Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1: Or, Memoirs of the Life and Character of Henry the Fifth, as Prince of Wales and King of EnglandTyler, James Endell
History
Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1: Or, Memoirs of the Life and Character of Henry the Fifth, as Prince of Wales and King of England
Tyler, James Endell
Henry V, King of England, 1387-1422
Owyn Glyndowr was in a short time so well supported by an army,
undisciplined no doubt, and in all respects ill appointed, but yet
devoted to him and their common cause, that he was emboldened to try
his strength with Lord Grey in the field. A battle, fought (as it (p. 110)
should seem) in the very neighbourhood of Glyndowrdy,[112] terminated
in favour of Owyn, who took the Earl prisoner, and carried him into
the fastnesses of Snowdon. The precise date of this conflict is not
known; probably it was at the opening of spring: the circumstances
also of his capture are very differently represented. It is generally
asserted that a marriage with one of Owyn's daughters was the condition
of regaining his liberty proposed to the Earl; that the marriage was
solemnized; and that Owyn then, instead of keeping his word and releasing
him, demanded of him a most exorbitant ransom. It is, moreover, affirmed,
that the Earl remained Glyndowr's prisoner to the day of his death.
Now, that Lord Grey fell into the Welsh chieftain's hands as a prisoner,
is beyond question; so it is that he paid a heavy ransom: but that he
died in confinement is certainly not true, for he accompanied Henry V.
to France, and also served him by sea. The report of his marriage with
Owyn's daughter, might have originated in some confusion of Lord Grey
with Sir Edmund Mortimer; who unquestionably did take one of the Welsh
chieftain's daughters for his wife.[113] It is scarcely probable that
both Owyn's prisoners should have married his daughters; and still (p. 111)
less probable that he should have exacted so large a ransom from his
son-in-law as to exhaust his means, and prevent him from acting as a
baron of the realm was then expected to act. Dugdale's Baronage gives
the Earl two wives, without naming the daughter of Glyndowr. Hardyng,
in his Chronicle presented to Henry VI, thus describes the affair:
Soone after was the same Lord Gray in feelde
Fightyng taken, and holden prisoner
By Owayne, so that hym in prison helde
Till his ransom was made, and fynaunce clear,
Ten thousand marks, and fully payed were;
For whiche he was so poor then all his life,
That no power he had to war, nor stryfe.
[Footnote 112: Lingard places the site of Owyn's
victory over Lord Grey on the banks of the
"Vurnway."]
[Footnote 113: The Monk of Evesham reports that
Lord Grey was released about the year 1404, having
first paid to Owyn five thousand marks for his
ransom, and leaving his two sons as pledges for the
payment of five thousand more. The same authority
informs us that Edmund Mortimer espoused the
daughter of Owyn with great solemnity. The Pell
Rolls (1 Henry V. June 27) leave us in no doubt as
to the fact of that marriage.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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