Glyndwr's Assault on Usk Castle 1405
Who Fought
Welsh forces led by Gruffudd ab Owain Glyndŵr attacking Usk Castle; English garrison led by Richard Grey (1st Baron Grey of Codnor), Sir John Greyndour, Dafydd Gam, and Sir John Oldcastle.
History & Significance
Owain ap Gruffudd Fychan or Owain Glyndŵr was a Welsh nobleman and military commander in the late Middle Ages who led a sixteen-year-long Welsh revolt establishing an independent Wales free from English rule. Owain was acclaimed Prince of Wales by his supporters on 16 September 1400 because of his descent from the rulers of pre-Conquest Wales. Following initial successes, the rebellion was able to take control of the entirety of the country between 1404 and 1405. However, an increase of English military pressure and the lack of foreign aid resulted in the loss of all rebel territory by 1409, after which Owain continued sporadic resistance until his disappearance from the historical record in 1412.
During the year 1400, Owain, a Welsh soldier and Lord of Glyndyfrdwy, had a dispute with his English neighbour Reginald de Grey, a symptom of larger animosity between the Welsh and English in Wales which ultimately led to a national revolt that pitted common Welsh countrymen and nobles against the English military. In response to the rebellion, discriminatory penal laws were implemented against the Welsh people; this deepened civil unrest and significantly increased support for Owain across Wales. Then, in 1404, after a series of successful castle sieges and several battlefield victories for the Welsh, Owain gained control of most of Wales and held a parliament in Machynlleth in the presence of envoys from France, Scotland, the Spanish kingdoms of Castille and Leon, and representatives from every region of Wales. Military aid was given to the rebellion from France, Brittany, and Scotland. Owain wrote in the Pennal Letter of 1406 that he had plans to build two universities, one in North Wales and one in South Wales, and reinstate the traditional Welsh laws of Hywel Dda, and to expand Wales' borders into England, which would have affected the structure of the Church.
The war continued, and over the next several years, the English gradually gained control of large parts of Wales. By 1409 the rebellion’s last remaining castles of Harlech and Aberystwyth had been captured by English forces. Owain refused two royal pardons and retreated to the Welsh hills and mountains with his remaining forces, where he continued to resist English rule by using guerrilla warfare tactics, until his disappearance from the historical record in 1412.
Owain was never captured or killed, and the circumstances surrounding his death are unknown. In Welsh culture he acquired a mythical status alongside Cadwaladr, Cynon ap Clydno and King Arthur as a folk hero, and was seen as the 'Son of Destiny', just as was Owain Lawgoch a few decades earlier. He also appears in William Shakespeare's play Henry IV, Part 1 as the character Owen Glendower.
The ground they fought on
The site of Glyndwr's Assault on Usk Castle 1405 lies on Ludlow Rocks (Undifferentiated), bedrock that formed in the Ludlow. The rock here is mudstone, siltstone and sandstone.
Adam of Usk's contemporary account captures the ferocity of the English pursuit following the failed assault: the garrison slew many of the retreating Welsh with fire and the edge of the sword, driving them without ceasing through Monkswood, where Owain's son Gruffudd was ultimately taken prisoner. So close was the family resemblance between Owain's brother Tudur, who fell in the field, and Owain himself that some English soldiers were briefly convinced that the Welsh leader had been slain.
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