|
Owain Glyndwr
|
|
|
No name is so frequently invoked in Wales as that of
Owain Glyndwr
, a potent figurehead of Welsh nationalism since he rose up against the occupying English in the early fifteenth century. Little is known about the real Glyndwr, although he is described in Shakespeare's
Henry IV, Part I
as "not in the roll of common men". There's little doubt that the charismatic Owain fulfilled many of the mystical medieval prophecies about the rising up of the red dragon. Born in the late fourteenth century to an aristocratic family, he had a conventional upbringing, part of it studying English in London, where he became a loyal and distinguished soldier of the English king. He returned to Wales to take up his claim as Prince of Wales, being directly descended from the princes of Powys and Cyfeiliog, but became the focus of a rebellion born of discontent simmering since Edward I's stringent policies of subordinating Wales.
Goaded by a parochial land dispute in North Wales in which the courts failed to back him, Glyndwr garnered four thousand supporters and declared anew that he was Prince of Wales. He attacked Ruthin, and then Denbigh, Rhuddlan, Flint, Hawarden and Oswestry, before encountering English resistance at Welshpool, but whole swathes of North Wales were his for the taking. The English king, Henry IV, dispatched troops and rapidly drew up a range of severely punitive laws against the Welsh, even outlawing Welsh-language bards and singers. Battles continued to rage until, by the end of 1403, Glyndwr controlled most of Wales. In 1404, Glyndwr assembled a parliament at Machynlleth, drawing up mutual recognition treaties with France and Spain, and being crowned king of a free Wales. A second parliament in Harlech took place a year later, with Glyndwr making plans to carve up England and Wales into three as part of an alliance against the English king. The English army, however, attacked the Welsh uprising with increased vigour, and the Tripartite Indenture was never realized. From then on, Glyndwyr lost battles, ground and castles, and was forced into hiding, dying, it is thought, in Herefordshire. The draconian anti-Welsh laws stayed in place until the accession to the English throne of Henry VII, who had Welsh origins, in 1485. Wales became subsumed into English custom and law, and Glyndwr's uprising became an increasingly powerful symbol of frustrated Welsh independence. Even in the 1980s, a shadowy organization that razed several English holiday homes took the name Meibion Glyndwr - the Sons of Glyndwr Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
|
United Kingdom,
|