The New Murrey and Blue blog

Owain‘s training as a lawyer certainly did not stop him from pursuing a military career. in 1384 he is found undertaking garrison duty at Berwick in the retinue of the Flintshire knight Sir Gregory Sais. Sais was a renowned knight, with extensive combat experience in France, particularly Gascony. (He is also a good example of a Welshman who was well trusted by the English government, being given charge of Pembroke, Tenby and Cilgerran castles in 1377, at a time when French invasion was expected at any time.)

In 1385, Owain was a member of John of Gaunt‘s retinue during the large-scale invasion of Scotland that year. A year later, at Chester, in the church of St.John the Baptist, he was one of the witnesses in the famous case of Scrope v Grosvenor. He gave evidence that he had seen the disputed arms borne by Robert Grosvenor.

Subsequently, Owain attached himself to the retinue of Richard, Earl of Arundel. Although Glyndyfrdwy lay in Edeirnion  (Edeyrnion) which was part of King Richard II’s directly ruled sections of Wales, Arundel, lord of Bromfield and Yale and of Chirkland was by some way Owain’s most powerful neighbour. It made perfect sense, in terms of local politics, for Owain to have some sort of positive relationship with him. Perhaps the more so in that evidence suggests Owain was not on the best of terms with his second-most important neighbour, Lord Grey de Ruthin.

I should explain that Wales, at this time, was in no sense a united, political whole. Some parts were held directly by the King – or when there was one, his eldest son, the Prince of Wales. The rest (including some elements that are now parts of English counties) was divided into a bewildering patchwork of Marcher Lordships, ranging from massive entities like Glamorgan and Pembroke to tiny statelets that amounted to little more than a castle and its supporting estate. These Marcher Lordships were for most purposes like independent states. The English King had suzerainty, but the private owner of the lordship exercised more or less every function that the crown did in England. Since many of the lords were absentees, at least for much of the time, the power was actually exercised by their appointed officials and limited only by custom and practicality.

It was common for these English lords to have at least some Welsh ancestry. Grey de Ruthin, for example, had a line of descent from Owain Gwynedd. The Charlton (or Cherelton) lords of Powys ‘evolved’ from the Welsh rulers of Powys by a long series of marriages to Englishwomen. (Powys was never conquered; its rulers chose to become English.) Thomas Despenser, Earl of Gloucester and Lord of Glamorgan, was not only descended from Llywelwyn ap Ioerworth but was actually born in Wales. The truth is though that these lords were culturally English and thought of themselves as such. They were much more likely to speak French than Welsh.

The main interest these men had in Wales was the revenues their lands produced and, to a lesser extent, the large number of fighting men that could be raised from them. Both aspects were buttresses to their power, although in most cases they had significant lands in England as well, and tended to live there, or at court.

In the 1390s, the Marcher lordships were probably more lucrative than they had ever been, and certainly far more so than they were ever to be again. To give but one example, Henry Bolingbroke‘s Brecon was reckoned to be worth £1,500 a year. In an era when an income of £666 was the qualification for an earldom, and when £10 a year was sufficient to live as a gentleman, this was very serious money indeed.

Although the whole of Wales was exempted from Parliamentary taxation (and had no MPs) at this time, this was more than compensated for by the exactions made by the Marcher lords. The operation of justice – insofar as it existed – was largely a means of extracting funds from the populace, to the extent that communities sometimes paid a voluntary fine in lieu of justice sessions being held! Another common exaction was a payment made to a new lord on the first occasion he visited his lordship after inheriting it. This could amount to several years of normal revenue and was no modest ‘gift’. The cymorth, originally a form of mutual self-help in the community, somehow evolved into a payment to the lord. Overall, the Welsh faced a much greater financial burden than the English, and yet it was a poor country, with fewer resources than England. The resentment this financial burden caused can easily be imagined.

What could the Welsh do? They had no leader. For the time being the burdens could only be endured. However, a remarkable train of events was already beginning – starting with divisions in England itself.