CHAPTER 21
Anxious to see if I could get a better understanding of what was really going on with the Wars of the Roses and, if possible, to discover if there was a connection between what I was starting to refer to as the ‘Welsh Renaissance’ and the use of Rosicrucian symbolism on tombstones, I decided that it was time I visited Raglan myself. I had read about its importance some years earlier while studying the Iolo Manuscripts . Here, it is recorded that during the 15th century, under the protection of the Earl of Pembroke, regular meetings of the bards were held at Raglan. The Iolo MSSalso mentions that, at that time, Raglan’s library was the best in Wales. With all this in mind, I decided to pay a visit to both Raglan and the nearby town of Abergavenny.
It was early spring when I eventually found myself driving up to the castle itself. As I parked the car and turned to face it for the first time, it looked absolutely magnificent. With its enormous gatehouse flanked by imposing towers and largely intact curtain wall, it looked everything that a castle should: impregnable. This turned out to be an illusion! In reality, the castle I was looking at was but an empty shell. For like so many others in England and Wales, the inside was in a state of near total ruin. This was the result of a terrible act of vandalism for which Oliver Cromwell must take the blame. In 1646, following a long siege, he ordered that the castle be ‘slighted’, ie turned into an uninhabitable ruin. I looked in vain for its famous library, but this too had been deliberately torched. Had it lasted another 150 years or so, it would certainly have been visited by old Iolo, and he would undoubtedly have copied many of its precious manuscripts for posterity. As it is, we cannot be sure of exactly what it is we have lost or even if, by some good fortune, certain volumes were stolen rather than burned. If so, they may still be languishing unrecognized on a bookshelf somewhere. This is a slim hope; however much we may wish differently, it seems unlikely that any of the books have survived. Nevertheless, the sheer bulk of the castle and the elegant style of the surviving walls and towers were proof enough of the wealth and power of its former owners, the Herbert family. During the Wars of the Roses, one of these, Sir William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke, who had held bardic festivals, had been a veritable Prince of the Welsh in all but name. How this all came about made an interesting story that turned out to be crucial to understanding the importance of Wales in the development of the Rosicrucian mystery.
The Wars of the Roses, which took place on and off between 1455 and 1485, mark even more of a watershed in Welsh history than English history. Before them, the Welsh, although politically subjects of the Crown, were treated with a great deal of suspicion, an attitude that went back to long before the Norman invasions. To make rebellion harder, Wales itself was covered with castles, mostly owned by Marcher Lords. Although in some parts of the country, especially in the South, there were quite large colonies of English immigrants, the ordinary people were not allowed to intermarry or mix with the Welsh. Conversely, except by special act of Parliament, any Welshman living in England was not allowed to buy either land or a house. Meanwhile, the native Welsh aristocracy, even those with royal pedigrees, were denied noble titles and very few were given the honour of knighthood.
The spread of Welsh literature, especially of a patriotic nature that might lead to rebellion, was also closely controlled. Printing presses were banned and, for a time, so were even pen and paper. Despite being the first book to be printed in Welsh, Sir John Price’s Yn Y Lhyvr Hwnn (literally ‘In This Book’), appeared in 1546 and was printed in London. It was not until 1718 that a permanent printing press was established in Wales. This was nearly three centuries after Johannes Gutenberg had invented it. With the clasau closed down, all education was in the hands of monks, friars and nuns belonging to recognized orders. Until the founding (in 1822) of St David’s College, Lampeter, there were no universities at all in Wales. Before then, if a Welshman wanted higher education, he had to get it in England, which usually meant going to Jesus College, Oxford.
As we have seen, in 1399 Henry Bolingbroke – afterwards King Henry IV – deposed his cousin Richard II in a coup, the latter dying in suspicious circumstances the following year. This sudden change in dynasty had a profound effect in Wales. Henry’s usurpation caused enormous instability, and all the resentment that had been building up for centuries boiled over.
An early casualty of these times was Sir Thomas le Despencer, Earl of Gloucester and Lord of Glamorgan. He was the son of Sir Edward le Despencer, who had been a great benefactor to Tewkesbury Abbey. He was also the father of Isabel le Despencer, the benefactress of the same church who married two husbands, both called Richard Beauchamp. Sir Thomas, extremely unpopular in England as well as Wales, was beheaded by a Bristol mob in 1400. However, this was only the beginning; much worse trouble was to follow.