THE WELSH REBELLION. -- OWYN GLYNDOWR. -- HIS FORMER LIFE. -- DISPUTE WITH LORD GREY OF RUTHYN. -- THAT LORD'S LETTER TO PRINCE HENRY. -- HOTSPUR. -- HIS TESTIMONY TO HENRY'S PRESENCE IN WALES, -- TO HIS MERCY AND HIS PROWESS. -- HENRY'S DESPATCH TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL. 1400-1401. Previously to the accession of Henry IV, Wales had enjoyed, for nearly seventy years, a season of comparative security and rest. During the desperate struggles in the reign of Henry III, in which its inhabitants, chiefly under their Prince Llewellin, fought so resolutely for their freedom, many districts of the Principality, especially the border-lands, had been rendered all but deserts. From this melancholy devastation they had scarcely recovered, when Queen Isabella, wife of Edward II, headed the rebel army against her own husband, who had taken refuge in Glamorganshire; and carried with her the most dreadful of all national scourges,--a sanguinary civil war. The whole country of South Wales, we are told, was so miserably ravaged by these intestine horrors, (p. 089) and the dearth consequent upon them was so excessive, that horses and dogs became at last the ordinary food of the miserable survivors. From the accession of Edward III, and throughout his long reign, Wales seems to have enjoyed undisturbed tranquillity and repose. Its oppressors were improving their fortunes, rapidly and largely, in France, reaping a far more abundant harvest in her rich domains than this impoverished land could have offered to their expectations. Through the whole reign also of Richard II, we hear of no serious calamity having befallen these ancient possessors of Britain. A friendly intercourse seems at that time to have been formed between the Principality and the kingdom at large; and a devoted attachment to the person of the King appears to have sprung up generally among the Welsh, and to have grown into maturity. We may thus consider the natives of Wales to have enjoyed a longer period of rest and peace than had fallen to their lot for centuries before, when the deposition of Richard, who had taken refuge among their strongholds, and in defence of whom they would have risked their property and their lives, prepared them to follow any chieftain who would head his countrymen against the present dynasty, and direct them in their struggle to throw off the English, or rather, perhaps, the Lancastrian yoke.