The town, a cheerful little place, clean, but without anything of much interest in it, is one of the six contributing boroughs of Montgomery. It has not even an old parish church; the structure that serves for the purpose is modern and poor in design. But it does retain a little plaster-and-timber house, nearly opposite the gates of the grounds of Plas Machynlleth, the place of the Marchioness of Londonderry, which is traditionally held to have been the dwelling in which Owen Glyndwr assembled a parliament to consult as to the best means of resisting Henry IV., and the place also where an attempt was made to assassinate him by David Gam. Owen Glyndwr was born about 1359 in South Wales, but descended from the princes of Powys, and he takes his name from Glyndyfrdwy in Yale. He first comes to notice as witness in a remarkable trial that lasted four years between the houses of Grosvenor and Scrope relative to rights to a certain coat-of-arms. The story of rights over a common, which originated the struggle between Owen and Lord Grey of Ruthin, and brought on a contest with the whole power of England, that lasted through Glyndwr’s life, has been already told. The treachery of the unprincipled English baron led to the desolation of Wales, to rivers of blood being shed, and to a good deal of humiliation to his master, Henry IV. It may be remembered that when, in 1400, King Henry was preparing an expedition against Scotland, he summoned Glyndwr to join his forces, but confided the summons to Grey to deliver. Lord Grey purposely suppressed it, and then represented Owen to the King as a malcontent and a rebel; whereupon, without inquiry into the matter, Henry IV. pronounced his estate forfeit. The Welsh had sympathised with Richard II., and they regarded Bolingbroke as a usurper, but would have contented themselves with singing dirges to the memory of Richard, had they not been exasperated to revolt by the violence and injustice of the Marchers. Owen, enraged against Grey de Ruthin, at first made a personal quarrel of his wrongs; but this soon developed and extended until it involved the whole of Wales, which rose against the English Crown. In 1401 King Henry marched into North Wales, but the natives, and all those who held to Owen, retired into the mountains; and Henry returned to England, having effected nothing. He left Henry Prince of Wales, then a boy of thirteen, at Chester, to watch and control the Welsh, with Henry Hotspur, eldest son of the Earl of Northumberland, as Justice of North Wales and Constable of the Castles. Shakespeare has considerably disturbed men’s minds relative to persons and events of the period. He makes the fiery Percy but little older than Prince Hal, whereas he was actually older than Henry IV. And Prince Hal was by no means the roysterer at East Cheap as represented, but from early days engaged in war, and carrying on a prolonged contest with Glyndwr, a wily and able commander, in a country most difficult to hold.