Owain Glyndŵr's Rising (1400): The Last Welsh Prince of Wales

Owain Glyndŵr’s rising was the last great Welsh revolt against English rule. On 16 September 1400 Owain, a landowner from north-east Wales with royal Welsh ancestry, was proclaimed Prince of Wales by his followers, and within four years he controlled most of the country, held his own parliaments and made an alliance with France. The revolt was crushed by 1409, but Owain was never captured, and his disappearance turned him into Wales’s most enduring national hero.

Background

Wales had been under English rule since Edward I defeated the last native prince, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, in 1282 (see Edward I’s conquest of Wales). Edward secured the country with new castles and walled boroughs settled by English colonists. Welsh people faced legal restrictions in these towns and were often excluded from high office in church and state.

The Black Death and later epidemics brought economic hardship in the second half of the 14th century, and many Welsh students, clergy and soldiers felt their prospects blocked. Prophecies about a deliverer who would restore the Britons’ rule circulated widely in Welsh poetry.

Owain ap Gruffydd, lord of Glyndyfrdwy and Cynllaith, was born around 1354. He descended from the princes of Powys and, through his mother, from those of Deheubarth. He had studied law in London and served in English armies, including Richard II’s campaign in Scotland in 1385. Before 1400 he looked like a loyal and prosperous member of the Welsh gentry.

The outbreak in 1400

Henry Bolingbroke seized the throne from Richard II in 1399 and became Henry IV. The change unsettled Wales, where Richard had support. At the same time Owain was in dispute with his neighbour Reginald Grey, Lord of Ruthin, over land, and he believed he could not get justice from the new regime.

On 16 September 1400, at Glyndyfrdwy, Owain’s supporters proclaimed him Prince of Wales. Two days later they attacked and burned Ruthin, then raided other English towns in north-east Wales. Henry IV led an army through north Wales that autumn, but Owain’s forces simply melted into the hills.

The revolt spreads

Parliament responded in 1401 and 1402 with harsh penal laws: Welshmen were barred from buying land in England or the border towns, from holding major offices and from gathering in assemblies. These measures pushed many more Welsh people into the revolt. On 1 April 1401, Good Friday, Owain’s cousins Rhys and Gwilym ap Tudur seized Conwy Castle while the garrison was at church.

In 1402 Owain captured Reginald Grey, who was later ransomed for 10,000 marks. On 22 June 1402, at Bryn Glas near Pilleth in Radnorshire, his army defeated an English force and captured its commander, Sir Edmund Mortimer. When the king refused to ransom Mortimer, he changed sides and married Owain’s daughter Catrin. The English failed to bring Owain to battle in further royal expeditions, which were hampered by bad weather that some English chroniclers attributed to his magic.

In 1403 the powerful Percy family of Northumberland rebelled against Henry IV. Henry Percy, known as Hotspur, was killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403 before any Welsh army could join him.

Prince of Wales: parliaments and alliances

In 1404 Owain captured the great castles of Harlech and Aberystwyth and made Harlech his court. That year he summoned a parliament to Machynlleth, with representatives from across Wales, and according to tradition he was crowned there in the presence of envoys from Scotland, France and Castile. The present Parliament House in the town is thought to date from later in the 15th century, but it stands on a site long associated with the assembly.

On 14 July 1404 his envoys concluded a treaty of alliance with France. In February 1405 Owain, Mortimer and the Earl of Northumberland agreed the Tripartite Indenture, a plan to divide England and Wales among themselves. That August a French army landed at Milford Haven and advanced with the Welsh as far as Woodbury Hill near Worcester before withdrawing.

In the Pennal Letter of 31 March 1406, Owain offered to recognise the Avignon pope Benedict XIII in return for support, and set out a vision for Wales: an independent Welsh church free of Canterbury, and two universities, one in the north and one in the south.

Defeat and disappearance

The tide turned from 1405. At Pwll Melyn near Usk in May 1405 Owain’s son Gruffudd was captured and his brother Tudur killed. The French withdrew their support, and Henry IV’s son, Prince Henry of Monmouth, led a methodical campaign of sieges. Aberystwyth fell in 1408 and Harlech early in 1409. Owain’s wife, Margaret, two daughters and several grandchildren were captured at Harlech and taken to London; Edmund Mortimer died during the siege.

Owain escaped and continued a guerrilla war. His last major raid came in 1410, and after about 1412 he vanishes from the records. Henry V, as Prince Henry had become, offered him a pardon in 1415, but there was no reply. Owain probably died around 1415, and his grave has never been identified. That October Dafydd Gam, a Welsh squire who had been one of Owain’s most determined opponents and had once been his prisoner, was killed fighting for Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt.

Timeline

• c. 1354: Owain ap Gruffydd is born in north-east Wales.
• 1399: Henry IV deposes Richard II.
• 1400, 16 September: Owain is proclaimed Prince of Wales at Glyndyfrdwy.
• 1401, 1 April: Rhys and Gwilym ap Tudur seize Conwy Castle.
• 1402, 22 June: Owain’s forces win the Battle of Bryn Glas.
• 1404: Owain takes Harlech and Aberystwyth and holds a parliament at Machynlleth.
• 1405, August: a French army lands at Milford Haven.
• 1406, 31 March: Owain writes the Pennal Letter to Charles VI of France.
• 1409: Harlech Castle falls and Owain’s family is captured.
• 1415: Henry V offers a pardon; Owain probably dies around this time.

Myths and facts

Myth: Owain was a wild rebel from the hills. He was a wealthy, educated landowner who had trained in law in London and served the English crown. His court at Harlech followed the forms of a European princely household, with chancellors, envoys and a great seal.

Myth: Owain had magical powers. English chroniclers blamed storms that ruined Henry IV’s campaigns on his sorcery, and Shakespeare gave him the boast that he could call spirits from the vasty deep. These stories reflect English fear of him, not historical fact.

Myth: Owain’s grave is known. Several places have been suggested, including Monnington in Herefordshire and Kentchurch, where his daughter Alys lived with her husband’s family, the Scudamores. None has been confirmed, and the uncertainty helped the legend that he never died.

Fact: the revolt had wide support. Welsh students left Oxford and labourers returned from England to join it, and much of the Welsh clergy, including the bishops of St Asaph and Bangor at different times, backed Owain’s cause.

Legacy

Owain’s revolt left Wales devastated, with towns burned and later severe laws in force for generations. Yet his memory grew. Shakespeare portrayed him in Henry IV, Part 1 as a proud, mystical figure, and Welsh tradition held that he was not dead but sleeping until his country needed him. From the 19th century he became the central hero of Welsh nationalism, and 16 September is now marked in Wales as Owain Glyndŵr Day.

Why it matters

The Glyndŵr rising was the last serious attempt to restore an independent Welsh state. His plans for a Welsh church, universities and a parliament anticipated institutions that Wales would gain only centuries later, and he remains a symbol of Welsh identity.