Item, Whereas it is shewed to our Sovereign Lord the King on behalf of the Prelates and Clergy of his realm of England in this present Parliament, That although the Catholic Faith builded upon Christ and by his Apostles and the Holy Church sufficiently determined, declared and approved, hath hitherto by good and holy and most Noble Progenitors of our Sovereign Lord the King... [been] most devoutly observed, and the Church of England most laudably endowed and in her Rights and Liberties sustained.... Yet divers false and perverse People of a certain New Sect of the Faith ... do perversely preach and teach these days, openly and privily, divers new Doctrines, and wicked, heretical and erroneous Opinions contrary to the same faith.... They make unlawful Conventicles and Confederacies, they hold and exercise Schools, they make and write Books, they do wickedly instruct and inform People, and, as much as they may, incite and stir them to Sedition and Insurrection, and maketh great Strife and Division among the people, and other Enormities horrible to be heard daily do perpetrate and commit, in subversion of the said Catholic Faith and Doctrine of the Holy Church.
Then follow clauses forbidding the Lollards to preach without license, or to hold Schools for teaching the new doctrines, and a clause punishing by fine and imprisonment all offenders who abjure their heresy; finally:—
If any Person within the said Realm and Dominions, upon the said wicked Preachings, Doctrines, Opinions, Schools and heretical and erroneous Information ... be before the Diocesan, and do refuse duly to abjure, or by the Diocesan of the same place or his commission, after the abjuration made by the same person, fall into relapse so that according to the Holy Canons he ought to be left to the secular Court, whereupon credence shall be given to the Diocesan of the same place, or to his Commissionaries in this behalf; then the Sheriff of the County of the same place, and Mayor and Sheriffs or Sheriff, or Mayor and Bailiffs of the City, Town and Borough of the same County shall be personally present in preferring of such sentences; and they, the same persons and every one of them, after such a sentence promulgate, shall receive them, and before the People in an high place do them to be burnt; that such punishment may strike in fear to the minds of others, whereby no such wicked doctrines and heretical and erroneous opinions ... against the Catholic Faith, Christian Law and Determination of Holy Church, which God forbid, be sustained or in any wise suffered.
THE GLENDOWER WAR (1401-1402).
Source.—Chronicle of Adam of Usk, edited by Sir E. Maunde Thompson, pp. 237, 238, 246, 247.
In this autumn (1401), Owen Glendower, all North Wales and Cardigan and Powis siding with him, sorely harried with fire and sword the English who dwelt in those parts, and their towns, and specially the town of Pool. Wherefore the English, invading those parts with a strong power, and utterly laying them waste and ravaging them with fire, famine, and sword, left them a desert, not even sparing children or churches, nor the monastery of Strata-Florida, wherein the King himself was being lodged, and the church of which and its choir, even up to the high altar, they used as a stable, and pillaged even the patens; and they carried away into England more than a thousand children of both sexes to be their servants. Yet did the same Owen do no small hurt to the English, slaying many of them, and carrying off the arms, horses and tents of the King's eldest son, the prince of Wales, and of other lords, which he bare away for his own behoof to the mountain fastnesses of Snowden.
In these days, southern Wales, and in particular all the diocese of Llandaff, was at peace from every kind of trouble of invasion or inroad.... The commons of Cardigan, being pardoned their lives, deserted Owen, and returned, though in sore wretchedness, to their homes, being allowed to use the Welsh tongue, although its destruction had been determined on by the English, Almighty God, the King of Kings, the unerring Judge of all, having mercifully ordained the recall of this decree at the prayer and cry of the oppressed....
... On the day of St. Alban (22nd June, 1402) near to Knighton in Wales, was a hard battle fought between the English under sir Edmund Mortimer and the Welsh under Owen Glendower, with woeful slaughter even to eight thousand souls, the victory being with Owen. And alas! my lord, the said sir Edmund ... was by the fortune of war carried away captive. And, being by his enemies in England stripped of all his goods and hindered from paying ransom, in order to escape more easily the pains of captivity, he is known by common report to have wedded the daughter of the same Owen; by whom he had a son Lionel, and three daughters, all of whom, except one daughter, along with their mother are now dead. At last, being by the English host beleagured in the castle of Harlech, he brought his days of sorrow to an end, his wonderful deeds being to this day told at the feast in song.
In this year also the lord Grey of Ruthin,[2] being taken captive by Owen, with the slaughter of two thousand of his men, was shut up in prison; but he was set free on payment of ransom of sixteen thousand pounds in gold. Concerning such an ill-starred blow given by Owen to the English rule, when I think thereon, my heart trembles. For, backed by a following of thirty thousand men issuing from their lairs throughout Wales and its marches, he overthrew castles, among which were Usk, Caerleon, and Newport, and fired the towns. In short, like a second Assyrian, the rod of God's anger, he did deeds of unheard-of cruelty with fire and sword.
[2] Glendower's revolt arose out of a quarrel with Lord Grey of Ruthin.