At the very outset of his reign, however, and on the morrow of the conspiracy of the lords appellant, Henry had attempted an expedition into Scotland. Not daring to ask subsidies of the Parliament, the king had had recourse to the military service of the feudal system, and, convoking under his banners all holders of fiefs, and furnished with the tithe voted by the clergy, he had advanced as far as Edinburgh, to summon King Robert, the Duke of Rothsay, his son, and all the great Scottish noblemen to come and render homage to him. Robert III. was aged, feeble, and infirm; he had abandoned the power to his brother, the Duke of Albany, constantly at contention with the heir to the throne, the Duke of Rothsay, sanguine, thoughtless, and venturesome. The young duke hastened to Edinburgh, to defend it. Henry was repulsed; his provisions failed him: he was compelled to withdraw from Scotland, having reaped no other glory in this campaign than the humanity towards the peasants, of which he had given proofs, and the discipline which he had been enabled to maintain in his army. {365} While the King of England was fighting and suffering failure in Scotland, an unexpected insurrection broke out in Wales. A lawyer, who had afterwards served as esquire in the house of the Earl of Arundel, a Welshman,--descending, it was said, from Llewellyn, the last Welsh prince,--Owen Glendower or Glendwyr, had seen his little estate encroached upon through the avidity of a powerful neighbor, Lord Grey de Ruthyn. Owen had appealed to the Parliament; his complaint had been rejected. The Welshman resolved to avenge himself by force of arms, and drove from his lands the servants of Lord Grey. He was thereupon outlawed. His pretensions grew with his anger; it was no longer a question of a little field or of a cluster of trees; Owen Glendwyr publicly proclaimed his illustrious origin, laying claim to the independent sovereignty of Wales. Fire smouldered under the ashes among these people, subjected for so many years; the love of national liberty was not extinguished. From all parts the Welsh hastened round Owen; students quitted their universities, laborers their ploughshares, at the call of independence. At the beginning of the year 1401, King Henry IV. found himself compelled to proceed to Wales with an army. But Owen was too shrewd to hazard a pitched battle; he left to the climate and to famine the task of fighting for him. From the mountains in which he had taken refuge, he soon saw King Henry compelled to retire. A second campaign, attempted in 1402, was not more fortunate: the rain fell in torrents; the rivers became swollen at the approach of the English soldiers, who left Wales convinced that Glendwyr was a sorcerer in league with the elements. {366}