The untimely death of Richard caused an immediate change in the government of Oswestry. Its newly-created lord, the Earl of Wiltshire, fell a victim to popular fury, and Thomas, son of the attainted Earl of Arundel, was restored to the manorial rights and dignities of Oswestry. The Earl of Huntington, the king’s brother, fled into the county of Essex; but passing through a village belonging to the Countess of Hereford (sister of the deceased Richard, Earl of Arundel), he was discovered, and arrested. The countess apprized the new monarch, Henry, of the capture, and desired him to send to her the young Earl of Arundel, her nephew, that he might witness the mode in which she intended to avenge herself of her brother’s death. The Earl of Arundel posted to the place where Huntington was prisoner, and loaded him with reproaches. The countess delivered the captive nobleman, bound with chains, into the hands of eight thousand of her vassals, whom she called together for the occasion. The wretched prisoner, struck with terror at the preparations made to take away his life, sued for mercy, and protested that he had not committed the foul act of which hewas accused. Had the countess restrained her rage, and listened to reason and justice, she would have found that Huntington was not a guilty murderer, but that Richard, Earl of Arundel, was brought to the block mainly by the treachery of the Earl of Nottingham. Heedless of his protestations and cries for mercy, she commanded her vassals to cut him to pieces. His assembled executioners are said to have taken pity upon him; whilst the countess and young earl strenuously urged his death. Maddened by rage, she exclaimed, “Curse on ye all, villains; you have not the courage to put a man to death.” This violent exclamation roused an esquire, who offered himself as executioner. He seized the hatchet, and approached Huntington, but was so touched with his tender complaints, that he trembled with emotion; and returning to the countess, his eyes being filled with tears, he said, “I would not put the earl to death for all the gold in the world.” The countess, full of indignation, looking at him “unutterable things,” exclaimed, “Do what thou hast promised, or thy own head shall be cut off.” When he heard this he was so afraid that he knew not what to do, and approaching the earl again said, “Sir, I entreat your pardon; forgive me your death.” He then struck him a violent blow on the shoulder, which felled him to the ground. Huntington sprang up again, and said, “Alas, man, why do you treat me thus? For God’s sake kill me more easily.” The esquire then struck him eight times on the shoulder, being so terrified that he could not aim his blows at the neck. Another blow followed, which fell on the neck, when the wretched nobleman, suffering pain and agony from his cruel treatment, cried out, “Alas, dear friend, have pity upon me, and free me from my pain.” The executioner then seized a knife, and cut the Earl’s throat, separating his head from the body.
The Glyndwr or Glendower insurrection arose about this period, and the town of Oswestry greatly suffered from it.Owain Glyndwr was descended on the mother’s side from Llywelyn, the last sovereign Prince of Wales, his father, Grufydd Vychan, having married Helen, a grand-daughter of that puissant chieftain. He studied the law at one of the Inns of Court in London, and finally was admitted as a barrister. He may have quitted his profession, for we find he was appointed an esquire to Richard II., to whom he was devotedly attached, and whose fortunes he followed even to Flint Castle, and till his royal master’s household was dissolved. He had been knighted by King Richard, and was married early in life to Margaret, daughter to Sir David Hanmer, of Hanmer, in Flintshire, one of the Justices of the Court of the King’s Bench. His resentment against Henry IV. was strong and implacable. He had suffered deep private wrongs from the usurpation of the king, and burned with indignation to avenge himself.
Owain Glyndwr’s sudden appearance as a military leader of his countrymen roused their ancient martial spirit, and thousands flocked to his standard. In the year 1400 the town of Oswestry was burned, the Welsh having attacked it; and in 1403 Owain Glyndwr assembled his forces in the town, that he might join Lord Percy (surnamed Henry Hotspur) against the king. The Welsh leader dispatched to the “tented field” his first division only, amounting to 4000 men, whose prowess was distinguished on the day of battle. The great body of his troops, about 12,000 in number, did not approach nearer than Oswestry, they having been detained at the siege of Kidweli Castle. It is thought by some writers, that Owain did not remain inactively at Oswestry. Gough, the historian, mentions, that about two miles from Shrewsbury, where the Pool road diverges from that leading to Oswestry, “there stands an ancient decayed Oak Tree, of which there is a tradition, that Glyndwr ascended it to reconnoitre; but finding that the king was in great force, and that the Earl of Northumberland had not joined his son, he fellback to Oswestry, and immediately afterwards retreated into Wales.”
In the “Beauties of England and Wales,” the Shropshire history edited by Mr. Rylance, we find the following passage on Glyndwr’s alledged abandonment of Hotspur “at his utmost need:”—
“The army of Glyndwr, amounting to twelve thousand men, had remained inactive at Oswestry during the battle. There is a tradition that he himself quitted that place in disguise, and hastening to Shrewsbury, hid himself in a gigantic oak, which commanded a full view of the field; and that after witnessing the discomfiture of his friends, returning with speed to Oswestry, he withdrew his forces into Wales, whither he was pursued by Prince Henry.”
“The army of Glyndwr, amounting to twelve thousand men, had remained inactive at Oswestry during the battle. There is a tradition that he himself quitted that place in disguise, and hastening to Shrewsbury, hid himself in a gigantic oak, which commanded a full view of the field; and that after witnessing the discomfiture of his friends, returning with speed to Oswestry, he withdrew his forces into Wales, whither he was pursued by Prince Henry.”
Hulbert, too, in his “History of the Town and County of Salop,” referring to the famous battle, says, “Owain Glyndwrbeheldthe battle of Shrewsbury, instead ofsustaining, by his arms, the cause of his ally, the gallant and intrepid Hotspur.” Another writer on this memorable event declares, that had Glyndwr brought up his reserved troops when Hotspur by his impetuous onslaughts was within an ace of victory, or when the brave warrior was slain, the battle would have been won, and the royal forces entirely routed. Taking these allegements to be truths, Glyndwr perpetrated a baseness which all faithful men must condemn.
Many writers have taken pains to solve the question, “Did Owain Glyndwr act merely as an idle spectator at the battle of Shrewsbury; or did he actually lead hiscorps de reserveto Shelton, to aid the gallant Hotspur?” No author that we have read has settled that doubtful inquiry. Owain’s hatred of Henry, and his ardent efforts to give freedom to his countrymen, with his chivalrous bearing in the rebellion he had created, would suggest no evidence that Glyndwr was pusillanimous; and yet history furnishes alleged facts strongly reflecting upon his heroic spirit, and almost charging himwith craven cowardice. To conclude that Glyndwr was actuated by base and unmanly curiosity in perching himself upon a branch of the Shelton Oak would be to brand his name with infamy; and yet, if he were espying the battle from that famous tree, his troops being close in reserve, but not in action, an accusation no less severe must ever rest upon his character as a chieftain and a man. On this interesting subject, which will always engage the attention of historical readers, a poet of bright fancy and manly sentiment—Dovaston of Westfelton—has given sarcastic expression to an opinion, in a Miltonic sonnet on the Shelton Oak, that Owain Glyndwr, at the battle of Shrewsbury, was a traitor to gallantry and faith:—
“Tradition says, and why not trust Tradition,When many a haunt breathes, hallowed by her song,From this Great Oak, backed by twelve thousand men,Wrung at their country’s wrongs and murdered king,Glyndwr, the wise, the bountiful, the brave,Beheld young Percy fall: and conquest crownThe perjured Bolingbroke.—‘Bright youth, he cried,Thy spur is cold. One thoughtless act hath lostAn Empire’s tide. Mark what the great have said—‘The better part of valour is discretion,’For safe on prudence every good attends.”
“Tradition says, and why not trust Tradition,When many a haunt breathes, hallowed by her song,From this Great Oak, backed by twelve thousand men,Wrung at their country’s wrongs and murdered king,Glyndwr, the wise, the bountiful, the brave,Beheld young Percy fall: and conquest crownThe perjured Bolingbroke.—‘Bright youth, he cried,Thy spur is cold. One thoughtless act hath lostAn Empire’s tide. Mark what the great have said—‘The better part of valour is discretion,’For safe on prudence every good attends.”
“The Battle of Shrewsbury” is not only “clad,” as the same poet fancifully describes, “in cold-hearted History’s homely weeds,” but “garlanded with Avon’s dewy flowers.” The conflict is part of the history of this district; and the narrative we subjoin, from the able pens of the historians of Shrewsbury, will attract the attention of all who value “pure English, undefiled:”—
“Of the famous and severely-contested battle which ensued under the walls of our town, the awful prelude to so many more between the rival houses, through the remainder of the century, we have five contemporary and perhaps independent narratives; but one of them is a mass of errors, and anotherextremely succinct, and of the others only one is circumstantial: nor is any of them sufficient to satisfy the minute curiosity of the local historian: but the best account that can be drawn from a comparison of the whole, supplied in some instances by a consideration of the ground, and in a few others by modest conjecture, shall be laid before the reader as the conclusion of the present chapter.“We are unable to trace the progress of Hotspur’s long march from the North to Shrewsbury, a journey of not less than 250 miles. He probably set out in the beginning of July; and skirting along the eastern side of Cheshire, where his army received a considerable augmentation, passed through Stafford, and was joined there by his uncle the earl of Worcester. The king, aware of his intention to gain possession of Shrewsbury, and desirous of cutting off his junction with Glendower, pursued him with hasty marches. We find his majesty on the 16th of July at Burton-upon-Trent, and on the 17th at Lichfield: whence, finding that he could not overtake his enemy, he hastened on to reach Shrewsbury before him. He would naturally take the Watling Street road, and enter this town over the Abbey Bridge. The route of Hotspur was more to the north, in order to keep up a communication with the Severn, so important for his junction with Glendower. In all probability he marched through Newport, by High Ercall and Haghmond Hill; and hoped to gain admittance through the North or Castle Gate. The king arrived just in time to save the town: he entered it only a few hours before Hotspur, who reached the Castle Foregate on the evening of Friday, July 19th, and the king’s forces could not have advanced from Lichfield before the morning of that day. They were certainly here before Percy: for, aware of the intention of that young nobleman, and desirous to save the Castle from his attack, they set fire to that extensive suburb, and marched out of the Castle gates to offer him battle. Hotspur, unwilling to bring his armyinto action at the close of a toilsome march, and learning, from the royal banner which waved on the walls, that the king was in possession of the town, called off his followers from the attack, and retired to the Bull-field, an extensive common which stretched from Upper Berwick to the East. He thus protected his rear by the woody and impervious precipices extending to Leaton shelf, and had the river not only on his side, but also, if it had not entirely deserted its ancient channel under Cross-hill, (as there is reason to believe it had not,) in his front also. This position enabled him likewise to communicate readily over that stream by the ford of Shelton with the forces of Glendower, when they should arrive, as he hoped, on the opposite bank. Here he passed the night in council. His army consisted of 14,000 chosen men, of whom a considerable part were of the county of Chester, at that time eminent for its skill in archery; but, if Hall is correct, the royal army was nearly double that number; for he writes that above 40,000 men were assembled on both parts, and every circumstance of the battle proves that the king was at the head of a very superior force. His situation was, however, by no means devoid of anxiety. He must have been conscious how slender the title was which he possessed to the throne: and how ill-disposed his peerage of the realm were to maintain him upon it. From the Castle he might view, as the dawn arose, the plain which stretched to the north glittering with hostile arms: while the dreadful Glendower was believed to be in full march from Oswestry, to join the rebels with his Welsh forces. But the difficulties of the crisis only sufficed to call forth his energies and display his talents.“Henry was himself a distinguished warrior. In earlier life he had, in company with his princely uncle the duke of Gloucester, travelled into the north of Europe in quest of martial glory; and under the banners of the renowned Teutonic order had made a glorious campaign against the Pagans of Lithuania. He was still in the vigour of life, being muchunder forty years of age, and an adversary every way worthy of the gallant Percy; whom, relying upon the superiority of his numbers, he determined, if possible, to force to an engagement, before that nobleman should receive his reinforcements from Wales or the north. By break of day, therefore, he dispatched, it is probable, a strong force, under the nominal command, for it could be no more, of the young prince, the future hero of Agincourt, but then a youth of fourteen years, to come up with Hotspur at Berwick, if possible. He himself, with the main body, appears to have marched out on the Hadnall road, ready to proceed as occasion might demand, either to the north of Cross Hill and Almond Pool, and close the rebels between his two divisions; or else to advance further on upon that road, where it branches off to Shawbury, with the view of cutting off their retreat, if Hotspur, aware of his design, should attempt to march to the east. It happened as the king anticipated. Hotspur, on his advance, broke up in some disorder, and marched by Harlescot and Abright Hussey to Hately-field, which stretches from thence eastwards. Here, however, finding it impossible to avoid an engagement, on account, as we may suppose, of the obstruction to his retreat presented by the king’s movement above mentioned, he made his stand in the rear of a field of peas nearly ripe; behind which he stationed his army, and hoped thereby to deter the king from advancing over a tract which must necessarily impede his operations.“He then addressed his little army in a short harangue, of which Walsingham has preserved the heads. ‘We must desist,’ said he, ‘from any further attempt to retreat, and turn our arms on those that come against us. Ye see the royal banner, nor is there time to seek a passage even though we wished it. Stand, therefore, with steadfast hearts: for this day shall either promote us all, if we conquer; or deliver us from an usurper, if we fall: and it is better to die in battle for the common wealth, than after battle by the sentence ofour foe:” and with this, to support the courage of his men by proving his design to fight to the outrance, he dispatched two of his esquires, Knayton and Salvayn, with that strange defiance, in which he loads the king with the most horrid crimes. * * * *“No one has informed us how the king received this furious manifesto. He had something else to engage his attention. He proceeded to marshal his forces, dividing them into two columns, or wedges. Of one of these he took the command himself, and entrusted the other to his son. The front rank of his own column was led on by his nephew the young earl of Stafford, a soldier of conspicuous valour, on whom he had that morning conferred the high office of constable of England, recently enjoyed by the earl of Northumberland. Previous to the final onset, the king, in compliance with the customs of chivalry, bestowed the honour of knighthood on certain of his most distinguished esquires. Hotspur, perceiving that an engagement was unavoidable, called for his favourite sword. His attendants informed him that it was left behind at Berwick, of which village it does not appear that he had till then learned the name. At these words he turned pale, and said, ‘I perceive that my plough is drawing to its last furrow, for a wizard told me in Northumberland that I should perish at Berwick: which I vainly interpreted of that town in the North.’ His courage did not, however, yield to the impressions of superstition; he rallied his spirits, and arranged his troops with his usual ability: assigning their respective stations to his uncle Worcester, the Scottish earl of Douglas, his recent captive at Halidown, sir Richard Venables, baron of Kinderton, Hugh Brow, Hugh Vernon, and others. His troops appear to have been chiefly stationed on the north side of the spot now occupied by the church in a field still calledthe Hateleys: on the east side of the church is a field denominatedthe King’s croft, in which, it may be presumed, were ranged those which the king commanded in person.These positions exactly agree with the objects which we have assigned above to the respective leaders; and lend, it is hoped, some confirmation to the conjectural part of the preceding narration.“While the hostile armies, drawn up in battle array facing each other, waited, with mute expectation, the sound of the trumpet, the dreadful signal for combat, two venerable divines, Thomas Prestbury, lord abbot of Salop, and the clerk of the privy seal, advanced out of the royal army, and proceeded towards that of Percy. The king, desirous to spare the blood of his subjects, offered him and his adherents pardon and peace, and redress of all grievances of which they could justly complain. Hotspur was touched by these unexpected overtures, made under circumstances of such numerical inequality, and requested his uncle of Worcester to repair to the royal presence in company of these holy men, and state the grounds on which he had taken up arms. The king, we may suppose, was in his turn somewhat softened by the sight of the earl, who had been so recently engaged in the domestic office of governor to the prince of Wales; and a recollection of the obligations he had received from the Percy family might mix itself with his other reflections. It is certain that to the remonstrances of Worcester, delivered in a fierce and haughty tone, he listened with respect, and replied with a condescension which, in the opinion of the spectators, was somewhat unbefitting the royal dignity. A contemporary writer has preserved, though with a mistake of the person, the dialogue supposed to have passed between them. The king ‘counselled him to put himself on his grace.’ To which the other replied, ‘I trust not in your grace.’—‘I pray God,’ rejoined the king, ‘that thou mayest have to answer for the blood here to be shed this day, and not I. March on standard-bearer!’ and the battle was set.—It is certain that the stern temper of Worcester rejected all attempts at conciliation: he was conscious how deeply he had been engaged in fomentingthe quarrel; and, on his return to his friends, he misrepresented the demeanour of Henry in such a manner to his nephew, that the latter, with whatever reluctance, was compelled to relinquish all hopes of accommodation. At length, therefore, much of the day having been consumed in these fruitless negociations, both parties flew to arms, and the air was rent with the war-cries of ‘St. George’ on one side, and ‘Esperance Percy’ on the other. In the meanwhile, Glendower had advanced as far as Shelton on the opposite bank of Severn, where he awaited the issue of the contest, determined to proceed or retire according to its event. He is said, by the constant tradition of the country, to have ascended there the branches of a lofty oak, whose venerable trunk yet remains, for the purpose of viewing the battle; at least of gaining, from personal inspection, the earliest intelligence of its event.“The fight began by furious and repeated volleys of arrows from Hotspur’s archers, whose ground, as may be seen, greatly favoured that kind of warfare: and they did great execution on the royal army. The king’s bowmen were not wanting in return, and the battle raged with violence. The military art had not yet attained that perfection which almost supersedes the effect of individual exertion; and Hotspur, with his associate Douglas, bent on the king’s destruction, rushing through the midst of the hostile arrows, pierced their way to the spot on which he stood. To adopt the vivid language of a contemporary, ‘in the ardour of his spirit, he assembled a band of thirty warriors, broke into the royal army, and made a great alley in the midst thereof,’ (such was the terror which his presence inspired) ‘even to the stoutest of the king’s guards.’ Monstrelet says, Henry was thrice unhorsed by the Scottish earl, and would have been taken or slain had he not been defended and rescued by his own men. And the fortune of the day would have been forthwith decided, if the Scottish earl of March had not withdrawn himfrom the danger; for the royal standard-bearer was slain, his banner beaten down; and many of the chosen band appointed to guard it (among whom were the earl of Stafford and sir Walter Blount,) were killed by these desperate assailants,—while the young prince of Wales was wounded in the face by an arrow. In short, notwithstanding all the exertions of the royalists, victory seemed inclined to favour the rebel army, who fought with renewed ardour, from an opinion naturally derived from the overthrow of his standard, that the king himself had fallen, and animated each other to the combat with cheering and redoubled shouts of ‘Henry Percy,king!Henry Percy,king!’“In this critical moment the gallant Percy, raging through the adverse ranks in quest of his sovereign, fell by an unknown hand; alone, and hemmed in by foes. The king lost no time to avail himself of this event. Straining his voice to the utmost, he exclaimed aloud, ‘Henry Percy is dead!’ The sound was heard by either army: into those it struck dismay, while these it animated and encouraged. The rebels fled in every direction, nor could the king, anxious as he was to terminate the slaughter, restrain the impetuous pursuit of his own troops, till the flower of Cheshire, two hundred knights and esquires (besides pages and footmen) were slain. Douglas broke through, and endeavoured to escape in the direction of Haghmond-hill: being closely pursued, and leaping from a crag, he experienced a severe injury, and was captured: but the king, in admiration of his valour, set him at liberty. The loss in both armies was great. * * * An ancient manuscript rates the number of gentlemen at two thousand two hundred and ninety-one, besides commons. They were chiefly buried, says that authority, in a great pit, the dimensions of which are there specified, and over which the present church of Battlefield was afterwards erected: but many are stated to have lain dispersed in various directions for the space of three miles about the field ofbattle: a fact which confirms what has been said above of the desultory nature of the conflict. Others, of the most distinguished rank, were interred in the neighbouring town, chiefly in the cemetery of the Dominican or St. Mary’s Friars.“The body of Hotspur was at first delivered to his kinsman lord Furnival for interment, and it was by him committed to the ground with the suffrages of the church, and with all the honours which, in that haste, could be procured as due to his rank. It is painful to reflect, that the king afterwards repented him of this generous attention to the remains of deceased valour. He caused the corpse to be taken out of the tomb in which it had been laid, and to be placed between two mill-stones in the public street, near the pillory; where, as if he feared lest the general sympathy should rescue it from its ignominious situation, it was kept under military guard, till the head was severed from the body, which was divided into quarters, and transmitted to several cities in the realm.”
“Of the famous and severely-contested battle which ensued under the walls of our town, the awful prelude to so many more between the rival houses, through the remainder of the century, we have five contemporary and perhaps independent narratives; but one of them is a mass of errors, and anotherextremely succinct, and of the others only one is circumstantial: nor is any of them sufficient to satisfy the minute curiosity of the local historian: but the best account that can be drawn from a comparison of the whole, supplied in some instances by a consideration of the ground, and in a few others by modest conjecture, shall be laid before the reader as the conclusion of the present chapter.
“We are unable to trace the progress of Hotspur’s long march from the North to Shrewsbury, a journey of not less than 250 miles. He probably set out in the beginning of July; and skirting along the eastern side of Cheshire, where his army received a considerable augmentation, passed through Stafford, and was joined there by his uncle the earl of Worcester. The king, aware of his intention to gain possession of Shrewsbury, and desirous of cutting off his junction with Glendower, pursued him with hasty marches. We find his majesty on the 16th of July at Burton-upon-Trent, and on the 17th at Lichfield: whence, finding that he could not overtake his enemy, he hastened on to reach Shrewsbury before him. He would naturally take the Watling Street road, and enter this town over the Abbey Bridge. The route of Hotspur was more to the north, in order to keep up a communication with the Severn, so important for his junction with Glendower. In all probability he marched through Newport, by High Ercall and Haghmond Hill; and hoped to gain admittance through the North or Castle Gate. The king arrived just in time to save the town: he entered it only a few hours before Hotspur, who reached the Castle Foregate on the evening of Friday, July 19th, and the king’s forces could not have advanced from Lichfield before the morning of that day. They were certainly here before Percy: for, aware of the intention of that young nobleman, and desirous to save the Castle from his attack, they set fire to that extensive suburb, and marched out of the Castle gates to offer him battle. Hotspur, unwilling to bring his armyinto action at the close of a toilsome march, and learning, from the royal banner which waved on the walls, that the king was in possession of the town, called off his followers from the attack, and retired to the Bull-field, an extensive common which stretched from Upper Berwick to the East. He thus protected his rear by the woody and impervious precipices extending to Leaton shelf, and had the river not only on his side, but also, if it had not entirely deserted its ancient channel under Cross-hill, (as there is reason to believe it had not,) in his front also. This position enabled him likewise to communicate readily over that stream by the ford of Shelton with the forces of Glendower, when they should arrive, as he hoped, on the opposite bank. Here he passed the night in council. His army consisted of 14,000 chosen men, of whom a considerable part were of the county of Chester, at that time eminent for its skill in archery; but, if Hall is correct, the royal army was nearly double that number; for he writes that above 40,000 men were assembled on both parts, and every circumstance of the battle proves that the king was at the head of a very superior force. His situation was, however, by no means devoid of anxiety. He must have been conscious how slender the title was which he possessed to the throne: and how ill-disposed his peerage of the realm were to maintain him upon it. From the Castle he might view, as the dawn arose, the plain which stretched to the north glittering with hostile arms: while the dreadful Glendower was believed to be in full march from Oswestry, to join the rebels with his Welsh forces. But the difficulties of the crisis only sufficed to call forth his energies and display his talents.
“Henry was himself a distinguished warrior. In earlier life he had, in company with his princely uncle the duke of Gloucester, travelled into the north of Europe in quest of martial glory; and under the banners of the renowned Teutonic order had made a glorious campaign against the Pagans of Lithuania. He was still in the vigour of life, being muchunder forty years of age, and an adversary every way worthy of the gallant Percy; whom, relying upon the superiority of his numbers, he determined, if possible, to force to an engagement, before that nobleman should receive his reinforcements from Wales or the north. By break of day, therefore, he dispatched, it is probable, a strong force, under the nominal command, for it could be no more, of the young prince, the future hero of Agincourt, but then a youth of fourteen years, to come up with Hotspur at Berwick, if possible. He himself, with the main body, appears to have marched out on the Hadnall road, ready to proceed as occasion might demand, either to the north of Cross Hill and Almond Pool, and close the rebels between his two divisions; or else to advance further on upon that road, where it branches off to Shawbury, with the view of cutting off their retreat, if Hotspur, aware of his design, should attempt to march to the east. It happened as the king anticipated. Hotspur, on his advance, broke up in some disorder, and marched by Harlescot and Abright Hussey to Hately-field, which stretches from thence eastwards. Here, however, finding it impossible to avoid an engagement, on account, as we may suppose, of the obstruction to his retreat presented by the king’s movement above mentioned, he made his stand in the rear of a field of peas nearly ripe; behind which he stationed his army, and hoped thereby to deter the king from advancing over a tract which must necessarily impede his operations.
“He then addressed his little army in a short harangue, of which Walsingham has preserved the heads. ‘We must desist,’ said he, ‘from any further attempt to retreat, and turn our arms on those that come against us. Ye see the royal banner, nor is there time to seek a passage even though we wished it. Stand, therefore, with steadfast hearts: for this day shall either promote us all, if we conquer; or deliver us from an usurper, if we fall: and it is better to die in battle for the common wealth, than after battle by the sentence ofour foe:” and with this, to support the courage of his men by proving his design to fight to the outrance, he dispatched two of his esquires, Knayton and Salvayn, with that strange defiance, in which he loads the king with the most horrid crimes. * * * *
“No one has informed us how the king received this furious manifesto. He had something else to engage his attention. He proceeded to marshal his forces, dividing them into two columns, or wedges. Of one of these he took the command himself, and entrusted the other to his son. The front rank of his own column was led on by his nephew the young earl of Stafford, a soldier of conspicuous valour, on whom he had that morning conferred the high office of constable of England, recently enjoyed by the earl of Northumberland. Previous to the final onset, the king, in compliance with the customs of chivalry, bestowed the honour of knighthood on certain of his most distinguished esquires. Hotspur, perceiving that an engagement was unavoidable, called for his favourite sword. His attendants informed him that it was left behind at Berwick, of which village it does not appear that he had till then learned the name. At these words he turned pale, and said, ‘I perceive that my plough is drawing to its last furrow, for a wizard told me in Northumberland that I should perish at Berwick: which I vainly interpreted of that town in the North.’ His courage did not, however, yield to the impressions of superstition; he rallied his spirits, and arranged his troops with his usual ability: assigning their respective stations to his uncle Worcester, the Scottish earl of Douglas, his recent captive at Halidown, sir Richard Venables, baron of Kinderton, Hugh Brow, Hugh Vernon, and others. His troops appear to have been chiefly stationed on the north side of the spot now occupied by the church in a field still calledthe Hateleys: on the east side of the church is a field denominatedthe King’s croft, in which, it may be presumed, were ranged those which the king commanded in person.These positions exactly agree with the objects which we have assigned above to the respective leaders; and lend, it is hoped, some confirmation to the conjectural part of the preceding narration.
“While the hostile armies, drawn up in battle array facing each other, waited, with mute expectation, the sound of the trumpet, the dreadful signal for combat, two venerable divines, Thomas Prestbury, lord abbot of Salop, and the clerk of the privy seal, advanced out of the royal army, and proceeded towards that of Percy. The king, desirous to spare the blood of his subjects, offered him and his adherents pardon and peace, and redress of all grievances of which they could justly complain. Hotspur was touched by these unexpected overtures, made under circumstances of such numerical inequality, and requested his uncle of Worcester to repair to the royal presence in company of these holy men, and state the grounds on which he had taken up arms. The king, we may suppose, was in his turn somewhat softened by the sight of the earl, who had been so recently engaged in the domestic office of governor to the prince of Wales; and a recollection of the obligations he had received from the Percy family might mix itself with his other reflections. It is certain that to the remonstrances of Worcester, delivered in a fierce and haughty tone, he listened with respect, and replied with a condescension which, in the opinion of the spectators, was somewhat unbefitting the royal dignity. A contemporary writer has preserved, though with a mistake of the person, the dialogue supposed to have passed between them. The king ‘counselled him to put himself on his grace.’ To which the other replied, ‘I trust not in your grace.’—‘I pray God,’ rejoined the king, ‘that thou mayest have to answer for the blood here to be shed this day, and not I. March on standard-bearer!’ and the battle was set.—It is certain that the stern temper of Worcester rejected all attempts at conciliation: he was conscious how deeply he had been engaged in fomentingthe quarrel; and, on his return to his friends, he misrepresented the demeanour of Henry in such a manner to his nephew, that the latter, with whatever reluctance, was compelled to relinquish all hopes of accommodation. At length, therefore, much of the day having been consumed in these fruitless negociations, both parties flew to arms, and the air was rent with the war-cries of ‘St. George’ on one side, and ‘Esperance Percy’ on the other. In the meanwhile, Glendower had advanced as far as Shelton on the opposite bank of Severn, where he awaited the issue of the contest, determined to proceed or retire according to its event. He is said, by the constant tradition of the country, to have ascended there the branches of a lofty oak, whose venerable trunk yet remains, for the purpose of viewing the battle; at least of gaining, from personal inspection, the earliest intelligence of its event.
“The fight began by furious and repeated volleys of arrows from Hotspur’s archers, whose ground, as may be seen, greatly favoured that kind of warfare: and they did great execution on the royal army. The king’s bowmen were not wanting in return, and the battle raged with violence. The military art had not yet attained that perfection which almost supersedes the effect of individual exertion; and Hotspur, with his associate Douglas, bent on the king’s destruction, rushing through the midst of the hostile arrows, pierced their way to the spot on which he stood. To adopt the vivid language of a contemporary, ‘in the ardour of his spirit, he assembled a band of thirty warriors, broke into the royal army, and made a great alley in the midst thereof,’ (such was the terror which his presence inspired) ‘even to the stoutest of the king’s guards.’ Monstrelet says, Henry was thrice unhorsed by the Scottish earl, and would have been taken or slain had he not been defended and rescued by his own men. And the fortune of the day would have been forthwith decided, if the Scottish earl of March had not withdrawn himfrom the danger; for the royal standard-bearer was slain, his banner beaten down; and many of the chosen band appointed to guard it (among whom were the earl of Stafford and sir Walter Blount,) were killed by these desperate assailants,—while the young prince of Wales was wounded in the face by an arrow. In short, notwithstanding all the exertions of the royalists, victory seemed inclined to favour the rebel army, who fought with renewed ardour, from an opinion naturally derived from the overthrow of his standard, that the king himself had fallen, and animated each other to the combat with cheering and redoubled shouts of ‘Henry Percy,king!Henry Percy,king!’
“In this critical moment the gallant Percy, raging through the adverse ranks in quest of his sovereign, fell by an unknown hand; alone, and hemmed in by foes. The king lost no time to avail himself of this event. Straining his voice to the utmost, he exclaimed aloud, ‘Henry Percy is dead!’ The sound was heard by either army: into those it struck dismay, while these it animated and encouraged. The rebels fled in every direction, nor could the king, anxious as he was to terminate the slaughter, restrain the impetuous pursuit of his own troops, till the flower of Cheshire, two hundred knights and esquires (besides pages and footmen) were slain. Douglas broke through, and endeavoured to escape in the direction of Haghmond-hill: being closely pursued, and leaping from a crag, he experienced a severe injury, and was captured: but the king, in admiration of his valour, set him at liberty. The loss in both armies was great. * * * An ancient manuscript rates the number of gentlemen at two thousand two hundred and ninety-one, besides commons. They were chiefly buried, says that authority, in a great pit, the dimensions of which are there specified, and over which the present church of Battlefield was afterwards erected: but many are stated to have lain dispersed in various directions for the space of three miles about the field ofbattle: a fact which confirms what has been said above of the desultory nature of the conflict. Others, of the most distinguished rank, were interred in the neighbouring town, chiefly in the cemetery of the Dominican or St. Mary’s Friars.
“The body of Hotspur was at first delivered to his kinsman lord Furnival for interment, and it was by him committed to the ground with the suffrages of the church, and with all the honours which, in that haste, could be procured as due to his rank. It is painful to reflect, that the king afterwards repented him of this generous attention to the remains of deceased valour. He caused the corpse to be taken out of the tomb in which it had been laid, and to be placed between two mill-stones in the public street, near the pillory; where, as if he feared lest the general sympathy should rescue it from its ignominious situation, it was kept under military guard, till the head was severed from the body, which was divided into quarters, and transmitted to several cities in the realm.”
Thus closes this circumstantial and able description of the celebrated battle of Shrewsbury; an event so interesting in the annals of the county, that we make no apology for having transferred so detailed an account of it to our pages. A nobler theme could not well be conceived for the lay of a minstrel. “The characters of the leaders, both of the royal and of the rebel party, the chivalrous spirit of the times in which they lived, and the magnitude of the cause that roused them to arms, are circumstances highly susceptible of poetical description, while the train of incidents from the very origin to the termination of the feud, is of that romantic cast which requires little embellishment from fiction. There is indeed one objection which may have deterred our later Poets from the undertaking; it is, that the ground which Shakspeare has trod is sacred; but without any violation of the reverence due to his memory, it may be wished that this magnificent subject had also been celebrated by the muse that sang the tale of Flodden Field.”
We have already stated that on the deposition of Richard II. the Earl of Wiltshire, recently appointed lord of the Manor of Oswestry, fell a victim to popular fury, and Thomas, son of Richard, Earl of Arundel, was restored in blood. This last-named nobleman was a liberal supporter of the Corporation of Oswestry. In 1406 he gave it a release for £100 (a large sum in those days,) which that body was indebted to him, in consideration of the distresses which the town had suffered during the Glyndwr insurrection. He also obtained pardon from the king for his vassals in Chirk, Bromfield, and the Manor of Oswestry, for the share they had taken in that rebellion. In the same year with the release he granted a most extensive Charter to the town, containing many matters showing the customs of the times. This Charter ordered, that “neither the lord nor his heirs should confiscate or seize the effects of persons with or without will in the corporation; that no burgess should be compelled to be the lord’s receiver-general, but only collector of the issues arising within the borough; that the burgesses should be discharged from all fees demanded by the Constable of the castle, or any of his menial servants, for any felonies or trespasses committed out of the same liberties, when brought to the prison of the castle; saving that the Constable might receive one penny at his own election, from every mansion-house in the town, and a farthing from every cottage, on the feast of St. Stephen annually; that the burgesses should be free for the future from all excise of ale, brewed and sold in the town, which had hitherto been payable at the rate of seven-pence for everyBracena cervisiæexposed for sale; that they were to be freed from the duty ofAmobyr, orLyre-Wyte; that whoever lived in the house of a burgess, and happened to die there, the burgess was to have a heriot after his decease, in the same manner as theUchelwyr, or freeholders residing on the lands of the lord in the Hundred of Oswestry; that no Shrewsbury ale should be sold in the town without license, while any ale brewed in thetown was to be had, under the penalty of 6s. 8d.; that none of the inhabitants of the lordships of Oswestry, Melverley, Kinardsley, Edgerley, Ruyton, and the eleven towns, should drive or carry any cattle, corn, or victuals, or other wares, to any foreign fair or market, before the same had first been exposed for sale in the town of Oswestry, under the penalty of 6s. 8d.; that none of the lord’s tenants should be compelled to pay theredditus advocariifor the security of the castle,” &c. TheAmobyrof the Welsh, and theLyre-Wyteof the Saxons, were fines paid by the vassal to his lord, to buy off the power to violate domestic relations. Pennant gives a different interpretation to the termAmobyr, but does not succeed in giving us its literal and precise meaning. There is one curious fact mentioned in the aforesaid Charter, and which, even in these days must excite a smile. The respectivesix-and-eightpencesof the gentlemen who now study “Coke upon Littleton” was actually prescribed even so far back as the fifteenth century. It would be a still more curious fact developed, were we acquainted with the lord of the Manor’s law-adviser when this Charter was granted, because we might perhaps then be able, from the knowledge of that fact, to ascribe the origin, if not honour, of lawyers’six-and-eightpencesto the ancient Borough of Oswestry!
According to Pennant, “until the time of the above-mentioned Charter, the lord’s Welsh tenants of the Hundred of Oswestry were accustomed by their tenure to keep watch and ward, for three days and three nights, at the four gates of the town, during the fairs of St. Andrew and St. Oswald, with a certain number of men calledKaies; but these treacherously, with others, ravaged and plundered the place. On this the tenants were compelled to pay a sum of money as wages to a sufficient number of Englishmen, as the burgesses should think convenient, for the custody of the four gates; and the Welsh men were for ever to be discharged from that duty. The vassals of the Earl of Arundel in theseparts were of a mixed nature; either descendants of the Norman followers of Alan, or of the native Welsh, who were most numerous, and bore an hereditary dislike to their co-tenants of foreign stock. The Welsh part was calledWalcheria, and lay in the upper part of the parish.”
Reverting to Owain Glyndwr’s career, we see that his escape from the Shelton Oak, at the Battle of Shrewsbury, did not deter him from fresh enterprises. Evidently regardless of the ruin of his allies—they, as Leland tells us, “whom he promised to unite with” at that battle—he continued to infest the English borders, where he committed great havoc, the king being unable, from the want of funds, to resist his aggressions. Owain’s marauding parties committed serious damage to Shrewsbury and several of the adjoining townships, and extended their ravages as far as Buildwas Abbey, which they wasted with fire, so that divine service was for a time discontinued, and the monks were reduced to the greatest poverty. At length Henry directed a writ to Edward Charlton, Lord Powys, to raise forces with which to subdue the renewed rebellion; and similar orders were sent to Lords Arundel and Grey, and Sir Richard L’Strange, Lord of Knockin, Ellesmere, and other bordering manors. Glyndwr had despatched to Shrewsbury two of his best officers, Rhys Ddu and Philipot Scudamore, to command the insurrectionary party; but Lord Powys, having promptly obeyed the orders of his sovereign, fortified several castles, and speedily took as prisoners the above-named two leaders, and they were both soon afterwards executed in London. Holinshed says, that “Glyndwr himself in the same year, dreading to show his face to any creature, and finally lacking meat to sustain nature, for mere hunger and lack of food miserably pined away and died.” He was living, however, six years later, but in a state of concealment, chiefly at the house of one of his daughters, married to a gentleman of Herefordshire named Monnington. In July, 1415, the new king Henry V.,anxious to leave his country in tranquillity before he engaged in the war with France, offered a pardon to Glyndwr; and this would probably have been accepted by the Cambrian chieftain, had not the negotiation been interrupted by his death, which occurred September 30th, 1415, in the 61st year of his age. It is said that David Holbetch, Steward of the manors of Oswestry, Bromfield, and Yale, and founder of the Oswestry Free Grammar School, took a distinguished part in this negotiation, and obtained the promised pardon for Glyndwr. Tradition states that he was buried in the churchyard of Monnington-on-Wye.
With Glyndwr ceased most of the troubles and calamities which had too long afflicted the English and Welsh Borders. The superstitious charm with which Owain’s name had been invested by his countrymen soon faded away, and his life, though startling in a rude and ignorant age, soon proved that he was “in the common roll of men!” Shakspere was justified in creating him, poetically, as self-idolatrous, for his daring incursions and fiery movements indicate that he believed himself to be of the meteoric class, to curb oppression and give liberty to the enslaved. For years after Glyndwr’s fall Oswestry, for aught that history tells us to the contrary, lay in comparative repose, entirely free from foreign aggression. Intestine feuds and disorders seem to have been the chief disturbers. The Welsh were arrayed against the English, and the latter appear to have had no less enmity against their Cambrian neighbours. To Pennant’s industrious and accurate research we are indebted for the scanty notices collected of the history of this period. Among the records of the Drapers’ Company of Shrewsbury, he tells us there is the following order:—“25 Eliz. 1513. Ordered, that no Draper set out for Oswestry on Mondays before six o’clock, on forfeiture of six shillings and eightpence; and that they wear their weapons all the way, and go in company—not to go over the Welsh Bridge before the bell toll six.”
However numerous and fierce marauders were in the days here referred to, it would seem that peaceful employments were nevertheless pursued by the inhabitants of Oswestry, and that their manufactured cloth was of so good a quality as to be held in high repute among the Shrewsbury Drapers. The “contests, robberies, and disturbances in the Marches of Wales” still continuing with unabated force, and both Welsh and English seeming to have considered everything as lawful plunder which they could seize in each other’s territory, the Stewards, the Constable, and Lieutenant of Oswestry and Powys entered into covenants in the year 1534, to restrain these plundering excursions. It was agreed, that “if, after a certain day then fixed, any person of one lordship committed felony in the other, he should be taken and sent into the lordship where the offence was committed, to receive punishment; and that if any goods or cattle were stolen from one lordship and conveyed into the other, the tenants and inhabitants of that lordship should either pay for the same within fifteen days, or otherwise four principal men should remain in bail, a main-prize, till they were either paid for or recovered.”
Notwithstanding these rigorous measures, the evil still continued; and so alarmed were certain of the inhabitants of Shrewsbury, and regardful of the safety of their fellow-burgesses who had to visit Oswestry market weekly, that prayers for their preservation were offered up in one of the churches, on Monday mornings, before they started on their perilous journey. A timid gentleman, William Jones, Esq., left to the Drapers’ Company “one pound six-shillings and eight-pence, to be paid annually to the Vicar of St. Alkmond’s Church, for reading prayers on Monday mornings, before the Drapers set out for Oswestry market!” Pennant informs us that at this period “Oswestry was the great emporium for Welsh cloth; a privilege to which it was well entitled from its vicinity to those districts of Wales in which that important branch of commerce was manufactured, at a periodwhen the English trader could not, with any degree of safety, trust himself in the Principality. To this town (Oswestry) the Drapers of Shrewsbury repaired every Monday. We learn the fact from a curious MS. Chronicle of the last-mentioned town, which relates that ‘on Monday, Dec. 5th, 1575, the Drapers of Shrewsbury had like to have been robbed, if they had not been privately warned; but the bailiffs and a great company went, strongly aimed, upon their usual trade toward Oswestry. The robbers proposed to rob them in the dale between Shelton and Shrewsbury, and lay over night in Master Sherar’s barn, on the other side of the water.’ The whole narrative, which is told much at length in the Chronicle, exhibits the unsettled police of a country slowly emerging from a state of barbarism, and strongly reminds the reader of the inimitable scene at Gadshill, so admirably pourtrayed by our great dramatic bard in the first part of Henry IV.” The same writer adds, “notwithstanding, however, this and similar proofs of the general insecurity of the country, the Welsh manufacturer was unwilling to meet the purchaser even half way with his commodities. ‘Not satisfied,’ says our countryman Dr. Peter Heylyn, in hisCosmography, ‘with having fixed the market at Oswestry, they sought to draw the staple more into their own country.’ The MS. quoted above informs us, under the year 1582, that it would have been removed thence, ‘to the great decay of that town and of Shrewsbury, yf Sir Thomas Bromley, being Lord Chancelor, had not by his great wisdom opened the same to the Queen’s Majestie, for which godly deede theye of the said townes are contynewally bownde to praye daylye.’ Lord Chancellor Bromley was a Shropshire man, and possessor, by purchase from the Earl of Arundel, of the Castle and Lordship of Shrawardine; he was therefore personally interested in the prosperity of the county, and by his influence at Court enabled to promote it.” It would further appear, that the market was continued at Oswestry, so that it is likely that Lord Bromley’s interposition at Court prevailed. In 1585 the Welshcloth market was removed from Oswestry to Knockin, the plague having broken out in this borough, and destroyed “three-score and four persons, and no more;” according to the parish register. The plague continued from April to August, when it entirely disappeared, and the market was held, as before, in Oswestry.
Oswestry was visited with other calamities some few years before this period. In 1542 a fire broke out in the town, which was so destructive, that “two long streets with great riches” were consumed; and in 1567 there was another fire, which destroyed “seven-score within the walls, and three-score without.” The suburb still known by the name ofPentre-Poeth(the burnt end of the town) suffered severely, and may have derived its designation from this destructive fire; or, as Price intimates, from the frequent fires that may have occurred there during the conflicts between the Welsh and English. These accidents were looked upon, at the time, through astrological telescopes, by Camden, the historian, and a Dr. Childrey. They both gravely ascribed these events to astrological phenomena, Camden seriously remarking, “that the eclipses of the sun in Aries have been very fatal to this place; for in the years 1542 and 1567, when the sun was eclipsed in that sign, it (Oswestry) suffered much by fire!” After reading such absurdity as this from men professing to be learned, we have reason to be thankful that we are living in a more enlightened and scientific age.
A few years before the conflagration last referred to, the town was visited by a no less alarming evil. In 1559 pestilence consigned to the grave, within one year, more than five hundred of the inhabitants. The disease which thus afflicted the people is stated to have commenced with profuse perspiration, (from which it was called “the sweating sickness,”) and to have continued until the death or recovery of the patient. Its operation was quick and powerful, and cure or death occurred within twenty-four hours. Those persons who were seized inthe day were put to bed in their clothes to wait the issue; and those seized in the night were desired to remain in bed, but not to sleep. The desolation of the town during the long continuance of the plague is described in affecting language by the writer of the clever historical sketches, on the History of Oswestry, that appear in Mr. Roberts’s publication, entitled “Oswald’s Well:”—
“It was then that Croeswylan received its name.Croes wylan, or the Cross of weeping, was there erected, the base of which still remains to be seen. To this, with superstitious reverence, all the people resorted. The diseased and dying sought in grief beneath its sacred shadow a preparation for the doom to which they were appointed, and there they languished till that doom was fixed. Before it, the whole and healthy ones confessed and deplored their sins, and deprecated the vengeance of heaven. Throughout the succeeding century this foul contagion lurked on our shores, and at intervals visited our town, converting it into a vast charnel house. Its attacks were so insidious and sudden that the glow of health suffered no process of removal, but instantly fled, as scared and affrighted on the approach of the fell devourer. During its presence no sights were to be seen but the wan and sickly visage of those who were dying, or the panic-stricken gaze of the man yet uninfected, almost delirious with alarm, and starting from the touch of the dearest friend of his heart. The air was rent with shrieks and laden with lamentation. Death alone seemed contented and satisfied, and sat like a monster unmoved as he banqueted on hundreds of his victims. All commerce was at a stand-still. Every house was locked, the inmates scarcely venturing upon a communication with each other, much less exposing themselves to contact with those without. With foreboding reluctance they breathed the breath of heaven, pregnant as it was with the seeds of death. If one of their number was attacked, no consideration of friendship or kindred spared him the aggravation of being hurled into the street, there to await the regular arrival of the dead-cart. That sad accompanimentof the contagion, the gibbet of the scene, rolled sullenly along the death-smitten streets upon its gloomy mission, and never returned without the sad evidences of the rapid progress of the desolating scourge. In the ears of the expiring it must have sounded like the toll of the passing bell, the knell of their speedy departure. Upon it, whether dead or just gasping for life, the diseased victims were heaped, and hurried off to the brink of a huge pit, dug, probably, in a corner of the Old Churchyard, into which they were remorselessly thrown. Everything bespoke the presence and working of a mighty power, in league with ‘the King of terrors.’ All human ties were forcibly disrupted, every human sympathy was sacrilegiously immolated, until the people were reduced to that extremity of sadness, in which life is burdensome for its sorrows, and death terrible for the grim and ghastly shroud in which it lies hid.”
“It was then that Croeswylan received its name.Croes wylan, or the Cross of weeping, was there erected, the base of which still remains to be seen. To this, with superstitious reverence, all the people resorted. The diseased and dying sought in grief beneath its sacred shadow a preparation for the doom to which they were appointed, and there they languished till that doom was fixed. Before it, the whole and healthy ones confessed and deplored their sins, and deprecated the vengeance of heaven. Throughout the succeeding century this foul contagion lurked on our shores, and at intervals visited our town, converting it into a vast charnel house. Its attacks were so insidious and sudden that the glow of health suffered no process of removal, but instantly fled, as scared and affrighted on the approach of the fell devourer. During its presence no sights were to be seen but the wan and sickly visage of those who were dying, or the panic-stricken gaze of the man yet uninfected, almost delirious with alarm, and starting from the touch of the dearest friend of his heart. The air was rent with shrieks and laden with lamentation. Death alone seemed contented and satisfied, and sat like a monster unmoved as he banqueted on hundreds of his victims. All commerce was at a stand-still. Every house was locked, the inmates scarcely venturing upon a communication with each other, much less exposing themselves to contact with those without. With foreboding reluctance they breathed the breath of heaven, pregnant as it was with the seeds of death. If one of their number was attacked, no consideration of friendship or kindred spared him the aggravation of being hurled into the street, there to await the regular arrival of the dead-cart. That sad accompanimentof the contagion, the gibbet of the scene, rolled sullenly along the death-smitten streets upon its gloomy mission, and never returned without the sad evidences of the rapid progress of the desolating scourge. In the ears of the expiring it must have sounded like the toll of the passing bell, the knell of their speedy departure. Upon it, whether dead or just gasping for life, the diseased victims were heaped, and hurried off to the brink of a huge pit, dug, probably, in a corner of the Old Churchyard, into which they were remorselessly thrown. Everything bespoke the presence and working of a mighty power, in league with ‘the King of terrors.’ All human ties were forcibly disrupted, every human sympathy was sacrilegiously immolated, until the people were reduced to that extremity of sadness, in which life is burdensome for its sorrows, and death terrible for the grim and ghastly shroud in which it lies hid.”
The market was held, during the Plague, atCroes wylan, that the people from the surrounding country-places should not visit the town, and thereby suffer from the infection. No doubt that with the dreadful scourge stalked, hand in hand, gaunt poverty. It may be easily imagined that the poor suffered severely from the sickness, and that many of them required relief. We have some testimony before us that the public authorities of the time sympathized with the sufferers. The following extracts from the “Accompt of Richard ap Lley, Muringer of the town of Oswestr, for and from the xvj day of September, in the 2nd yere of our sovraynge Lady Elizabeth,” show how pecuniary aid was rendered to certain parties:—
The sayde accomtante doth asc alowaunce for rent bayted to the Towlers (toll-takers) for one qr. in considracion of the PLAGE:
s.
d.
Fyrst to the executors of John Vyghan
xx
Allso, &c. rent bayted to Thomas ap Rc. for Wolyws-gate
xx
Allso, &c. to David Glover the elder, for Newe-gate
xiij
iiij
Allso, &c. to Wyling Lloyd, for Betresce-gate
x
Allso, &c. to David ap David, for Blak gate
iiij
ij
Allso, &c. rent of Crofft-pystil, in the hande of Rc. ap Mrdyth, dyssessed
ij
Allso, &c. money payde for wrytinge of a suplycacion to my lord of Arundell
xij
Allso, &c. for Lewys Tayler, and Guttyn Furbur, beinge unpayde for setting of stales, by reason of the Plage
xiiij
Allso, &c. for Rc. Lewther, for one qr. beinge absent from the towne
xx
Tanners.
Allso, &c. for a qr. rent unto tanners beinge apsent in in tyme of the plage; and fyrste, Thomas Baker (2 other similar items)
xiiij
Glovers.
Itm. The sayde accomptaunt dothe asc alowaunce for them that are deade or fled, and them that are in decaye; and fyrst, Thomas ap John Wyling, beinge a poore man (five others fled, &c.)
xij
Buchers.
Imp. the sayde accomtant, &c. Lewys, bucher, that is dead (one for the like and 7 fled)
v
Corvsers.
Edward Gorg, fled (2 others fled)
iij
Backers.
David ap sr. Rc. saythe that he dothe not occupey his backhowes, and prayth alowance
vi
David Bobyth hathe ben longe secke, and asc alo
iij
Hucksters.
Jonet vrch. David ap Morys asc alowance for a qr. Rent (1 other)
x
Alle Selers.
Edward Lloyd pray the alowance for a qr.
xjj
David Glover the elder, in lycke manner
xiiij
Richard Salter was longe sycke, and praythe alowance
xiijj
Thomas Glover praythe alowaunce for half a yere; aledginge, that he sold no alle for that space (3 others)
xx
Payments for the provision of the genrall Feast unto the Coo-burgesses according to the aunsient costom, holden the vth day of Desember, in the thryde yere of the raynge of our sovraynge layde Ellizabeth, by the grace of God quene of England, &c. at the making of this accompt:
s.
d.
Whete.
Fyrste, the saide accomptaunt hathe payde for ii stryckes and a hoope of whette for brede and for peys
xj
Maullt.
Allso payde for iii strycke of maullt
xij
Boochers.
Allso payde for a qr. and ii rybes of byff
vj
viij
Allso payde for mytton for to make peys for this feast
ij
vj
. . . for iijlb.ressyns
xij
. . . s pep
v
ij
Cloves,&c.
Allso payde for cloves, masses, aud saffrone
vj
Allso payde for synamon and sugr.
vij
Itm. pd. for buttr. spent at this feast
viij
Chese.
Allso payde for chesses
ij
ix
Nyttes, &c.
Allso pd. for appells and nyttes
xvj
Saullt.
Allso payde for a hoope of sallt for the byff
x
This Accompt was made before us,the persons under-named,then Bailiffe of the said Towne,John Stanney,Thomas Evans.