Both Sides the Border: A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower

by G. A. Henty

"Welcome back again, Master Oswald!" Sir Edmund said, when he arrived. "I thought that maybe Sir Henry Percy would send you hither. Matters here are becoming serious, and 'tis said that there have been Scotch emissaries with Glendower, though for the truth of this I cannot answer; but Percy will certainly wish to know, well, what passes in the west; and I am but a poor hand with the pen, and moreover, too much busied to write often. He knows that right well, and I doubt not you are instructed to inform him of all that passes."

"You are right, Sir Edmund. It is for that purpose that he has sent me hither, charging me to write to him, frequently, as to the situation and the power of Glendower; which must needs be on the increase, since nought has been done to bring him to reason. And I have also his commands, to place myself at your service, and to obey you, in all respects, as if I had been your squire."

"I shall be glad for you to ride with my knights," Sir Edmund replied, courteously. "I have not forgotten that you did good service, last year, and trust that you may find opportunity for winning your spurs."

"I shall be glad, indeed, to do so, Sir Edmund. May I ask where Glendower is supposed to be, at present?"

"He has his headquarters on the summit of Plinlimmon, a great hill on the borders of Montgomery; and thence ravages and plunders all the country round him, slaying all who are supposed to be attached to the English cause. Unfortunately, he meets with but little resistance, for the castles have, for the most part, been suffered to get into a bad state; since, for a hundred years, it has seemed that they would no longer be required against the Welsh, who appeared to have become as peaceful as the people in our own counties. Many of the knights have built themselves more convenient houses, and have let the castles become almost ruins.

"Then, too, the garrisons, where garrisons are kept, are for the most part composed of Welshmen. These can be no longer trusted, and it is no easy matter to obtain Englishmen in their places, for so great is the terror caused by the slaughter, by Glendower, of those who fall into his hands, that few even of adventurous spirit would, at present, care to leave their homes beyond the Severn, to take up such desperate service. Glendower's movements are so rapid that there is no notice of his coming, and it is not until he and his band suddenly appear, burning and slaughtering, that any know of his approach."

"Surely it must be difficult to victual so large a force, on the summit of a mountain?"

"It would assuredly be so, only he keeps but a hundred and fifty chosen men with him. But, were his beacon fires to be lighted, there would in a few hours be ten thousand men on the mountain. Then again, as the whole population are with him, were I to start with five hundred men from here, the news would reach him, by means of smokes on the hills, before I had marched five miles away. 'Tis a warfare in which there is no credit to be gained, and much loss to be sustained; and I see not that, with anything less than an army large enough to march through Wales from end to end, burning the towns and villages, and putting to the sword all who resist, the affair can be brought to an end.

"It was only thus that Harold brought Wales to reason, and that so strongly that it was two generations ere they ventured again to cross the border. It was so that Edward finally stamped out their rebellions, and methinks that the work will have to be done again, in the same manner. So far from doing good, the king's invasion last autumn has but encouraged them; for, though so numerous, his army effected nothing, and showed the Welsh how powerless the troops were to enter the mountains, or to take the offensive anywhere save on level ground."

Oswald's life, at Ludlow, differed in no way from that at Alnwick. He took his meals at the high table, sitting below the knights, with Sir Edmund's squires. He practised arms with them; tilted in the courtyard of the castle; occasionally rode out, hunting and hawking, with a party of knights and ladies; helped to drill the bodies of tenants who, a hundred at a time, came in to swell the garrison. Sometimes he carried Mortimer's orders to the governors of the castles, or rode with a strong party into Hereford or Radnor.