Historical and Descriptive Guide Through Shrewsbury

by S. F. Williams

A Parliament was held here about Michaelmas, 1283, by Edward I., and adjourned to Acton Burnell. The Lords sat in a castle, but the Commons in a barn. The deliberations and negotiations were only of slight moment. They referred to nothing more important than the most effective way of securing payment of debts—a matter upon which information would be thankfully received by some in these days—and to the course to be taken with David, brother of Llewellyn, Prince of Wales. But the Parliament is memorable from its having been the first national convention in which the Commons had any share by legal authority. David, who had been pledged to Edward, and created by him Earl of Denbigh, but afterwards joined his brother Llewellyn in resisting an invasion of Edward’s army into Anglesea, was condemned to die the death of a traitor. The head of Llewellyn was sent to the king at Shrewsbury, by his command it was sent to London, where it was placed on the Tower with a crown of willows—an accompaniment of mockery. The person of David was brought in chains to Shrewsbury. He was tried and convicted of high treason for obeying the instincts of a patriot. The punishment was carried out with the greatest ignominy. He was first drawn through the town at the hind of a horse; then he was hanged; then he was beheaded; then his body was quartered, and his intestines burned: and as the conclusion of the tragedy, his head was sent to London, exposed on the Tower beside that of his brother, and his four quarters to York, Bristol, Northampton, and Winchester. With the butchery of David’s corpse the conquest of Wales was complete.

Nearly forty years later, namely, in 1322, Edward II. marched through Shrewsbury from Worcester with his army. The burgesses went out to meet him clothed in armour, and conducted him with acclamations into the town.

Another Parliament was held here by Richard II. in the end of 1397 or the beginning of 1398, in the chapterhouse of the old monastery, where the Abbey Church now stands. It was called “The Great Parliament,” partly from the momentous nature of the state affairs transacted, but principally from the number of earls and other nobles that attended. It was held here because the king declared that “he bore great love to the inhabitants of these parts, where he had many friends.” He sat at this session with the crown upon his head; and through his instrumentality several exorbitant acts were passed, which, however, were repealed in the succeeding reign of Henry IV., and which formed a count in the indictment that resulted in the deposition of this king.

THE BATTLE OF SHREWSBURY.

The reign of Henry IV. is distinguished by the “Battle of Shrewsbury,” one of the most terrible battles recorded in the History of England. Henry was surrounded on all sides by difficulties and dangers. His nobles were animated by mutual hostilities. His subjects in Wales seized the opportunity which the discontent among the aristocracy of England gave them, and broke out in insurrection. Inspired and guided by Owen Glendower, the indomitable Welsh fought a long and tedious battle, in which the royal representative, Sir Edmund Mortimer, was taken prisoner. Mortimer’s nephew, the Earl of March, was also carried into Wales. Henry could not be persuaded to offer a ransom for the liberty of Mortimer. His refusal embittered the Percies, to whose assistance he owed his crown. During this unsettled state of affairs the Scots made incursions into England. The peers consented to attend the king in an expedition against Scotland. The expedition proved abortive. Henry found that Richard III. would not obey his mandate to do homage to him for his crown; he found that the Scots would not submit; he found that they would not give him battle. He therefore withdrew and disbanded his army. The Scots, resolved to punish Henry for this miserable attempt at subjugation, marched into the northern counties of England at the head of Earl Douglas. They were totally routed in the battle which ensued at Holmedon; and Douglas, with a number of nobles, was taken prisoner. Henry ordered the Earl of Northumberland not to ransom the prisoners. Northumberland had a right to ransom or return them. A dispute was the result. The relations between the sovereign and the Percies were more deeply embittered, and Northumberland was forbidden by Henry to enter the court.

Get thee gone, for I do see
Danger and disobedience in thine eye.
O, Sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
And Majesty may never yet endure
The moody frontier of a servant brow.
You have good leave to leave us: when we need
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you.

The Earl was disgusted and indignant at the ingratitude of Henry. It was by his aid that Henry had advanced to the throne. Henry had conferred upon him some gifts in return, but Northumberland was not easily satisfied. Henry, on the one hand, was jealous of the power which had seated him on the throne; and the earl, on the other, was discontented with the compensation which Henry had made. The interference of the king with the right of Northumberland to dispose of his prisoners according to his own wish was deemed a fresh insult and injury. Northumberland determined upon revenge by overturning the throne which had been established principally by him. To this end he and his adherents proclaimed that Richard was alive, but that having been satisfactorily disproved, he planned a scheme for defending the claim of Mortimer to the crown. It was laid that the armies of Wales and Scotland should be united. Mortimer entered into covenant with Northumberland to bring an army into the Marches, which the Welsh, commanded by Glendower, were to join. The Earl of Worcester, brother of Northumberland, joined the forces, and in order to win over the Scots to the compact, Douglas and the other prisoners were set at liberty. At the moment when everything was ready for an engagement Northumberland was suddenly seized with a dangerous malady at Berwick. The conduct of the army was taken by his son Percy, surnamed Hotspur, this “Mars in swaddling clothes,” “this infant warrior,” who

Doth fill fields with harness in the realm
Turns head against the lion’s armed jaws,
Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on
To bloody battles and to bruising arms.

Hotspur, along with the magnanimous and martial Douglas, marched the troops towards Shrewsbury, where it was intended to join the forces of the Welsh under Glendower. The king, aware of the importance of celerity, hurried down to Shrewsbury before the arrival of Hotspur, whose design was to reach here first. Glendower had not brought his army up, but Hotspur nevertheless resolved to make a stand. He had a force of 14,000 carefully selected soldiers. He had, too, the advantage of choice of ground. The animosity had reached its height on both sides. A general engagement was inevitable. It was brought to a head by the impatience of Percy on the one side, and by the policy of the king on the other, the king believing that without the aid of Glendower the defeat of Percy was secure. On the evening previous to battle Percy sent to Henry a manifesto in which he renounced his allegiance, set the sovereign at defiance, enumerated the grievances of which the nation had abundant reason to complain. He upbraided him with perjury, with infidelity to the late monarch, with aiding the murder of that prince, with usurping the title of the house of Mortimer, with adopting the most crooked and cruel policy, with burdening the nation with unrighteous taxes, and with corrupting the Parliamentary elections. This added fuel to the flame. This intensified the quarrel between them.