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But the trouble would have died away had it not been raised into revolt by the energy of Owen Glyndwr or Glendower. Owen was a descendant of one of the last native Princes, Llewelyn-ap-Jorwerth, and the lord of considerable estates in Merioneth. He had been squire of the body to Richard the Second, and had clung to him till he was seized at Flint.
At a later time the rising of Owen Glyndwr found hundreds of Welshmen gathered round its teachers. And within this strangely mingled mass society and government rested on a purely democratic basis. Among Oxford scholars the son of the noble stood on precisely the same footing with the poorest mendicant.
"Dim Saesneg, sir," said the man, looking rather sheepish, "Dim gair o Saesneg." Rather surprised that a person of his appearance should not have a word of English, I repeated my question in Welsh. "Ah, you speak Cumraeg, sir;" said the man evidently surprised that a person of my English appearance should speak Welsh. "I am glad of it! What hill is that, you ask Dyna Mont Owain Glyndwr, sir."
At the news of its presence in the Channel Henry Percy and the Earl of Worcester at once rose in the north and struck across England to join Owen Glyndwr in Wales, while the Earl of Northumberland gathered a second army and advanced more slowly to their support.
The Count of Armagnac placed himself at the head of the murdered duke's partizans; and in their furious antagonism Armagnac and Burgundian alike sought aid from the English king. But the fortune which favoured Henry elsewhere was still slow to turn in the West. In the opening of 1405 the king's son, Henry Prince of Wales, had taken the field against Glyndwr.
Succours from France stirred the king to a renewed attack on Glyndwr in November; but with the same ill-success. Storms and want of food wrecked the English army and forced it to retreat; a year of rest raised Glyndwr to new strength; and when the long-promised body of eight thousand Frenchmen joined him in 1407 he ventured even to cross the border and to threaten Worcester.
The Issue Roll for Michaelmas, 1413 to 1414, bears two terribly significant entries the expenses for the custody of Katherine Mortimer and her daughters, who were "in the King's keeping" and the costs of the funerals of the same persons, buried in Saint Swithin's Church, London. This was the hapless daughter of Owain Glyndwr, the wife of Edmund Mortimer, uncle of the Earl of March.
The ceremonies attendant on the royal marriage were over; the King was about to take the field against another insurrection of Glyndwr, and the Earl of Kent had undertaken to guard him to Shrewsbury. Maude, in close attendance on her mistress, heard the parting words between Kent and Constance. "You will render me visit at Cardiff, my Lord?"
But Glyndwr was still busy with the siege of Caermarthen, and the king by a hasty march flung himself across the road of the Percies as they reached Shrewsbury. On the twenty-third of July a fierce fight ended in the defeat of the rebel force.
Treason was still rife; the Duke of York, who had played so conspicuous a part in Richard's day as Earl of Rutland, was sent for a while to the Tower on suspicion of complicity in an attempt of his sister to release the Earl of March; and Glyndwr remained unconquerable. But fortune was now beginning to turn. The danger from Scotland was suddenly removed.
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