Owain Glyndŵr

Life before the revolt, c. 1359 – 1400

Background and family

Owain ap Gruffudd Fychan was born in or before 1359, the son of Gruffudd Fychan and Elen ferch Tomas. Owain's father's family descended from another, earlier Gruffudd Fychan, younger brother of Llywelyn Fychan, the last lord of Northern Powys, killed alongside Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in the last stage of the Edwardian Conquest of Wales, and ultimately from Madog ap Maredudd, last ruler of a united Powys. Following the Conquest, the earlier Gruffudd Fychan swore fealty to King Edward and was permitted on 12 February 1283 to hold his land of the king by 'Welsh barony', a tenure largely confined to members of the former royal dynasties of Wales under which Gruffudd and his descendants owed the Crown only military service and retained the right to hold court on their lands. Owain's father, the later Gruffudd Fychan, held two lordships at opposite ends of the Berwyn range: that of the vill of Glyndyfrdwy in Meirioneth within the Principality of Wales, and half of Cynllaith in the Marcher lordship of Chirk. Little of Gruffudd's career is recorded, though from 1346 to 1348 he held the stewardship of the Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel's lordship of Oswestry. Gruffudd's own father, Gruffudd Llwyd, was steward of the Crown lordship of Maelor Saesneg in 1331, and married a daughter of John V Lestrange of Knockin, an English nobleman of the Shropshire border. Gruffudd Llwyd abandoned the partible succession customary in native Welsh law in favour of primogeniture in tail on the English model, keeping his estates undivided and his descendants wealthy.

Owain's mother Elen descended from Gruffudd, eldest son of the Lord Rhys of Deheubarth, and on the deaths of her uncle and brother, the last males of their dynasty, inherited half the commote of Is Coed in Ceredigion. She descended also in the female line from the dynasty of Gwynedd, and even from King John through his daughter Joan, wife of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth of Gwynedd. Elen and her ancestors likewise held their land by 'Welsh barony'. Owain's direct descent from the three principal Welsh dynasties of the pre-Conquest era made him a singular figure in fourteenth-century Wales.

Inheritance and education

Gruffudd Fychan died shortly before 1370, leaving to Owain his estates in Cynllaith and Glyndyfrdwy, after which Owain would be known as 'Owain Glyndŵr'. Owain may have spent his youth after his father's death as a page or esquire in the court of the Fitzalan earls of Arundel; Richard Fitzalan, whom Gruffudd Fychan had served as steward, was sufficiently close with the family to loan £20 to Elen ferch Tomas in 1370. Owain may have been introduced to the earls' court by David Hanmer, an important lawyer from Maelor Saesneg with connection to the earls of Arundel and barons of Powis who was like Owain of mixed English and Welsh background. Gruffudd Fychan's estates may also have been taken into the custody of Hanmer until Owain's majority, with the young Owain having been his ward. Perhaps under the direction of his guardian, Owain may himself have trained in the legal profession for as many as seven years at the Inns of Court towards the end of the reign of Edward III, who died in 1377. However, in the fourteenth century the Inns of Court were, according to J. E. Lloyd, paraphrasing the fifteenth-century judge John Fortescue, "a kind of upper-class university, too expensive for any but the well-to-do and providing an education which was more social than professional."

Early career

Owain continued in the service of the Fitzalan earls of Arundel following the end of his education. The earl whom his father had served died in 1377, and was succeeded by his son, also named Richard. Owain's service to the younger Richard Fitzalan is one of the most well-attested periods of his career prior to his rebellion. Before the first records of his service to Arundel, however, Owain appears to have been married to Margaret Hanmer, daughter of David Hanmer. The date of this marriage is disputed. The unreliable nineteenth-century antiquarian William Owen dated Owain's marriage to 1383, but R. R. Davies suggested a date in the 1370s whilst Owain was the ward of her father, drawing a parallel with the marriage of Owain's grandfather Gruffudd Llwyd whilst underage with the daughter of his guardian in 1304.

On 1 March 1384, Owain and his brother Tudur were listed as men-at-arms among the retainers of Sir Gregory Sais, guardian of the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed on the English-Scottish border. Gregory Sais was, according to A. D. Carr, "perhaps the greatest of the Welsh captains of this period" and a close confidant of the Black Prince in the Edwardian phase of the Hundred Years' War. Owain also likely became acquainted during his assignment in Berwick with Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland and his son Hotspur, who both would feature prominently in his future. In August 1385, King Richard II launched an inconclusive campaign against Scotland which nevertheless razed and plundered its way to Edinburgh. Owain's participation in this campaign is not recorded in contemporary records, but his participation in it is confirmed by his own testimony in the following year. At the age of twenty-seven, Owain was called to give evidence for the High Court of Chivalry on 3 September 1386 in Chester as part of the proceedings of the Scrope v Grosvenor trial. Richard Scrope brought a suit seeking to determine who could bear a coat of arms blazoned Azure, a bend Or against Robert Grosvenor after he saw Grosvenor displaying arms identical to his own on the Scottish campaign; the case lasted for six years. Owain testified that he had seen Grosvenor bear these arms on the expedition in Scotland and that the arms were generally known to be his in Cheshire and Flintshire, as did his brother Tudur, who was then twenty-four. Owain's brothers-in-law John Hanmer and Robert Puleston, the latter married to Owain's sister Lowri, also testified in this trial and were earlier involved in the same Scottish campaign. These men may have served in this campaign in the retinue of the earl of Arundel, or perhaps been mustered directly by Richard II as part of the sizeable contingent from the county palatine of Chester.

Owain and his brother Tudur were mustered in Sandwich on 13 March 1387 as part of the retinue of his old acquaintance, Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel. Since 1385, England had been threatened annually by a French naval invasion from Flanders. On 10 December 1386, Richard II had been given a commission to lead 2500 men in a campaign to pre-emptively strike the Franco-Flemish navy commencing March 1387. King Richard had been stripped of his control over England's government in the Wonderful Parliament a month prior, and Arundel was one of the leading opponents of the king, at the centre of the kingdom's political life. Arundel commanded his men in a fleet as admiral, and routed a predominantly Flemish wine fleet sailing home from La Rochelle in the Battle of Margate on 24 March, England's first notable success at sea since the resumption of war with France. The opposing fleet attempted to break through the English navy to Sluis, but was intercepted and forced to fight or beach at Cadzand shore; the battle's spoils included more than 8000 tuns of Poitevin and Saintongeais wine, flooding the English market. Owain was not knighted by Arundel following the battle, though many of his other squires were; this led R. R. Davies to note that though Owain was "by far the greatest of 'the barons of Wales', he could not even make it to the rank of a knight in England".

Owain's father-in-law David Hanmer died in early summer 1387, and by July, Owain had returned to settle the family affairs, just as Arundel began to take action against Robert de Vere, the earl of Oxford and Richard II's favourite. He does not appear to have taken part in any further campaigns under Arundel, as though Owain was enrolled in the earl's retinue at the head of his esquires with the aim of serving in France in 1388, his name was crossed out in the lists, meaning he did not serve. For the next decade, Owain is not mentioned in any surviving records save on 28 June 1397, when the Roman pope Boniface IX granted an indult to Owain and Margaret Hanmer allowing a confessor to grant them plenary remission in the hour of death. J. E. Lloyd, repeated by R. R. Davies, imagined Owain in these years "at ease, wealthy, generous, respected, [and] happy in the life of his home." Ultimately, Owain's hopes for advancement in a military career may have been dashed by the signing of a peace treaty with France in 1389 following Richard II's return to power at Arundel's expense; his other obvious patron, Gregory Sais, died in 1390. No record survives of Owain serving Arundel in an administrative capacity as Gruffudd Fychan served the earl's father, and so the relationship between the two may have at some point cooled.

Though Owain does not appear in traditional historical sources in this period, he was a patron of traditional Welsh poets, including Gruffudd Llwyd and Iolo Goch, a successor to Dafydd ap Gwilym and the leading cywyddwr of his day. Iolo sang three poems to Owain before 1400: one praising his ancestry, one praising him, sung around 1385, and one to his court in Sycharth, sung around 1390. Despite his cognomen deriving from Glyndwfrdwy, Owain's main residence and main source of income appears to have been Sycharth, a moated house in his half of Cynllaith. While Owain's wealth was modest by English standards, he was among the wealthiest of the native Welsh nobility, and may have had an income of up to £70 per annum. Owain himself ordered the construction of the house which hosted Iolo. Iolo's poem praising Owain's ancestry notes his descent from the pre-Conquest princes Rhys ap Gruffudd of Deheubarth, Bleddyn ap Cynfyn of Powys, and Gruffudd ap Cynan of Gwynedd, urging Owain to press his claim to all Powys as his rightful inheritance, while his poem praising Owain himself mentions his service with Gregory Sais in Scotland.

According to Dafydd Johnston, the "most satisfying poem" to Owain by Iolo is Iolo's poem celebrating Sycharth, known by the title "Owain Glyndŵr's Court". The poem describes Sycharth as a moated site ringed by water and approached by a bridge and a single gate, its timber halls raised on four great pillars atop a green hill. Iolo dwells on the symmetry and joinery of the building, likening its coupled roof-timbers and cruciform plan to St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin and the new cloister of Westminster Abbey, and enumerating nine matching halls, nine wardrobes, a tiled roof and a smoking chimney, and glazed chapels flanking the hall. The surrounding estate is catalogued with equal precision: a watermill, a stone dovecot, a fishpond stocked with pike and sewin, an orchard and vineyard, land producing Owain's food worked by the his serfs, peacocks and herons, a rabbit warren and a deer park, with imported Shrewsbury ale, bragget, wine and white bread on the table. The poem then turns to Owain's family, praising his wife Margaret as the finest of women, generous with wine and mead and noble by birth and disposition, and their children, who come in pairs as a "fine nestful of chieftains", before closing on the openness of the household itself:

Sycharth was the centre of the fertile lands of the eastern half of Cynllaith in the lordship of Chirk, only a mile from the border with England, yet at the time still thoroughly Welsh in character. Owain's share of Cynllaith looked eastward to England: Sycharth lay a mere ten miles from the Arundel castle of Chirk, the market town of Oswestry, and the castles of Whittington and Knockin, the residences of two other Marcher baronial families, the Fitzwarins and the Lestranges, with Chester and Shrewsbury beyond. The fine quality of Owain's home was noted in a letter by none other than Prince Hal to his father Henry IV following its destruction during the rebellion in 1402; the prince described Sycharth as "a well-built house... [with] a fine lodge in his park".

Prelude to rebellion

In the late 1390s, a series of events occurred which cornered Owain, and forced his ambitions towards a rebellion. The events would later be called the "Welsh Revolt", "the Glyndŵr Rising" (within Wales), or the "Last War of Independence". His neighbour, Baron Grey of Ruthin, had seized control of some land, for which Owain appealed to the English Parliament; however, Owain's petition for redress was ignored. Later, in 1400, Lord Grey did not inform Owain in time about a royal command to levy feudal troops for Scottish border service, thus enabling him to call Owain a traitor in London court circles. Lord Grey had stature in the royal court of Henry IV. The law courts refused to hear the case, or it was delayed because Lord Grey prevented Owain's letter from reaching the King, which would have repercussions. Sources state that Owain was under threat because he had written an angry letter to Lord Grey, boasting that lands had come into his possession, and he had stolen some of Lord Grey's horses; and believing Lord Grey had threatened to "burn and slay" within his lands, he threatened retaliation in the same manner. Lord Grey then denied making the initial threat to burn and slay, and replied that he would take the incriminating letter to Henry IV's council and that Owain would hang for the admission of theft and treason contained within the letter. The deposed king, Richard II, had support in Wales, and in January 1400 serious civil disorder broke out in the English border city of Chester after the public execution of an officer of Richard II.

Early rebellion, 1400 – 1404

At Sycharth on 16 September 1400, in front of his immediate family, his in-laws, Welsh people from Berwyn, friends from North-East Wales, the Dean of St Asaph totalling 300 men, Owain Glyndŵr prophecised that he was the person to save his people from the English invasions, and proclaimed himself the Prince of Wales. The following day, he instigated a 15-year rebellion against the rule of Henry IV. Then came a number of initial confrontations between Henry IV and Owain's followers in September and October 1400, as the revolt began to spread around North Wales. Owain was immediately proclaimed Prince of Wales by his followers and subsequently launched an assault on Lord Grey's territories, burning Ruthin. They continued to Denbigh, Rhuddlan, Flint, Holt, Oswestry and Welshpool, all of which were seen as English towns in Wales. The initial revolt got the attention of the King of England after letters were sent asking for military assistance to combat the Welsh rebels. Much of northern and central Wales went over to Owain, and from then on, he would only make an appearance to attack his enemy, his army using effective guerrilla warfare tactics against the English occupying territories.

On Good Friday (1 April) 1401, 40 of Glyndwr's men who were led by his cousins, Rhys ap Tudur and Gwilym ap Tudur, took Conwy Castle in North Wales. In response, King Henry IV appointed Henry Percy (Hotspur) to bring the country to order. A month later, the King and the English parliament issued an amnesty which applied to all rebels with the exception of Owain and his cousins, the Tudurs; however, both the Tudurs were eventually pardoned after they gave up Conwy Castle on 28 May that same year. Hotspur won a battle at Cadair Idris two days later, but that was to be his final service for the King of England, as he retired his command as leader of the English troops after dealing with Owain. During that time in the spring of 1401, Owain appears in South Wales.

In June, Owain scored his first major victory in the field at Mynydd Hyddgen on Pumlumon; however, retaliation by Henry IV on Strata Florida Abbey was to follow in October that same year. The rebel uprising had occupied all of North Wales; labourers seized whatever weapons they could, and farmers sold their cattle to buy arms. Secret meetings were held everywhere, and bards "wandered about as messengers of sedition." Henry IV heard of a Welsh uprising at Leicester; Henry's army wandered North Wales to Anglesey and drove out Franciscan friars who favoured Richard II. All the while Owain, who was in hiding, had his estate at Sycharth forfeited by the King to John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset on 9 November 1400. By autumn, Gwynedd and Ceredigion (which temporarily submitted to England for a pardon) and Powys adhered to the rising against the English rule by supporting the rebellion. Owain's attempts at stoking rebellion with help from the Scottish and Irish were quashed, with the English showing no mercy and hanging some messengers.

As a response to the situation of warfare in Wales, the English Parliament between 1401 and 1402 enacted penal laws against the Welsh, designed to coerce submission in Wales, but the result was to create resentment that pushed many Welshmen into the rebellion. In the same year, Owain captured his archenemy Baron Grey de Ruthyn. He held him for almost a year until he received a substantial ransom from Henry. In June 1402, Owain defeated an English force led by Sir Edmund Mortimer near Pilleth (the Battle of Bryn Glas), where Mortimer was captured. Owain offered to release Mortimer for a large ransom but, in sharp contrast to his attitude to de Grey, Henry IV refused to pay. Mortimer's nephew could be said to have had a greater claim to the English throne than Henry himself, so his speedy release was not an option. In response, Mortimer negotiated an alliance with Owain and married one of Owain's daughters. It is also in 1402 that mention of the French and the people of Flanders helping Owain's daughter Janet, who was negotiating on the continent for her father for two years until 1404.

News of the rebellion's success spread across Europe, and Owain began to receive naval support from Scotland and Brittany. He also received the support of King Charles VI of France, who agreed to send French troops and supplies to aid the rebellion. In 1403 Glyndwr had amassed an army of 4,000 in his first division, and 12,000 soldiers in total. A Welsh army including a French contingent assimilated into forces mainly from Glamorgan and the Rhondda Valleys region commanded by Owain Glyndŵr, his senior general Rhys Gethin and Cadwgan, Lord of Glyn Rhondda, defeated a large English invasion force reputedly led by King Henry IV himself at the Battle of Stalling Down in Glamorgan.

Owain, facing years on the run, finally lost his estate in the spring of 1403, when Prince Henry as usual marched into Wales unopposed and burnt down Owain's houses at Sycharth and Glyndyfrdwy, as well as the commote of Edeirnion and parts of Powys. Owain continued to besiege towns and burn down castles; for 10 days in July that year, he toured the south and southwest of Wales until all of the south joined arms in rebelling against English rule. These actions induced an internal rebellion against the King of England, with the Percys joining the rising. It is around this stage of Owain's life that Hywel Sele, a cousin of the Welsh prince, attempted to assassinate Glyndŵr at the Nannau estate.

In 1403, the revolt became truly national in Wales. Royal officials reported that Welsh students at Oxford and Cambridge Universities were leaving their studies to join Owain, and also that Welsh laborers and craftsmen were abandoning their employers in England and returning to Wales. Owain could also draw on Welsh troops seasoned by the English campaigns in France and Scotland. Hundreds of Welsh archers and experienced men-at-arms left the English service to join the rebellion.

In 1404, Owain's forces took Aberystwyth Castle and Harlech Castle, then continued to ravage the south by burning Cardiff Castle. Then, a court was held at Harlech and Gruffydd Young was appointed as the Welsh Chancellor. There had been communication to Louis I, Duke of Orléans in Paris to try (unsuccessfully) to open the Welsh ports to French trade.

De facto rule of Wales, 1404 – 1405

Parliament

By 1404, no less than four royal military expeditions into Wales had been repelled, and Owain had solidified his control of the nation. By this point, Owain and the rebellion had assumed de facto rule of Wales, and Owain was able to project himself to his French allies as a legitimate Prince of Wales. In 1404, he and his supporters held parliaments at Machynlleth and Harlech. He also planned to build two national universities (one in the south and one in the north), to re-introduce the traditional Welsh laws of Hywel Dda, and to establish an independent Welsh church. There were envoys from other countries including France, Scotland, and the Kingdom of León (in Spain). In the summer of 1405, four representatives from every commote in Wales were sent to Harlech.

Tripartite indenture

In February 1405, Owain negotiated the Tripartite Indenture with Edmund Mortimer and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. The Indenture agreed to divide England and Wales among the three of them. Wales would extend as far as the rivers Severn and Mersey, including most of Cheshire, Shropshire and Herefordshire. The Mortimer Lords of March would take all of southern and western England and the Percys would take the north of England.

Although negotiations with the lords of Ireland were unsuccessful, Owain had reason to hope that the French and Bretons might be more welcoming. He dispatched Gruffudd Yonge and his brother-in-law John Hanmer (Margaret's brother) to negotiate with the French. The result was a formal treaty that promised French aid to Owain and the Welsh. The immediate effect seems to have been that joint Welsh and Franco-Breton forces attacked and laid siege to Kidwelly Castle. The Welsh could also count on semi-official fraternal aid from the Duchy of Brittany and from Scotland. Scots and French privateers were operating around Wales throughout Owain's war. Scottish ships had raided English settlements on the Llŷn Peninsula in 1400 and 1401. In 1403, a Breton squadron defeated the English in the Channel and devastated Jersey, Guernsey and Plymouth, while the French made a landing on the Isle of Wight. By 1404, they were raiding the coast of England, with Welsh troops on board, setting fire to Dartmouth and devastating the coast of Devon.

1405 was the "Year of the French" in Wales. A formal treaty between Wales and France was negotiated. On the continent, the French pressed the English as the French army invaded the English Plantagenet Aquitaine. Simultaneously, the French landed in force at Milford Haven in west Wales, burned Haverfordwest, and attempted to capture Pembroke Castle before they were bought off. The combined forces of French and Welsh took Carmarthen, which Owain had captured in 1403 but lost again. The occupants were given safe passage out, and they burned the town walls. Enguerrand de Monstrelet, a later chronicler gives an uncorroborated account of a march through Herefordshire and on into Worcestershire to Woodbury Hill, ten miles from Worcester. They met the English army and took positions from which they daily and viewed each other from a mile without any major action for eight days. Then, both sides seeming to find engagement too risky, departed.

Letter to Charles VI of France

By 1405, most French forces had withdrawn after politics in Paris shifted towards peace, with the Hundred Years' War continuing between England and France. On 31 March 1406, in St Peter ad Vincula church at Pennal, Owain wrote a letter to be sent to Charles VI of France. Owain's letter requested to maintain military support from the French to fend off the English in Wales. Owain suggested that in return, he would recognise Benedict XIII of Avignon as the Pope. The letter sets out the ambitions of Owain for an independent Wales with its own parliament, led by himself as Prince of Wales. These ambitions also included the return of the traditional law of Hywel Dda, rather than the enforced English law, establishment of an independent Welsh church by expanding the Bishoporic of St. David's into England, well as two universities, one in south Wales, and one in north Wales. Following this letter, senior churchmen and important members of society flocked to Owain's banner and English resistance was reduced to a few isolated castles, walled towns, and fortified manor houses.

Owain's Great Seal and a letter handwritten by him to the French in 1406 are in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. This letter is currently held in the Archives Nationales in Paris. Facsimile copies involving specialist ageing techniques and moulds of Owain's seal were created by the National Library of Wales and presented by the heritage minister Alun Ffred Jones to six Welsh institutions in 2009. The royal great seal from 1404 was given to Charles IV of France and contains images and Owain's title – Latin: Owynus Dei Gratia Princeps Walliae – "Owain, by the grace of God, Prince of Wales". Glyndwr referred to himself as the "Prince of Wales" and claimed his "right of inheritance" in these letters

The faltering rebellion, 1405 – 1412

In early 1405, the Welsh forces, who had until then won several easy victories, suffered a series of defeats. Owain's brother, Lord Tudur ap Gruffudd, a commander during the war, died at the Battle of Pwll Melyn in May 1405. English forces landed in Anglesey from Ireland and would over time push the Welsh back until the resistance in Anglesey formally ended toward the end of 1406.

Following the intervention of French forces, battling continued for years. In 1406 Prince Henry restored fines and redemption for Welsh soldiers so they could choose their own fate. Prisoners were taken after the battle and castles were restored to their original owners. In the same year a son of Owain died in battle. By 1408 Owain had taken refuge in the North of Wales, having lost his ally from Northumberland.

Despite the initial success of the revolution, in 1407 the superior numbers, resources, and wealth that England had at its disposal began to turn the tide of the war, and the much larger and better-equipped English forces gradually began to overwhelm the Welsh. In times of war, the English changed their strategy. Rather than focusing on punitive expeditions as favoured by his father, the young Prince Henry adopted a strategy of economic blockade. Using the castles that remained in English control, he gradually began to retake Wales while cutting off trade and the supply of weapons. By 1407, this strategy was beginning to bear fruit, and by 1408, the English regained Aberystwyth and then marched north Harlech Castle, which also surrendered during the cold winter into 1409. Edmund Mortimer died during the siege, and Owain's wife Margaret along with two of his daughters (including Catrin) and three of Mortimer's granddaughters were captured on the fall of the castle and imprisoned in the Tower of London. They were all to die in the Tower in 1413 and were buried at St Swithin, London Stone. Before his downfall, Owain was considered the wealthiest of all Welshmen.

Owain managed to escape capture by disguising himself as an elderly man, sneaking out of the castle and slipping past the English military blockade in the darkness of the night. Owain retreated to the Welsh wilderness with a band of loyal supporters; he refused to surrender and continued the war with guerrilla tactics such as launching sporadic raids and ambushes throughout Wales and the English borderlands.

Owain remained free, but he had lost his ancestral home and was a hunted prince. He continued the rebellion, particularly wanting to avenge his wife. In 1410, Owain led a raid into rebel-controlled Shropshire, and in 1412, he carried out one of the final successful raids. With his most faithful soldiers, he cut through the King's men in an ambush in Brecon, where he captured, and later ransomed, a leading Welsh supporter of King Henry, Dafydd Gam ('Crooked David'). This was the last time that Owain was seen alive by his enemies, although it was claimed he took refuge with the Scudamore family. In the autumn, Owain's Aberystwyth Castle surrendered, while he was away fighting, but by then things were changing. Henry IV died in 1413, and his son Henry V began to adopt a more conciliatory attitude towards the Welsh. Royal pardons were offered to the major leaders of the revolt and other opponents of his father's regime. As late as 1414, there were rumours that the Herefordshire-based Lollard leader Sir John Oldcastle was communicating with Owain, and reinforcements were sent to the major castles in the north and south.

On 21 December 1411, the King of England issued pardons to all Welsh except their leader and Thomas of Trumpington (until 9 April 1413, from which Owain was no longer excepted). Owain ignored offers of a pardon on many different occasions, his followers continued to be punished for crimes of war until the 1410s. The poet Lewys Glyn Cothi wrote an elegy for Gwenllian, an illegitimate daughter of Owain, where it was mentioned that at the time of the Welsh War of independence, the whole of Wales was under Owain's command, with forty dukes as the prince's allies, and that later in life he supported 62 female pensioners.

Disappearance and death, 1412 – c. 1416

Owain was never captured and appears to have spent the last years of his life in hiding. In the sixteenth-century antiquarian Gruffudd Hiraethog's Annals of Owain Glyn Dŵr, it is recounted that in 1415 Owain "went into hiding on St Matthew's Day in Harvest [September 21]", but this date is discounted by J. E. Lloyd as a mere repetition of his first absconding to the woods after the beginning of his revolt, which occurred on the same day in 1400. In 1415 and 1416, Owain's old enemy Henry V attempted to entreat Owain and the few remaining rebels to surrender and be pardoned, to which Owain never responded; Owain is presumed to have died around this time.

Accounts from Herefordshire

The uncertain circumstances surrounding Owain's final days gave rise to many legends surrounding his death. According to J. E. Lloyd and Gruffydd Aled Williams, the most credible sources associate Owain's death and burial with Herefordshire. The seventeenth-century History of Owen Glendower written by the antiquarians Robert Vaughan and Thomas Ellis notes that by their time "some say he dyed at his daughter Scudamores, others, at his daughter Monington's house". An early sixteenth-century translation of Tito Livio Frulovisi's Life of Henry the Fifth inserts into the text an assertion that Owain died "vppon the topp of Lawton's hope Hill in Herefordshire". Lawton's Hope farm near Canon Pyon was inherited by the Monnington family around the turn of the fourteenth century, and its owner around the time of Owain's death would have been Sir Richard Monnington, husband of Owain's daughter Sioned.

Other traditions associate the site of Owain's death with Kentchurch Court, owned by another one of Owain's sons-in-law, John Skydmore, though the better-attested hall of the family at this time was Bodenham at La Verne. In the early fifteenth century, the area around Kentchurch would have been majority Welsh-speaking, and Skydmore was the employed by the state as the Welsh interpreter for Gwidigada and Elfed in Carmarthenshire from the years 1411-1431. Another hall associated with this family is Monnington Straddle, which possessed a medieval chapel and was endorsed as Owain's place of rest by J. E. Lloyd. The final likely possibility for Owain's burial ground is at St James the Great, Kimbolton, which was formerly the chapelry of Leominster Priory and also owned by the Skydmores; this tradition is attributed to is attributed to the sixteenth-century scholar Edmund Prys, a Welshman who was vicar of nearby Ludlow from 1576 to 1579.

A second burial?

Owain may have been buried a second time, as according to Adam Usk, "After four years in hiding from the king and kingdom, Owen Glendower died, and was buried by his followers in the darkness of night. His grave was discovered by his enemies, however, so he had to be re-buried, though it is impossible to discover where he was laid." While Owain may have been reburied at some other location in Herefordshire, another possibility is outside of the county, even in Wales. The fifteenth-century poet Robin Ddu of Anglesey, writing in the tumultuous reign of Richard III, prophesied that "There is an old man in Maelienydd / whose hair is like blossom on trees... I have heard, captivating muse, / much poetry about an old white-haired man, / and if this one who will claim his right / is the prophesied white-haired one, / battle-axe and sword without delay / will extend the boundary of our land..." and in one line names this man as "Owain". In the fifteenth century, Lewys Glyn Cothi called the husband of Owain's daughter Gwenllïan who lived in the parish of St Harmon on the border between Gwrtheyrnion and Maelienydd "son-in-law to the Old White-haired One"; Lewys Glyn Cothi also associates Owain with Maelienydd in another poem. Thus, Gruffydd Aled Williams suggested the final resting place of Owain Glyndŵr may have been Cwmhir Abbey, which was located in Maelienydd and was also the final resting place of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the native Prince of Wales killed in the final stages of the Edwardian Conquest.

Issue and descendants

Owain married Margaret Hanmer, also known by her Welsh name Marred ferch Dafydd, and together they had five or six sons and four or five daughters. Also, Owain had some illegitimate children out of wedlock.

Sons

Gruffudd d. 1411.

Madog.

Maredudd alive in 1421.

Thomas.

John.

All of Owain and Margaret's sons from their marriage were either taken prisoner and died in confinement, or died in battle and had no issue. Gruffudd was captured in Gwent by Prince Henry, imprisoned in Nottingham Castle, and later taken to the Tower of London in 1410. Maredudd was recorded as communicating with John Talbot and the English Crown on 24 February 1416, and receiving a royal pardon in 1421, but dying a few years later.

Daughters

Alice (Alys), m. John Scudamore of Ewyas.

Jane.

Janet, m. Sir John De Croft.

Margaret, m. Sir Richard Monnington.

Catherine (Catrin) (d. 1413), m. (1) Edmund Mortimer (d. 1409), (2) Roger Mortimer.

Upon Owain's disappearance and death, his eldest (oldest child with descendants) daughter Alice came to be known as the Lady of Glyndyfrdwy and Cynllaith, and heiress de jure of the Principalities of Powys, South Wales and Gwynedd. During 1431, she successfully went to court in Meirionydd to regain her inheritance as the heiress of Sycharth in Glyndyfrdwy against John, Earl of Somerset, who had been granted Owain's forfeited lands by the King of England in 1400. Alice's descendants married into the Scudamore family and her direct descendant John Lucy Scudamore married the daughter of Harford Jones-Brydges in the early 19th century, and whose daughter in 1852 married the son of Edward Lucas from the Castleshane estate in Ireland. Another daughter, Jane, married Henry, Lord Grey de Ruthin without issue. Then, Janet married into the noble family of Croft Castle in Herefordshire, whose descendants today are titled the Croft Baronets. Whilst Margaret married a knight from Monnington, also in Herefordshire.

Illegitimate

Owain's illegitimate children with other women included Ieuan, Myfanwy and Gwenllian, whilst it is debated whether his son David was born out of wedlock. Ieuan became Owain's only male descendant to have children. Like his other illegitimate kin, they remained in Wales and married locally into Welsh families. Gwenllian became the wife of Philip ab Rhys ab Cenarth, and died near St Harmon in Powys (Radnorshire).

Legacy

In Welsh culture Owain acquired a mythical status alongside other medieval kings such as Cadwaladr, Cynon ap Clydno and King Arthur. He was perceived as a folk hero awaiting a call to return and liberate his people in the classic Welsh mythical role – Y Mab Darogan ('the foretold son'). The myth was that one day after a thousand years of servitude under English rule, a 'Son of Prophecy' would return the Welsh people as rulers of the island of Great Britain. Also, in Welsh folklore, the name Owain has been connected to a legend of the 'son of destiny'. His claim as the Prince of Wales was similar to that of another distant relative from the Gwynedd dynasty. It was another Owain, Lawgoch (Owain ap Thomas ap Rhodri) who proclaimed his patrimony a few decades earlier, when he attempted to regain his family stature with aid from the King of France in a Franco-Welsh alliance from the late 1360s, until his assassination in 1378.

Modern legacy

Owain was described by Fidel Castro as the first effective guerrilla leader. It has been suggested that Castro, who may have kept books about the Welshman, and Che Guevara copied some of Owain's methods in the Cuban Revolution.

During the First World War, the prime minister David Lloyd George unveiled a statue to Owain in Cardiff City Hall. A statue of Owain by the sculptor Simon van de Put was installed in The Square in Corwen in 1995, and in 2007 it was replaced with a larger equestrian statue by Colin Spofforth.

Owain came second to Aneurin Bevan in the 100 Welsh Heroes poll of 2003/2004. Stamps were issued with his likeness in 1974 and 2008, and streets, parks, and public squares were named after him throughout Wales. There is a campaign to make 16 September (Owain Glyndŵr Day), the date Owain raised his standard, a public holiday in Wales, including by Dafydd Wigley in 2021.

RGC 1404 (Rygbi Gogledd Cymru, 'north Wales rugby') rugby union team is named in honour of "the year Owain Glyndŵr became Prince of Wales".

To celebrate the 600th anniversary of Owain's life, a monument was erected in Machynlleth in the grounds of Plas Machynlleth.

Owain is now remembered as a national hero and numerous small groups have adopted his symbolism to advocate independence for Wales or Welsh nationalism. For example, during the 1980s, a group calling itself Meibion Glyndŵr ("the Sons of Glyndŵr") claimed responsibility for the burning of English holiday homes in Wales.

Literature

After Owain's death, there was little resistance to English rule. The Tudor dynasty saw Welshmen become more prominent in English society. In Henry IV, Part 1, Shakespeare portrays him as Owen Glendower (the name has since been adopted as the anglicised version of Owain Glyndŵr), wild and exotic; a man who claims to be able to "call spirits from the vasty deep", ruled by magic and tradition in sharp contrast to the more logical but highly emotional Hotspur. Glendower is further noted as being "not in the roll of common men" and "a worthy gentleman,/Exceedingly well read, and profited/ In strange concealments, valiant as a lion/And as wondrous affable and as bountiful/As mines of India." His enemies describe him "that damn'd magician", which was in reference to having the weather on his side in battle.

It was not until the late 19th century that Owain's reputation was revived, when the Cymru Fydd ('young Wales') movement recreated Owain as the father of Welsh nationalism.

Owain later acquired mythical status as the hero awaiting a call to return and liberate his people. Thomas Pennant, in his Tours in Wales (1778, 1781 and 1783), searched out and published many of the legends and places associated with the memory of Owain.

Owain has been featured in a number of works of modern fiction, including most notably John Cowper Powys's novel Owen Glendower (1941), and Edith Pargeter's 1972 publication A Bloody Field by Shrewsbury.

A highly fictionalised Owain is featured in the popular YA book series The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater as Owen Glendower. In the series, which takes place in the Shenandoah Valley, characters believe that Owain's body was brought from Wales to Virginia after his death, and that whoever can "wake" him will be granted a favour.

From 5 to 28 November 2026 a new play by Gary Owen called Owain & Henry, about Owain's rebellion against the rule of Henry IV of England in the 15th century, will be performed at the Welsh National Theatre with Michael Sheen playing Owain. Sheen said "He meant absolutely nothing. I was never taught about him ... I knew nothing about his story. I was never taught Welsh history. It wasn't on the curriculum ... that tells you something... We're talking about a figure voted the second most important Welsh person of all time, only behind Aneurin Bevan [the architect of the NHS, but nobody's ever done anything about him on this scale before. That tells a story in itself."

Namesakes

The Owain Glyndwr Hotel in Corwen is a historic 18th century coaching inn.

The Owain Glyndŵr pub in Cardiff, briefly named Owen Glendower was named in his honour.

The waymarked, 132-mile long-distance footpath Glyndŵr's Way runs through Mid Wales near to his homelands.

At least two ships and two locomotives have been named after Owain:

In 1808, the Royal Navy launched a 36-gun fifth-rate frigate,HMS Owen Glendower. She served in the Baltic Sea during the Gunboat War where she participated in the seizure of Anholt Island, and then in the Channel. Between 1822 and 1824, she served in the West Africa Squadron (or "Preventative Squadron") chasing down slave ships, capturing at least two;

Owen Glendower, an East Indiaman, a Blackwall frigate built in 1839;

In 1923, a 2-6-2T Vale of Rheidol locomotive was named after Owain. The locomotive is still operational and was one of a few used by British Rail until it was privatised;

70010 Owen Glendower, renamed Owain Glyndŵr, built in 1951 at the Crewe Works, it was withdrawn in June 1965. It was a British Railways Standard Class 7 mixed-traffic steam locomotive.

In 2002, a plaque was unveiled near the Tower of London to commemorate Glyndwr's daughter Catrin who died there with her children.

From 2008 to 2023, Wrexham University was known as (Wrexham) Glyndŵr University in his honour. Despite dropping the name in 2023, the university maintains links with the Owain Glyndŵr Society for one of its annual graduate awards.