Owain Glyndwr, Welsh Rebel

Who was the self-proclaimed Prince of Wales, who was foretold in myth to free Wales from the tyrannical English and who was also a fabled wizard? Dr. Eleanor Janega is joined by Dr. Rhun Emlyn to find the real Owain Glyndwr. They discuss his legendary rebellion against English rule in 1400 and explore the transformation of 14th-century Wales, from Glyndwr's ambitious military feats and his efforts to unite a fractured country, to the myths and legends surrounding this revolutionary character who is still cherished today. More: Welsh Folk Tales https://open.spotify.com/episode/3rNA9vSBAs4MuE1T5X2VRe William Wallace, Scottish Rebel https://open.spotify.com/episode/1lwsHgq9gA1psiEausz7lu?si=2eb9f6fbbebe40be Gone Medieval is presented by Dr. Eleanor Janega. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds. Gone Medieval is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit to watch the new Rebel series starring Owain Glyndwr! Plus hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Matt Lewis?

  From long-lost Viking ships and kings buried in unexpected places, to tales of murder, power, faith, and the lives of ordinary people across medieval Europe and beyond. Join me, Matt Lewis, Dr. Eleanor Yanega, and some of the world's leading historians as we bring history's most fascinating stories to life, only on History Hit. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasiapro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 1:20Eleanor Janega?

  Hello, I'm Dr. Eleanor Yanega, and welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We uncover the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and the latest groundbreaking research, from the Vikings to the Normans, from kings to popes, to the Crusades. We delve into the rebellions, plots, and murders that tell us who we really were and how we got here.

• 1:59Eleanor Janega?

  In William Shakespeare's play Henry IV Part I, a fearsome magician and skilled military tactician is introduced.

• 2:09Eleanor Janega?

  Of him, the romantic and doomed hairy Hotsberg Percy says:

• 2:15Eleanor Janega?

  "Oh, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire, and not in fear of your nativity. Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth in strange eruptions. Oft the teeming earth is with a kind of colic, pinched and vexed by the imprisoning of unruly wind within her womb, which, for enlargement's striving, shakes the old bedlam earth and topples down steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth, our grandam earth, having this distemperature, and passion shook."

• 2:53Eleanor Janega?

  This fearsome character is Owen Glendower, based on the actual factual Owen Glyndwr, self-proclaimed Prince of Wales.

• 3:04Eleanor Janega?

  Unfortunately, there is very little in the way of evidence that would lead us to believe that he had magical powers that allowed him to control the wind and that an earthquake accompanied his birth. But he did manage various political feats that were no less astounding, including uniting a fractious Wales to his cause, laying out a vision for Wales as a cultural superpower, and keeping a rebellion against the powerful English alive for years on end. Today, we're focusing on Glyndwr because he's incredibly cool, and many of you have asked us to. But also, in a new series of documentaries on history hit, Professor Michael Livingston is getting up close with some famous medieval rebels.

• 3:49Eleanor Janega?

  You can watch the film about Owen Glyndwr right now if you're a subscriber. There's a link in the show notes for the episode. But I couldn't let Michael have all the fun, so today I will be chatting about the real Owen Glyndwr along with Dr. Hrun Enlin, a lecturer at Aberystwyth University and specialist in all things Welsh medieval.

• 4:22Eleanor Janega?

  Welcome to Gone Medieval.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  Thank you very much. It's great to be here.

• 4:26Eleanor Janega?

  We are so excited to have you on because this is one of those fan favorite sort of conversations. We're going to talk about the man, the legend Owen Glyndrew. And I think we have to start off by acknowledging that his life and his rebellion are legendary at this point, which is why so many people want to talk about him. But it's sometimes difficult to scrape beneath those legends and the mythologies in order to get at the man himself. So can you paint us a bit of a picture about who he was before the uprising began?

• 5:04Eleanor Janega?

  And the sort of political, I guess, situation that shaped his early life?

• 5:12Speaker 03

  Okay, wow, that's a big question.

• 5:14Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, that's all. Just do that.

• 5:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, fantastic. And you're absolutely right. I mean, he's become a myth. He's become a legend. I suppose we can talk about that later if you want as well, because it's so fantastic. And such a big contribution of who he is is this mythology that's developed around him. But yeah, to answer your question, I think it's really interesting context where we find Owen Glyndrew, so being raised in the 14th century in Wales. So 14th century Wales, in a sense, is a very interesting period. It's a period where Wales is really changing. So 100 years before the Glyndrew Rebellion, Wales had been conquered by Edward I.

• 5:56Speaker 03

  And obviously, that was then a dramatic change for people in Wales, certainly being ruled by a King of England. So that is a dramatic change, you know, change in law for many people, change as well in how the status of people. So you had a different legal status often if you were Welsh rather than English. So a lot of changes going on. And of course, on top of that, you know, what else is going on in the 14th century?

• 6:23Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, just a few things.

• 6:26Speaker 03

  So Black Death and everything else going on as well. And so I was in that context where, you know, the Welsh have been conquered. They've sort of, well, they feel that conquest a bit. And then, of course, everything else goes wrong, you know, Black Death comes, periods of famine and so on. And I suppose people in Wales look back and think, well, this didn't happen before we were conquered. And so it is really is a complicated, but also a very turbulent time, a time that's ripe for rebellion.

• 6:56Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm. So this has got to have knock on effects for someone as a person as well. You don't come through the 14th century without being a little bruised, I guess, being a little bit, you know, let alone when you are also dealing with what a new occupation looks like, what with dealing with new rulers, new sets of legal codes, all of these things. So do you think that this is something that has knock on effects for how Owen himself encounters the world?

• 7:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, probably. I mean, he was born, well, in the 1350s. So, you know,

• 7:35Eleanor Janega?

  Right in it.

• 7:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I suppose, yeah, he was young, you know, he would have been a young child when the plague came back with the children's plague and things like that. So children particularly vulnerable at that point. But I suppose he, he lived in a time where things had settled down a little bit since the, since the conquest. So people have started to get used to it. But it's quite interesting that he's from families, the descendants of the rulers pre conquest. So his family, you know, you can think of what sort of stories would they be telling one another, how that might impact their identity as a family, you know, his father was from the royal dynasty of Pois in, in Mid Wales, his mother from the royal dynasty of Dehaidbarth in the south. So he's

• 8:19Speaker 03

  been brought up in this context where this family knows that they used to have higher status. They're still obviously much better off than most people around them. And yet, you know, there must be this feeling of frustration, growing up and of, of worlds turning upside down with, you know, the Black Death and everything else. And I suppose, you know, in that context, if you're trying to find your way in the world, you know, we know that Owen Glyndwr was a soldier. He fought in the English army against the Scots and against the French. Probably didn't mention that when he later allied with them.

• 8:57Speaker 03

  But he had, you know, he, so that was one way you could sort of succeed and do well in this new context in Wales. So he did that, but you know, he, he might be, still be frustrated that he didn't, that didn't lead him anywhere really. It didn't allow him to probably have the status that he, he felt he deserved.

• 9:16Eleanor Janega?

  I think that's a really interesting point because we have a tendency, especially as a result of what he ends up doing with his life. To, to sort of imagine that people are diametrically opposed to their rulers or their conquerors, but especially if you're coming from the ruling class. A lot of the time it can be, yes, I don't like this demotion, but still there are ways to sort of make my way up in the world. And we, and we see people change sides all the time. You know, I'm thinking about like El Cid in Spain around the same time. It was just like, yeah, I don't know who, who's gonna hire me. And when you say this, you see this with Glyndwr as well.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting because many of the people, you know, Glyndwr himself, obviously, but many of his followers were people who were pillars of the establishment before the rebellion. So there were families who, I suppose, it's a matter of working out, well, you know, this is the situation. We're ruled over now by English kings and by these martial lords. And so we had to make do with the situation and what's the best way to succeed in this, in this context that we find ourselves. So, and I think that's one of the really interesting things about the rebellion. I think we can, certainly there was oppression of the Welsh people before rebellion. But I suppose some people were also successful. There were some opportunities for the few who could sort of find their way.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  And what's then interesting is that even those who had done, you know, the best out of the situation, many of them still rebelled when the opportunity came. So not quite sure what that tells us. Yeah.

• 10:48Eleanor Janega?

  You know, well, I'll tell you what it tells us is that, you know, the, the Welsh spirit is indomitable.

• 10:53Speaker 03

  Well, of course, of course.

• 10:54Eleanor Janega?

  Obviously. Okay. So, so Glyndwr's got this long military career under the English. Like it's not insubstantial. But he comes back to Wales in around 1400. When he gets back, what's happening for him at home?

• 11:08Speaker 03

  He lives a quite a comfortable life, to be honest. He's got two very nice estates. He is an important patron of poets. Poetry is massive in Wales in this period. And so we have real wealth of poetry from Wales. And Glyndwr is, has the privilege of having probably one of the, the, the more famous and best Welsh poet of his day. You know, coming to his court and praising him. And we've got a fantastic poem praising Glyndwr's home. And saying, you know, obviously it's the best house in the world. So we've got this, this, all this poetry as well. And he really is part of this Welsh culture and part of this culture as well is prophecy.

• 11:51Speaker 03

  So, and this will play a part in his rebellion as well, but prophecy has become a really important part of Welsh culture. So suddenly after the conquest, where people are looking for someone to save them, a messianic figure, if you like. And this has become a stream through the poetry. And, you know, obviously this might be having an impact on him as well. And so he's part of this culture, which is sort of praises the past, praises the heroes of the past, but also hopes for a, a better future. And we know that Glyndwr probably, you know, paid more attention to these prophecies than most. Because we know he had a personal prophet as well. So someone who was with him, you know, interpreting

• 12:35Speaker 03

  events in the line of prophecy and so on. So, you know, it's easy for us to think that that's strange, but yeah, at the time, your prophecy was, was very, very important.

• 12:45Eleanor Janega?

  Look, I'll tell you what, I don't think it's strange now. If I became a billionaire, I'm going to get myself a prophet immediately.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 12:52Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, that's my prophet.

• 12:53Speaker 03

  Money well spent.

• 12:56Eleanor Janega?

  You know, that's a, that is such a wonderful thing. And it's so incredibly very late medieval as well, people are, I think. Across Europe, you see people who are really interested in prophecy, who are really interested in interpretation of anything from what they see as the current political landscape or the Bible or both things brought together.

• 13:18Eleanor Janega?

  There is rather a lot of it about the shop. And I think that we have a tendency to think that that's sort of wild now, but in a lot of ways, it's its own kind of religious strand. And I mean, I do think that we get rather a lot of it out of Wales, though, don't we as well? You know, prophecies of Merlin, I'm thinking here, you know, all of these things that have very specifically Welsh roots that go on to dominate in other parts of Europe.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:45Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, so Owen's at home, his very nice home. That I think we can all agree that it's wonderful and he's vibing, he's got his prophet, he's got his poets. But something happens in there, right? So there has to be at some point time when Glyn Dore wakes up and he says, you know what? It's time, like a prophecy isn't enough, I've got to do it myself. What is it? Do you think that makes this this tip over into action from just vibing?

• 14:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, okay.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Well, there is a debate about that, as often there is about important events. There is clearly was a time, you know, thirteen ninety nine, fourteen hundred, you know, in Welsh history and in English history, things are happening. And, you know, who's King of England has an impact on Wales as well, so that's part of the context. So, you know, thirteen ninety nine, of course, Richard the Second loses the crown to his cousin, becomes Henry the Fourth. And, you know, some people in Wales are loyal to Richard the Second. So not Glyn Dore particularly possibly, but others are. So it's a period of turmoil, things are changing. And also what really goes on at that time is that Glyn Dore himself clearly faces

• 15:04Speaker 03

  personal injustice. And there are various stories about what happened. He's got a dispute between him and his neighbour, Lord Gray of Rhythyn. And is it about land? Is it about the fact that Lord Grey had stopped the Sommons from going to war, from reaching Glyndwr, and Glyndwr as a result seemed to be as if he wasn't an obedient vassal anymore? So there are various stories, but something happened which secured injustice for Glyndwr. And even though he tried to secure justice in the royal court, he wasn't given it. And in a sense, that was the trigger probably for him personally. But in a sense, he represented a lot of injustice that people across Wales were facing.

• 15:47Speaker 03

  So it's sort of one example of what many people were facing. And that was the trigger. Whether he was thinking of rebelling anyway is another question. But that certainly was the trigger. And so what happened is that 15 men got together in his home at Glenda Wyrdui, the house where he's named after, and they proclaimed him Prince of Wales. He'd go right to the top. You don't say, you know, oh, well, we're going to complain and see what happens. We've got to change the world. And that's what they tried to do.

• 16:20Eleanor Janega?

  I love that, swing for the fences, baby. But you mentioned this, you know, he's getting people from across Wales. And I think that that is one of the things that's really quite interesting about him. Because he really manages to unite varying Welsh factions. And there have been historical divisions ordinarily, no?

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. So Wales traditionally is very, very divided. And I suppose it's one of the things, and when I speak to first year students, is one of the first messages when they're introduced into Welsh history in this period. You know, what you need to understand is the Welsh are as often as not fighting one another, you know, more than anyone else, to be honest. But yeah, absolutely, there are historical divisions amongst the Welsh, you know. I mentioned earlier, his father's from one royal dynasty, his mother was from another. Historically, you know, one side of the family would have been fighting against the other, you know. So the Wales is traditionally divided. Sometimes a ruler comes along. So in the past, there had been people like Grithfildop Llewelyn, King of Wales and so on.

• 17:22Speaker 03

  They'd managed to unite the Welsh and he managed for a while and then after they'd... Death, you know, Wales splits up again. So, yeah, historically, the Welsh often fought against one another. This was one of the ironies of conquest in a way, is that it got rid of all these royal dynasties.

• 17:39Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm.

• 17:40Speaker 03

  And so, in a sense, it made the Welsh more united. Um, so it was easier to unite people in some ways uh after conquest than it was before.

• 17:50Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, you need.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  Not that I'm gonna thank Edward the first for that, of course.

• 17:53Eleanor Janega?

  No, no, I don't think that any of us need to hand it to Edward the first.

• 17:57Speaker 03

  No.

• 17:57Eleanor Janega?

  That's, that's absolutely fine. But it is amazing how outside forces can create cohesive units out of people who ordinarily would not get on, though. I mean, I suppose we see, we see this across history. So, you know, he's able to, I suppose, use his own person, which is uniting. I mean, and I find that really interesting as well, because that's what a good medieval marriage is supposed to do. Right? Like, a good, solid, noble marriage should be smoothing things over, creating alliances, brokering peace in some way. And so, Glyndwr, I suppose, is literally the man that he is meant to be here.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And I suppose if you're looking around Wales at the time, they're thinking, well, you know, the, the previous Welsh princes have gone. Who's left? Who has the best claim? Who has the most royal blood in him? And, yeah, because of his, you know, his parents' marriage, he is the, the man with the best claim to be Prince of Wales. So absolutely, that really helps him then, uh, to draw people together. And if you imagine in this context, you know, within Wales, these families, they've got connections, you know, they're trying to marry into others of other families of status across Wales. It means that there is a network running through Wales of these families of the same status as Glyndwr. And so through this network, it's easier for rebellion and to flow. So,

• 19:20Speaker 03

  you know, with him, when he proclaims himself Prince of Wales, uh, his brother, his son, his sort of brothers-in-law with him as well. At the same time, his cousins rebel on Anglesey, the other side of North Wales. And then, you know, he's got these family links with the south as well. So these family networks really, you know, people are loyal to their family members, and that really helps to spread, fan the flames of rebellion, I feel like.

• 19:43Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm. And one of the things that really manages to help him out too is, so here's a man who is very possessed of himself, you know, the minute he's like, I am the Prince of Wales. He manages to sort of break containment almost immediately. He doesn't just keep this as a local Welsh affair. He immediately starts reaching out to other major personalities, right?

• 20:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, he clearly, you know, well, early on, the rebellion, rebellion lasted a few weeks initially. So it started on the 16th of September 1400. And it lasts for a few weeks and then sort of disappears and it looks as if it's over. But over the course of 1401, it sort of reignites. And yet during that year then, when he's sort of, he's starting again, that's when he clearly is already thinking about the international element. So we have letters, a recount of letters he wrote to the King of Scotland, asking for support to lords in Ireland, to ask for support. And I suppose the context, I don't know if you wanted me to say something about the context, because that's quite, quite

• 20:50Speaker 03

  useful to know here. So at this point, of course, Wales has been conquered by England, Ireland has been conquered, but England's grasp on Ireland is sort of weakening at this point. Scotland is independent, has its own king, and then England is at war with France, the Hundred Years' War. So, so I can see your face lighting up there when I mentioned the Hundred Years' War. And so because of that, of course, there is really interesting political dynamics across Europe. And Scotland are allies of France against England. And so Glyndwr is already thinking, you know, earlier in the rebellion, you know,

• 21:31Speaker 03

  how, how is this going to succeed now? How can I spread this rebellion? And one of the ways he sees clearly early on is by getting some help from Scotland, getting the Scots involved, trying to encourage rebellion in Ireland as well, you know, trying to have, you know, attacks on England in different directions. And if he's to succeed, he needs to get help from the outside as well. Because, you know, let's face it, it is going to be a David and Goliath struggle to try and, for Glyndwr, to try and beat Henry IV. So he needs all the help he can get.

• 22:04Eleanor Janega?

  And I'm correct in thinking that he also goes to the King of France as well, right?

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:10Eleanor Janega?

  Which I find this is so fantastic because it's like, it's pretty, pretty ballsy stuff, right?

• 22:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:16Eleanor Janega?

  I suppose there is, you know, the, the sort of connection that has existed between Wales, Ireland and Scotland. You know, at the very least, we're like, all my homies hate England, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But the French, that's an interesting angle to, to try to work.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it's, it might seem strange to us, but I suppose it was the natural thing for Glyndwr to do. But very ambitious, but you know, he was successful as well. So it wasn't the first time that a Welsh ruler had tried to ally with France against England. So it happened first time in the 12th century, so the 12th century, the most important Welsh ruler, Owain Gwynedd. He had an alliance with France against Henry the second. Then it happened 13th century, Thwelyn the Great against King John, had an alliance with France. And even just 30 years before the rebellion, there was another Welshman who proclaimed himself Prince of Wales.

• 23:17Speaker 03

  He was also called Owain, confusingly.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Owain Laugoch, Owain of the Red Hand. And he was a captain of Welsh mercenaries in France. So he fought with the French against the English during the Hundred Years' War. He was the, was a great nephew of previous Welsh princes. So he was, you know, had a good claim to call himself Prince of Wales and was given an army by France as well. To sail to Wales to, you know, to take control. The weather stopped them, unfortunately. And they, and they had to turn back.

• 23:52Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, no.

• 23:53Speaker 03

  And he was assassinated before he could try again. So, but in that case, you know, France had already supported the Welsh against the English. So it made sense Glyndwr then to think, right, okay, France, obviously as the other European superpower. You know, that's where I should turn, you know, they're ready to war with England. Why not take advantage of that?

• 24:15Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, I suppose it's also really politically savvy because by. Tapping into that, Glyndwr is also saying, I understand the history of Wales. I understand the the history of old connections. I'm simply the new iteration of this old impulse.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. And he even changed his coat of arms to be the same as the coat of arms of of the previous claimant the French had helped. So again, very clever in doing that.

• 24:42Eleanor Janega?

  And you can see really what's in it for the French as well. Like, oh, this is going to wind England up. Absolutely no end, you know, so.

• 24:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. And really, it it worked for a while, at least, you know. So he got French support. And so they had they formed a treaty, sent ambassadors to the French court. They formed the treaty to work together against Henry IV. And they even sent, multiple times, sent soldiers to support him. Especially in 1405, there was a quite a large French army who landed in Penbrokeshire and then campaigned across the south of Wales with Glyndwr and probably getting as far as Worcester, actually. So actually invading England as well.

• 25:27Eleanor Janega?

  Hell, yeah.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  As part of that.

• 25:29Eleanor Janega?

  Get him. All right. Okay. So I suppose here is a good as time as any to talk about what happens in terms of, you know, the main moves that Glyndwr puts out. So he's got backup from other countries. Everyone agrees that we should be taking the fight to the English in one way or another. How does it all kick off?

• 25:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it begins, you know, September 1400, he's proclaimed Prince of Wales. And then things, you know, go quiet.

• 25:56Eleanor Janega?

  So how do people respond to an actual native Welshman being crowned Prince of Wales? This this has to be the sort of thing that people want to say something about, right?

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, obviously, they had had major princes in the past, but the conquest had happened now. But what's interesting is we have a poem from the time of the rebellion, which basically answers your your specific question there. So the poet Yola Gor was an old man by the time the rebellion happened. But he represents his own view, does he represent others? Uh, them quite possibly. But he's got a poem, and this is how he begins responding to this fact that there's now a native Welsh prince. Uh, he says, behold, the world caused by English arrogance. Very often have I wished to have a lord from amongst us, ourselves.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  And he's, and now the time has arrived, you know, so he's, he's rejoicing in the fact that Glyndwr has now started his rebellion. What's interesting is how the rebellion reignites again, and it's what I consider the, the first April Fool's joke. Um, because, uh, uh, on the first of April fourteen oh one, Glyndwr's cousins capture the castle of Conwy, so one of Edred the First's impressive castles. They capture the castle while the soldiers are in church because it's Good Friday. So the soldiers are all being very devout, uh, they're in church. And when they come home from church, they found the Welsh have taken their castle.

• 27:33Speaker 03

  So, uh, which is, yeah, which is a fantastic, uh, trick to play, of course. Um, but, uh, and really that reignites the rebellion because it's such an embarrassment to the English crown. And people then, uh, across much of North and Mid Wales think, oh, there we go, we've started again. Uh, and off they go, uh, and reignite the rebellion. And it's from that point then that Glyndwr starts to fight open battles, they win battles. And then he starts to get in touch with, you know, the Irish, the Scots, uh, and the French as well. And just over time then, for a number of years, the rebellion grows and grows as he has momentum.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  So first of all, in the, in the north then, in mid Wales, and then ultimately fourteen oh two, fourteen oh three. You know, no part of Wales is free from the effect or the rebellion.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 29:15Speaker 04

  After civil war, regicide, and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned. But Britain would never be the same.

• 29:25Speaker 04

  I'm Professor Suzanne Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of Restoration royalty, from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the Empire. Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 30:00Eleanor Janega?

  He also ends up reaching out to places that you wouldn't expect, though, right? Because he goes and gets a hold of some English people as well. Can you tell us a little bit about the tripartite indenture?

• 30:12Speaker 03

  Oh, oh, wow. That is interesting. Yeah, definitely. I mean, and again, that's why it's so interesting, thinking of what's going on in England at the time, because there's so much tension. Henry IV is king, and, you know, again, showing how politically savvy Glyndwr is, that he's not just taking advantage of war between England and France, but of, you know, political upheaval in England itself. So what he does, he allies with the Mortimer dynasty, so one of the most important dynasties in England. What he, actually, what he does is he captures a representative of that family, Edmund Mortimer, in battle.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  And manages to turn him. And so.

• 30:58Eleanor Janega?

  It's like the dream, isn't it?

• 31:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. And so you've got this family then, the Mortimers, who have actually, you could argue, a better claim to the English throne than Henry the Fourth. And they support him. And then you've got the Persis, the most powerful family in the north of England. They're in-laws of the Mortimers. They connect with them. And so ultimately, they support, they ally themselves with Glyndwr as well. So what he's doing is he's playing on these difficulties now that Richard the Second has lost the throne. Some supporters are people who look back at the Richard the Second's period.

• 31:37Speaker 03

  And he's taking advantage of that. And he's creating, yeah, what you referred to in the end, this agreement, the Tripartite Indentia, which I suppose, if you're not familiar with this document, and particularly if you live in England, it's a very strange document to think about.

• 31:56Eleanor Janega?

  But I think that we have this tendency to look at history as though everything is always a done deal. You know, the way that things shook out is the way that things are always going to be. And what's great about things like the Tripartite Indentia is it shows us there were other opportunities available. There are other ways of thinking about things that people adopted. And I think that that's really fun because I, people have a tendency, I mean, even with the Wars of the Roses, which is crazy, you know, and there's so much that is up in the air. So this, this all makes sense. It was always going to shake out this way. And gosh, there are some sliding doors that I really wish had come true.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  Well, absolutely. And if you sometimes show a map to people of what was agreed in the Tripartite Indentia and sort of, it's finding it difficult to grasp what they're seeing. But you're absolutely right. I mean, there are various points in history where people obviously planned for something different. And it's for us, looking back with hindsight, it, it looks a bit odd. But yeah, just to describe what you might see if you would look at a map of the Tripartite Indentia. So basically, it's an agreement between Owen Glyndwr. The Mortimers and the Persis to divide England between them. So the Persis are going to have the north of England, the Mortimers are going to have the south, and Glyndwr isn't just going to be prince over Wales, but also the western parts of England. So places like Cheshire, Herefordshire,

• 33:21Speaker 03

  Shropshire and so on. So that's, basically, if that would have come true, there wouldn't really be an England, which is, which is.

• 33:30Eleanor Janega?

  What might have been.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  But I suppose it just, again, as you're saying, it's sort of the, you know, the grand scale of the rebellion. It shows how, you know, the impact might have been, not just on Wales, but, you know, on other parts of, of the British Isles and other parts of Europe as well.

• 33:48Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, these are super ambitious plans and Glyndwr also has this, he's really interested in the sort of stuff that I'm interested in. You know, he, he wants to establish universities. He, he wants there to be a parliament. He thinks that there needs to be reform in terms of how governance works in Wales. And these are kind of fairly radical ideas, but there are also things that certainly exist in, in different parts of Europe at the time. Where is he getting this from?

• 34:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, that's, that's fascinating because you're right, he's, it's not that he's ahead of his time. He's ahead of time, I suppose, in a Welsh context. He's the first to think about these things in a Welsh context, and particularly the universities, although they've been around for a while. But in many parts of Europe, they're new. I know, sort of Prague, for example, to mention something you might be familiar with. Yeah. You know, Prague, it's only fairly recently that Prague has been established. So in the Holy Roman Empire, this is quite new, isn't it, to have universities? There weren't any in Scotland, even though they were a completely independent kingdom. So, yeah, he's really thinking about what they need to do to, to develop a forward-thinking, a successful, a permanent principality.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  But the answer to your question is that he had very experienced people around him. So, I mean, he probably, you know, was a visionary himself, I suppose, just to start the rebellion. But he had people around him who were clearly very intelligent, very experienced, who knew exactly what they were doing. And, you know, certainly there were a lot of clerics around him who were, you know, among the top rung really of, of, of experience. So, for example, he had bishops who supported him, so bishops who were in place before the rebellion. Uh, was one bishop, John Trevor, Bishop of St Asaph, you know, he was, um, he was a lawyer, he'd graduated in law.

• 35:45Speaker 03

  He'd spent time in Rome, working uh as one of the main judges in the people court. He then worked as a diplomat for English kings. The rebellion comes along and after a while he switches sides. And of course, all those connections and experience and diplomacy, you know, that's there. What, what are my favourite characters actually? You know, if you have, you know, sometimes you have this game where who, who from the past would you like to spend time with? Uh, and who I'd like to spend time with, like to ask questions of is Griffith Young, who was Glyndwr's chancellor. And he probably seen as one of the people right behind these ambitious ideas. And he's the one that, you know, Glyndwr's plan was to have an Archbishop of St David's.

• 36:30Speaker 03

  Um, who wouldn't just rule over the church in Wales, but also of course, Western England as well. You're wise, wise up at the border. Yeah, and Griffith Young, the Chancellor, the diplomat as well. He was the nominee for this Archbishopric. So he is a, yeah, is a fascinating character. Um, as it happens, I'm in the process of, you know, not, not quite out yet, but in a few weeks' time. There's a, a book that I'm working on, uh, with an artist, Dan Thewell in Hall. Trying to draw attention to some of these peoples, uh, people around Glyndwr. So we've got, um, portraits, biographies and poetry, uh, about the variety of characters who were integral to the Glyndwr Rebellion.

• 37:11Speaker 03

  So, um, so it's great to, you know, to mention some of these people now here today.

• 37:16Eleanor Janega?

  Oh, I think that that's fantastic because one of the things that really strikes one about Clandor is the fact that he's a team player. This isn't one of these autocratic, it's all about me sort of guys, which is easy to think about people who go around crowning themselves prince. And surely, you know, the Middle Ages is awash with men of that description, but that isn't what's happening here at all. You have this really interesting court milieu that is working towards a really ambitious goal.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's no doubt that he is the leader of the rebellion. You know, he is clearly the one that's leading it, that's directing it, that people are following him particularly. But you're absolutely right, he's a team player and he gets all these people involved. All these people are contributing in their own different ways. You know, across Wales, you have local leaders of rebellion, people who know their area, who command the loyalty of their population. You know, in this area, in Aberystwyth, you know, in this area was a man called Rhyes Dwi. You know, he'd been sheriff of Cardiganshire before the rebellion. You know, one of the other sort of pillars of the establishment. Now the rebellion comes along, he switches straight away, you know, and joins the rebellion. And then he leads the rebellion at the local level.

• 38:33Speaker 03

  And you're thinking, I think you mentioned parliaments earlier, and I think it's really important to think about how Clandor was a team player in that sense as well. So we know that he held three parliaments at least. So he held his first parliament in Machynlleth in fourteen four, then in Harlech in fourteen five, and then a third parliament in fourteen oh six. And there he had representatives from all the different parts of Wales under his control. And they were there to discuss, you know, he was consulting with people. He was, you know, they were discussing things like, you know, foreign policy, you know, what shall we do with this alliance with France? What shall we do if we're offered a treaty with England? And, you know, if a truce is offered and things like that.

• 39:18Speaker 03

  So they really are discussing things. He's consulting. I suppose it is his decision in the end, but there is an element of consulting. And you know, getting these people together. And so it's interesting to think about, you know, these parliaments, which you know, three parliaments which he held and yeah, again, shows him as you know, as far as it's possible to be a team player when you're a medieval ruler, that he is a team player.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over a hundred dollars off your first year at camtasia pro dot com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.

• 40:32Speaker 04

  After civil war, regicide and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned, but Britain would never be the same.

• 40:42Speaker 04

  I'm Professor Suzanne Ellipscombe and this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of Restoration royalty, from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the empire. Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 41:16Eleanor Janega?

  Now, you've mentioned that there are these three parliaments that are held. And I think that's a really important point because what it shows us is how long this rebellion is going on for. It's really easy to look at a rebellion as a sort of single action, maybe it lasts about a month or so, you know, say you're the peasants rebellion, you know. Fan favorite rebellion, one of my favorite rebellions, you know, these sorts of things, but they get put down pretty quickly. This is actually going on for quite some time, isn't it?

• 41:44Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, and as you could debate when it finishes, really, because it goes on for so many years. I mean, you know, as was this start off, clean do it the first few years, fourteen hundred, fourteen oh two, he's sort of, it's, it's your sort of, the sort of rebellion you might expect where they're hiding in the mountains and appearing and then, you know, they're disappearing again. Fourteen oh three onwards to fourteen oh seven, say, he is acting as prince in many ways, you know, he's not in control of whole of Wales, but he is in many ways acting as prince. And then after that, things gradually deteriorate. He, he's sort of, basically Wales was reconquered by the English crown over a series of years.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  And I suppose fourteen oh nine, you could say it looks as if it's over. So it takes nine years for it really to look as if it's over, but it's still not over because he's, he's still in hiding and he still has loyal followers and they're still, you know, reading into Shropshire, they're still, you know, reading in different parts of Wales. And really, you know, he's got ambassadors, like Griffith Young I mentioned earlier, you know, he's got ambassadors representing him in France, at least into fourteen seventeen, trying to still get the French to support him again. And it's only twenty one years after the beginning of the rebellion that his son accepts the pardon.

• 43:06Speaker 03

  So, I mean, that's the final act, I suppose, of the rebellion where until that point his son wasn't willing to give up. So it, it shows you again, it's long lasting. And I think it's one of the things, you know, we think of the rebellion, we know it failed. Uh, and therefore, uh, we think, as you say, it's like one of the other rebellions that might have happened. But to think that it was successful for a while and that it lasted so long, I think it's something that people might probably feel, find surprising.

• 43:34Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, and I think that when we look at output from the court and things that are happening at the time, that people really seem invested in this. They're like, oh, great, it's all happening. Like, so for example, when Glyndwr is crowned Prince of Wales, you know, a lot of people record this. We've got stuff from poets and writers. Like, what do we, what do we see being created in terms of cultural output around this?

• 43:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, in terms of poetry, we have a few poems from the period, but actually not that many. There might be multiple reasons for that. So in terms of that, then, some poetry. But what we do have, I suppose, are the letters that Glyndwr sends out. These letters that contain his vision, that show his authority, and that show his voice as well. And there's a historian who refers to Glyndwr and his angry voice. And you get a sense to some of the letters about how, how angry he is about the situation that people in Wales find themselves in. And sort of, there's this anger that does come across. But I think the contribution, I mean, the legacy in that sense, or the

• 44:41Speaker 03

  the cultural, you know, the culture that comes out of this is his ideas. So the ideas that he produces, they have an influence that'll speak to people, you know, centuries later, really. And, I mean, there are various attached to these documents. Of course, you have seals and sort of his seal as a symbol of what he stands for as well. So I suppose those are the cultural legacy of the rebellion.

• 45:05Eleanor Janega?

  Okay, so from the other side. What are the English writing about this? We, I need to know what the haters are saying.

• 45:13Speaker 03

  Well, it's, it's interesting. Of course, there is a lot of animosity towards the rebellion in England. And of course, especially if you think of places on the border with Wales, they are actually being attacked. And as was one of the things that shows the strength of the rebellion as well, is that, you know, some communities in England actually pay Glyndwr. Because they say, they pay him off, you know, protection money, if you like, you know, saying, well, we will pay you if you won't attack us. But certainly, there's a lot of fear. And I suppose there is that feeling in England at the time that they have to face war on multiple fronts. They're not actively fighting against the French at this time. Where they could be, there are rebellions in England against any of the false rule.

• 45:57Speaker 03

  The Scots, of course, are always invading, and now you've got the rebellion in Wales to contend with as well. So there is quite a lot of fear in Wales. There is, you know, there is even evidence of graffiti being written in churches and monasteries in England of people that God, please save us from Glyndwr, you know. So, so clearly there is this real sense of, of fear. There is also a sense, I suppose, of admiration though sometimes in some chronicles because there's one example of, I can give you is of a man called Llewelyn Epigryffyddwychan from Carmarthenshire. And he was someone who, who actively sacrificed his life for the rebellion, you know.

• 46:39Speaker 03

  So he led any of the fourth of a wild goose chase pretending that he was going to take him to Glyndwr. And after it became obvious that he, he wasn't going to take the king to Glyndwr after all. He turned to the, yeah, the story in an English chronicle goes, he turns to the executioner and offers his head. You know, and, you know, and says, well, you know, I'm not going to betray my leader. And in, and in those chronicles and so on, you sometimes get this sense of admiration for, well, oh, we can learn from this actually. And of course, there's also, as you can imagine, we've, we've mentioned your religion and prophecy already. You know, sometimes they do write about the Welsh rebellion and say, well, is this a punishment, you know, is God, you know, this. So there are elements like that.

• 47:23Speaker 03

  But I suppose Glyndwr really grasps the imagination of people in England at the time. And that's, you know, partly led to, you know, Shakespeare's depiction of him and so on. This idea that he's a wizard, that he controls the weather, that you think he's here, he disappears and he appears somewhere else instead, you know. Um, so you get this sense, especially if you're with an English army and you arrive in Wales and the weather turns and you can't go any further. And you have to turn back because of the weather, you know, is that Glyndwr, can he control the weather, you know. So there's, there's a real mystique that grows around him and it's present, or it begins at least in some of the, the accounts of him in England at the time.

• 48:05Eleanor Janega?

  So for you, as a historian who's doing work on this person who is literally portrayed as magical at some points in time, is it, you know, do you find yourself being cast as kind of Captain Bringdown sometimes, you know, you're having to go in and be like, that's just a guy, you know, and try to sift through all this myth?

• 48:25Speaker 03

  Anyway, there's so much that's interesting about it anyway. So I'm not, I'm not quite sure how many people actually believe that he's a wizard. I don't think I've sort of-

• 48:36Eleanor Janega?

  I'm choosing to.

• 48:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, I suppose, I suppose. I'm not quite sure how many people are disappointed, actually disappointed by the fact that he's not a wizard. But, but I suppose this, I mean, there's so much, you know, of interest concerning him anyway, that, yeah, definitely people are, I don't have to feel that I'm disappointing anyone. And I suppose, well, I suppose the disappointment might be for some people if I tell them that he's not still alive somewhere.

• 49:02Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, under a hill, surely.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  Under a hill, yeah. Because of course, there are also these legends, as you can imagine, he's like a King Arthur figure as well in some sense. And there were all these legends and stories that, you know, folklore growing up around him, which about, you know, he's sleeping in a cave somewhere. And all you need to do is to find him and he'll come back at the right time.

• 49:26Eleanor Janega?

  I love, I love how medieval people do that, you know, everyone, almost everyone has King Arthur, but you know, the Czechs have Saint Václavus, the Germans have Barbarossa, and it's like, yeah, and the Welsh have it.

• 49:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, oh, absolutely.

• 49:38Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, come on.

• 49:39Speaker 03

  But it's a long lasting legend, though. It's not just a medieval legend. It's sort of, you know, people for centuries, these have been recorded in later centuries, you know, these stories about, oh, he was this cave. And then people, of course, having their own local connection to the Glyndwr Rebellion. So various landmarks called after Glyndwr, you're showing the impression he'd left on the memory of, on the landscape, really. I mean, in, in the village I grew up in, in Llangerniw, in sort of the middle of North Wales, and there was a legend there that he, that Glyndwr had hidden in, in, in the woods there, you know. So you've got sort of, again, wherever you go in Wales, they'd have their different stories about a landmark which was connected to Glyndwr and so on.

• 50:23Speaker 03

  So he clearly had left a deep, deep impression on people. So it's not surprising that people are still interested in him today.

• 50:32Eleanor Janega?

  Yeah, do you find it difficult kind of sorting through the folkloric ideas of Guldor? I guess you've got the the cultural Guldor and you've got the historical Guldor in a way.

• 50:43Speaker 03

  Hmm. Yeah, and I suppose in a sense both presenting in different ways. And although, of course, in many of these myths, we might not go and say, well, actually, that's actually correct and so on. You know, they might not be factually correct, but they they still represent what he's meant to people. And so they're still an important part of his story. And you can see the impact he had, you know, there's a story about him, you know, after the rebellion, getting up early and walking across the hills and he meets an abbot and he tells the abbot, oh, abbot, you've you've got up early this morning. And the abbot tells, no, no, you've got up early, but by centuries, you know, and that sort of.

• 51:27Speaker 03

  And this this sense that he was a man before his time, and so all these myths. So I think there are so many documents from the period that it is, you know, it's possible. I mean, how well do we know people from the period is another question, but you you can you can certainly get a gist of what he did. What were many of his qualities and so on? So we can differentiate the myth from the time, I mean, his letters, as I mentioned before, were very, very important in trying to understand him. But I suppose we, as historians, we need to be careful that we don't just dismiss all the myths about him as well. Because certainly for people in later centuries, that's as much part of his story as what he actually did.

• 52:06Speaker 03

  And certainly he's had such an impression and certain a legacy after that, that his legacy is important to consider and has an impact as well.

• 52:15Eleanor Janega?

  I I think that's a really important point because I think we have a tendency now to look at myths or even use the word myth to sort of mean falsehood or fabrication. But really what myths are is explanatory stories. They're stories that help us to understand how particular cultures are dealing with something. And so it doesn't necessarily matter whether or not these stories are true with a capital T. What what matters is that people are telling them and what that says about the culture.

• 52:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely. And in a way, Glyndwr then has been reimagined for different people at different times as well. So you can imagine your 19th century, when people are starting to campaign for universities in Wales, for a Welsh Parliament and so on, then he becomes that figure, that visionary figure who sort of who developed these ideas initially. So, you know, and then you can imagine now with, you know, for example, campaigns for Welsh independence, then obviously he's a figure that people can latch on to then for campaigning for independence as well. So, you know, people in different periods pick on what they find

• 53:35Speaker 03

  interesting, what speaks to them. And so different parts of his rebellion and of him as a character, you know, become important at different points in history.

• 53:45Eleanor Janega?

  Hmm. And can you talk a little bit about what he means for Welsh people now? I mean, he's certainly one of those names that comes up over and over again when you are talking about the history of Wales. And you can see why anyone in the 19th century would want this, you know, in the 19th century, everyone is so incredibly busy creating the national myth again, for why they are a country, why they are a place. And you'll see this all across, you know, Europe, whether it's for German unification, or, you know, arguments for nations seceding from varying empires. So I can understand why Welsh people are doing it then, obviously. But that doesn't mean that people aren't still doing it now, right?

• 54:27Speaker 03

  Hmm. Yeah. What's interesting, so just to, before I answer that question, what's interesting is in terms of the 19th century as well, you mentioned in other places, they use these heroes as a way of justing themselves being an independent nation. I suppose in Wales in the 19th century, it's not really about being an independent nation, but about showing the, you know, about developing Welsh culture, but as part of a of a British UK context as well. So interesting, it's sort of quite a different connotation in Wales. But I suppose if you if you go through Wales today, you will pass many Glyndwr flags. So you can see the, you know, the people Still take hold of him today. So you'll see the red and yellow flags across Wales. And so, yeah, he does mean he's sort of, he's another

• 55:10Speaker 03

  representative of Welsh identity, of Welsh sense of nationhood, absolutely. And I suppose people feel that he's an important part of history, whether they know much about his history or not. I mean, what he represents is more famous than what he actually did, I suppose. And, you know, now that, you know, certainly he has been taken hold of now in terms of political campaigning. So as I mentioned, you know, campaign for Welsh independence, for example, you know, he is a figure. He's not, actually, that campaign mostly thinks about the future rather than the past. But when he does think about the past, it does mention him in that context. So he does have an underlying sort of subconscious,

• 55:51Speaker 03

  I suppose, general place in the way that Welsh people see their identity. And it is then sometimes brought to the fore when it comes to various campaigns.

• 56:03Eleanor Janega?

  I could talk to you about this all day, but unfortunately for everyone, my face hurts from smiling now, so I'm going to have to let you go. But, Hrun, this has been an unmitigated delight. Thank you so much for coming on.

• 56:17Speaker 03

  Oh, you're welcome. It's been a pleasure.

• 56:23Eleanor Janega?

  Thanks to Dr. Hrun Emlyn once again, and to you for listening to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Remember, you can enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries, including Professor Michael Livingstone's amazing new series on medieval rebels, as well as ad-free podcasts by signing up at historyhit.com/subscription. You can follow Gone Medieval on Spotify, where you can leave us comments and suggestions, or wherever you get your podcasts. And tell all your friends and family that you've gone medieval. Until next time.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Adam Grant from TED's Rethinking Podcast. As businesses scale, success depends on how well knowledge is captured, shared, and kept up to date. Camtasia Pro turns teams' expertise into engaging training, onboarding, and documentation. No professional editing experience required. With the industry's best screen recording, video editing, and AI-powered workflows, you can train faster and boost operational efficiency. Get over $100 off your first year at camtasia pro.com and start building a smarter way to educate customers, onboard employees, and ensure valuable expertise is shared across teams.