In the long roll of Welsh history which we have been unfolding there are many illustrious names--Cunedda Wledig, Howel Dda, Owen Gwynedd, the Lord Rees, Llewelyn Fawr, and Llewelyn the last Prince of Wales: but of all the men of the Middle Ages no one has so touched the heart and fired the imagination of Wales as Owen Glyndwr. For all Welsh people he stands alone and supreme, the ideal Welshman of all time. Both the beginning and the end of his life are shrouded in obscurity. It was only for some half-dozen years that he occupied a foremost place in the politics of his day. He left behind him no solid gain of any kind, but at best a vague tradition and an unrealised dream. Yet in spite of all that his hold upon his countrymen has never relaxed; and when the bonds in which the national spirit had been confined for more than three hundred years were beginning to break {110} in the first half of the nineteenth century, it was his name that was invoked, and his dreams that were recalled. Gardiner once said that the two typical Englishmen of all time were Shakespeare and Oliver Cromwell; the one in the realm of thought, the other in the realm of action. Wales owes no such divided allegiance: the Welsh spirit at its best is typified in one man--Owen Glyndwr. Owen was a direct descendant of the princely house of Powys, a line of princes which had played a none too illustrious part in the struggle for independence. The family was a wealthy one, and Owen spent his early years in passing from one of his father's country houses to the other. The real home of the family was the exquisitely beautiful Glyndyfrdwy, a narrow valley through which the limpid waters of the Dee flow between thickly wooded banks, above which rise the heather-clad slopes of the Berwyns. Close at hand are Valle Crucis and Dinas Bran; and not far off is the entrance to the fertile and lovely Vale of Clwyd. Even the year of Owen's birth is uncertain. Tradition varies; but the best evidence at our disposal points to 1359 as the date. Wealthy and well-connected young men in those days used frequently to study law for some years {111} at the Inns of Court, a training which was regarded as more aristocratic than residence at the University of Oxford. Owen seems to have gone up to London, and to have spent some time in listening to cases argued in Westminster Hall, then the home of the Common Law Courts. Shakespeare is probably right when he makes Owen lay claim to the possession of the best culture of the day-- "I can speak English, lord, as well as you; For I was trained up in the English court; Where, being but young, I framed to the harp Many an English ditty lovely well, And gave the tongue a helpful ornament."