Owen Glendower’s French Treaty

Welsh bards in the fourteenth century wondered plaintively whether a princely champion would arise to free Wales from the English. The last native Prince of Wales recognised by England – and the first, for that matter – had been Llewellyn ap Gruffydd, who was killed in 1282. His brother’s grandson, Owain Lawgoch (Owen of the Red Hand), in due course claimed the principality, but he was killed in 1378. ‘The Welsh habit of revolt against the English,’ an English author remarked, ‘is a long-standing madness.’ Hopes next centred on Owain Glyn Dwr (Owen of the Glen of Water), known to the English as Owen Glendower, an inspiring leader of men who was descended from the princes of Powys.

In 1400 Owen was proclaimed Prince of Wales by a small group of relatives and supporters, and led a rising in North Wales with allies including his Tudor cousins in Anglesey. Henry IV intervened with an English army, but the revolt spread to the rest of the country and more English expeditions failed to stamp it out. Word began to spread in England that Owen was a sorcerer in league with the powers of darkness. In 1403 he formed an alliance with the Percies and the Mortimers, who had a better right to the English throne than Henry IV himself, and the French began to dabble in the water, sending ships and men to help the Welsh.