14th February 1345
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Welsh St Valentines Day Massacre
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Following on the Llywelyn Bren Southern Insurrection of 1315 –16 and subsequent brutal execution and imprisonment of its leaders, the Welsh became pretty passive and quiet. The early decades of the 14th century – “A Distant Mirror” was a time of hard bitter winters followed by long rainy springs leading the way into wet damp summers. This would lead to famine and in Europe, the legend of werewolves would be born as people turned to cannibalism and then blamed the wolf for human depravities. On top of all this, the plague was to start making it’s ravaging deadly way across Europe towards Wales. Against this background, the Welsh had more than enough to worry about. Welsh society, at this period, was not such that it would spark peasant or popular revolt as beloved by Marxist historians (although note the revolt of 24 fits that bill to some degree). Instead, in Wales, there occurred a rise in crime and outlawry as men took to the great woodlands to become “Adar y Griem”.
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By the 1340’s however, things were getting pretty grim as the English Colonists sought to ‘screw the Welsh’ with unreasonable tax demands and any other illogical excuse they could use to oppress and exploit the native, until at last in Northern Wales and in the Colonist Planted Perfeddwlad of the new shire of Denbigh, Welsh resentment was, once again, on the boil – stirred up once more by ‘Y Clerwyr’ with their ‘Mab Darogan’ prophecies and ballads of Anti – English sentiments.
The stage was thus set for ‘Kick off’ and this took place with what we may call the ‘Beltain Bash’ of 1st May 1344 when Colonists from Rhuddlan attended a Fair at St Asaph in celebration of the ‘Feast of St Phillip and St James’. The Fair became severely disturbed by a running riot with the Colonists being chased back to Rhuddlan where the Welsh then took to attacking the Castle and garrison Town. Generally running amok, the Welsh took advantage of the situation and began to loot and pillage before they torched the new borough.
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As you can well imagine this did not go down well with the Colonists who called upon their king to enforce some 'Law & Order' on the unruly Welsh. One thing led to another and later in the year, one John de Huntington - the English king’s Sheriff of Merioneth was feloniously slain whilst holding court in the Kings name and robbed of the rolls of the king (evidence to Taxes and debts etc - Interestingly, the Merthyr insurrectionists of 1831 would seek to do the same - that is destroy Court records).
The situation was simmering to the boil and on 14th February 1345 as Henry de Shaldeforde, the English Prince’s Attorney, went about Royal Business, he, and a party of his men were ambushed by the Welsh and slain as they made their way from Harlech to Caernarfon.
Those responsible were to go on the run and took to the woods for safety and become wanted outlaws, but these incidents, at this time, were not to be the signal for a major national Welsh revolt. Ten years were to pass, and in the year of 1354 there was to be born a babe to become the Legend we know as our National hero and nation’s redeemer ‘Owain Glynd?r – Mab Darogan’ who, in a further 45 years, would lead the Welsh in the greatest of all Welsh Revolts.
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Postscript 1345. Since first writing an account of the “Welsh Troubles” of 1345, I have come across a further reference to one of the Harlech Partisans. Having been declared an outlaw, one of the Welsh escaped to Cornwall where he hid out for a number of years. In these hard and forbidding times many of the down trodden poor or those declared ‘outlaw’ or ‘criminal’ for political reasons, may not only have escaped to the woodlands to become ‘Adar y Greim’ many may also have escaped to the independent Lordships of the Welsh Marches where they may have been hired as retainers (perhaps better known by the English as ''Hired Thugs'' and ''Hitmen'') and become involved in the numerous cross frontier disputes in the “Border Troubles” that raged between the many lords and nobles of the Marches.
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During the 14th century, there would be a considerable rise in the number of Welshmen leaving to become mercenaries in Europe, particularly in Flanders and in France as well as in Germany and Spain. The mercenary tradition of the Welsh really began in earnest following the great revolt of 1294. Somewhat ironically the 1294 revolt had, as one of its causes, Welsh refusal to be conscripted to go and fight in England’s Scottish War. Other causes of this revolt were taxation and land dispute which, in many ways, makes of this revolt one of Europe’s first ‘Popular Rebellions’, although the later revolts of 1316 and 1345 had ''populist motivations'' it would be in the Owain Glyndwr war that is best seen elements pf a ''Welsh Peasant Rebellion".
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The 14th century also saw many Welsh Men become ‘Gwenoliaid Cymreig’ Mercenaries * fighting in the armies of England or France. An episode of particular interest is one that occurs on 24 July 1345 when Jacob Van Artevelde of Ghent in Flanders was attacked and killed by an insurrection of weavers, with him fell 500 of his Welsh bodyguard. It is of further interest to note that history records that it was a Welshman, one Gruffydd of Wales who had, a few years earlier, killed Jacob’s wife and brother.
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The Flanders and French connection also reminds us of two of the most famous of the ‘Gwenoliaid Cymreig’ mercenaries. They were Ieuan Wyn and Owain Lawgoch, Yvain de Galles. Owain Lawgoch (Owain of the Red hand) was thought of as the long awaited ‘Mab Darogan in Wales of the 1370s, unfortunately, this was not to be as Owain Lawgoch was assassinated by the English before he had the opportunity to return to Wales.
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Generally speaking, the Welsh Mercenaries in Flanders were well known as a pretty wild bunch and cause of much trouble in way of arson and looting, on occasion, well out of control and uncaring of whom they would pick a fight with. On one occasion it is recorded that a body of Welsh mercenaries were returned to Wales as undisciplined rabble who had annoyed much of a local population. Flemish chroniclers also record the Welsh as only wearing one shoe and having a liking for toasted cheese. There is, of course, a significant Flemish connection with Wales and also a Welsh Mercenary connection with the low countries ( Netherland ) that would last into the 17th century.
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* Gwenoliaid Cymreig – Welsh Swallows, a Welsh term for Mercenaries similar to the Irish Wild Geese. The term ‘Gwenoliaid Cymreig’ comes from heraldry and poetry where those without land were referred to as the ‘Cyw’r Wennol’ – young of the Swallows which in heraldry were painted without feet so, symbolic of being with out land. Further of interest in matters of heraldry is that the ‘Red Hand’ was used to note that some one was outlawed.
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It is interesting to note: that it was in the 1440’s, 28 years after the end of the last Great War of Welsh Independence 1416-22, that the Welsh were, once more, stirring with discontent and starting again to yearn for a ‘Mab Darogan’. But it was not to be, the ‘troubles’ of the 1440’s were to only lead the Welsh closer towards involvement in ‘English Dynastic troubles of the ‘War of the Roses’, and we all know which ‘treacherous trail’ that took the Welsh down, led by a ‘False Mab Darogan’ by the name of ‘Henry Tudor.
SEE ALSO :
http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/welsh-mercenaries-in-history-hes-fought.html
http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/rhys-ap-thomas-godfather-of-crachach.htm
http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/peoples-socialist-history-of-wales-land.html
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