A faithful Welsh subject to the English king for most of his life, Owain Glyndwr (c1350-c1416) turned outlaw and raised a great rebellion in Wales in 1400, even invading England at the Battle of Shrewsbury. So, why have so few people outside of Wales heard of him?
A variety of factors have made Glyndwr relatively obscure. First, he eventually lost; second,
Shakespeare did a number on his reputation by portraying him as a superstitious savage in his play Henry IV pts. 1 and 2. And third-the English are probably still scared to death of him.
Glyndwr was like a fifteenth century combination of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. Born in a Wales still broken and impoverished by Edward I's invasions in the 1280s, Glyndwr faithfully served Edward's great-grandson, Richard II. Richard raised up many local Welshmen in an effort to break the power of his barons. But in 1399, Henry Bolingbroke rose up and deposed Richard, becoming Henry IV. Richard soon died under mysterious circumstances and Glyndwr ran afoul of a royal favorite, neighbor Reginald Grey of Ruthin. Though Glyndwr tried to go through legal channels in their dispute, Grey did not similarly play fair. He deliberately held back a military muster from reaching Glyndwr until it was too late. Though Glyndwr protested that he had not ignored the summons, he was summarily declared a traitor and outlaw. In a rage, he called for a rebellion on September 16, 1400--a date that many modern Welsh would like to see made an official holiday.
There's a reason for this-medieval rebellions did not generally last long, usually less than a year. But the response of the Welsh to Glyndwr's call for rebellion was so intense and so universal that the rebellion persisted for another 16 years. Based on his descent from two Welsh princely houses, Powys and Deheubarth, Glyndwr even declared himself the Prince of Wales from 1404 until his fortunes changed in 1408. Though Henry had greater resources, he also had a lot more enemies.
Glyndwr survived by hit-and-run guerilla tactics, supplementing his army with French and Breton freebooters and supplying his troops via French privateers. Even though Henry's son, Henry V, pursued a much more conciliatory policy after 1413 toward the Welsh, Glyndwr was never captured, never betrayed, and steadfastly refused a pardon to the end. He may have been an outlaw to the English, but to the Welsh, he was, and still is, a king.
