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| Hereford
in the 15th century |
| Owain Glyn
Dŵr
A
last Welsh threat arose when Owain Glyn Dŵr was
proclaimed Prince of Wales and took up arms
against the newly installed Henry IV. In the
battle of Bryn Glās (or Pilleth to the English)
in 1402 a large force of English under Edmund
Mortimer, consisting mainly of the Herefordshire
levy, were heavily defeated by a Welsh army led
by Owain. Owain moved on to make his
headquarters at Leominster. The defeat caused
consternation at Henry IV's court and steps were
quickly taken to limit the damage by improving
defences at Clifford, Brecon and elsewhere.
Tales of the mutilation of corpses by the Welsh
added horror to the English accounts of the
action. |
The late 14th century hall of the
Hereford Vicars Choral. This was outside the
walled precinct of the cathedral. There was
always a danger that the clergymen would be
mugged on their way to church.
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The defeat of Owain's
allies Henry Percy (Hotspur) and Douglas at
Shrewsbury in July 1403 did not remove the
threat further south. On the afternoon of the
3rd September, Richard Kingston, the sometime
Dean of Windsor and archdeacon of Hereford,
writing at Hereford 'in very great haste'
reported that a Welsh force had entered the
County. King Henry appeared with an army at
Hereford on 11th September. Henry marched into
Wales but, lacking the means to supply his army,
returned to Hereford in
October.
Owain was undefeated and in
early August 1405 was joined by a French army,
which landed at Milford Haven. The English
mustered at Hereford on 29th August but no
battle was joined and elements of the
Franco-Welsh army seem to have been active in
Herefordshire.
 |
When Henry V succeeded to
the English throne in March 1415 he wanted an
end to the Welsh problem. Henry offered Owain a
pardon but no answer was ever received. Glyn
Dŵr's death is not recorded nor is his burying
place, but it is considered a strong possibility
that he died at the house of his daughter, Alys
Scudamore, at Monnington in the Golden Valley.
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Owen
Tudor
On 2nd february1461, during
the Wars of the Roses, a Lancastrian force,
including Bretons and Frenchmen, was intercepted
and defeated by the Yorkist Edward, Earl of
March at the Battle of Mortimer's Cross, 25
kilometres north-west of Hereford. One of the
Lancastrian leaders, Owen Tudor, was captured
and taken into Hereford. Owen was a high-ranking
nobleman - he had married Catherine of France,
the widow of Henry V.
Legend tells that
it was at the forerunner of the Green Dragon
Hotel in Broad Street that Edward stayed with
his prisoner after the battle. The next day Owen
was taken out to be beheaded in the market place
(High Town). At first Owen was unable to believe
that he would be executed - but when the collar
of his red velvet doublet was ripped off he
accepted his fate saying "that head shall lie on
the block that was wont to lie on Queen
Catherine's lap". Owen
was called the handsomest man in England,
which might have inspired what
followed.
His head was placed on the
market cross where a madwoman combed his hair
and washed the blood from his face. She lit more
than a hundred candles, which she placed around
the cross. Owen's body was afterwards buried in
a chapel of the Greyfriars priory just outside
the town.
Owen Tudor was the
great-grandfather of Henry VIII. Edward (later
King Edward IV) was himself Henry's grandfather.
Edward was back in Hereford that September, by
now the battle of Towton had been fought and he
was King of England.
Edward IV died in
April 1483. A few months later his brother,
Richard of Gloucester (Richard III) seized the
throne and placed Edward's young sons, Edward V
and Richard, in confinement - the 'Princes in
the Tower'.
| The Duke of Buckingham, at
first Richard's strong supporter, rebelled and
joined a local nobleman, Walter Devereux, at his
castle at Weobley in Herefordshire. Marching
south, Buckingham was deserted by his army,
captured and executed. His son, Edward, was
smuggled into Hereford by Elizabeth Delabeare
and hidden there until safer times. |
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Henry
VII
In 1485, Henry Tudor
passed through Leominster on his way to victory
at Bosworth and claiming the kingdom as Henry
VII. The change of regime passed with little
disturbance locally although eighteen people
were bailed for one hundred pounds to appear
before the new king's council, presumably to
ensure that they would not cause trouble. In
1486 Henry visited Hereford during a tour of his
new kingdom.
In 1493 a council was set up
for Henry's eldest son, Arthur, prince of Wales.
When Arthur died in 1502 the council continued
to exist and evolved into the council of the
Marches. This came to exercise de facto
jurisdiction over north and south Wales and the
counties of Shropshire, Herefordshire,
Gloucestershire, Worcestershire Cheshire and
Flint.
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In 1536 the administration
of Wales was re-organised. It was at this time
that the border between Herefordshire and Wales
took more or less its present form, assimilating
the Welsh territory of Ewyas Lacy and other
independent Marcher lordships - Clifford,
Eardisley, Wigmore and others. Old and New
Radnor, on the other hand, were taken out of
Herefordshire and merged into the new county of
Radnor. |
Henry VIII
Henry
VIII's split with Rome was not popular in
Herefordshire. During 1536 the northern English
movement in opposition to the policy, the
Pilgrimage of Grace, found sympathy in the
county and several people were imprisoned in the
castle. Roman sympathy remained strong during
the reign of Elizabeth I, and the local law
enforcement authorities were constantly being
reprimanded by central government for their
leniency.
Herefordshire was fairly
lawless in the second half of the 16th century.
In June 1571 the people of Bromyard rioted
against their lord, the bishop of Hereford. In
1581 there were more murders committed in the
shire than any two 'thereabouts or in all
Wales'.
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| The authorities knew whom
to blame - the Roman Catholics. Thefts and
burglaries were committed every day without
punishments because the local justices of the
peace were negligent and more concerned with
their own religious differences. In the December
of 1588, the year of the Armada, the sheriff was
strictly ordered to lock up Catholic recusants
and to no longer permit them to be 'free
prisoners'. |
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John
Leland
The city seems to have
remained fairly prosperous in the 16th century.
In the 1530s John Leland found good walls around
the town and describes pleasant suburbs. The
distance between the Wye Bridge and the
easternmost point of the castle, almost the
whole width of the city, he describes as being a
bow shot.
We do not know where Leland
stayed when he visited the town but we know what
sort of prices he would have paid had he stayed
in a local inn. Prices in inns were regulated -
in 1555 the mayor ordered that ale should cost
no more than one penny (0.4 new pence) for three
pints and that lodgings, with a meal consisting
of two dishes of boiled meat and one of roasted,
should cost no more than 4 pence.
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