Wales

by William Watkin Davies

Not a mean tribute from the victor to the vanquished rebel!

CHAPTER IX
WALES AND THE TUDORS

The seventy years which followed the death of Owen Glyndwr was, both for England and for Wales, as miserable a period as any in their whole history. Owing to the untimely death of Henry V, the feeble Henry VI became king; and he had not been long on the throne before the bitter feud between Yorkists and Lancastrians broke out. During the Wars of the Roses the arm of government was paralysed, and the strong did what appeared right in his own eyes. Many Welshmen found life in the English armies abroad more tolerable than life in Wales; while of those who remained at home, too many became bandits like the Highlanders in the reign of George II. Both Yorkists and Lancastrians had interests in Wales. Edward IV was a Mortimer, a descendant of Prince Llewelyn, and the seat of his strength was the country around Ludlow. The chief Lancastrian stronghold in Wales was the coast, from Pembroke to Anglesey. Thus Wales was divided against itself. At Mortimer's Cross, in 1461, Welshmen fought against Welshmen; and Owen Tudor was captured, and afterwards beheaded at Hereford, in accordance with the fate meted out to the vanquished in those barbarous days. Harlech castle, which had been the last fortress to fly the flag of Glyndwr, and which at a later date was to be the last of Charles I's strongholds to surrender, held out stubbornly for Lancaster. "I held a castle in France," boasted Davydd ap Sinion, its defender, "until every old woman in Wales had heard of it. I will hold a castle in Wales until every old woman in France has heard of it." The boast was a vain one. Harlech fell; but the siege had given to the world one of the finest marching songs ever sung by man.

The eyes of Welshmen and Englishmen alike were now beginning to be turned to that house of Tudor, whose head had lost his life after Mortimer's Cross. Owen Tudor had married Catherine, the widow of king Henry V. There had been two children of the marriage, Edmund and Jasper, the former Earl of Richmond, and the latter Earl of Pembroke. Edmund had married Margaret Beaufort, heiress of John of Gaunt; and to them a son, called Henry, had been born. This young lad was now living in exile in Brittany, and it was there that emissaries from England sought him out from time to time, telling him how the country was groaning under the evils of the times, and how all common men were yearning for the advent of a strong ruler who would restore peace and ordered government. The cruelties of the usurper Richard III brought matters to a head. At length the cautious Henry was convinced of the possibility of success. In 1485 he landed at Haverfordwest, and marched to Cardigan. The greater part of South Wales at once declared for him. Then he marched north, passing through Machynlleth, Newtown, Welshpool, and Shrewsbury. North Wales was held by the Stanleys; and it was only at the last moment that they declared for Henry. The crisis was reached on Bosworth Field, where, in the space of a few hours, Richard lost both his throne and his life, and Henry was proclaimed king in his stead. At long last the prophecies of the Welsh bards had been fulfilled: a Welsh prince had ascended the throne of England. A year later the new king married Elizabeth of York, a descendant, as we have already seen, of the great Llewelyn. From his mother, therefore, as well as from his father, Henry VIII inherited Welsh blood; and it is little to be wondered at that he paid so much attention to the affairs of the Principality. It was noted by all that the first Tudor sovereign refused to rest his claim to the throne upon anything except conquest. Upon his entrance into London after the battle of Bosworth he proceeded in state to St. Paul's, and there had a solemn Te Deum sung for his victory. It was as much a Welsh conquest of England as the expedition of 1066 was a Norman conquest of England. A considerable part of Henry's army had been composed of Welshmen, and one of the three standards displayed by him upon the field bore the device of the famous red dragon. His first-born son was christened Arthur.

Such being Henry VII's solicitude to demonstrate his Welsh origin, it is disappointing to find that he did so little for the Principality in the course of his reign. On the whole the country was neglected. By means of the Star Chamber, and the statutes against Livery and Maintenance, Henry crushed the English nobles, the "over-mighty subjects" who had been troubling the peace of the realm so sorely. But although the Welsh, and especially the border lords, were at least as turbulent and as contemptuous of all law, he allowed them to remain unmolested; and one of them—Sir Rhys ap Thomas—came to wield almost despotic power throughout South Wales. This able, ambitious, and politic man appears to have been a great favourite with both the first two Tudor sovereigns. He had enthusiastically espoused the cause of Henry of Richmond when he was as yet a landless adventurer; and it was mainly owing to his influence that Henry's reception in South Wales had been so very cordial and unanimous. So powerful did he become after Henry's coronation, that an old Welsh couplet tells us that: "The king owns the whole island—except that part which belongs to Sir Rhys." In Henry VII's reign his favour, if anything, was enhanced. Familiarly he was alluded to as "Father Rhys." The extensive Dinevor estates were his; while in addition he held the offices of Chief Justice, and Chamberlain, of South Wales. So great was his power that he could snap his fingers in the face of the Court of the Marches, which sat impotent at Ludlow. Sir Rhys died in 1525, on the eve of momentous changes in English politics. His death marks the close of an epoch in the history of Wales.

In the year 1493 Henry sent his eldest son Arthur to hold his Court at Ludlow. The ancient castle there, with its round Temple chapel within, whose well-preserved walls still look so grand and imposing, is the centre of Welsh political life throughout the Tudor period. It was the great age of government by council. An attempt to circumscribe the power of the Popes by such means had been one of the burning topics of discussion within the Church all through the fifteenth century. The Yorkish and Tudor kings saw in the council a perfect instrument of arbitrary power, by which the deficiencies of the Common Law could be corrected, and by which the authority of the central government could be made to prevail against feudal lawlessness. The Court of Star Chamber, long before its final abolition by the Long Parliament, had won the hatred of all lovers of justice and good government; but it must never be forgotten that, in the early years of its existence, this same Council was the great upholder of law, and the sole effective protector of the weak against the strong. The Tudor Councils—Star Chamber, High Commission, of the North, of the Welsh Marches—were above the ordinary law, in the sense that they administered a sort of criminal equity. It was a drastic and a dangerous remedy to use; but it was none too drastic for the evils of the day; and only the most pedantic believers in liberty could condemn it.

Edward IV, and not Henry VII, was the first type of the new Renaissance sovereign to rule in England; and he it was who first created the Court of the Welsh Marches, in 1471. But the troubles of those chaotic years were greater even than such a body could deal with, and consequently we find it doing practically nothing. In 1501 William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln and founder of Brasenose College, became the first real Lord President of the Court of the Council of the Marches. Unhappily Prince Arthur died in 1502, and during the remainder of his reign Henry paid no attention whatsoever to Wales. The policy pursued by Smyth was one of conciliation; and as a result of his government, there was at least a growth in loyalty, if not in public order. He retained his office until his death in 1514, but does not appear to have resided at Ludlow after 1509, the year of Henry VII's death.