“They look’d a manly, generous generation,
Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad and square and thick;
Their accents firm, and loud in conversation;
Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp, and quick.”

About five miles west of Llangollen, upon the road to Corwen, and on the south side of the Dee, the way being enriched by such varied and enchanting scenery as will amply repay the traveller of taste for the fatigue of the excursion, is Glyn Dyfrdwy, once the property and residence of that famous chieftain Owen Glyndwr, whose birth Shakspeare says marked him extraordinary. I will, however, here give a short account of his life, which I trust will prove entertaining to many of my readers, and plainly show that “he was not in the roll of common men.”

Owen Ap Gryffydd Fychan, better known by the name of Owen Glyndwr, [146a] was descended from a younger son of Gryffydd Ap Madog, Lord of Powis Bromfeild, and of Dinas Bran. He received his education in one of the inns of court, and became a barrister-at-law.

It seems that about the year of our Lord 1395, he came into great favour with King Richard II. who made him his scutifer, or shield-bearer; [146b] and Owen was with the King when he was surrendered to Henry, Duke of Lancaster, together with the Castle of Flint. [147a]

Betwixt Owen and Reginald, Lord Grey, of Ruthin, there arose a fierce dispute, about a common lying between the Lordship of Ruthin and Glyndyfrdwy, and belonging to Owen, who now assumed the name of Glyndwr; and who was held in great respect by his countrymen, having artfully induced them to believe that he could “call spirits from the vasty deep.” Reginald was at first conquered, and Owen possessed the disputed land; but after the deposal and murder of King Richard in Pomfret Castle, and Henry had mounted the throne, [147b] the scene was changed; as Henry aided Lord Grey, who with his own vassals, and assisted by some of the King’s forces, again dispossessed Owen of the land. Several severe encounters took place between the rival chieftains; and although Reginald’s adherents were more numerous, the wily lawyer was more fertile in expedients.

Owen, being apprised of an attack intended to be made upon him by Lord Grey, here practised a successful ruse de guerre. He erected a number of stakes in a bottom still called DÔl Benig, [148] and having clad them in jackets and Welch caps, so alarmed Reginald by their appearance that he gave up the expedition.At length Owen’s good fortune and perseverance brought his enemy into his power. [149a] Having artfully drawn Reginald from his strong hold of Ruthin, he caused his horses to be shod backwards, which induced Reginald to advance, supposing he was pursuing a flying enemy, when he fell into an ambuscade, and was suddenly surrounded by Owen’s forces, and made prisoner. Owen then marched to Ruthin, burnt the castle, destroyed the town, and despoiled the country. [149b]

Prior to this success, Owen had laid his complaints before the King’s Parliament, and John Trevor, Bishop of St. Asaph, and Chancellor of Chester, seeing that no attention was paid to his petition, after a long delay, ventured to expostulate with the Lords, and to caution them that they did not, by slighting or neglecting Owen’s complaint, provoke the Welch to insurrection. The reply of the Lords was full of contempt, saying, “They did not fear those rascally bare-footed people.” [150] It was subsequent to this time that Glyndwr, finding his suit neglected, resolved to endeavour to redress his own wrongs, which terminated in the capture of Reginald, as before related.

This signal success drew to Owen many of his countrymen from all parts of the principality, who urged him on, asserting that the period was now arrived in which the prophecies of Merlin would be fulfilled; and that he was the man through whose valour the lost honour and liberties of their native country were to be recovered.

Owen Glyndwr, smarting with resentment, and impelled by his ambition, suffered himself to be persuaded to undertake the emancipation of the principality; and in the mean time kept Reginald Lord Grey a close prisoner; demanding ten thousand marks for his ransom; six thousand to be paid on the feast of St. Martin, in the fourth year of the King’s reign, and Reginald to deliver up his eldest son, with other persons of quality, as hostages for the due performance. [151]

The King, at the humble suit of Lord Grey (he finding no other means for his enlargement), appointed a council to treat with Glyndwr, who stoutly refusing to recede from his terms, they agreed to give him the sum demanded. It is also said that Owen obliged Reginald to marry one of his daughters. [152a]

Owen, being thus amply provided with money, and joined by numbers of his countrymen, now flew at higher game, and boldly attacked the Earl of March, who met him with a numerous body of Herefordshire men. They came to close action, when the Welchmen under Owen proved victorious, and the Earl of March was taken prisoner, some accounts say by Owen himself in single combat. [152b] With his freedom he lost above a thousand men, who were most savagely abused after they were dead.

Edmund, Earl of March, whom Owen Glyndwr now held in thraldom, was next in blood to Richard II. and therefore it was not displeasing to King Henry that he should be thus kept out of the way: nay, Camden says—“He (Edmund) stood greatly suspected to Henrie the Fourth, who had usurped the kingdome; and by him was first exposed unto danger, insomuch as he was taken by Owen Glyndwr, a rebell.” [153] King Henry, therefore, as might be supposed, turned a deaf ear to every solicitation made on the Earl’s behalf.

Now it was that Glyndwr, flushed with success, resolved to assume the title of Prince of Wales; and treating the King as a usurper of the crown, and simply as Duke of Lancaster, he caused himself to be proclaimed throughout the Principality. The better to grace the matter, he feigned himself descended in the female line from Llewellyn Ap Gruffydh, the last Prince.

His ambition now knew no bounds; and, by virtue of his new title, he summoned a parliament at Machynlleth, in Montgomeryshire, whither all the nobility and gentry of Wales resorted. He kept his court at Sychnant, about seven miles from Llangollen, on the road to Corwen. It is now distinguished by a grove of firs, situated in a beautifully fertile country, and overlooking the Dee. A few scattered stones are all that remain to mark the site where the palace of Owen Glyndwr once stood, which his bard, Iolo Goch, sung was as large as Westminster Abbey. [155]

About the middle of August, 1402, Henry, finding the power of Owen Glyndwr increasing, and the turbulence of the Welch breaking all bounds, resolved to crush their rebellion, and putting himself at the head of a powerful army, marched into Wales. But the very elements seemed to fight against him, the weather proving so extraordinarily inclement that the King was obliged to make a precipitate retreat, without accomplishing his intentions. [156a] The people attributed the dreadful tempests which at that season occurred to the magic power of Owen, who found it his interest to encourage their credulity.

Edward Mortimer, perceiving the King had no intention of opening his prison doors, and Glyndwr treating him with increased gentleness and respect, fell into the scheme this artful and politic man had devised. Owen Glyndwr [156b] was married to Margaret, the only daughter of Sir David Hanmer, of Hanmer, in Flintshire (who was one of the Justices of the King’s Bench, and was knighted by King Richard II.) by whom he had many children; and at this time three of his daughters were unmarried, on one of whom the captive Earl cast an eye of affection. Glyndwr at once saw the advantage of this predilection, and proposed to league with him against the King, and to cement this union by the marriage of his daughter to the Earl.

To strengthen this league, and make the proposed insurrection irresistible, the Earls of Worcester and Northumberland, two of the most powerful Nobles in England, together with the Scottish Chief Douglas, and Northumberland’s valiant son Henry Percy, better known by the name of Hotspur, were invited to join their standards; and these rebellious Lords met at the house of Dafyd Daron, the Archdeacon of Bangor, [158a] and there signed an indenture, sealing it with their own seals, to bind themselves to assemble their forces, and join in putting down the King, and for dividing the kingdom, vainly relying upon a foolish prediction of Merlin, in which the King was depicted as an execrable moldwarp, and Glyndwr and his colleagues as the wolf, the lion, and the dragon, that were to pull the moldwarp down. [158b]

This treaty, made with so much secrecy, and executed in the recesses of Glyndwr’s dominions, was soon communicated to King Henry. Sir David Gam, so called because he had a crooked eye, or squinted, or, as some say, had but one eye, was a strong and faithful partizan of the Duke of Lancaster, now King Henry IV. and consequently the inveterate enemy of Owen Glyndwr, now Prince of Wales, at whose Parliament he attended, together with the chief of the Welch nobles and gentry, but with very different intentions; he having determined to put an end to Glyndwr’s rebellion with his life. [159a]

David Gam was the son of Llewellyn Ap Howel Vaughn, a gentleman of Brecknock. His scheme and his purpose were, however, unfortunately for him, discovered and frustrated, and he was immediately secured, and ordered by Owen for execution; [159b] but many of his greatest friends and adherents pleading for Gam’s life, Owen thought it politic then to stifle his resentment, and to grant him both life and liberty, on his solemnly promising to continue in future true and faithfully loyal to Glyndwr.

The promises of men in those days were frequently regarded only so long as it suited their interests or convenience. Such was the case with David Gam, who no sooner found himself among his own friends, and in his own country, than he began to assail and annoy all the favourers and adherents of Glyndwr, who being soon apprised of the practices against him, and of the use Sir David made of his liberty, marched with all expedition at the head of a small body of his retainers, intending to make him prisoner; [161] but Sir David had the good fortune to elude his vigilance, and escaped into England, where he lived for the most part at court, not daring to visit his native country until after the death of Owen Glyndwr.

Having thus missed his prey, Owen set no bounds to his resentment. He burnt Gam’s house to the ground, wasted his substance, despoiled his tenants and friends, and by the rigor of his proceedings so estranged the hearts of all, and created so many enemies, that it was reasonable to expect that through Sir David’s means, or some of his emissaries, the King would have information of what was plotting against him in Wales.Henry at this time, fortunately, had a small army assembled for another purpose; and no sooner was he apprised of this conspiracy against him, than, placing himself at the head of his troops, he marched them for Wales, to attack the confederates before they had time to conjoin their forces. [162a] Owen had not collected all his strength,[162b] and the Earl of Northumberland, who was considered generalissimo, being seized with a sudden illness, and confined to his bed at Berwick-upon-Tweed, the King found the rebels under the command of Hotspur at Shrewsbury.

The insurgent chiefs, seeing a battle inevitable, and knowing that Glyndwr, with his hardy Welchmen, was in full march to join them (in fact, he reached Oswestry at the head of 12,000 men on the very day the battle was fought), to gain time proposed a conference, and drew up a list of grievances to be redressed; but the matter ended in mutual recrimination, and both sides prepared for battle. The numbers were nearly equal, about 12,000 on each side, and the two armies were inflamed by the most dreadful animosity.

The battle began with the most determined courage. The King was seen every where animating his troops in the post of danger, and he was most nobly seconded by his son, afterwards the renowned Henry V. the conqueror of France. On the other side the chieftains fought like men accustomed to the bloody business of war; and the battle was fierce, obstinate, and doubtful; when the daring Hotspur, supporting the high character which he had purchased by so many victories, and seeking a personal encounter with the King, fell by an unknown hand.

The loss of their gallant leader was the loss of the battle. The fortune of the King prevailed; and although on that day no less than two thousand six hundred gentlemen, and six thousand common men were slain, this victory served to confirm Henry on his usurped throne, humbled the great Barons, and restored peace to England. Had Owen Glyndwr at this juncture pressed forward from Oswestry, where it has been before said he was lying with a fresh army, and as numerous as the English were before they had sustained so severe a loss, he might have changed the aspect of affairs; but at this distance of time a proper judgment cannot be formed. Some historians blame him for his precipitate retreat into Wales, whither he was followed by a part of the English army, under young Henry, who made himself master of the Castle of Aberystwith, which Owen afterwards recaptured.

After this time Owen’s fortunes appeared to decline, [165] and the fatal battle of Husk, fought on the 15th of March, in which Glyndwr’s son was taken, and more than fifteen hundred of his men slain, seems to have sealed his doom. But Glyndwr, although reduced, was not subdued, and he continued a predatory and harassing warfare, most annoying and destructive; sometimes making a sudden eruption into the marches, and sometimes into the heart of the country; for now, the Welch having submitted to the King, and being reconciled, Glyndwr considered his countrymen his enemies. His skill in devices, together with his local knowledge of the country, kept the Principality in a dreadful state of fear and fermentation; and although he eluded every effort made to entrap him, yet his turbulent spirit drew upon his country the vengeance of the King, in the most severe laws that were ever enacted against a civilised people. [166]Owen Glyndwr, once Prince of Wales, was now reduced to hide himself in the caves and fastnesses of the country, to avoid the pursuit of his enemies. He was concealed and supported for some time by Ednyfed Ap Aron, in a cave near the sea-side, at Llangelynin, in Merionethshire, still called Ogof Owain. [167] The danger past, he again blazed forth in the destruction of a territory he had once aspired to govern; sometimes a fugitive, enduring hunger, thirst, and every privation; at others revelling as a conqueror, on the spoils of his countrymen and former friends. At last his depredations became so general and so indiscriminate that he feared every one, and became as “a wild man, and his hand was against every man, and every man’s hand was against him.” Being thus driven by his fears from society, he fled to the most solitary places, and at length died for lack of sustenance. [168]

Thus ignobly perished Owen Ap Gryffydd Fychan, commonly known by the name of Owen Glyndwr—a man who, from trifling causes, had conceived more determined hostility against the English, and had conducted that hostility with more consummate skill, than any other general the Welch had ever produced. In his early career he was uniformly victorious: he was proclaimed Prince of Wales with the sanction of the chief men of the country, made alliances with princes, and exercised his authority with becoming dignity; but now—

“Mighty victor, mighty Lord,
Low on his funeral couch he lies:
No pitying heart, no eye t’ afford
A tear to grace his obsequies.”

Owen Glyndwr was one of those fiery meteors which Providence sometimes permits to visit the earth, for the instruction of mankind, and to show us the vanity of all sublunary things: astonishing the world with their splendour, they blaze for a short time; and as suddenly decline, and sink into obscurity. Such, in our own horizon, have been Glyndwr and Cromwell, and in later times Bonaparte. Their course was brilliant, but short; and as their greatness grew, so did their suspicions and their fears; until, at last, life itself became burdensome, and the end of their career was clouded by disappointment, misery, and despair.

But Owen Glyndwr had more legitimate reasons to plead than either of his compeers. Deprived of a part of his patrimony by power, and unable to obtain redress by law, he took the law into his own hands, and had recourse to force. Success produced ambition, which proved his overthrow.Owen was bold, wary, and revengeful: he set no bounds to his resentment. He made a smoking ruin of the dwelling of his countryman, Sir David Gam, and thereby made him an implacable enemy. He was the cause of the loss of one hundred thousand lives, [171] and of the destruction of immense property. Many houses and other buildings were burnt and destroyed by him; among which I find enumerated the Castle of Ruthin, the Cathedral of St. Asaph, the Cathedral of Bangor, the Bishop’s Palace, &c. at Llandaff, the towns of Leominster and Old Radnor, besides the house of Sir David Gam, &c.

It will be right to notice that Mr. Pennant gives the following account of the death of Owen Glyndwr; but as he states there is nothing confirmatory of Owen’s interment at Monnington, I have thought it right to adhere to the older authorities:—“He matched his daughters,” says Mr. Pennant, “into considerable families: his eldest, Isabel, to Adam Ap Iorwerth Ddu; his second, Elizabeth, or as some say, Alicia, to Sir John Scudamore, of Ewyas, and Home Lacy, in Herefordshire; Jane he forced upon Lord Grey De Ruthin; and his youngest daughter, Margaret, to Roger Monnington, of Monnington, in Herefordshire, at whose house some accounts say he died, and was buried in the church-yard there.” [172]

The prison where Owen confined his captives, and of which some remains may still be seen, was near the church at Llansanfraid Glyndyfrdwy; and the place is still called Carchardy Owen Glyndwr. He is said to have died in the sixty-first year of his age.

I trust it will be deemed a pardonable digression, if I now give the sequel of the military career of that loyal and truly brave Welchman, Sir David Gam. I have before recounted that Glyndwr forced him to fly for protection to the court of England, where he continued in favour with King Henry IV. until the death of that monarch. I then find him accompanying his son, King Henry V. on his expedition into France, in the year of our Lord 1415, at the head and in the command of a numerous body of stout and valiant Welchmen, who on all occasions distinguished themselves by their courage and conduct. [174]

To Sir David Gam was assigned the important office of reconnoitring the French army, on the approach of the famous battle of Agincourt. Finding the French nearly ten times more numerous than the English army, he replied to the King’s question as to the enemy’s strength—“An’t please you, my Liege, they are enough to be killed, enough to run away, and enough to be taken prisoners.” The King was well pleased with such an answer from a man of Sir David’s valour.

In the battle which followed, and which was fought on the 25th of October, 1415, the King alighted from his horse to head his footmen, and to encourage them to resist the charge of the second line of the French army, then advancing; when eighteen French cavaliers, who had bound themselves by an oath to kill King Henry, or perish, rushed upon him in a body, and one of them with a blow of his battle-axe so stunned the King that he would have fallen an easy victim, had not Sir David Gam, with his son-in-law, Roger Vaughn, and his kinsman, Walter Llwyd, of Brecknock, seasonably sprung to his rescue. They slew fourteen of the assailants, and delivered the King, when they fell at his feet, covered with wounds. In the heat of the battle, Henry was separated from his brave defenders; but being soon afterwards informed that their wounds were mortal, he immediately repaired to the spot where Sir David and his faithful companions lay; and, as the only recompense in his power then to bestow, he knighted them all three upon the field, where they soon after died. [176]

Thus ended the life of Sir David Gam; but the remembrance of his loyalty, and the fame of his valour, will live, and perpetuate his memory.

“So sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country’s wishes bless’d.
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow’d mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung.
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there.”

It is conjectured that Shakspeare took Sir David as a specimen, when he wrote the character of Captain Fluellen, in Henry V.

Returning towards Llangollen from Glyndyfrdwy, along a beautiful level road, made at the expense of Government, with the Berwyn Mountains rising abruptly on the right hand, and the murmuring Dee pursuing its devious course on the left, I pass a small brook, which divides the counties of Merioneth and Denbigh. A pillar on the top of the mountain above is for the same purpose. The views over the Dee are incomparably charming.