Welsh Journals

OWAIN GLYNDWR BEFORE 1400 ONE of the few well attested facts of the early life of Owain Glyndwr is that he served in Richard 11's expedition to Scotland in 1385: Owain himself, as a deponent in the Court of Chivalry in 1386, testified to it. It is not known in whose retinue he served, but when Sir Degory Sais mustered his retainers at Berwick on 1 March 1384, as guardian of the town, 'howeyn Glyndourde' and 'Tedyr Glynderde' were listed among his men-at-arms, their names appearing near the end of the list. Sir Degory has been described by A. D. Carr as 'perhaps the greatest of the Welsh captains of this period' — a fitting exemplar for the courage which Owain displayed in combat with the Scots. The military qualities which Owain developed in 1384-85 probably made his neighbour, Richard, earl of Arundel eager to retain his services, if he had not done so already. Sir John Lloyd noted that two English chroniclers of the fifteenth century, a continuator of the Eulogium Historiarum and John Capgrave, in his Liber de Illustribus Henricis, wrote that Owain was esquire to an earl of Arundel. Sir John considered that such a relationship was likely to have existed, especially in view of the proximity of some of Owain's properties to the earls' lordships in the neighbouring marches of Chirk and Oswestry. Lloyd thought that the earl of Arundel referred to by the chroniclers, and named by Capgrave as Richard, was the one con- demned as a traitor and executed at Richard 11's instigation in 1397.2 1 J. E. Lloyd, Owen Glendower (1931), pp. 21 ff.; P.R.O., Exchequer. Various Accounts. 39/39; A. D. Carr, 'Welshmen and the Hundred Years' War'. The Welsh History Review, IV (1968), 30. There was hard fighting in the East March in the summer of 1384 and the Scots were to capture Berwick Castle (Chronicon Angliae, ed. E. M. Thompson (Rolls ser., 1874), pp. 359, 361-62). There were also opportunities for Owain to learn about the Percy-Lancaster rivalry and Percy ambitions in the north. Owain had not been in the retinues which Sir Degory commanded in 1377, with one of of which he safeguarded Pembroke against Owain Lawgoch's threatened invasion. In the summer of 1386 Sir Degory was manning the defences of the town of Calais with men-at-arms. archers and crossbowmen some of his archers were Welsh (as had been many of his company at Berwick), but the names of the men-at-arms are badly faded (P.R.O., Exchequer, Various Accounts. 34/29, 40/25). 2 Lloyd, op. cit.. p. 21 and note; Eulogium Historiarum sive Temporis, ed. F. S. Haydon. III (Rolls ser., 1863). 388; John Capgrave, Liber de Illustribus Henricis, ed. F. C. Hingeston (Rolls ser., 1858), p. 110. Dr. R. Ian Jack has commented on a reference to a debt owed by Elene, widow of Gruffydd Fychan and Owain's mother, to Arundel's father, another Earl Richard (d. 1376) ('New Light on the Early Days of Owain Glyndwr'. The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, XXII (1967)) Owain's father-in-law, Sir David Hanmer (d. 1387), could have been a link between him and the Arundel family. In 1369 John Charlton, lord of Powis, granted Hanmer an annuity of 40s. After Charlton's death in 1374, the wardship of his son and heir John was granted to Sir Richard Arundel, the future earl, who did not, however, pay Hanmer's annuity during his tenure of the wardship. Charlton came of age in 1382: he married one of the earl's daughters, and the will which the earl made ten years later shows him to have been a favourite son-in-law (C(alendar of) Cdose) R(olls), 1381-85, P. 260; C(alendar of) P(atent) R(olls), 1381-85, p. 148; ibid., 1374-77, p. 25; C.C.R.. 1381-85, p. 147; Testamenta Vetusta, ed. N. H. Nicolas (1826). I, 130 ff.).