Battle of Bryn Glas
Who Fought
Welsh: approx. 1,500; English: approx. 2,000 (Wikipedia, drawing on standard secondary accounts)
History & Significance
The Battle of Bryn Glas (also known as the Battle of Pilleth) was a battle between the Welsh and English on 22 June 1402, near the towns of Knighton and Presteigne in Powys, Wales. It was part of the Glyndŵr rebellion of 1400-1415. It was an important victory for the Welsh under Owain Glyndŵr, as it resulted in the prolongation of the Welsh war of independence and the destabilisation of English politics for several years afterward.
Owain Glyndŵr's war of independence occurred against a background of instability in the English monarchy. King Richard II of England had become alienated from many of the nobles, and had been overthrown by Henry Bolingbroke, the Duke of Lancaster, who became Henry IV of England. In Wales and the Welsh Marches, there were still many supporters of the deposed Richard, who died in captivity in 1400. In that year, Reginald Grey, 3rd Baron Grey de Ruthyn, a supporter of the new King Henry, had unlawfully seized some of Glyndŵr's lands and falsely caused charges of treason to be brought against him. In response, Glyndŵr declared himself the true Prince of Wales, and began a rebellion.
After Glyndŵr gained early successes in 1400, King Henry led a punitive expedition into north Wales and appeared to have suppressed the revolt. However, Glyndŵr remained at large, and anti-Welsh legislation by Parliament ensured that few Welshmen had reason to support continued English rule. On 1 April 1401 (which was Good Friday), two brothers from Anglesey, Rhys ap Tudur and Gwilym ap Tudur, seized Conwy Castle by trickery. Glyndŵr himself won a victory over an army of English and Flemish settlers in Pembrokeshire at Mynydd Hyddgen in mid-Wales. These two events reinvigorated the rebellion. Henry led another punitive expedition into mid-Wales, but achieved nothing and his army suffered severely from bad weather.
Early in 1402, Glyndŵr's men ambushed and captured Grey of Ruthyn, who had indirectly caused the rebellion, and held him for ransom. In June, Glyndŵr himself was near Knighton, and only 12 miles (19 km) from Leominster, then an important English garrison and market town in the Welsh Marches. King Henry had appointed Henry Percy, widely known as "Hotspur", as his principal lieutenant and justiciar in North Wales and the adjacent Marches. Hotspur's uncle, the Earl of Worcester, held a similar appointment in the south. However, the force which confronted Glyndŵr near Knighton was a county levy of Herefordshire under Sir Edmund Mortimer.
Mortimer was uncle of the young Edmund de Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, and either of them had a better hereditary claim to be King of England than Henry. (The childless Richard II had declared Sir Edmund's brother and the young Edmund's father, Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, to be heir apparent to the crown, but Roger had died the year before Richard was overthrown and none of the nobles supported his son's claim.) However, Sir Edmund Mortimer had so far loyally supported the new king. In any case, as a substantial holder of lands in Wales and on the borders, Mortimer had already suffered from the depredations of Glyndŵr's rebels and appeared to have much to lose should the revolt continue.
The ground they fought on
The site of Battle of Bryn Glas lies on Ludlow Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Ludlow. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.
- Welsh: approx. 200 killed; English: 600-1,100 killed
Frequently Asked Questions
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Scheduled Monuments near Battle of Bryn Glas
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- Battle of Bryn Glas · Wikidata
- Battle_of_Bryn_Glas · Wikipedia