnificence, and entertained the members with a sumptuous banquet, he appearing among the people in his costly royal robes. Whilst in Shrewsbury Richard made Chester a Principality, and annexed to it the Castle of Holt, the lordship of Bromfield and Yale, Chirkland, and various other places in Wales and on the Borders. During the proceedings in Parliament it was ascertained that deadly hatred subsisted between the Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk. These noblemen had been jointly concerned in the impeachment of Arundel and his fellow-sufferers, at Westminster. Norfolk, touched by remorse for his share in the ruin of a patriotic peer, or desirous of ensnaring his late confederate, who had charged Norfolk with using words disrespectful to the king, fell into open quarrel with Hereford, who made the matter a subject of public accusation in the Parliament against his antagonist. The king, unwilling that any discourse about himself should be made the subject of open discussion, suddenly closed the proceedings of Parliament, and adjourned to Oswestry. In the assembly there the dispute between the two Dukes was recommenced, and the king resolved that it should be ended by a duel between the belligerent parties at Coventry. The combat did not take place, as the Duke of Norfolk refused to fight; upon which Norfolk was banished from the kingdom for ever, and Hereford for ten years. As a mark of the royal favour, Richard granted, before the Parliament closed, the first Charter conferred upon Oswestry, by which the town was incorporated by the name of “The Bailiffs and Burgesses of Oswestry, infra Palatinatum Cestriæ in Marchia inter Angliam et Walliam.” The Charter, which was founded upon the one granted just before at Shrewsbury, exempted the Burgesses from all contributions and exactions whatsoever, throughout the kingdom, the city of London excepted. It bears date, August 14, 1399.
The close of Richard’s kingly rule was near. His love of idle show and magnificence, his delight in popular applause, the buzzing about him of parasites and flatterers, and his indulgence in pleasures, were followed by a brief scene of bitter existence, which ended in degrading humiliation and painful death. The eyes of Henry of Lancaster, Duke of Hereford, had long been directed towards the throne, and he actively employed his agents to place him upon it. The classic historians of Shrewsbury assure us that, either from the disgust occasioned by outrages perpetrated upon the Burgesses, by Richard’s body-guard, or disorderly multitudes brought into the town during the sittings of his Parliament, “it is certain that the revolution which placed Henry of Lancaster on the throne had the entire concurrence of the inhabitants of these parts (Shropshire). When the Duke proceeded into Wales to circumvent the unhappy Richard, he passed through Ludlow and Shrewsbury, and was joined here (Shrewsbury) by the Lords Scales and Bardolph, Sir Robert and Sir John Legh, and other gentlemen of Cheshire.” Richard, after suffering much indignity, was secured a prisoner in Flint Castle, by the great conspirator Lancaster, and from thence was led in the Duke’s train to Chester. Here Bolingbroke delivered the subdued monarch to the Duke of Gloucester and Thomas, Earl of Arundel, saying, “Here is the murderer of your father, you must be answerable for him.” He was subsequently conveyed to Pontefract Castle, where he was basely assassinated by a band of armed ruffians, four of whom he killed with a battle-axe before he fell.
The untimely death of Richard caused an immediate change in the government of Oswestry. Its newly-created lord, the Earl of Wiltshire, fell a victim to popular fury, and Thomas, son of the attainted Earl of Arundel, was restored to the manorial rights and dignities of Oswestry. The Earl of Huntington, the king’s brother, fled into the county of Essex; but passing through a village belonging to the Countess of Hereford (sister of the deceased Richard, Earl of Arundel), he was discovered, and arrested. The countess apprized the new monarch, Henry, of the capture, and desired him to send to her the young Earl of Arundel, her nephew, that he might witness the mode in which she intended to avenge herself of her brother’s death. The Earl of Arundel posted to the place where Huntington was prisoner, and loaded him with reproaches. The countess delivered the captive nobleman, bound with chains, into the hands of eight thousand of her vassals, whom she called together for the occasion. The wretched prisoner, struck with terror at the preparations made to take away his life, sued for mercy, and protested that he had not committed the foul act of which he was accused. Had the countess restrained her rage, and listened to reason and justice, she would have found that Huntington was not a guilty murderer, but that Richard, Earl of Arundel, was brought to the block mainly by the treachery of the Earl of Nottingham. Heedless of his protestations and cries for mercy, she commanded her vassals to cut him to pieces. His assembled executioners are said to have taken pity upon him; whilst the countess and young earl strenuously urged his death. Maddened by rage, she exclaimed, “Curse on ye all, villains; you have not the courage to put a man to death.” This violent exclamation roused an esquire, who offered himself as executioner. He seized the hatchet, and approached Huntington, but was so touched with his tender complaints, that he trembled with emotion; and returning to the countess, his eyes being filled with tears, he said, “I would not put the earl to death for all the gold in the world.” The countess, full of indignation, looking at him “unutterable things,” exclaimed, “Do what thou hast promised, or thy own head shall be cut off.” When he heard this he was so afraid that he knew not what to do, and approaching the earl again said, “Sir, I entreat your pardon; forgive me your death.” He then struck him a violent blow on the shoulder, which felled him to the ground. Huntington sprang up again, and said, “Alas, man, why do you treat me thus? For God’s sake kill me more easily.” The esquire then struck him eight times on the shoulder, being so terrified that he could not aim his blows at the neck. Another blow followed, which fell on the neck, when the wretched nobleman, suffering pain and agony from his cruel treatment, cried out, “Alas, dear friend, have pity upon me, and free me from my pain.” The executioner then seized a knife, and cut the Earl’s throat, separating his head from the body.
The Glyndwr or Glendower insurrection arose about this period, and the town of Oswestry greatly suffered from it. Owain Glyndwr was descended on the mother’s side from Llywelyn, the last sovereign Prince of Wales, his father, Grufydd Vychan, having married Helen, a grand-daughter of that puissant chieftain. He studied the law at one of the Inns of Court in London, and finally was admitted as a barrister. He may have quitted his profession, for we find he was appointed an esquire to Richard II., to whom he was devotedly attached, and whose fortunes he followed even to Flint Castle, and till his royal master’s household was dissolved. He had been knighted by King Richard, and was married early in life to Margaret, daughter to Sir David Hanmer, of Hanmer, in Flintshire, one of the Justices of the Court of the King’s Bench. His resentment against Henry IV. was strong and implacable. He had suffered deep private wrongs from the usurpation of the king, and burned with indignation to avenge himself.
Owain Glyndwr’s sudden appearance as a military leader of his countrymen roused their ancient martial spirit, and thousands flocked to his standard. In the year 1400 the town of Oswestry was burned, the Welsh having attacked it; and in 1403 Owain Glyndwr assembled his forces in the town, that he might join Lord Percy (surnamed Henry Hotspur) against the king. The Welsh leader dispatched to the “tented field” his first division only, amounting to 4000 men, whose prowess was distinguished on the day of battle. The great body of his troops, about 12,000 in number, did not approach nearer than Oswestry, they having been detained at the siege of Kidweli Castle. It is thought by some writers, that Owain did not remain inactively at Oswestry. Gough, the historian, mentions, that about two miles from Shrewsbury, where the Pool road diverges from that leading to Oswestry, “there stands an ancient decayed Oak Tree, of which there is a tradition, that Glyndwr ascended it to reconnoitre; but finding that the king was in great force, and that the Earl of Northumberland had not joined his son, he fell back to Oswestry, and immediately afterwards retreated into Wales.”
In the “Beauties of England and Wales,” the Shropshire history edited by Mr. Rylance, we find the following passage on Glyndwr’s alledged abandonment of Hotspur “at his utmost need:”—
“The army of Glyndwr, amounting to twelve thousand men, had remained inactive at Oswestry during the battle. There is a tradition that he himself quitted that place in disguise, and hastening to Shrewsbury, hid himself in a gigantic oak, which commanded a full view of the field; and that after witnessing the discomfiture of his friends, returning with speed to Oswestry, he withdrew his forces into Wales, whither he was pursued by Prince Henry.”
Hulbert, too, in his “History of the Town and County of Salop,” referring to the famous battle, says, “Owain Glyndwr beheld the battle of Shrewsbury, instead of sustaining, by his arms, the cause of his ally, the gallant and intrepid Hotspur.” Another writer on this memorable event declares, that had Glyndwr brought up his reserved troops when Hotspur by his impetuous onslaughts was within an ace of victory, or when the brave warrior was slain, the battle would have been won, and the royal forces entirely routed. Taking these allegements to be truths, Glyndwr perpetrated a baseness which all faithful men must condemn.
Many writers have taken pains to solve the question, “Did Owain Glyndwr act merely as an idle spectator at the battle of Shrewsbury; or did he actually lead his corps de reserve to Shelton, to aid the gallant Hotspur?” No author that we have read has settled that doubtful inquiry. Owain’s hatred of Henry, and his ardent efforts to give freedom to his countrymen, with his chivalrous bearing in the rebellion he had created, would suggest no evidence that Glyndwr was pusillanimous; and yet history furnishes alleged facts strongly reflecting upon his heroic spirit, and almost charging him with craven cowardice. To conclude that Glyndwr was actuated by base and unmanly curiosity in perching himself upon a branch of the Shelton Oak would be to brand his name with infamy; and yet, if he were espying the battle from that famous tree, his troops being close in reserve, but not in action, an accusation no less severe must ever rest upon his character as a chieftain and a man. On this interesting subject, which will always engage the attention of historical readers, a poet of bright fancy and manly sentiment—Dovaston of Westfelton—has given sarcastic expression to an opinion, in a Miltonic sonnet on the Shelton Oak, that Owain Glyndwr, at the battle of Shrewsbury, was a traitor to gallantry and faith:—
“Tradition says, and why not trust Tradition,
When many a haunt breathes, hallowed by her song,
From this Great Oak, backed by twelve thousand men,
Wrung at their country’s wrongs and murdered king,
Glyndwr, the wise, the bountiful, the brave,
Beheld young Percy fall: and conquest crown
The perjured Bolingbroke.—‘Bright youth, he cried,
Thy spur is cold. One thoughtless act hath lost
An Empire’s tide. Mark what the great have said—
‘The better part of valour is discretion,’
For safe on prudence every good attends.”
“The Battle of Shrewsbury” is not only “clad,” as the same poet fancifully describes, “in cold-hearted History’s homely weeds,” but “garlanded with Avon’s dewy flowers.” The conflict is part of the history of this district; and the narrative we subjoin, from the able pens of the historians of Shrewsbury, will attract the attention of all who value “pure English, undefiled:”—
“Of the famous and severely-contested battle which ensued under the walls of our town, the awful prelude to so many more between the rival houses, through the remainder of the century, we have five contemporary and perhaps independent narratives; but one of them is a mass of errors, and another extremely succinct, and of the others only one is circumstantial: nor is any of them sufficient to satisfy the minute curiosity of the local historian: but the best account that can be drawn from a comparison of the whole, supplied in some instances by a consideration of the ground, and in a few others by modest conjecture, shall be laid before the reader as the conclusion of the present chapter.
“We are unable to trace the progress of Hotspur’s long march from the North to Shrewsbury, a journey of not less than 250 miles. He probably set out in the beginning of July; and skirting along the eastern side of Cheshire, where his army received a considerable augmentation, passed through Stafford, and was joined there by his uncle the earl of Worcester. The king, aware of his intention to gain possession of Shrewsbury, and desirous of cutting off his junction with Glendower, pursued him with hasty marches. We find his majesty on the 16th of July at Burton-upon-Trent, and on the 17th at Lichfield: whence, finding that he could not overtake his enemy, he hastened on to reach Shrewsbury before him. He would naturally take the Watling Street road, and enter this town over the Abbey Bridge. The route of Hotspur was more to the north, in order to keep up a communication with the Severn, so important for his junction with Glendower. In all probability he marched through Newport, by High Ercall and Haghmond Hill; and hoped to gain admittance through the North or Castle Gate. The king arrived just in time to save the town: he entered it only a few hours before Hotspur, who reached the Castle Foregate on the evening of Friday, July 19th, and the king’s forces could not have advanced from Lichfield before the morning of that day. They were certainly here before Percy: for, aware of the intention of that young nobleman, and desirous to save the Castle from his attack, they set fire to that extensive suburb, and marched out of the Castle gates to offer him battle. Hotspur, unwilling to bring his army into action at the close of a toilsome march, and learning, from the royal banner which waved on the walls, that the king was in possession of the town, called off his followers from the attack, and retired to the Bull-field, an extensive common which stretched from Upper Berwick to the East. He thus protected his rear by the woody and impervious precipices extending to Leaton shelf, and had the river not only on his side, but also, if it had not entirely deserted its ancient channel under Cross-hill, (as there is reason to believe it had not,) in his front also. This position enabled him likewise to communicate readily over that stream by the ford of Shelton with the forces of Glendower, when they should arrive, as he hoped, on the opposite bank. Here he passed the night in council. His army consisted of 14,000 chosen men, of whom a considerable part were of the county of Chester, at that time eminent for its skill in archery; but, if Hall is correct, the royal army was nearly double that number; for he writes that above 40,000 men were assembled on both parts, and every circumstance of the battle proves that the king was at the head of a very superior force. His situation was, however, by no means devoid of anxiety. He must have been conscious how slender the title was which he possessed to the throne: and how ill-disposed his peerage of the realm were to maintain him upon it. From the Castle he might view, as the dawn arose, the plain which stretched to the north glittering with hostile arms: while the dreadful Glendower was believed to be in full march from Oswestry, to join the rebels with his Welsh forces. But the difficulties of the crisis only sufficed to call forth his energies and display his talents.
“Henry was himself a distinguished warrior. In earlier life he had, in company with his princely uncle the duke of Gloucester, travelled into the north of Europe in quest of martial glory; and under the banners of the renowned Teutonic order had made a glorious campaign against the Pagans of Lithuania. He was still in the vigour of life, being much under forty years of age, and an adversary every way worthy of the gallant Percy; whom, relying upon the superiority of his numbers, he determined, if possible, to force to an engagement, before that nobleman should receive his reinforcements from Wales or the north. By break of day, therefore, he dispatched, it is probable, a strong force, under the nominal command, for it could be no more, of the young prince, the future hero of Agincourt, but then a youth of fourteen years, to come up with Hotspur at Berwick, if possible. He himself, with the main body, appears to have marched out on the Hadnall road, ready to proceed as occasion might demand, either to the north of Cross Hill and Almond Pool, and close the rebels between his two divisions; or else to advance further on upon that road, where it branches off to Shawbury, with the view of cutting off their retreat, if Hotspur, aware of his design, should attempt to march to the east. It happened as the king anticipated. Hotspur, on his advance, broke up in some disorder, and marched by Harlescot and Abright Hussey to Hately-field, which stretches from thence eastwards. Here, however, finding it impossible to avoid an engagement, on account, as we may suppose, of the obstruction to his retreat presented by the king’s movement above mentioned, he made his stand in the rear of a field of peas nearly ripe; behind which he stationed his army, and hoped thereby to deter the king from advancing over a tract which must necessarily impede his operations.
“He then addressed his little army in a short harangue, of which Walsingham has preserved the heads. ‘We must desist,’ said he, ‘from any further attempt to retreat, and turn our arms on those that come against us. Ye see the royal banner, nor is there time to seek a passage even though we wished it. Stand, therefore, with steadfast hearts: for this day shall either promote us all, if we conquer; or deliver us from an usurper, if we fall: and it is better to die in battle for the common wealth, than after battle by the sentence of our foe:” and with this, to support the courage of his men by proving his design to fight to the outrance, he dispatched two of his esquires, Knayton and Salvayn, with that strange defiance, in which he loads the king with the most horrid crimes. * * * *
“No one has informed us how the king received this furious manifesto. He had something else to engage his attention. He proceeded to marshal his forces, dividing them into two columns, or wedges. Of one of these he took the command himself, and entrusted the other to his son. The front rank of his own column was led on by his nephew the young earl of Stafford, a soldier of conspicuous valour, on whom he had that morning conferred the high office of constable of England, recently enjoyed by the earl of Northumberland. Previous to the final onset, the king, in compliance with the customs of chivalry, bestowed the honour of knighthood on certain of his most distinguished esquires. Hotspur, perceiving that an engagement was unavoidable, called for his favourite sword. His attendants informed him that it was left behind at Berwick, of which village it does not appear that he had till then learned the name. At these words he turned pale, and said, ‘I perceive that my plough is drawing to its last furrow, for a wizard told me in Northumberland that I should perish at Berwick: which I vainly interpreted of that town in the North.’ His courage did not, however, yield to the impressions of superstition; he rallied his spirits, and arranged his troops with his usual ability: assigning their respective stations to his uncle Worcester, the Scottish earl of Douglas, his recent captive at Halidown, sir Richard Venables, baron of Kinderton, Hugh Brow, Hugh Vernon, and others. His troops appear to have been chiefly stationed on the north side of the spot now occupied by the church in a field still called the Hateleys: on the east side of the church is a field denominated the King’s croft, in which, it may be presumed, were ranged those which the king commanded in person. These positions exactly agree with the objects which we have assigned above to the respective leaders; and lend, it is hoped, some confirmation to the conjectural part of the preceding narration.
“While the hostile armies, drawn up in battle array facing each other, waited, with mute expectation, the sound of the trumpet, the dreadful signal for combat, two venerable divines, Thomas Prestbury, lord abbot of Salop, and the clerk of the privy seal, advanced out of the royal army, and proceeded towards that of Percy. The king, desirous to spare the blood of his subjects, offered him and his adherents pardon and peace, and redress of all grievances of which they could justly complain. Hotspur was touched by these unexpected overtures, made under circumstances of such numerical inequality, and requested his uncle of Worcester to repair to the royal presence in company of these holy men, and state the grounds on which he had taken up arms. The king, we may suppose, was in his turn somewhat softened by the sight of the earl, who had been so recently engaged in the domestic office of governor to the prince of Wales; and a recollection of the obligations he had received from the Percy family might mix itself with his other reflections. It is certain that to the remonstrances of Worcester, delivered in a fierce and haughty tone, he listened with respect, and replied with a condescension which, in the opinion of the spectators, was somewhat unbefitting the royal dignity. A contemporary writer has preserved, though with a mistake of the person, the dialogue supposed to have passed between them. The king ‘counselled him to put himself on his grace.’ To which the other replied, ‘I trust not in your grace.’—‘I pray God,’ rejoined the king, ‘that thou mayest have to answer for the blood here to be shed this day, and not I. March on standard-bearer!’ and the battle was set.—It is certain that the stern temper of Worcester rejected all attempts at conciliation: he was conscious how deeply he had been engaged in fomenting the quarrel; and, on his return to his friends, he misrepresented the demeanour of Henry in such a manner to his nephew, that the latter, with whatever reluctance, was compelled to relinquish all hopes of accommodation. At length, therefore, much of the day having been consumed in these fruitless negociations, both parties flew to arms, and the air was rent with the war-cries of ‘St. George’ on one side, and ‘Esperance Percy’ on the other. In the meanwhile, Glendower had advanced as far as Shelton on the opposite bank of Severn, where he awaited the issue of the contest, determined to proceed or retire according to its event. He is said, by the constant tradition of the country, to have ascended there the branches of a lofty oak, whose venerable trunk yet remains, for the purpose of viewing the battle; at least of gaining, from personal inspection, the earliest intelligence of its event.
“The fight began by furious and repeated volleys of arrows from Hotspur’s archers, whose ground, as may be seen, greatly favoured that kind of warfare: and they did great execution on the royal army. The king’s bowmen were not wanting in return, and the battle raged with violence. The military art had not yet attained that perfection which almost supersedes the effect of individual exertion; and Hotspur, with his associate Douglas, bent on the king’s destruction, rushing through the midst of the hostile arrows, pierced their way to the spot on which he stood. To adopt the vivid language of a contemporary, ‘in the ardour of his spirit, he assembled a band of thirty warriors, broke into the royal army, and made a great alley in the midst thereof,’ (such was the terror which his presence inspired) ‘even to the stoutest of the king’s guards.’ Monstrelet says, Henry was thrice unhorsed by the Scottish earl, and would have been taken or slain had he not been defended and rescued by his own men. And the fortune of the day would have been forthwith decided, if the Scottish earl of March had not withdrawn him from the danger; for the royal standard-bearer was slain, his banner beaten down; and many of the chosen band appointed to guard it (among whom were the earl of Stafford and sir Walter Blount,) were killed by these desperate assailants,—while the young prince of Wales was wounded in the face by an arrow. In short, notwithstanding all the exertions of the royalists, victory seemed inclined to favour the rebel army, who fought with renewed ardour, from an opinion naturally derived from the overthrow of his standard, that the king himself had fallen, and animated each other to the combat with cheering and redoubled shouts of ‘Henry Percy, king! Henry Percy, king!’
“In this critical moment the gallant Percy, raging through the adverse ranks in quest of his sovereign, fell by an unknown hand; alone, and hemmed in by foes. The king lost no time to avail himself of this event. Straining his voice to the utmost, he exclaimed aloud, ‘Henry Percy is dead!’ The sound was heard by either army: into those it struck dismay, while these it animated and encouraged. The rebels fled in every direction, nor could the king, anxious as he was to terminate the slaughter, restrain the impetuous pursuit of his own troops, till the flower of Cheshire, two hundred knights and esquires (besides pages and footmen) were slain. Douglas broke through, and endeavoured to escape in the direction of Haghmond-hill: being closely pursued, and leaping from a crag, he experienced a severe injury, and was captured: but the king, in admiration of his valour, set him at liberty. The loss in both armies was great. * * * An ancient manuscript rates the number of gentlemen at two thousand two hundred and ninety-one, besides commons. They were chiefly buried, says that authority, in a great pit, the dimensions of which are there specified, and over which the present church of Battlefield was afterwards erected: but many are stated to have lain dispersed in various directions for the space of three miles about the field of battle: a fact which confirms what has been said above of the desultory nature of the conflict. Others, of the most distinguished rank, were interred in the neighbouring town, chiefly in the cemetery of the Dominican or St. Mary’s Friars.
“The body of Hotspur was at first delivered to his kinsman lord Furnival for interment, and it was by him committed to the ground with the suffrages of the church, and with all the honours which, in that haste, could be procured as due to his rank. It is painful to reflect, that the king afterwards repented him of this generous attention to the remains of deceased valour. He caused the corpse to be taken out of the tomb in which it had been laid, and to be placed between two mill-stones in the public street, near the pillory; where, as if he feared lest the general sympathy should rescue it from its ignominious situation, it was kept under military guard, till the head was severed from the body, which was divided into quarters, and transmitted to several cities in the realm.”
Thus closes this circumstantial and able description of the celebrated battle of Shrewsbury; an event so interesting in the annals of the county, that we make no apology for having transferred so detailed an account of it to our pages. A nobler theme could not well be conceived for the lay of a minstrel. “The characters of the leaders, both of the royal and of the rebel party, the chivalrous spirit of the times in which they lived, and the magnitude of the cause that roused them to arms, are circumstances highly susceptible of poetical description, while the train of incidents from the very origin to the termination of the feud, is of that romantic cast which requires little embellishment from fiction. There is indeed one objection which may have deterred our later Poets from the undertaking; it is, that the ground which Shakspeare has trod is sacred; but without any violation of the reverence due to his memory, it may be wished that this magnificent subject had also been celebrated by the muse that sang the tale of Flodden Field.”
We have already stated that on the deposition of Richard II. the Earl of Wiltshire, recently appointed lord of the Manor of Oswestry, fell a victim to popular fury, and Thomas, son of Richard, Earl of Arundel, was restored in blood. This last-named nobleman was a liberal supporter of the Corporation of Oswestry. In 1406 he gave it a release for £100 (a large sum in those days,) which that body was indebted to him, in consideration of the distresses which the town had suffered during the Glyndwr insurrection. He also obtained pardon from the king for his vassals in Chirk, Bromfield, and the Manor of Oswestry, for the share they had taken in that rebellion. In the same year with the release he granted a most extensive Charter to the town, containing many matters showing the customs of the times. This Charter ordered, that “neither the lord nor his heirs should confiscate or seize the effects of persons with or without will in the corporation; that no burgess should be compelled to be the lord’s receiver-general, but only collector of the issues arising within the borough; that the burgesses should be discharged from all fees demanded by the Constable of the castle, or any of his menial servants, for any felonies or trespasses committed out of the same liberties, when brought to the prison of the castle; saving that the Constable might receive one penny at his own election, from every mansion-house in the town, and a farthing from every cottage, on the feast of St. Stephen annually; that the burgesses should be free for the future from all excise of ale, brewed and sold in the town, which had hitherto been payable at the rate of seven-pence for every Bracena cervisiæ exposed for sale; that they were to be freed from the duty of Amobyr, or Lyre-Wyte; that whoever lived in the house of a burgess, and happened to die there, the burgess was to have a heriot after his decease, in the same manner as the Uchelwyr, or freeholders residing on the lands of the lord in the Hundred of Oswestry; that no Shrewsbury ale should be sold in the town without license, while any ale brewed in the town was to be had, under the penalty of 6s. 8d.; that none of the inhabitants of the lordships of Oswestry, Melverley, Kinardsley, Edgerley, Ruyton, and the eleven towns, should drive or carry any cattle, corn, or victuals, or other wares, to any foreign fair or market, before the same had first been exposed for sale in the town of Oswestry, under the penalty of 6s. 8d.; that none of the lord’s tenants should be compelled to pay the redditus advocarii for the security of the castle,” &c. The Amobyr of the Welsh, and the Lyre-Wyte of the Saxons, were fines paid by the vassal to his lord, to buy off the power to violate domestic relations. Pennant gives a different interpretation to the term Amobyr, but does not succeed in giving us its literal and precise meaning. There is one curious fact mentioned in the aforesaid Charter, and which, even in these days must excite a smile. The respective six-and-eightpences of the gentlemen who now study “Coke upon Littleton” was actually prescribed even so far back as the fifteenth century. It would be a still more curious fact developed, were we acquainted with the lord of the Manor’s law-adviser when this Charter was granted, because we might perhaps then be able, from the knowledge of that fact, to ascribe the origin, if not honour, of lawyers’ six-and-eightpences to the ancient Borough of Oswestry!
According to Pennant, “until the time of the above-mentioned Charter, the lord’s Welsh tenants of the Hundred of Oswestry were accustomed by their tenure to keep watch and ward, for three days and three nights, at the four gates of the town, during the fairs of St. Andrew and St. Oswald, with a certain number of men called Kaies; but these treacherously, with others, ravaged and plundered the place. On this the tenants were compelled to pay a sum of money as wages to a sufficient number of Englishmen, as the burgesses should think convenient, for the custody of the four gates; and the Welsh men were for ever to be discharged from that duty. The vassals of the Earl of Arundel in these parts were of a mixed nature; either descendants of the Norman followers of Alan, or of the native Welsh, who were most numerous, and bore an hereditary dislike to their co-tenants of foreign stock. The Welsh part was called Walcheria, and lay in the upper part of the parish.”
Reverting to Owain Glyndwr’s career, we see that his escape from the Shelton Oak, at the Battle of Shrewsbury, did not deter him from fresh enterprises. Evidently regardless of the ruin of his allies—they, as Leland tells us, “whom he promised to unite with” at that battle—he continued to infest the English borders, where he committed great havoc, the king being unable, from the want of funds, to resist his aggressions. Owain’s marauding parties committed serious damage to Shrewsbury and several of the adjoining townships, and extended their ravages as far as Buildwas Abbey, which they wasted with fire, so that divine service was for a time discontinued, and the monks were reduced to the greatest poverty. At length Henry directed a writ to Edward Charlton, Lord Powys, to raise forces with which to subdue the renewed rebellion; and similar orders were sent to Lords Arundel and Grey, and Sir Richard L’Strange, Lord of Knockin, Ellesmere, and other bordering manors. Glyndwr had despatched to Shrewsbury two of his best officers, Rhys Ddu and Philipot Scudamore, to command the insurrectionary party; but Lord Powys, having promptly obeyed the orders of his sovereign, fortified several castles, and speedily took as prisoners the above-named two leaders, and they were both soon afterwards executed in London. Holinshed says, that “Glyndwr himself in the same year, dreading to show his face to any creature, and finally lacking meat to sustain nature, for mere hunger and lack of food miserably pined away and died.” He was living, however, six years later, but in a state of concealment, chiefly at the house of one of his daughters, married to a gentleman of Herefordshire named Monnington. In July, 1415, the new king Henry V., anxious to leave his country in tranquillity before he engaged in the war with France, offered a pardon to Glyndwr; and this would probably have been accepted by the Cambrian chieftain, had not the negotiation been interrupted by his death, which occurred September 30th, 1415, in the 61st year of his age. It is said that David Holbetch, Steward of the manors of Oswestry, Bromfield, and Yale, and founder of the Oswestry Free Grammar School, took a distinguished part in this negotiation, and obtained the promised pardon for Glyndwr. Tradition states that he was buried in the churchyard of Monnington-on-Wye.
With Glyndwr ceased most of the troubles and calamities which had too long afflicted the English and Welsh Borders. The superstitious charm with which Owain’s name had been invested by his countrymen soon faded away, and his life, though startling in a rude and ignorant age, soon proved that he was “in the common roll of men!” Shakspere was justified in creating him, poetically, as self-idolatrous, for his daring incursions and fiery movements indicate that he believed himself to be of the meteoric class, to curb oppression and give liberty to the enslaved. For years after Glyndwr’s fall Oswestry, for aught that history tells us to the contrary, lay in comparative repose, entirely free from foreign aggression. Intestine feuds and disorders seem to have been the chief disturbers. The Welsh were arrayed against the English, and the latter appear to have had no less enmity against their Cambrian neighbours. To Pennant’s industrious and accurate research we are indebted for the scanty notices collected of the history of this period. Among the records of the Drapers’ Company of Shrewsbury, he tells us there is the following order:—“25 Eliz. 1513. Ordered, that no Draper set out for Oswestry on Mondays before six o’clock, on forfeiture of six shillings and eightpence; and that they wear their weapons all the way, and go in company—not to go over the Welsh Bridge before the bell toll six.”
However numerous and fierce marauders were in the days here referred to, it would seem that peaceful employments were nevertheless pursued by the inhabitants of Oswestry, and that their manufactured cloth was of so good a quality as to be held in high repute among the Shrewsbury Drapers. The “contests, robberies, and disturbances in the Marches of Wales” still continuing with unabated force, and both Welsh and English seeming to have considered everything as lawful plunder which they could seize in each other’s territory, the Stewards, the Constable, and Lieutenant of Oswestry and Powys entered into covenants in the year 1534, to restrain these plundering excursions. It was agreed, that “if, after a certain day then fixed, any person of one lordship committed felony in the other, he should be taken and sent into the lordship where the offence was committed, to receive punishment; and that if any goods or cattle were stolen from one lordship and conveyed into the other, the tenants and inhabitants of that lordship should either pay for the same within fifteen days, or otherwise four principal men should remain in bail, a main-prize, till they were either paid for or recovered.”
Notwithstanding these rigorous measures, the evil still continued; and so alarmed were certain of the inhabitants of Shrewsbury, and regardful of the safety of their fellow-burgesses who had to visit Oswestry market weekly, that prayers for their preservation were offered up in one of the churches, on Monday mornings, before they started on their perilous journey. A timid gentleman, William Jones, Esq., left to the Drapers’ Company “one pound six-shillings and eight-pence, to be paid annually to the Vicar of St. Alkmond’s Church, for reading prayers on Monday mornings, before the Drapers set out for Oswestry market!” Pennant informs us that at this period “Oswestry was the great emporium for Welsh cloth; a privilege to which it was well entitled from its vicinity to those districts of Wales in which that important branch of commerce was manufactured, at a period when the English trader could not, with any degree of safety, trust himself in the Principality. To this town (Oswestry) the Drapers of Shrewsbury repaired every Monday. We learn the fact from a curious MS. Chronicle of the last-mentioned town, which relates that ‘on Monday, Dec. 5th, 1575, the Drapers of Shrewsbury had like to have been robbed, if they had not been privately warned; but the bailiffs and a great company went, strongly aimed, upon their usual trade toward Oswestry. The robbers proposed to rob them in the dale between Shelton and Shrewsbury, and lay over night in Master Sherar’s barn, on the other side of the water.’ The whole narrative, which is told much at length in the Chronicle, exhibits the unsettled police of a country slowly emerging from a state of barbarism, and strongly reminds the reader of the inimitable scene at Gadshill, so admirably pourtrayed by our great dramatic bard in the first part of Henry IV.” The same writer adds, “notwithstanding, however, this and similar proofs of the general insecurity of the country, the Welsh manufacturer was unwilling to meet the purchaser even half way with his commodities. ‘Not satisfied,’ says our countryman Dr. Peter Heylyn, in his Cosmography, ‘with having fixed the market at Oswestry, they sought to draw the staple more into their own country.’ The MS. quoted above informs us, under the year 1582, that it would have been removed thence, ‘to the great decay of that town and of Shrewsbury, yf Sir Thomas Bromley, being Lord Chancelor, had not by his great wisdom opened the same to the Queen’s Majestie, for which godly deede theye of the said townes are contynewally bownde to praye daylye.’ Lord Chancellor Bromley was a Shropshire man, and possessor, by purchase from the Earl of Arundel, of the Castle and Lordship of Shrawardine; he was therefore personally interested in the prosperity of the county, and by his influence at Court enabled to promote it.” It would further appear, that the market was continued at Oswestry, so that it is likely that Lord Bromley’s interposition at Court prevailed. In 1585 the Welsh cloth market was removed from Oswestry to Knockin, the plague having broken out in this borough, and destroyed “three-score and four persons, and no more;” according to the parish register. The plague continued from April to August, when it entirely disappeared, and the market was held, as before, in Oswestry.
Oswestry was visited with other calamities some few years before this period. In 1542 a fire broke out in the town, which was so destructive, that “two long streets with great riches” were consumed; and in 1567 there was another fire, which destroyed “seven-score within the walls, and three-score without.” The suburb still known by the name of Pentre-Poeth (the burnt end of the town) suffered severely, and may have derived its designation from this destructive fire; or, as Price intimates, from the frequent fires that may have occurred there during the conflicts between the Welsh and English. These accidents were looked upon, at the time, through astrological telescopes, by Camden, the historian, and a Dr. Childrey. They both gravely ascribed these events to astrological phenomena, Camden seriously remarking, “that the eclipses of the sun in Aries have been very fatal to this place; for in the years 1542 and 1567, when the sun was eclipsed in that sign, it (Oswestry) suffered much by fire!” After reading such absurdity as this from men professing to be learned, we have reason to be thankful that we are living in a more enlightened and scientific age.
A few years before the conflagration last referred to, the town was visited by a no less alarming evil. In 1559 pestilence consigned to the grave, within one year, more than five hundred of the inhabitants. The disease which thus afflicted the people is stated to have commenced with profuse perspiration, (from which it was called “the sweating sickness,”) and to have continued until the death or recovery of the patient. Its operation was quick and powerful, and cure or death occurred within twenty-four hours. Those persons who were seized in the day were put to bed in their clothes to wait the issue; and those seized in the night were desired to remain in bed, but not to sleep. The desolation of the town during the long continuance of the plague is described in affecting language by the writer of the clever historical sketches, on the History of Oswestry, that appear in Mr. Roberts’s publication, entitled “Oswald’s Well:”—
“It was then that Croeswylan received its name. Croes wylan, or the Cross of weeping, was there erected, the base of which still remains to be seen. To this, with superstitious reverence, all the people resorted. The diseased and dying sought in grief beneath its sacred shadow a preparation for the doom to which they were appointed, and there they languished till that doom was fixed. Before it, the whole and healthy ones confessed and deplored their sins, and deprecated the vengeance of heaven. Throughout the succeeding century this foul contagion lurked on our shores, and at intervals visited our town, converting it into a vast charnel house. Its attacks were so insidious and sudden that the glow of health suffered no process of removal, but instantly fled, as scared and affrighted on the approach of the fell devourer. During its presence no sights were to be seen but the wan and sickly visage of those who were dying, or the panic-stricken gaze of the man yet uninfected, almost delirious with alarm, and starting from the touch of the dearest friend of his heart. The air was rent with shrieks and laden with lamentation. Death alone seemed contented and satisfied, and sat like a monster unmoved as he banqueted on hundreds of his victims. All commerce was at a stand-still. Every house was locked, the inmates scarcely venturing upon a communication with each other, much less exposing themselves to contact with those without. With foreboding reluctance they breathed the breath of heaven, pregnant as it was with the seeds of death. If one of their number was attacked, no consideration of friendship or kindred spared him the aggravation of being hurled into the street, there to await the regular arrival of the dead-cart. That sad accompaniment of the contagion, the gibbet of the scene, rolled sullenly along the death-smitten streets upon its gloomy mission, and never returned without the sad evidences of the rapid progress of the desolating scourge. In the ears of the expiring it must have sounded like the toll of the passing bell, the knell of their speedy departure. Upon it, whether dead or just gasping for life, the diseased victims were heaped, and hurried off to the brink of a huge pit, dug, probably, in a corner of the Old Churchyard, into which they were remorselessly thrown. Everything bespoke the presence and working of a mighty power, in league with ‘the King of terrors.’ All human ties were forcibly disrupted, every human sympathy was sacrilegiously immolated, until the people were reduced to that extremity of sadness, in which life is burdensome for its sorrows, and death terrible for the grim and ghastly shroud in which it lies hid.”
The market was held, during the Plague, at Croes wylan, that the people from the surrounding country-places should not visit the town, and thereby suffer from the infection. No doubt that with the dreadful scourge stalked, hand in hand, gaunt poverty. It may be easily imagined that the poor suffered severely from the sickness, and that many of them required relief. We have some testimony before us that the public authorities of the time sympathized with the sufferers. The following extracts from the “Accompt of Richard ap Lley, Muringer of the town of Oswestr, for and from the xvj day of September, in the 2nd yere of our sovraynge Lady Elizabeth,” show how pecuniary aid was rendered to certain parties:—
The sayde accomtante doth asc alowaunce forrent bayted to the Towlers (toll-takers) for one qr. inconsidracion of the PLAGE: | |||
s. | d. | ||
Fyrst to the executors of John Vyghan | xx | ||
Allso, &c. rent bayted to Thomas ap Rc.for Wolyws-gate | xx | ||
Allso, &c. to David Glover the elder, forNewe-gate | xiij | iiij | |
Allso, &c. to Wyling Lloyd, forBetresce-gate | x | ||
iiij | ij | ||
Allso, &c. rent of Crofft-pystil, in thehande of Rc. ap Mrdyth, dyssessed | ij | ||
Allso, &c. money payde for wrytinge of asuplycacion to my lord of Arundell | xij | ||
Allso, &c. for Lewys Tayler, and GuttynFurbur, beinge unpayde for setting of stales, by reason of thePlage | xiiij | ||
Allso, &c. for Rc. Lewther, for one qr.beinge absent from the towne | xx | ||
Tanners. | Allso, &c. for a qr. rent unto tanners beinge apsentin in tyme of the plage; and fyrste, Thomas Baker (2 othersimilar items) | xiiij | |
Glovers. | Itm. The sayde accomptaunt dothe asc alowaunce forthem that are deade or fled, and them that are in decaye; andfyrst, Thomas ap John Wyling, beinge a poore man (five othersfled, &c.) | xij | |
Buchers. | Imp. the sayde accomtant, &c. Lewys, bucher, that isdead (one for the like and 7 fled) | v | |
Corvsers. | Edward Gorg, fled (2 others fled) | iij | |
Backers. | David ap sr. Rc. saythe that he dothe not occupey hisbackhowes, and prayth alowance | vi | |
David Bobyth hathe ben longe secke, and asc alo | iij | ||
Hucksters. | Jonet vrch. David ap Morys asc alowance for a qr. Rent (1other) | x | |
Alle Selers. | Edward Lloyd pray the alowance for a qr. | xjj | |
David Glover the elder, in lycke manner | xiiij | ||
Richard Salter was longe sycke, and praythe alowance | xiijj | ||
Thomas Glover praythe alowaunce for half a yere;aledginge, that he sold no alle for that space (3 others) | xx | ||
Payments for the provision of the genrall Feast unto the Coo-burgesses according to the aunsient costom, holden the vth day of Desember, in the thryde yere of the raynge of our sovraynge layde Ellizabeth, by the grace of God quene of England, &c. at the making of this accompt:
s. | d. | ||
Whete. | Fyrste, the saide accomptaunt hathe payde for ii stryckesand a hoope of whette for brede and for peys | xj | |
Maullt. | Allso payde for iii strycke of maullt | xij | |
Boochers. | Allso payde for a qr. and ii rybes of byff | vj | viij |
Allso payde for mytton for to make peys for this feast | ij | vj | |
. . . for iijlb. ressyns | xij | ||
. . . s pep | v | ij | |
Allso payde for cloves, masses, aud saffrone | vj | ||
Allso payde for synamon and sugr. | vij | ||
Itm. pd. for buttr. spent at this feast | viij | ||
Chese. | Allso payde for chesses | ij | ix |
Nyttes, &c. | Allso pd. for appells and nyttes | xvj | |
Saullt. | Allso payde for a hoope of sallt for the byff | x |
This Accompt was made before us, the persons under-named, then Bailiffe of the said Towne, John Stanney, Thomas Evans.
With these awful calamities the people endured severe privation, both as to food and clothing. Provisions had risen so enormously in price as to place even the coarsest food beyond the reach of the poor. We are told that so deficient were the working-classes of the commonest provision, that they were glad to resort, for subsistence, to horse-bread, composed of beans, oats, and bran. “The good old times” are too frequently quoted as periods of comfort, compared with the present days; but such facts as have been now related must convince every Englishman of right feeling that, however humble his lot, he still possesses “a goodly heritage.”
For a considerable time no event occurred in Oswestry worthy of detailed notice. In the 42nd of Elizabeth, Coke, Attorney-General, acknowledges all the liberties and franchises of Oswestry, by an order that all further proceedings on the part of the Crown, on a writ of Quo Warranto against the Bailiffs and Burgesses of Oswestry, should wholly cease. In 1603 a dispute took place between the Bailiffs, Burgesses, &c. and the Earl of Suffolk, then lord and owner of the town and manor, the former body having, in numerous assembly, resolved to maintain the rights and privileges granted to them by Richard II., and confirmed by their “late sovereigne of famous memorye, queene Elizabeth.” A petition setting forth their grievances, mainly caused by the Earl of Suffolk’s steward, had been presented by them to the Lord President of the Marches; to which Lord Suffolk replied as follows:—
“To his good freinds, the Burgesses and Townesmen of his Towne and Manor of Oswester:
I have of late receaved a Letter from my honble good Lord and freind, the L. President of Wales, wch declared unto mee, a great desire in his Lpp to give some satisfaction to you uppon a Peticon given him from yor Towne, as exceptinge against the Course wch Mr. Lloyd, my Officer, healde with you. Nowe you must knowe, that I doe, and will avowe him in such things as he, in his discreation, shall find to bee profitable for mee wch, perchaunce, may bee displeasinge to you, but herin you may further wronge yor selves then you are aware off; for yf you shall deny to yeald mee thoes Rights & Proffits that are due unto me, as Lord of the Manor, you must then knowe, that I doe look for at Mr. Lloyds hands such a resistance of yor wills as I may not bee prejudized thereby: & I knowe his understandinge & discreation is such, as he would not drawe mee into frivolous and needles questions.—Therefore I must tell you, that yf you have refused the duties whch belonge unto mee, that I will execute my remedies as the lawes of the Land will allowe mee. But, becawse I wolde not be thought rigorous, and that yt may appeare that my L: President hath the powre of an honorable & kind ffreind in mee, I am contented that yf you doe sende upp to the Tearme at Winchester, such as shall have powre to followe the cawse in the behaulf of you all, that then the questions wch are risen between the Steward & you shall, yf yt may be, have an end; by Councill chosen of each syde; wch Course shall please mee well: but yf yt happen otherwise, the fault shall not be myne, for I desire not contencons; but then of necessety, Lawe must determyn them. In the meane tyme, I charge you all to carry yor selves respectively and duetifully to my Officers; for you must learn to obey, yf you will desire to be obeyed; wch you, being a Corporate Towne, should principally desire. And soe I leave you for this tyme, untill I heare further from you. From the Court at Wylton, this 25th of October, 1603.
Yor Lovinge freind & Lord,
SUFFOLKE.”
James I. in 1616, granted a Charter to the town, thus removing “divers doubts and ambiguities” which had “arisen concerning the ancient liberties, francheses, &c., of the town and borough of Oswaldstre,” and extending their liberties and privileges, as well as confirming them a body corporate, by the name of “the Bayliff and Burgesses of Oswestry, in the Countie of Salope.”
About this period a heavy blow was struck at the commerce of the town, by the Drapers of Shrewsbury (a reference to whose complaints and apprehensions has already been made), “who weary,” says Pennant, “of their weekly journeys to Oswestry, determined to transfer the market to their own town, from that in which Queen Elizabeth had established it. But this attempt proved in the first instance abortive. The Lordship of Oswestry was enjoyed at this time by Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, to whom it had been granted by the late queen, in the 43rd year of her reign. He was in great favour with James, in whose Court he held the office of Lord Chamberlain, and to whom he had recently recommended himself by his vigilance and promptitude in the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. Possessed of the highest notions of the privileges of the peerage, and jealous of the infringement of his rights by the traders of Salop, he issued his mandate to them by one of their own body,—Arthur Kynaston, merchant of the staple, a younger brother of the house of Ruyton,—to desist from such attempts in future. Their answer is recorded in their own books: it is entitled ‘The copy of a letter sent by the Company to the Earle of Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain of his Majestie’s househoulde, ye 24th June, 1609.’ ‘Right Honerabell,—Your letter bearing date the second of this June, by the hands of Mr. Kiniston wee have received: wherein ytt appereth yor Lordship was informed that wee the Societie of Drapers wentt aboute by underarte and menenesse to withdraw your markett of Walsh clothe from your towne of Oswester;’ and they proceed to exculpate themselves from the charge in those phrases of submission which were in that day the established usage of inferiors in their addresses to those above them. This was their tone during the plenitude of the Earl’s power, which, five years after the date of this letter, received a great increase by his appointment to the exalted post of Lord High Treasurer of England. During this time we may be sure ‘the market for frize and cottons continued, where, according to Heylin, it was originally fixed, at Oswestry.’ But in 1618, the King’s necessities caused an enquiry into the management of the treasury, and Suffolk, whose unbounded expenses in his magnificent palace at Audley-End, had brought him into pecuniary difficulties, was fined by the Court of Star Chamber in the vast sum of £30,000, and dismissed from all his employments. The clemency of James mitigated this enormous fine, but the influence of the Earl of Suffolk was gone; and in 1621 the Shrewsbury Drapers made an order upon the books of their Company, ‘That they will not buy cloth at Oswestry, or elsewhere than in Salop.’”
As we have shewn in a preceding page, the struggles of the Welsh, to recover the freedom they had lost, terminated with the death of their last great leader, Owain Glyndwr. “Their wild spirit of independence, and their enthusiasm for liberty,” says the eloquent historian whom we have already quoted, “from this period gradually declined. The blood of their beloved Princes was nearly extinct; and their native bravery was subdued, or rendered ineffectual, by their intestine divisions and by their repeated misfortunes. When fierce valour and unregulated freedom are opposed to discipline, to enlarged views, and to sound policy, the contest is very unequal: it is not therefore surprising that the genius of England at length obtained the ascendancy. It was, indeed, an interesting spectacle, and might justly have excited indignation and pity, to have seen an ancient and gallant nation, falling the victims of private ambition, or sinking under the weight of a superior power. But such emotions, which were then due to that injured people, have lost at this period their force and their poignancy. A new train of ideas arises; when we see that the change is beneficial to the vanquished—when we see a wild and precarious liberty succeeded by a freedom which is secured by equal and fixed laws—when we see manners hostile and barbarous, and a spirit of rapine and cruelty, softened down into the arts of peace, and the milder arts of civilized life—when we see this Remnant of the Ancient Britons uniting in interests, and mingling in friendship with their conquerors, and enjoying with them the same constitutional liberties; the purity of which, we trust, will continue uncorrupted as long as the British Empire shall be numbered among the nations of the earth.”
We now approach a period in our national history which has ever been viewed, by opposing political parties, in a conflicting spirit. The turbulent elements of