Welsh Journals

BRECON, OWAIN GLYN DWR, AND DAFYDD GAM Let me take you back in your mind's eye to the town of Brecon just over six hundred years ago. It was about to enter ten of the most tumultuous and exciting years in its history. It is November 1397 and there is a carnival atmosphere in the air. Messengers have arrived to give advance notice that the dashing young lord of the lordship of Brecon-Henry Bolingbroke, earl of Derby, world-travelled crusader, recently elevated to be duke of Hereford and son of John of Gaunt, the most powerful magnate in the English realm-was about to make a ceremonial visit, the 'first entry', as it was known, into his lordship. The preparations were no doubt frantic: streets were swept, dung-hills cleared, stables prepared and food and fodder commandeered for the duke and his retinue. He did not stay long at the castle but the men and women of the town and lordship had good reason to remember his visit and to do so with mixed feelings. Hob-nobbing with the great can always be costly. So it was on this occasion: the good men of Brecon lordship were required to give a massive 'gift' — £ 1,233, i.e. more than the annual value of the lordship-to the young duke as a token of their delight that he had come to see them. But the excitement had only just begun. Within a year young Bolingbroke had been dispatched into exile by his cousin, the high-handed king, Richard II. Barely had the men of Brecon come to terms with this devastating news than rumours reached them in July 1399 that Henry of Bolingbroke had invaded England and was moving westwards to Bristol and thence northwards to Chester. This was their opportunity: they put the castle of Brecon and Hay in a state of defence 'against the malice of king Richard and the lord's enemies' and dispatched a force of soldiers to Gloucester to reinforce Bolingbroke's army as he marched north. By the end of September 1399 their cup of joy was filled to overflowing: Henry Bolingbroke, lord of Brecon, was proclaimed Henry IV, king of England. The opportunities for rewards and for putting Brecon, and the men of Brecon, on the map of power in England and Wales were truly exhilarating. Bliss was it then to be alive-in Brecon. But the wheel of fortune had not stopped spinning. Henry IV, lord of Brecon, had been on his throne less than one year when the first news reached the town that in distant north Wales the Welsh had risen in revolt, proclaimed a man called Owain Glyndwr prince of Wales, and gone on the rampage through the towns of north-east Wales. The news sent a shudder down the spines of the townsmen of Brecon. They were mildly reassured by the fact that one of Henry IV's top officials, John Leventhorp, spent eighteen days in the town in autumn 1400, organizing the defence of the castle. A sensible precautionary measure, they must have thought; but no more. Little could they have imagined the crisi which would gradually engulf their town during the next five years or so-a crisis which was truly life-threatening to them, as individuals and as a community It t crisis, and the response to it, that you have asked me to discuss today; but I