The Friars, too, found a warm welcome in many parts of Wales. The Cistercian monks were to be found in remote and lonely valleys, or on the edge of high and bleak moorlands; the Friars, on the other hand, were to be found in the towns, among the busiest haunts of men. Towns in Wales were few and insignificant, so we do not find the Friars occupying the position of importance which they so soon acquired in England. Nevertheless the Dominicans had houses at Bangor, Rhuddlan, Brecon, Haverfordwest, and Cardiff, while the Franciscans were to be found at Carmarthen, Cardiff, and Llan Vaes. In addition to the two great Orders, there was a settlement of White Friars (Carmelites) at Denbigh, and one of the Austin Friars at Newport. In Wales all the Friars seem to have been energetic preachers and lecturers; and in that way they did much to diffuse what learning they themselves were possessed of among the common people.
The Black Death greatly reduced the numbers of the monks. Their rents fell very considerably in value, and they consequently became extremely poor. Nevertheless the second half of the fourteenth century witnessed a remarkable religious awakening in the country. There was a new and enquiring spirit abroad, and Wales turned an interested, and occasionally a sympathetic, ear to the teaching of the Lollards. The Catholic Church, as represented by its two great officers, the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, had so often shown itself to be the enemy of Welsh liberty that the people of Wales listened with much favour to the teaching of Walter Brute, one of Wycliffe's disciples, when he began to preach in the Marches in 1391. That the official religion had fallen into considerable contempt in Wales is indicated by the insulting tone of many of the triads in which it was the fashion of the day for literary men to express themselves. "Three things are objects of derision," says one of these, "an old hag displaying her finery, an old man trying to show his agility, and an old priest drunk." Another tells us that "Three things there are which he who can may love—a fat priest singing Mass, the cry of a soul in the clutches of the Fiend, and an English song."
In the quarrel between Richard II and his barons the sympathy of Wales was with the king; and it was in Wales that the final struggle between the unhappy monarch and Henry Bolingbroke took place. The king, who had been in Ireland, landed at Milford Haven, to find that Henry was with an army at Bristol. By a forced march he reached Conway; and then travelled from castle to castle in North Wales looking for support. He met Henry at Flint, surrendered, and was first deposed and afterwards murdered. Then Henry IV ruled in his stead. From the beginning of his reign the new king seems to have regarded Wales with a good deal of suspicion and dislike. After a long period of mild government, a note of severity again makes itself audible in the statutes passed dealing exclusively with Wales. There is a harsh and aggressive flavour in their very titles—"Certain restraints laid on Welshmen," "The Lords Marchers to keep ward in their castles," "Welshmen shall not purchase lands in England," "Englishmen shall not be convict in Wales," "As to minstrels and vagabonds in Wales," "Welshmen not to carry arms," "No armour or victuals to be carried into Wales," "Welshmen not to have castles," "No Welshman shall bear office in Wales," "Castles and walled towns in Wales to be kept by Englishmen," "Englishmen married to Welsh women not to have office in Wales," etc. It was in such an atmosphere of mutual suspicion and dislike that the rebellion of Owen Glyndwr broke out.
CHAPTER VIII
OWEN GLYNDWR
In the long roll of Welsh history which we have been unfolding there are many illustrious names—Cunedda Wledig, Howel Dda, Owen Gwynedd, the Lord Rees, Llewelyn Fawr, and Llewelyn the last Prince of Wales: but of all the men of the Middle Ages no one has so touched the heart and fired the imagination of Wales as Owen Glyndwr. For all Welsh people he stands alone and supreme, the ideal Welshman of all time. Both the beginning and the end of his life are shrouded in obscurity. It was only for some half-dozen years that he occupied a foremost place in the politics of his day. He left behind him no solid gain of any kind, but at best a vague tradition and an unrealised dream. Yet in spite of all that his hold upon his countrymen has never relaxed; and when the bonds in which the national spirit had been confined for more than three hundred years were beginning to break in the first half of the nineteenth century, it was his name that was invoked, and his dreams that were recalled. Gardiner once said that the two typical Englishmen of all time were Shakespeare and Oliver Cromwell; the one in the realm of thought, the other in the realm of action. Wales owes no such divided allegiance: the Welsh spirit at its best is typified in one man—Owen Glyndwr. Owen was a direct descendant of the princely house of Powys, a line of princes which had played a none too illustrious part in the struggle for independence. The family was a wealthy one, and Owen spent his early years in passing from one of his father's country houses to the other. The real home of the family was the exquisitely beautiful Glyndyfrdwy, a narrow valley through which the limpid waters of the Dee flow between thickly wooded banks, above which rise the heather-clad slopes of the Berwyns. Close at hand are Valle Crucis and Dinas Bran; and not far off is the entrance to the fertile and lovely Vale of Clwyd. Even the year of Owen's birth is uncertain. Tradition varies; but the best evidence at our disposal points to 1359 as the date. Wealthy and well-connected young men in those days used frequently to study law for some years at the Inns of Court, a training which was regarded as more aristocratic than residence at the University of Oxford. Owen seems to have gone up to London, and to have spent some time in listening to cases argued in Westminster Hall, then the home of the Common Law Courts. Shakespeare is probably right when he makes Owen lay claim to the possession of the best culture of the day—
"I can speak English, lord, as well as you;
For I was trained up in the English court;
Where, being but young, I framed to the harp
Many an English ditty lovely well,
And gave the tongue a helpful ornament."
The pursuit of Law is not commonly associated by us with either poetry or romance; nevertheless it is in the Courts that Owen seems to have met his future wife, the daughter of Sir David Hanmer, one of the Justices of the King's Bench. The wedding probably took place in 1380, when Owen was only twenty-one years old. The period of legal training was followed by a course of training in the use of arms. In 1385 Owen followed Richard II to Scotland, where he won much credit by his prowess in the field. But it is a mistake to imagine that he was ever a blind partisan of Richard. Later, when it became opportune to profess belief in the existence of Richard in order to imperil the throne of his successor, Owen was perfectly willing to do so; but in these early years, long before it had ever occurred to him that he might lead a Welsh revolt against England, he was a follower of Henry Bolingbroke, and, if tradition speaks correctly, one of his esquires. According to another account he also was, at one period, esquire to his neighbour the Earl of Arundel, lord of Oswestry, Chirk, and Cynllaith. How many years were spent in this sort of novitiate we have no means of ascertaining; all we know for certain is that, before 1400, Owen was living the customary life of a Welsh country gentleman, at his two houses of Glyndyfrdwy and Sycherth.
Wales at that time was seething with discontent; a discontent which was partly political, and partly social. The country was warmly attached to King Richard, and looked upon Henry IV as a usurper and an assassin. It was also being borne in upon the people that England was now determined to extirpate the Welsh language, and to destroy finally every trace of Welsh nationality. The fourteenth century had witnessed in many of the countries of Western Europe a rapid development of the national spirit, and both England and Wales were among those which had participated in it. In addition to political grievances, there were also social grievances, felt more especially in the South. But even when we have taken all these things into full account, the universality, the spontaneity, and the warmth of the rebellion of 1401 remain something of a mystery. One thing is certain, and that is that Wales was solidly behind Owen; and that it was the North and the middle parts of the country, regions in which political preponderated over social grievances, which led the revolt.