Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/521

A.D. 1409.] less than 30,000 people; and in other places it extirpated whole families, and left whole houses and almost villages empty.

To escape its violence, the court removed from London to Leeds Castle, in Kent. Desiring to be still farther from the capital, the king took shipping at Queenborough. on the Isle of Sheppey, and, accompanied by a small squadron, commanded by Thomas Lord Camois, descended the Thames, near its mouth the royal fleet was attacked by French pirates, and was in the greatest jeopardy. Four of his vessels, containing much valuable furniture, plate, and wearing apparel, and several persons of distinction, were taken, including Sir Thomas Eampstone, the vice-chamberlain, and Henry only escaped by the swiftness of his ship. This was a very admonitory proof of the truth of the representations of the House of Commons as to the condition of our naval affairs. Some suspicion was cast on Lord Camois, the commander, and he was arraigned on a charge of treason or cowardice before the peers, but was honourably acquitted.

Encouraged by Henry's domestic difficulties, and the strong opposition manifested by Parliament, the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Bardolf, having vainly waited for any decisive support from Owen Glendower, who indeed was now gradually sinking beneath the vigorous efforts of Prince Henry, determined to make one more descent on England. Northumberland had tried in vain to induce Albany to embrace his cause. He had then gone over to France, and thence to Flanders, with equally little success. His last hope was placed on the co-operation of the exiled nobles and knights in Scotland, and the disaffected in the borders and in Northumberland. A correspondence was opened with Sir Thomas Rokeby, sheriff of Yorkshire, and that gentleman is said, by Buchanan, to have lured them on in order to make their defeat certain. They advanced from Scotland into Northumberland, surprised several castles, and raised the Percy tenantry, who were attached to the old chief. Hence they marched on into Yorkshire, and having reached Knaresborough, were joined by Sir Nicholas Tempest. They crossed the Wharfe at Wetherby, and Sir Thomas Rokeby, who appears to have allowed them uninterrupted progress hitherto, that he might effectually cut off their retreat, now following them closely, overtook them on Bramham Moor, near Tadcaster, and brought them to an engagement. The Earl of Northumberland was killed in the battle. Lord Bardolf was taken prisoner, but died in a few days of his wounds. Thus did the old Percy of Northumberland, after a long and hard contest to put down the man he had helped to set up, close his stormy career on the 28th of February, 1408, as his son Hotspur had done five years before at Shrewsbury. The bodies of the earl and of Lord Bardolf were cut in quarters and sent to London and other towns, where they were exposed.

Henry was in full march to encounter the insurgents when he was met by the pleasing intelligence of their defeat and death. He proceeded to Pontefract, where he continued for a month, busily employed in punishing and fining the prisoners of any rank or substance who had been taken at the battle. He was in pressing need of money, and he coined as much out of ransoms as possible. The Abbot of Hayles, having taken arms, was executed like a layman, as the Archbishop of York had been before.

There remained now, of all Henry's enemies within the kingdom, only the Welsh to subdue. The contest between Owen Glendower and Prince Henry had now been going on for upwards of four years, with every demonstration of art, activity, and bravery with which two such commanders could conduct a difficult contest amongst mountains and marshes. Glendower, one of the most devoted patriots and most spirited and able generals that are to be found in history, had disputed every inch of ground with unconquerable pugnacity and never exhausted stratagem. He may be said to have taught Henry of Monmouth that discipline and military science which afterwards enabled him to win the battle of Agincourt, and achieve such brilliant triumphs in France. But Henry, full of youth and martial ardour, and supported from England by troops and provisions, was an antagonist who was sure, in time, to bear down the limited means of Glendower. During nearly five years he had completely reduced South Wales, and was slowly but steadily advancing in the north.

In the summer of 1409, Glendower, finding his indefatigable young enemy steadily advancing upon him, and the support of the disheartened and plundered people growing weaker, determined to make one desperate effort to supply himself with provisions, and to inflict a severe punishment, even if it were the last, upon the foe. He therefore sent all the forces he could muster, under the command of his two bravest officers, his son-in-law, Philpot Scudamore, and Rees ap Dhu, to make a grand foray in Shropshire. These commanders executed their commission with great bravery and ferocity; but they were at length defeated, their troops cut to pieces, and themselves taken prisoners, carried to London, and there executed.

This was the last expiring effort of the Welsh in that glorious struggle which they had maintained for ten years under their illustrious countryman, Owen ap Griffith Vaughan, better known as the unconquerable Owen Glendower. We say unconquerable, for though Wales, a small country, engaged in an unequal contest with a far greater and more wealthy nation, and with two of the most renowned generals of the age, Henry of Lancaster and his sou-, was compelled to yield, it is very clear, from abundant historic facts, that Owen himself never retired from the struggle—never was subdued. He contrived to live on amid his native mountains, the same free, high-hearted, independent man as when, in all the pride of his youth, he quitted the temples of the law, and gave to the mountain winds the banners of his native land. Sometimes he traversed the hills that he could not emancipate disguised in the dress of a shepherd. Sometimes he managed to collect a little band of warriors, and came suddenly on the unguarded lines and lands of his English foes. Sometimes, worn out by fatigue, or driven from the woods and rocks by the storms of winter, he sought a hidden repose at his daughter's house at Moningtonrin Herefordshire. But wherever he was, in whatever guise, whether that of a peasant in the lowland hut, or the soldier on the hills, he was still the unbending, unconquered patriot, of whom any country must be proud. In the Rolls of Parliament, and in Rymer's "Foedera."