The Welsh bards and seers had been very busy with prophecies and portents even at his birth, and Shakespeare—who thought Welshmen excellent subjects to make fun of—has used these forebodings and Glyndwr’s rising arrogance with effect in that scene of _Henry IV._ where the allies meet at Bangor. “At my birth,” says Glyndwr— The frame and huge foundation of the earth Shak’d like a coward. “Why,” retorts Hotspur, “so it would have done at the same season if your mother’s cat had but kitten’d, though you yourself had never been born.” “I can call spirits from the vasty deep,” adds Glyndwr; to which the unromantic Hotspur observes:— Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? It is plain, if we take the Shakespearean view, that there were never such ill-assorted allies as Hotspur and Glyndwr. The one boasts, in true Welsh style, that no man is his equal, and Hotspur is only ready to allow that no man speaks better Welsh. Had this alliance been successful, Glyndwr’s sovereignty was to extend over Wales and to include all the territory comprised within a line drawn from the Mersey to Burton-on-Trent, and from thence to Worcester and the mouth of the Severn. But he distrusted Hotspur, even if he was frank with Mortimer, who had become his son-in-law; and when Hotspur advanced from the Scottish borders to give battle to Henry IV. at Shrewsbury, left him to fight a hopeless struggle against overwhelming numbers. Had Glyndwr been a true ally and joined forces Shrewsbury Fight would have had a different ending. But, cursed with those streaks of treachery and suspicion that mar the character of the Celt, Glyndwr let his ally be destroyed, and with that desertion wrought the eventual failure of his own ambitions. This is no place to follow his fortunes, rising and falling in a long and hopeless struggle. Successes he had in plenty, and he laid the greater part of Wales waste, but Saxon tenacity wore him down in the long run. After a romantic career, he at length became a beaten fugitive, and at the last fades out of sight, in 1416. No man knows where or when he died; but legends connect the little village of Monnington, in Herefordshire, with his obscure end. The Welsh bards who twanged their harps in Owain’s halls, and ate his food and swilled his sack and metheglin, did him an ill service when they sang of the deeds he was to do and the glory that was to be his. His halls are gone, and only traditions and the researches of the antiquary preserve his story. His Mount stands still by the roadside, and vague stories of how he stood here and watched for the approach of his enemies are told; but one may have a shrewd suspicion that it is only your literary Welshman who nowadays knows or cares much about him. XXXIX