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thereby contributing to a wider assessment of the impact of the Glyndwr rebellion. Within a year of the outbreak of the rebellion, in September 1400, Adam of Usk declared that 'in these days southern Wales was at peace from every kind of trouble of invasion or defence'.4 However, the people of southern Pembrokeshire would have had cause to disagree with the Welsh cleric's statement. Even before the Glyndwr revolt began, the county had been put on alert, in February 1400, for fear of a French invasion, while disaster overtook its inhabitants in battle with the redoubtable Welsh rebel and his vastly inferior force at Hyddgen eighteen months later, in the summer of 1401.5 An army of 1,500 royal levies, raised largely in Pembrokeshire, had the opportunity to destroy the Welsh revolt in its infancy, but its defeat effectively contributed to the rebels' early success. After this victory, in which Glyndwr with a reported 120 men defeated a force over ten times as large, the insurrection attracted support in Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire.6 The effect of the victory on, and the 200 deaths sustained by, the Pembrokeshire squirearchy is impossible to assess, though it was doubtless demoralising. There is no evidence to suggest widespread support for Glyndwr in Pembrokeshire, even from among the Welsh squires in the northern half of the county. Why did Pembrokeshire, unlike the rest of south Wales, experience the Glyndwr rebellion at such an early stage? Adam of Usk certainly wrote the truth, for the rebellion had been largely confined to mid- and north Wales during its first year. Indeed, evidence of its futility seemed apparent when Henry 'Hotspur' Percy, justiciar of north Wales and the man responsible for prosecuting the war against the rebels, was able to declare that the people of north Wales 'were in a most submissive mood'.7 However, as soon as Glyndwr, with his 'reckless men and robbers', crossed the River Dyfi into northern Cardiganshire, his defeat and capture became the responsibility of the justiciar of south Wales, Sir William Beauchamp. Beauchamp's authority was far wider than his official position suggests, for he was also, by virtue of his position as lord of Pembroke, a marcher lord exercising full palatine 4 E. M. Thompson (ed.), Chronicon Adae de Usk (London. 1904), p. 237. s H. Owen (ed.), A Calendar of Public Records relating to Pembrokeshire (3 vols., Cymmrodorion Record Series, 1914-18), II1. 42. The burgesses of Pembroke and Tenby had to provide a ship between them to serve in the king's navy in January 1401. Cat. Close Rolls, 1399-1402, p. 239. 6 J. E. Lloyd, Owen Glendower (Oxford, 1931), p. 149. 7 Ibid., p. 39 (3 May 1401).