A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Insurrection in Wales. Owen Glendower. 1400.

In the other dependency of England affairs were still worse. Owen Glendower, a Welsh gentleman of good family educated in England, incensed at the rejection of a suit about a certain property of Lord Grey of Ruthyn, had roused the national animosity, and claimed for himself the title of Prince of Wales. For the present Henry could do nothing effective against him. The war assumed a national character; the Welsh were expelled from the towns in the Marches. Edward I.’s statutes against the Welsh were re-enacted, even including that which ordered the destruction of the bards. The conduct of the war was placed nominally in the hands of Henry, Prince of Wales, a lad of thirteen. But the whole of the following year Glendower’s successes continued. Grey of Ruthyn and Edward Mortimer, uncle of the imprisoned Prince, the Earl of March, were taken prisoners, and an expedition undertaken by Henry in person towards the close of the year was forced to retire from the mountainous strongholds of the Welsh. The storms and snowdrifts seemed to fight against them in that wild district, and gave rise to the belief that Glendower was a magician.

Quarrel with the Percies. 1402.

The pretended Richard.

Causes of the quarrel with Northumberland.

Could these various enemies but find some powerful adherents in England, it was plain that Henry’s position would be precarious. A quarrel with those who had hitherto been his chief supporters, the Percies of Northumberland, supplied this element of danger; while a strange report, that the late King was still alive in Scotland, gave a central point round which all Henry’s enemies might gather. About Whitsuntide, in 1402, the rumour reached England that Richard had escaped from Pontefract, and had made his appearance at the house of the Lord of the Isles, by whom he was handed over to the Court, and there kept so strictly that no man could get sight of him. The existence of such a pretender was certain. It was in vain that Henry attempted to suppress the rumour by executions; in vain that he even proceeded to execute certain Franciscan monks who had been engaged in spreading it. The secrecy which covered Richard’s death, and which for some reason Henry could not break, prevented any clear proof of the imposture. The false Richard is believed to have been a man of weak intellect, called Thomas Ward of Trumpington. The reason of the King’s quarrel with the Percies is by no means clear, but various causes of discontent can be shown. The Duke of Albany, after much fighting on the borders, had made an expedition on a large scale against Carlisle. On its return home, the army, heavily laden with booty, was met by the Percies, and defeated at Homildon Hill. The defeat was complete; many Scotch nobles fell into the hands of the English, among them Murdoch, Earl of Fife, the son and heir of the Earl of Albany, and Douglas, Earl of Angus. For such prisoners the Percies expected a large ransom. Their anger and disappointment was great when the King took Murdoch from them and claimed the ransom of the rest. A somewhat similar affair took place in Wales. Of Glendower’s great prisoners, Grey of Ruthyn was allowed to ransom himself, a privilege refused to Mortimer; when the younger Percy, Hotspur, who had married Mortimer’s sister, urged his claim, he met with a rebuff. The King also owed the Percies large sums of money; £20,000 was due to them, which the entanglement of the finances made it impossible to pay. The general feeling that they had been badly rewarded for the invaluable assistance they had afforded Henry, acting upon the unusually hot temper of the younger Percy, drove them into a change of policy.

The Percies combine with Glendower.

Battle of Shrewsbury. July 23, 1403.

Submission of Northumberland. 1404.

Before the end of the year 1402, they entered into negotiations with Glendower; and Mortimer, instead of attempting to gain his liberty, married the daughter of the insurgent chief, and recognized him as Prince of Wales. The Percies at the same time gained the assistance of their prisoner Douglas, and the conspiracy was completed by the support given to Glendower by France. On all sides the King’s difficulties seemed to increase. The Earl of Worcester joined the Percies; Richard’s old followers crowded to their standard, and an army, insidiously collected as though for an attack on Scotland, rapidly marched on Shrewsbury to make a junction with the Welsh. Thither Henry, with his son the Prince of Wales, hastened, and the decisive battle of Shrewsbury was fought, in which, after a keen struggle, Hotspur was killed, and most of the other leaders, including Worcester and Douglas, captured. Worcester and the other English leaders were beheaded; Douglas was retained in prison. The King had still to destroy the insurrection of the elder Percies in the North, where all the inhabitants of the country had taken the crescent—the livery of Northumberland. The royal army was, however, obviously too strong for opposition, and the Earl made his submission, and met the King at York. The House of Peers claimed as a right the trial of their fellow, and he was found guilty, not of high treason, but only of misdemeanour, and let off with a fine.