In 1397 Richard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, was attainted and executed, when Richard II. seized all his lands and manors, and granted them to William le Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire. In the Historia Regum Angliæ we find the following bit of superstition entertained at this period. On this occasion the Earl of Arundel must, of course, have deeply regretted his contempt of the marvellous stone of which John Ross, the Antiquary, of Warwick, writes. “The earl,” says this grave author, “kept a raven in his court; and one day, as he was playing at chess in the garden, the bird,” or, as Ross suggests, “a spirit in that form, brought up (eructavit) a stone having the virtue of invisibility. The earl set no value upon it, contrary to the advice of his nobles; and soon after, being arrested by strong hand, he was committed to ward, and finally beheaded.”
The king, having put down all opposition to certain measures which he was resolved to carry, by the execution of Arundel, and the murder of his uncle of Gloucester, adjourned his Parliament at Westminster to Shrewsbury, and from thence to Oswestry. An apprehension of tumult among the Earl of Arundel’s tenantry in this county, from his violent death, and the seizure of his estates, was probably the reason for making both Shrewsbury and Oswestry the scene of that national assembly. The Parliament met at Shrewsbury Jan. 29, 1397–8, and was designated The Great Parliament. In this regal visit he displayed great magnificence, and entertained the members with a sumptuous banquet, he appearing among the people in his costly royal robes. Whilst in Shrewsbury Richard made Chester a Principality, and annexed to it the Castle of Holt, the lordship of Bromfield and Yale, Chirkland, and various other places in Wales and on the Borders. During the proceedings in Parliament it was ascertained that deadly hatred subsisted between the Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk. These noblemen had been jointly concerned in the impeachment of Arundel and his fellow-sufferers, at Westminster. Norfolk, touched by remorse for his share in the ruin of a patriotic peer, or desirous of ensnaring his late confederate, who had charged Norfolk with using words disrespectful to the king, fell into open quarrel with Hereford, who made the matter a subject of public accusation in the Parliament against his antagonist. The king, unwilling that any discourse about himself should be made the subject of open discussion, suddenly closed the proceedings of Parliament, and adjourned to Oswestry. In the assembly there the dispute between the two Dukes was recommenced, and the king resolved that it should be ended by a duel between the belligerent parties at Coventry. The combat did not take place, as the Duke of Norfolk refused to fight; upon which Norfolk was banished from the kingdom for ever, and Hereford for ten years. As a mark of the royal favour, Richard granted, before the Parliament closed, the first Charter conferred upon Oswestry, by which the town was incorporated by the name of “The Bailiffs and Burgesses of Oswestry, infra Palatinatum Cestriæ in Marchia inter Angliam et Walliam.” The Charter, which was founded upon the one granted just before at Shrewsbury, exempted the Burgesses from all contributions and exactions whatsoever, throughout the kingdom, the city of London excepted. It bears date, August 14, 1399.
The close of Richard’s kingly rule was near. His love of idle show and magnificence, his delight in popular applause, the buzzing about him of parasites and flatterers, and his indulgence in pleasures, were followed by a brief scene of bitter existence, which ended in degrading humiliation and painful death. The eyes of Henry of Lancaster, Duke of Hereford, had long been directed towards the throne, and he actively employed his agents to place him upon it. The classic historians of Shrewsbury assure us that, either from the disgust occasioned by outrages perpetrated upon the Burgesses, by Richard’s body-guard, or disorderly multitudes brought into the town during the sittings of his Parliament, “it is certain that the revolution which placed Henry of Lancaster on the throne had the entire concurrence of the inhabitants of these parts (Shropshire). When the Duke proceeded into Wales to circumvent the unhappy Richard, he passed through Ludlow and Shrewsbury, and was joined here (Shrewsbury) by the Lords Scales and Bardolph, Sir Robert and Sir John Legh, and other gentlemen of Cheshire.” Richard, after suffering much indignity, was secured a prisoner in Flint Castle, by the great conspirator Lancaster, and from thence was led in the Duke’s train to Chester. Here Bolingbroke delivered the subdued monarch to the Duke of Gloucester and Thomas, Earl of Arundel, saying, “Here is the murderer of your father, you must be answerable for him.” He was subsequently conveyed to Pontefract Castle, where he was basely assassinated by a band of armed ruffians, four of whom he killed with a battle-axe before he fell.
The untimely death of Richard caused an immediate change in the government of Oswestry. Its newly-created lord, the Earl of Wiltshire, fell a victim to popular fury, and Thomas, son of the attainted Earl of Arundel, was restored to the manorial rights and dignities of Oswestry. The Earl of Huntington, the king’s brother, fled into the county of Essex; but passing through a village belonging to the Countess of Hereford (sister of the deceased Richard, Earl of Arundel), he was discovered, and arrested. The countess apprized the new monarch, Henry, of the capture, and desired him to send to her the young Earl of Arundel, her nephew, that he might witness the mode in which she intended to avenge herself of her brother’s death. The Earl of Arundel posted to the place where Huntington was prisoner, and loaded him with reproaches. The countess delivered the captive nobleman, bound with chains, into the hands of eight thousand of her vassals, whom she called together for the occasion. The wretched prisoner, struck with terror at the preparations made to take away his life, sued for mercy, and protested that he had not committed the foul act of which he was accused. Had the countess restrained her rage, and listened to reason and justice, she would have found that Huntington was not a guilty murderer, but that Richard, Earl of Arundel, was brought to the block mainly by the treachery of the Earl of Nottingham. Heedless of his protestations and cries for mercy, she commanded her vassals to cut him to pieces. His assembled executioners are said to have taken pity upon him; whilst the countess and young earl strenuously urged his death. Maddened by rage, she exclaimed, “Curse on ye all, villains; you have not the courage to put a man to death.” This violent exclamation roused an esquire, who offered himself as executioner. He seized the hatchet, and approached Huntington, but was so touched with his tender complaints, that he trembled with emotion; and returning to the countess, his eyes being filled with tears, he said, “I would not put the earl to death for all the gold in the world.” The countess, full of indignation, looking at him “unutterable things,” exclaimed, “Do what thou hast promised, or thy own head shall be cut off.” When he heard this he was so afraid that he knew not what to do, and approaching the earl again said, “Sir, I entreat your pardon; forgive me your death.” He then struck him a violent blow on the shoulder, which felled him to the ground. Huntington sprang up again, and said, “Alas, man, why do you treat me thus? For God’s sake kill me more easily.” The esquire then struck him eight times on the shoulder, being so terrified that he could not aim his blows at the neck. Another blow followed, which fell on the neck, when the wretched nobleman, suffering pain and agony from his cruel treatment, cried out, “Alas, dear friend, have pity upon me, and free me from my pain.” The executioner then seized a knife, and cut the Earl’s throat, separating his head from the body.
The Glyndwr or Glendower insurrection arose about this period, and the town of Oswestry greatly suffered from it. Owain Glyndwr was descended on the mother’s side from Llywelyn, the last sovereign Prince of Wales, his father, Grufydd Vychan, having married Helen, a grand-daughter of that puissant chieftain. He studied the law at one of the Inns of Court in London, and finally was admitted as a barrister. He may have quitted his profession, for we find he was appointed an esquire to Richard II., to whom he was devotedly attached, and whose fortunes he followed even to Flint Castle, and till his royal master’s household was dissolved. He had been knighted by King Richard, and was married early in life to Margaret, daughter to Sir David Hanmer, of Hanmer, in Flintshire, one of the Justices of the Court of the King’s Bench. His resentment against Henry IV. was strong and implacable. He had suffered deep private wrongs from the usurpation of the king, and burned with indignation to avenge himself.
Owain Glyndwr’s sudden appearance as a military leader of his countrymen roused their ancient martial spirit, and thousands flocked to his standard. In the year 1400 the town of Oswestry was burned, the Welsh having attacked it; and in 1403 Owain Glyndwr assembled his forces in the town, that he might join Lord Percy (surnamed Henry Hotspur) against the king. The Welsh leader dispatched to the “tented field” his first division only, amounting to 4000 men, whose prowess was distinguished on the day of battle. The great body of his troops, about 12,000 in number, did not approach nearer than Oswestry, they having been detained at the siege of Kidweli Castle. It is thought by some writers, that Owain did not remain inactively at Oswestry. Gough, the historian, mentions, that about two miles from Shrewsbury, where the Pool road diverges from that leading to Oswestry, “there stands an ancient decayed Oak Tree, of which there is a tradition, that Glyndwr ascended it to reconnoitre; but finding that the king was in great force, and that the Earl of Northumberland had not joined his son, he fell back to Oswestry, and immediately afterwards retreated into Wales.”
In the “Beauties of England and Wales,” the Shropshire history edited by Mr. Rylance, we find the following passage on Glyndwr’s alledged abandonment of Hotspur “at his utmost need:”—
“The army of Glyndwr, amounting to twelve thousand men, had remained inactive at Oswestry during the battle. There is a tradition that he himself quitted that place in disguise, and hastening to Shrewsbury, hid himself in a gigantic oak, which commanded a full view of the field; and that after witnessing the discomfiture of his friends, returning with speed to Oswestry, he withdrew his forces into Wales, whither he was pursued by Prince Henry.”
Hulbert, too, in his “History of the Town and County of Salop,” referring to the famous battle, says, “Owain Glyndwr beheld the battle of Shrewsbury, instead of sustaining, by his arms, the cause of his ally, the gallant and intrepid Hotspur.” Another writer on this memorable event declares, that had Glyndwr brought up his reserved troops when Hotspur by his impetuous onslaughts was within an ace of victory, or when the brave warrior was slain, the battle would have been won, and the royal forces entirely routed. Taking these allegements to be truths, Glyndwr perpetrated a baseness which all faithful men must condemn.
Many writers have taken pains to solve the question, “Did Owain Glyndwr act merely as an idle spectator at the battle of Shrewsbury; or did he actually lead his corps de reserve to Shelton, to aid the gallant Hotspur?” No author that we have read has settled that doubtful inquiry. Owain’s hatred of Henry, and his ardent efforts to give freedom to his countrymen, with his chivalrous bearing in the rebellion he had created, would suggest no evidence that Glyndwr was pusillanimous; and yet history furnishes alleged facts strongly reflecting upon his heroic spirit, and almost charging him with craven cowardice. To conclude that Glyndwr was actuated by base and unmanly curiosity in perching himself upon a branch of the Shelton Oak would be to brand his name with infamy; and yet, if he were espying the battle from that famous tree, his troops being close in reserve, but not in action, an accusation no less severe must ever rest upon his character as a chieftain and a man. On this interesting subject, which will always engage the attention of historical readers, a poet of bright fancy and manly sentiment—Dovaston of Westfelton—has given sarcastic expression to an opinion, in a Miltonic sonnet on the Shelton Oak, that Owain Glyndwr, at the battle of Shrewsbury, was a traitor to gallantry and faith:—