Owen's success reached its culmination in 1405. From that time on his star was steadily on the wane, although for years he kept up a brave, and sometimes successful, resistance. A plan to secure the person of the young Earl of March, and to proclaim him King of England, miscarried. Slowly but surely the pressure of Henry's armies, and those of the Lords Marchers, was beginning to tell. Most of the grievances of the peasants had wisely been redressed, and they longed for the time when they could till their fields in peace, unmolested by the armies of either friend or foe. Owen's high ideals were beyond the comprehension of the selfish and illiterate labouring classes upon whom he had depended for his strength; and they now deserted in hundreds from his camp. The general _débâcle_ was assisted by the young Henry's policy of studied clemency. He was no foreigner, but a rival Prince of Wales; and he strove to prove that he cared just as much as did Owen for the welfare of his Welsh subjects. The abbot of Valle {122} Crucis was perfectly right when he told Owen that he had risen a century too soon. In the closing years of his life Owen was no better than a fugitive. Indeed, so completely had all traces of rebellion disappeared, that no particular effort was made to effect his capture. Where he lived, and how he lived, was unknown to his contemporaries as it is to us. Sometimes he would appear, clad as a common labourer; then vanish again, and not be seen for months. In its poverty and its loneliness it is a pathetic close to so splendid and so romantic a career. The young Henry had succeeded his father as King of England in 1413, and in 1415 he offered a free pardon to Owen. The pardon was, however, refused. That is the last fact which we know about the fallen leader. When he died, or where he is buried, we do not know; but a tradition, to which perhaps some credence may be given, tells us that at the end he came home to his beloved Glyndyfrdwy, and that his bones lie close by at Corwen. All his friends had long since been dispersed; some were dead, some languished in English prisons, others were living abroad in exile. Of the State which Owen had attempted to construct not a vestige remained, and the ideals which he had {123} cherished remained for centuries forgotten. But in tradition his name always loomed large on both sides of the border. How powerfully he had impressed the people of England is proved by the place which is accorded to him by Shakespeare. The Glendower of the great dramatist is a compound of cunning and simplicity, of amiability and uncouthness; but his considered verdict is that-- "In faith he is a worthy gentleman, Exceeding well read, and profited In strange concealments; valiant as a lion, And wondrous affable, and as bountiful As mines of India." Not a mean tribute from the victor to the vanquished rebel! {124} CHAPTER IX WALES AND THE TUDORS