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Wales and the Wars of the Roses
In the wake of the rebellion of Owen Glyndwr the fear with which the English regarded the Welsh was reinforced with military occupation. In the ensuing Wars of the Roses the centre of gravity of the military situation was in Wales and the Marches: Ludlow was the seat of Richard, duke of York, and mid-Wales his favourite recruiting ground; at Ludford Bridge he suffered his first serious reverse and at Mortimer's Cross his son won his way to the throne as Edward IV. Further, Henry Tudor landed at Milford Haven and with a partly Welsh army defeated Richard at Bosworth. To understand the Wars of the Roses a clear view of the role played by Wales is essential. This superb survey, based largely on the words of contemporary chroniclers, poets and eye-witnesses, brings to life the warriors and bards of fifteenth-century Wales caught up in a conflict of immense political importance. Repeatedly referred to but long unavailable, this classic work has been completely reset and newly illustrated. With a valuable new introduction by R. A. Griffiths, it is an indispensable addition to the library of anyone with a serious interest in this dramatic period of British history.
264 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1997
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June 13, 2022
Wales and the Wars of the Roses
By H T Evans
June 29, 2021
This book was originally published in 1915. The version I read is a republished edition from 1995 which includes all that was in the original, as well as a new Introduction by Ralph A. Griffiths of the University of Wales in Swansea about the author, H T Evans. Evans is very passionate about his subject, and that’s all right by me even if I found myself not always accepting his enthusiasm towards certain historical figures.
From the preface to the 1915 edition, “the present volume is an attempt to examine the struggle between Lancaster and York from the standpoint of Wales and the Marches.” He says, “From the first battle of St Albans to the accession of Edward IV, the centre of gravity of the military situation was in the Marches,” and explains that Ludlow was the chief seat of the Duke of York, with his favorite recruiting ground being the vast Mortimer estates in mid-Wales. Important military engagements of the Wars of the Roses took place in Wales; at Ludford Bridge, where the Duke of York experienced his first serious reverse, and at Mortimer’s Cross, which helped his son Edward, Earl of March, on his path to the throne. And it was also in Wales, at Milford Haven, that Henry Tudor landed. What follows is a brief overview of the book’s contents.
Evans often relies on contemporary Welsh sources, most of which are poems, and in the first chapter helps us understand these bardic sources and tells us what we should expect. The gist is that the poets (and the people whose hopes and dreams their poems represented) didn’t care so much about York or Lancaster; what they were looking for was a national leader to represent the Welsh aspirations to be treated fairly by their English overlords.
“The wars of Owen Glyndwr had left the country bruised, and shackled by an oppressive penal code. The people were restive, and in the second half of the century became animated by a profound, sustained passion to rid themselves of the incubus of alien official.”
This is why you’ll find one poet calling upon Edward IV to take up his sword and defend the Welsh from brutal overlords, and why some (but not necessarily all) supported Henry Tudor. They didn’t care that he was claiming the throne in the name of the House of Lancaster; they saw him as someone who would advocate their wants and needs, who would bring order out of chaos.
Some of the more important Welsh poets referred to in this book are Lewis Glyn Cothi, Guto’r Glyn, and Ieuan Deulwyn, all of whom have a pronounced prejudice against the English (often referred to as “the Saxon” in this book).
“Many of their poems were written under the sting of humiliation, when the wounds of defeat were still open and sore. Invective not infrequently descends to vilification.”
Their works are not chronicles or histories, and as poets “they necessarily employ the artifices of their craft. They exaggerate; they invent; they draw upon their armoury of rhetoric. They colour, and frequently distort, facts to suit the exigencies of the occasion…Their information is often garbled.” But these poems reveal “the deep chasm which separated the two nations.”
Following the Glyndwr Rebellion (1400-1415), much of Wales was little more than a lawless frontier, reminiscent of the Wild West in American history. Blood feuds, raids, piracy and other crimes were common, often at the behest of local lords.
In answer to these and other problems facing the English with governing Wales, harsh Penal Laws were put into place. These were a set of laws passed by the English Parliament in 1402 and designed to establish English dominance in Wales. These laws essentially stripped the Welsh of even the most basic rights enjoyed by Englishmen.
To counteract this lawlessness, in addition to the Penal Laws there was established a Council of Wales and the Marches, a regional administrative body based in Ludlow Castle that was to address to complaints of the Welsh and which lasted between the 15th and 17th centuries, and was similar to the Council of the North.
The poets tell of these woes, and often call upon their heroes “to draw their swords in defence of the common people and the innocent.” Guto’r Glyn calls upon Edward IV, “Woe betide us who have been born in servitude, and are the prey of strong thieves. Restore order. Come thyself, valiant Edward, and check the oppressors.”
One of the ways to escape the burdens of these Penal Laws was by enlisting in the English armies during the wars against the French (the latter half of the Hundred Years War), and this in part is the reason you find so many Welsh archers in battles like Agincourt and Crécy.
Among the topics covered is the Welsh contribution to English military operations, and how these in time helped to erode many of the Penal Laws. Here we look at the military careers of a number of Welsh soldiers, their successes on the battlefield enabling them to be exempt from the Penal Laws. The main focus of these fighting Welshmen is Mathew Gough, one of the best known. Gough was one of those heroic men who were admired by both friends and enemies, a soldier who literally fought his way up through the ranks to a position of leadership, and who is thought to have been the inspiration for Shakespeare’s character, Fluellen.
“Of the luminaries who appeared in the political firmament during these stormy days of faction and war, none shone with a steadier light than Jasper Tudor."
Among the most important persons from the Welsh perspective are Owen Tudor, his son Jasper, and William Herbert. A few thoughts on these men. The author gives us a very romantic, very chivalric version of the story of Owen Tudor and the dowager queen, Catherine of Valois, and accepts without question the idea that Owen was descended from ancient Welsh kings. On the other hand, William Herbert’s genealogical claim to similar illustrious ancestors is dismissed out of hand as being false. It could be simply my own take on this, but it seems to me the author has a great admiration for the Tudors.
For a long time the common folk of Wales tried to keep from being involved in the conflicts between Lancaster and York, but with the various English nobles having vast estates in Wales, they found themselves involved whether they liked it or not. Although the nobles were predominantly Anglo-Norman with some Welsh background, the author often refers to them as “the Saxon”, something I suspect any true Saxon would take umbrage to their conquerors being called.
Evans brings out an interesting point, that until York actually began making claims on the throne, he and Jasper Tudor had an amicable relationship, the two of them working together in 1454 when the Duke became Protector. Jasper, along with York, attended meetings of the Privy Council, and signed a series of arrangements for regulating the royal household. But matters eventually deteriorated, eventually leading to the Battle of Wakefield in Yorkshire.
The Battle of Wakefield was not the end of the Yorkists, and following the death of his father, Edward of March took up the cause and with an army raised mainly from the Yorkist estates in Wales, met the Lancastrian force at Mortimer’s Cross. It was at this Lancastrian defeat that Owen Tudor was taken prisoner and executed. The author sees in this the passing of a golden age.
“Owen Tudor typifies that spirit of adventure and chivalry which in the fifteenth century sent Welshmen abroad to win fame on the battlefields of Europe or in the courts of princes. He carried to the grave that intrepidity and dignified bearing which had characterized him in life. But he mistook the age, not indeed in which he had lived, but in which he was to die. The age of chivalry was passing by and giving way to the ungovernable passions and truculent savagery of meaner days.”
And so we continue with the successes and set backs of Edward IV, again from a Welsh point of view. One of the points I found of interest (because I’d never read of it before which doesn’t mean much, as I could simply have not been reading the right books) is the author’s not-so-subtle implication that Edward IV never cared for Warwick; that he happily left Warwick to his own devices at 2nd St Albans, knowing the earl would be defeated and therefore Edward would not need to be beholden to him. He also says that Warwick also found himself being left out of important matters as Edward bestowed more and more honors on William Herbert at the expense of Warwick and the Neville family in general.
Not a lot of print is spent on going over Richard III’s short reign, other than its impact on Wales. Most of this has to do with Jasper Tudor and Rhys ap Thomas who I take a special interest in as, according to the old genealogies, he is one of my 19x great grandfathers. The book ends with the Battle of Bosworth and the accession of a new, Welsh king on the English throne.
“The new king (Henry Tudor) inaugurated an era of internal peace, so that Lewis Glyn Cothi a few years later was able to say with truth, ‘The boar is cold in his grave; the world is still and envenomed feuds asleep.'
A’r baedd oer I’r bedd a aeth
A’r egwyd a’i rywogaeth.
A’r by des enyd y sydd
A’I holl wenwyn yn llonydd.
There is a lot of information within the pages of this book, and the good thing is that the text is very readable; certainly not one of those dry as dust histories we’ve all come across from time to time. My only real complaint might be called a technical one, as I found the font size on the smallish side and even with my new prescription readers, my poor, aging eyes kept wishing this was an e-book with which I could enlarge the size of the text to something more comfortable.
Wales and the Wars of the Roses is a very good book, and presents an aspect of the Wars of the Roses often overlooked. It is filled with black-and-white maps, illustrations, and photographs that add to the reader’s pleasure. Anyone with an interest in Wales would surely find this book of interest.
By H T Evans
June 29, 2021
This book was originally published in 1915. The version I read is a republished edition from 1995 which includes all that was in the original, as well as a new Introduction by Ralph A. Griffiths of the University of Wales in Swansea about the author, H T Evans. Evans is very passionate about his subject, and that’s all right by me even if I found myself not always accepting his enthusiasm towards certain historical figures.
From the preface to the 1915 edition, “the present volume is an attempt to examine the struggle between Lancaster and York from the standpoint of Wales and the Marches.” He says, “From the first battle of St Albans to the accession of Edward IV, the centre of gravity of the military situation was in the Marches,” and explains that Ludlow was the chief seat of the Duke of York, with his favorite recruiting ground being the vast Mortimer estates in mid-Wales. Important military engagements of the Wars of the Roses took place in Wales; at Ludford Bridge, where the Duke of York experienced his first serious reverse, and at Mortimer’s Cross, which helped his son Edward, Earl of March, on his path to the throne. And it was also in Wales, at Milford Haven, that Henry Tudor landed. What follows is a brief overview of the book’s contents.
Evans often relies on contemporary Welsh sources, most of which are poems, and in the first chapter helps us understand these bardic sources and tells us what we should expect. The gist is that the poets (and the people whose hopes and dreams their poems represented) didn’t care so much about York or Lancaster; what they were looking for was a national leader to represent the Welsh aspirations to be treated fairly by their English overlords.
“The wars of Owen Glyndwr had left the country bruised, and shackled by an oppressive penal code. The people were restive, and in the second half of the century became animated by a profound, sustained passion to rid themselves of the incubus of alien official.”
This is why you’ll find one poet calling upon Edward IV to take up his sword and defend the Welsh from brutal overlords, and why some (but not necessarily all) supported Henry Tudor. They didn’t care that he was claiming the throne in the name of the House of Lancaster; they saw him as someone who would advocate their wants and needs, who would bring order out of chaos.
Some of the more important Welsh poets referred to in this book are Lewis Glyn Cothi, Guto’r Glyn, and Ieuan Deulwyn, all of whom have a pronounced prejudice against the English (often referred to as “the Saxon” in this book).
“Many of their poems were written under the sting of humiliation, when the wounds of defeat were still open and sore. Invective not infrequently descends to vilification.”
Their works are not chronicles or histories, and as poets “they necessarily employ the artifices of their craft. They exaggerate; they invent; they draw upon their armoury of rhetoric. They colour, and frequently distort, facts to suit the exigencies of the occasion…Their information is often garbled.” But these poems reveal “the deep chasm which separated the two nations.”
Following the Glyndwr Rebellion (1400-1415), much of Wales was little more than a lawless frontier, reminiscent of the Wild West in American history. Blood feuds, raids, piracy and other crimes were common, often at the behest of local lords.
In answer to these and other problems facing the English with governing Wales, harsh Penal Laws were put into place. These were a set of laws passed by the English Parliament in 1402 and designed to establish English dominance in Wales. These laws essentially stripped the Welsh of even the most basic rights enjoyed by Englishmen.
To counteract this lawlessness, in addition to the Penal Laws there was established a Council of Wales and the Marches, a regional administrative body based in Ludlow Castle that was to address to complaints of the Welsh and which lasted between the 15th and 17th centuries, and was similar to the Council of the North.
The poets tell of these woes, and often call upon their heroes “to draw their swords in defence of the common people and the innocent.” Guto’r Glyn calls upon Edward IV, “Woe betide us who have been born in servitude, and are the prey of strong thieves. Restore order. Come thyself, valiant Edward, and check the oppressors.”
One of the ways to escape the burdens of these Penal Laws was by enlisting in the English armies during the wars against the French (the latter half of the Hundred Years War), and this in part is the reason you find so many Welsh archers in battles like Agincourt and Crécy.
Among the topics covered is the Welsh contribution to English military operations, and how these in time helped to erode many of the Penal Laws. Here we look at the military careers of a number of Welsh soldiers, their successes on the battlefield enabling them to be exempt from the Penal Laws. The main focus of these fighting Welshmen is Mathew Gough, one of the best known. Gough was one of those heroic men who were admired by both friends and enemies, a soldier who literally fought his way up through the ranks to a position of leadership, and who is thought to have been the inspiration for Shakespeare’s character, Fluellen.
“Of the luminaries who appeared in the political firmament during these stormy days of faction and war, none shone with a steadier light than Jasper Tudor."
Among the most important persons from the Welsh perspective are Owen Tudor, his son Jasper, and William Herbert. A few thoughts on these men. The author gives us a very romantic, very chivalric version of the story of Owen Tudor and the dowager queen, Catherine of Valois, and accepts without question the idea that Owen was descended from ancient Welsh kings. On the other hand, William Herbert’s genealogical claim to similar illustrious ancestors is dismissed out of hand as being false. It could be simply my own take on this, but it seems to me the author has a great admiration for the Tudors.
For a long time the common folk of Wales tried to keep from being involved in the conflicts between Lancaster and York, but with the various English nobles having vast estates in Wales, they found themselves involved whether they liked it or not. Although the nobles were predominantly Anglo-Norman with some Welsh background, the author often refers to them as “the Saxon”, something I suspect any true Saxon would take umbrage to their conquerors being called.
Evans brings out an interesting point, that until York actually began making claims on the throne, he and Jasper Tudor had an amicable relationship, the two of them working together in 1454 when the Duke became Protector. Jasper, along with York, attended meetings of the Privy Council, and signed a series of arrangements for regulating the royal household. But matters eventually deteriorated, eventually leading to the Battle of Wakefield in Yorkshire.
The Battle of Wakefield was not the end of the Yorkists, and following the death of his father, Edward of March took up the cause and with an army raised mainly from the Yorkist estates in Wales, met the Lancastrian force at Mortimer’s Cross. It was at this Lancastrian defeat that Owen Tudor was taken prisoner and executed. The author sees in this the passing of a golden age.
“Owen Tudor typifies that spirit of adventure and chivalry which in the fifteenth century sent Welshmen abroad to win fame on the battlefields of Europe or in the courts of princes. He carried to the grave that intrepidity and dignified bearing which had characterized him in life. But he mistook the age, not indeed in which he had lived, but in which he was to die. The age of chivalry was passing by and giving way to the ungovernable passions and truculent savagery of meaner days.”
And so we continue with the successes and set backs of Edward IV, again from a Welsh point of view. One of the points I found of interest (because I’d never read of it before which doesn’t mean much, as I could simply have not been reading the right books) is the author’s not-so-subtle implication that Edward IV never cared for Warwick; that he happily left Warwick to his own devices at 2nd St Albans, knowing the earl would be defeated and therefore Edward would not need to be beholden to him. He also says that Warwick also found himself being left out of important matters as Edward bestowed more and more honors on William Herbert at the expense of Warwick and the Neville family in general.
Not a lot of print is spent on going over Richard III’s short reign, other than its impact on Wales. Most of this has to do with Jasper Tudor and Rhys ap Thomas who I take a special interest in as, according to the old genealogies, he is one of my 19x great grandfathers. The book ends with the Battle of Bosworth and the accession of a new, Welsh king on the English throne.
“The new king (Henry Tudor) inaugurated an era of internal peace, so that Lewis Glyn Cothi a few years later was able to say with truth, ‘The boar is cold in his grave; the world is still and envenomed feuds asleep.'
A’r baedd oer I’r bedd a aeth
A’r egwyd a’i rywogaeth.
A’r by des enyd y sydd
A’I holl wenwyn yn llonydd.
There is a lot of information within the pages of this book, and the good thing is that the text is very readable; certainly not one of those dry as dust histories we’ve all come across from time to time. My only real complaint might be called a technical one, as I found the font size on the smallish side and even with my new prescription readers, my poor, aging eyes kept wishing this was an e-book with which I could enlarge the size of the text to something more comfortable.
Wales and the Wars of the Roses is a very good book, and presents an aspect of the Wars of the Roses often overlooked. It is filled with black-and-white maps, illustrations, and photographs that add to the reader’s pleasure. Anyone with an interest in Wales would surely find this book of interest.
April 1, 2023
I liked this booked. It was written in 1915 by an Academic (Howell T. Evans) so I don’t know if the content has been subsequently re-enforced or even disproven. It does have masses of subtext notes covering a lot of Welsh tribe/clan data and is a fantastic insight into how this long conflict impacted Wales which had a ghastly status before the wars and you can see why they rallied to Henry’s VII’s banner. It is nearly 90 years old since the book was published, so perhaps some of the writing style isn’t what you expect from a historical narrative of today. Some of it was sort of confusing as key people were referenced by title rather than name. But I’m glad I found and read this book in my general reading around the Wars of Roses being more significant in the Welsh jettisoning of identity than the suppression of Glyndŵr’s rising ever was.
August 19, 2012
Imagine my surprise in finding this great book in a used bookstore in Reston, Virginia! I opened it up and saw that several of the Vaughan ancestors were listed in the index. And then, a picture of the effigy on the tomb the Lady Gwladys, Star of Abergavenny, that we visited on our trip to Wales in 2010. I'm enjoying my read - and the pictures!
http://www.moderatebutpassionate.com/...
Another post I did related to the book:
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and another:
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http://www.moderatebutpassionate.com/...
Another post I did related to the book:
http://www.moderatebutpassionate.com/...
and another:
http://www.moderatebutpassionate.com/...
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