In the summer of 1408, Prince Henry resumed the Siege of Aberystwyth, which fell (probably) in late September. Operations against Harlech – where Glyn Dwr’s wife and daughters and Sir Edmund Mortimer were – began around the same time. The besiegers were under the command of Gilbert Lord Talbot and his brother, John, Lord Furnival. In December they had a force of 300 men-at-arms and 600 archers, with gunners, carpenters, smiths and labourers. Despite a number of Welsh raids on English supply lines, the eventual outcome of the siege was not in doubt.
Sir Edmund Mortimer died, or was killed, during the siege, and at the end of February 1409 Harlech surrendered. Mortimer’s wife, Catherine, their four children and Glyn Dwr’s wife were taken to London, and three of the children died soon afterwards.
The Glyn Dwr rebellion died hard. By the end of 1408 the war in Wales was once again one of guerrilla raids, mainly for supplies and captives to ransom, conducted from the mountainous heartlands of North and West Wales. The rebels were not a serious threat to Henry’s regime, or even to his control of large parts of Wales. Rather than being crushed decisively in battle, the rebellion gradually faded away across most of Wales, with a steady stream of submissions to English authorities not inclined to be unduly vindictive, except in the case of rebel ringleaders.
But as late as the autumn of 1409 local Marcher lords in North East Wales were still making individual truces with rebels or bandits (the difference between the two was growing ever more indistinct). It would be some years before English officials could travel through parts of Wales without the protection of substantial military escorts. No rents could be collected from Northern Ceredigion as late as 1413. The final stronghold of the rebels was remote Merioneth. Here die-hards lurked and even in 1417, the area – with the rebels now led by Owain’s son, Maredudd – was seen as a possible source of further trouble.
The Fate of Owain Glyn Dwr
Although the recapture by English forces of Harlech Castle in 1409 symbolized the final ruin of Glyn Dwr’s ambitions, the embers of revolt continued to glow for many years afterwards. Glyn Dwr himself was still launching the occasional raid in the Marches as late as 1412, and some of the wilder parts of Wales remained ‘no-go areas’ to English officials, without a strong military escort, for some time longer.
Indeed, Wales was of concern to the English government, which had real fears of renewed rebellion until around 1421, when Glyn Dwr’s son, Maredudd, at last submitted. Even then, there remained some Welsh irreconcilables. Welshmen had fought on both sides at Agincourt, and it was not unusual for Welsh soldiers to be among the prisoners captured in garrisons during Henry V’s later campaigns in France. They were usually hanged.
Owain Glyn Dwr himself disappears from history in the autumn of 1415, still rejecting all offers of pardon from the newly-crowned Henry V. His end is as mysterious today as it was to contemporaries. One possibility is that he died as a fugitive, hiding in woods and caves. Another tradition has him living out his final months in seclusion at the home of his daughter at Kentchurch, on the Herefordshire border.
Despite various theories, Glyn Dwr’s final resting-place remains unknown. The mystery of his end played a part in Owain’s rise over the centuries to become the greatest national hero of Wales.
In 1410 Glyn Dwr had made his last big raid on the Shropshire border. Rhys Ddu and Owain’s son-in-law, Phillip Scudamore, were captured and both were hanged, drawn and quartered.
In 1413, on his accession to the throne, Prince Henry, now Henry V, offered pardons to Owain Glyn Dwr and his son. The offer was rejected or ignored. Later offers were made to Maredudd ab Owain only – suggesting that by the end of 1415 Owain Glyn Dwr was thought to be dead.
Maredudd continued, at least in theory, to maintain resistance for several years longer, plotting with Sir John Oldcastle, the rebel Lollard leader, and still seeking help from Scotland and France. Many Welshmen fought on for years in French service against the armies of Henry V, and at Agincourt there were Welshmen on both sides. But it was not until 8 April 1421, when Maredudd accepted pardon, the Welsh rebellion can at last be said to have been over, though lawlessness continued as its legacy for years to come.
The struggle for the English throne seemed to be at an end. But only thirty years later it would be renewed in the bloody conflict known to history as the Wars of the Roses.