At my nativity

The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,

Of burning cressets; and at my birth

The frame and huge foundation of the earth

Shaked like a coward … all the courses of my life do show

I am not in the roll of commen men.

–Shakespeare (Henry IV)

Born in 1349, at the height of the Black Plague, Owain Glyndwr lived in a turbulent time in Wales.  With the defeat of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd in 1282, Wales became nothing more than a vassal to the English crown and the vast majority of the native rulers were dead or unseated by English barons.  Glyndwr’s family had supported Llywelyn, but had allied themselves with the Mortimers and Lestranges afterwards such that they got to keep their lands.

As was so often the case in Wales, however, Glyndwr found himself in trouble when he “ran up against his powerful neighbor, Reginald de Grey, Lord of Ruthin, an intimate of the new king, Henry IV. The quarrel was over common land which Grey had stolen. Glyndwr could get no justice from the king or parliament. This proud man, over forty and grey-haired, was visited with insult and malice.  There are indications that Glyndwr made an effort to contact other disaffected Welshmen, and when he raised his standard outside Ruthin on 16 September 1400, his followers from the very beginning proclaimed himPrince of Wales.” http://www.castlewales.com/glyndwr.html

By 1403, Glyndwr controlled most of Wales and “in 1404, Glyndwr assembled a parliament of four men from every commot in Wales at Machynlleth, drawing up mutual recognition treaties with France and Spain. At Machynlleth, he was also 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: Mortimer would take the south and west of England, Thomas Percy, earl of Northumberland, would have the midlands and the north, and himself Wales and the Marches of England.”   http://www.castlewales.com/glyndwr.html

Over the next few years, Glyndwr’s power and influence began to wane, especially after King Henry IV of England  was able to turn his attention from the Scots to the Welsh.   In 1409, Mortimer and Glyndwr’s family were captured and taken to the Tower of London.   Although Henry V offered Glyndwr a pardon in 1413, he refused it.  There is no record of what happened to him after that, and no location for his death and burial.  For historical purposes, he vanished.

http://www.historynet.com/owain-glyndwrs-fight-for-wales.htm/2

Owain Glyndwy is immortalized in Shakespeare’s play, King Henry IV:

“The Earl of Northumberland, his son Henry Percy [Harry Hotspur] and the Archbishop of York, began rebellions against Henry. They joined with the Mortimer family and Owain Glyndwr, there plan was to overthrow Henry IV, and divide the kingdom into three parts – the northern part for the Northumberland family, the southern part for the Mortimers, Wales and the western midlands of England for Owain Glyndwr. However the rebellion failed.”  http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~yawn/h4sh.htm

This bears a fascinating resemblance to Clare, Prince Llywelyn, and Simon de Montfort’s plans to divide England and Wales 150 years earlier.

From the play:

In faith, he is a worthy gentleman,

Exceedingly well read, and profited

In strange concealments; valiant as a lion,

And wondrous affable; and as bountiful

As mines of India…