Welsh marches; his brother and sister are imprisoned at Windsor. The kings of France and Scotland refuse to recognise Henry as king, and prepare for an invasion of England, alleging the truces to have expired with the deposition of Richard. The threatened invasion never took place, but the subjects of both crowns carried on for years a course of depredations on the English coasts. In particular, Waleran, count of St. Polv, fitted out a strong fleet, which kept the southern and eastern shores in constant alarm, the Scots cruised in the northern seas, and the Bretons and Spaniards ravaged the west. Henry's remonstrances being disregarded, for these freebooters were not to be controlled by their feeble sovereigns, private individuals and towns in England fitted out ships, to retaliate on the enemy, and the narrow seas soon became one scene of piracy. The parliament at various times granted sums for the defence of the coasts, but these were generally understood to be misapplied by the king's officers, and the English trade was nearly destroyed; at length in 1406, a body of with the Percies and Glyndwr in behalf of his right, but he abandoned the contest, made his submission, betrayed the counsels of his adherents, and lived a humble dependant on the Lancastrian princes, until the time of his death. He died of the plague, in the castle of Trim, in Ireland, in 1424, holding at the time the office of lord-lieutenant. His sister Anne was the mother of Richard, duke of York. ▾ He had resided in England, both as a prisoner and as an ambassador, and had married a half-sister of King Richard. The Spaniards were the subjects of the king of Navarre (Charles III.), who was nearly related to the king of France. Charles VI. of France and Robert III. of Scotland were both mere puppets in the hands of their unprincipled relatives, the dukes of Orleans, Burgundy, and Albany. merchants came forward, who offered to undertake the guardianship of the seas for a term, if certain subsidies were paid into their hands, instead of to the exchequery. A.D. 1400. The earls of Huntingdon, Kent, and Salisbury, Lord Despenser, and others league together to release king Richard, and murder Henry at a tournament at Oxford; the plot is betrayed by the earl of Rutland, Jan. 4. Henry flees from Windsor, and raises an army of Londoners; the earls withdraw towards the west, but entering Cirencester (in the evening of Jan. 6,) without their forces, they are assailed by the townsmen, some killed, others captured, and the rest put to flighta. Henry proceeds as far as Oxford with his forces, when Sir Benet Shelley, and Sir Thomas Blount, (personal attendants of king Richard",) and about thirty others taken › This expedient failed; the merchants' admirals (Richard Clyderow and Nicholas Blackburne) were soon dismissed by the king, and replaced by his half-brother Thomas, earl of Dorset, who also held the incongruous office of lord chancellor. • Son of Edmund, duke of York; he afterwards bore that title himself, and was killed at Agincourt. a John Cosin, the constable of the town, was rewarded with a pension of 100 marks, and the townsmen received all the goods and chattels of the slain; even the women were gratified with a gift of six does and a hogshead of wine. The earl of Kent was killed in the skirmish; the earl of Salisbury was beheaded there without trial, Jan. 7, as was Sir Ralph Lumley, Jan. 10; Despenser fled to Wales, but trying to leave the country, he was carried, after a desperate resistance, to Bristol, and beheaded there Jan. 10; the earl of Huntingdon escaped, but was seized a few days after at Prittlewell, in Essex, and being carried before the countess of Hereford, (mother-in-law to Henry and sister of the earl of Arundel and the archbishop,) was beheaded by her order, and in her presence, at Pleshy, Jan. 15 or 16. The heads of the slain were sent to London, and placed on the bridge. It is probable that Richard escaped at this time from Pomfret, but his friends were crushed before he could join them, and he had no resource but to flee to Scotland. See vol. i. p. 400. at Cirencester, are executed. Some others are sent to London for trial. The displaced archbishop of Canterbury (Walden), and bishop of Carlisle (Merks), the abbot of Westminster (William de Colchester), Feriby and Maudelyn (Richard's chaplains), Sir Bernard Brocas and Sir Thomas Shelley, are brought to trial in the Tower, (Feb. 4,) and condemned. The lives of the prelates are sparedd; but the rest are executed the same evening by torchlight. WALES. Though the new king had thus crushed many of his enemies, his throne was by no means safe. While preparing to meet the French and the Scots, he learned that the Welsh had taken up arms, and commenced a desperate effort to throw off the English yoke, or at least to get rid of the tyranny of the lords marchers, whose rule appears to have been almost as intolerable as that of the Anglo-Normans in Ireland. Their leader was Owen Glyndwr, a man whose abilities and enterprise have not been duly estimatede. The struggle was The heads and quarters of eight of these, parboiled, with twelve prisoners for trial, were sent to London, preceded by music, and there received by the archbishop (Arundel) and many other prelates, who chanted the Te Deum, "and the men of London cheered, and made great rejoicings." Walden was at once set at liberty, and was afterwards made bishop of London; Colchester was allowed to hold his office, till his death, in 1420; Merks's subsequent history has been already noticed (see vol. i. p. 418). Feriby and Maudelyn are named executors in Richard's will, and the latter, it is said, had personated the king at Cirencester. Brocas had been comptroller of Calais, and Shelley master of the household to the earl of Huntingdon. • It is to be regretted that historians have devoted so little attention to the career of this remarkable man. Taking their tone from eventually unsuccessful, but the fact that it was protracted for full fifteen years is sufficient to shew that it was well maintained, and that its chances and changes of success and failure are deserving of more attention than they have hitherto received. Glyndwr was the great-grandson of the last native prince (Llewelyn), and was born probably in 1349; he possessed considerable estates in Merioneth and the adjoining districts. As was then customary with the young gentry, he came to London, and joined one of the inns of court, became squire of the body to Richard II., was knighted by him in 1387, and was one of his attendants when seized at Flint Castle. He was allowed to retire to his country, but was molested by Lord Grey of Ruthin, one of the marchers, who, presuming on his favour as a zealous Lancastrian, seized some lands which Glyndwr had several years before gained from him by a lawsuit; Glyndwr's appeal to the parliament was disregarded; Grey, instead of being obliged to make restitution, obtained a grant of other portions of his property, but was himself captured while attempting to take possession. The Welsh chieftain acted with vigour and success; he at once invaded the marches, and defeated and made prisoner Sir Edmund Mortimer, the uncle of the earl of March. The Welsh flocked to him from England, he captured many strong castles, (as Conway, Ruthin, the Lancastrian or Tudor chroniclers, they dismiss him as "the wretched rebel Glendower," although his title to reign in Wales was far better than that of his opponent in England; for a considerable time he was de facto prince of Wales, and was recognised as such by the king of France, who studiously avoided bestowing the regal style on Henry. His ancestral residence was Sychart, near Corwen. Radnor, and Oswestry,) and soon formally assumed the title of Prince of Wales, was crowned at Machynlleth, and as a sovereign prince entered into a treaty with the Mortimers and Percies, having for its object the overthrow of Henry. This alliance was dissolved by the battle of Shrewsbury, but Glyndwr maintained the contest; he repelled three formidable armies led by Henry in person, expelled bishops and appointed others, captured many of the most considerable of the "English towns" and castles, received aid from France and from Scotland, and marched with his French allies as far as Worcester. Henry of Monmouth (afterwards Henry V.) had some success against Glyndwr, but was unable to effect his subjugation, and several years after, when about to embark on his expedition against France, unwilling apparently to leave so active an enemy behind him, he endeavoured to enter into an arrangement with him. While the terms were in debate, Glyndwr died, at Monnington, in Herefordshire, Sept. 20, 1415. His sons concluded the negociation, the terms of which were probably far less favourable than they would have been had he lived, as Glyndwr is still spoken of as attainted in a statute of the next reign, [9 Hen. VI. c. 3]. A.D. 1401. An act passed against the Lollards [2 Hen. IV. c. 15]; no one was to preach without the He was attainted, and proclaimed an outlaw, at the parliament in 1403. Henry on each occasion met with bad weather, which the chroniclers ascribe to the magic arts of his opponent. i See vol. i. p. 346. C |