Whatever faith Owen may have had in his own magical art, he at any rate did not waste time just now in incantations or in interpreting the prophecy, but swept down the Vale of Clwyd, making on his way a final clearance of Grey’s desolated property. With much significance, read by the light of his future relations with the Mortimers and Percys, he spared the lordship of Denbigh, though its owners were still his open enemies. Descending the Vale, however, he fell upon Saint Asaph with merciless hand, destroying the cathedral, the bishop’s palace, and the canon’s house. Trevor was at this time the bishop,—the same, it will be remembered, who warned Henry and his council against exasperating Owen and the Welsh; he had from the first gone over to the new King, had prominently assisted at the deposition of Richard, and had since held many conspicuous offices. He was now a ruined man, an enforced exile from his diocese, and he must have derived but poor consolation from reminding his English friends of the accuracy of his prophecy. He came of the great border House of Trevor, and, among other things, built the first stone bridge in Wales, which may yet be seen stemming with five massive arches the turbulent torrents of the Dee at Llangollen. In the meantime he was a pensioner on the King, but he will appear later in a character of quite another sort. An entry of £66, paid to him at this time in lieu of his losses, appears on the Pell Rolls.
No danger just now threatened from the English border nor, on the other hand, did any help come to Glyndwr from Ireland or the North. There was indeed something of a lull in Wales throughout this spring, unless perhaps for those unfortunate Welshmen who held back from Glyndwr’s cause and yet ventured to remain in the country. They, at any rate, had not much peace.
To this date is assigned the well-known story of Glyndwr and his cousin Howel Sele, that gruesome tragedy which has invested the romantic heights of Nannau with a ceaseless interest to generations of tourists, and many more generations of Welshmen, and has seized the fancy of the romancist and the poet. Now Nannau, where Vaughans have lived for many centuries, enjoys the distinction of being the most elevated country-seat in Wales, being some eight hundred feet above Dolgelly, which lies at the base of the beautiful grounds that cover the isolated hill on whose summit the present mansion stands. It is famous also, even in a region pre-eminent for its physical charms, for the surpassing beauty of its outlook, which people from every part of Britain come annually in thousands to enjoy. To the south the great mass of Cader Idris rises immediately above, with infinite grandeur. To the west the Barmouth estuary gleams seaward through a vista of wood and mountain. To the north the valley of the rushing Mawddach opens deep into the hills, while to the eastward, where the twin peaks of the Arans fill the sky, spread those miles of foliage through which the crystal streams of the Wnion come burrowing and tumbling seawards. Nature showed even a wilder aspect to Glyndwr and the then lord of Nannau as they took their memorable walk together upon these same heights five centuries ago.
At that time there stood in the meadows beneath, near the confluence of the Wnion and the Mawddach, the noble abbey of Cymmer, whose remains are still a conspicuous object in the landscape. Howel Sele was by no means an admirer or follower of his cousin Owen, and if latterly he had not dared openly to oppose him, he had at least held back; his relationship to the chief alone saving him, no doubt, from the punishment meted out to others who were less prudent, or less faint-hearted. The worthy abbot of Cymmer, however, for some motive of his own, or perhaps in a genuine spirit of Christianity, endeavoured to promote a better understanding between the relatives, and so far succeeded that Owen consented to come and visit Howel in peaceful fashion, bringing with him only a few attendants.
Copyright C. H. Young.
LOOKING UP THE MAWDDACH FROM NANNAU.
The meeting took place and an amicable understanding seemed assured. During the course of the day the two men, so runs the tale, went for a stroll in the park, Howel, at any rate, carrying his bow. He was celebrated for his prowess as a marksman, and Owen, catching sight of a buck through the trees, suggested that his cousin should give him an exhibition of his skill. Howel, falling in apparently with the proposal, bent his bow, and having feigned for a moment to take aim at the deer swung suddenly round and discharged the arrow full at Owen’s breast. The latter, either from singular forethought or by great good luck, happened to have a shirt of mail beneath his tunic, and the shaft fell harmlessly to the ground. The fate of Howel was swift and terrible. Accounts differ somewhat, but they all agree in the essential fact that neither his wife and family nor his friends ever set eyes upon the lord of Nannau again. It is supposed that the two men and their attendants forthwith engaged in deadly combat, Glyndwr proving the victor, and consigning his cousin to some terrible fate that was only guessed at long afterwards. In any case, he at once burnt the old house at Nannau to the ground, and its remains, Pennant tells us, were yet there in his day,—a hundred years ago. For more than a generation no man knew what had become of the ill-fated Howel, but forty years afterwards, near the spot where he was last seen, a skeleton corresponding to the proportions of the missing man was found inside a hollow oak tree, and it is said that there were those still living who could and did explain how the vanquished Howel had been immured there dead or alive by Glyndwr. The old oak lived on till the year 1813, and collapsed beneath its weight of years on a still July night, a few hours after it had been sketched by the celebrated antiquary, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, who tells us it then measured twenty-seven feet in girth. It had been an object of pious horror for all time to the natives of the district, and was known as the “hollow oak of demons,” and dread sounds were heard issuing from its vast trunk by all who were hardy enough to venture near it after nightfall. Sir Walter Scott, who once visited Nannau, remembered the weird story and the haunted oak when he was writing Marmion:
“All nations have their omens drear,
Their legends wild of love or fear;
To Cambria look—the peasant see
Bethink him of Glyndowerdy,
And shun the spirit’s Blasted Tree.”