Wales in 1400: 2

	The revolt of Owain Glyndwr Wales in 1400: 2
	Seeds of revolt The political situation also contributed to the uncertainty of the period. In the first place, a truce had been called in the wars with France (which we now call the Hundred Years War) in 1389. The wars had offered the Welsh opportunities for adventure, promotion and profit (as the historian R.R. Davies has put it, "the Welsh were the Gurkhas of the English armies of the middle ages"); with the truce, all that came to an end, for the foreseeable future at least.
	Added to that, the turbulence of the English political scene had a dramatic knock-on effect on Welsh lordships. Many of the great lords held significant estates in Wales, and derived important incomes from them. In 1397 Richard II staged his "coup d'état", which removed at a stroke three lords with great estates in Wales: the duke of Gloucester, the earl of Warwick and the earl of Arundel (who had held Bromfield and Yale, Chirkland, Oswestry and Clun, and who had attracted Owain Glyn Dwr to his service). Death removed two others - Roger Mortimer, earl of March, in 1398, and John of Gaunt in 1399. Richard put his own men into posts to fill this power vacuum, but by 1400 they had not been there long enough to establish the feudal ties that were necessary to provide stability.
	Also adding to the uncertainty, in 1399 Richard II was himself overthrown, by Henry Bolingbroke, who became Henry IV (and who held the lordship of Brecon through his wife). This may have been a further blow to Welsh hopes, as it had looked as if Richard were building up a power base at Chester with a view to ruling his kingdom from the west. In the space of a few years everything in Welsh politics had changed. Finally, the Black Death (Y Farwolaeth Fawr) had been as devastating in Wales as in the rest of Europe, producing a basic conflict between labourers and landowners (fewer labourers meant that they were more in demand, while at the same time landowners applied ever more restrictive laws to tie them to the land).


	Similar pressures contributed to the English Peasants' Revolt of 1381. But the administration of Welsh land owned by English lords went on as ruthlessly and greedily as ever: profits from the lordship of Brecon actually rose by 40% during the 14th century, and were still climbing by the1390s. This insensitivity to the plight of ordinary people can only have added to the deep resentment of the people of Wales.

The revolt of Owain Glyndwr Wales in 1400: 2

The revolt of Owain Glyndwr
Wales in 1400: 2