The Golden Dragon of Wales: A Glyndwr Rebellion TL
- Thread starter Gwrtheyrn Annwn
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Also a good spot, better change that quickly.
A good reference, thanks.
This is true, I think it might be wise to edit that in, on have Owain consolidate his church's hold over them at a later date, I believe he didn't claim them IOTL because they lacked the traditional/mythological connection with St. David's but once Wales becomes a proper state he or a successor will most likely claim them under the Archbishop of St. Davids. As for the largest cities, their population with be somewhat reduced by some of their English inhabitants fleeing the Welsh rule which will help a little with the problem but yes, there are going to be consequences in the future.
I think I'll use that earthwork suggestion, since it fits the story rather nicely. As for the Constable, I was unware of that, but as you say it is also quite helpful for the story so, if you don't mind, I think I might add that in as well.
Thanks! I don't think so, but if the Lancasters win, they'll come calling on Wales' doorstep somewhere down the line.
As you say, this isn't going to change things dramatically, but the effects could be interesting, to say the least.
A nice suggestion and one that I think fits well with Owain's approach to Welsh administration and history. It might well be used later on.
Fair point, I just find Sir Edmund is too similar to Edmund I.
Yes, no-one has a good position at the moment, so the next few months are crucial in the war.
Chapter 11: The Siege and the Traitor
Chapter 11: The Siege and the Traitor
The shambles that took place outside Liverpool in late February 1407 represented a blow to the Percys rebellion as they had lost a not inconsiderable amount of good soldiers at the hands of the angry mob but the army led by Henry Percy himself, enjoyed its own success, in capturing Wigan from the Lancasters, to help to soften the impact that the battle had on the power of the Percy cause. Shortly after capture of Wigan, news reached the Percys that the Thomas I and his remaining forces had departed Preston by sea to travel south, home of their power base, and rebuild their forces to challenge first the Mortimers, who had now taken up residence in Stafford, and the Percys. This news emboldened the already ambitious, or even egotistical, Henry Percy and he marched on to take Preston. They arrived at the town in March and entered the town unopposed, after Thomas I had taken much of the town’s garrison south with him. Shortly after the capture of the town, Thomas Percy and the survivors of the debacle at Liverpool joined Henry Percy there and the pair marched their army on Lancaster, the seat of the Lancasters power. Upon arrival the pair found the town’s castle to be well stocked and garrisoned. As such the Percys issued the castle constable, one William Rygmayden, with an ultimatum for the surrender of him and garrison, but unfortunately for the Percys, Rygmayden refused to surrender, having heard of the Liverpool debacle, and dug in behind Henry IV’s new gatehouse for the siege, forcing the Percys to set up camp outside.
Lancaster Castle as it is now
Whilst the Henry Percy was attempting to starve out the garrison of Lancaster Castle into submission the Lancaster faction launched their first offensives of the War of Three Kings, against the Percys. Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge and brother of Edward of Norwich, who had been captured by the Mortimers in February, held several castles in Yorkshire, not least the one for which he was named, and from these islands of Lancaster support he launched a daring offensive against York, hoping to take advantage of the Percys’ campaigning in the Duchy of Lancaster. His audacity got off to a bad start, with the force available to him being somewhat smaller than he had hoped or even expected, and when he marched on York he found his way blocked, only a mile from York, by a larger army than his own under the command of the Percys’ close ally, Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York. Richard of Conisburgh and his men, of which there were only 2000, lined up opposite the Percy army, which outnumbered them two to one, and dug in for a tough fight. Richard and his men fought long and hard against the Percys numerical superiority but were eventually overwhelmed by force of numbers. The battle finally ended in pyrrhic victory for the Percys as hundreds of their inexperienced soldiers, many of them drawn from the people of York, were cut down by Richard and his battle-hardened and trained garrison soldiers. To make matters even worse, Richard of Conisburgh was captured on the field of battle and became the second member of the House of York to be captured by the Lancasters’ enemies.
Richard of Conisburgh
This capture proved to allow the Percys to gain valuable new supporter in their campaign as Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge and brother of Edward of Norwich, the captured head of the House of York, defected from the Lancasters to join the Percys after Thomas I refused to pay his ransom, in an event that had echoes of Sir Edmund Mortimer’s defection to join Glyndŵr. This defection appears strange on the surface, after all Richard was a member of a Plantagnet cadet dynasty, but there were many underlying causes that motivated his choice. Firstly, there were persistent rumours that Richard was in fact not a member of the Plantagnet dynasty and was instead a bastard son of Isabella of Castille and John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter, these rumours had seemingly been confirmed by the lack of provision for him in his father’s will, back in 1402. This not only placed his position in the Plantagnet family in doubt but also tied him to a man executed for his role in the Epiphany Rising of 1400 against Henry IV. It is unsurprising, therefore, that the confusion surrounding his heritage and the lack of Percy attacks on the castles that he held in Yorkshire resulted in the Lancasters having not a little suspicion for him and his intentions. The result of this was that Thomas I repeated the mistake of his father and refused to pay the ransom that the Percys demanded for him. As such, Richard married Margaret Percy, daughter of Henry Percy, in York and joined the Percy cause under assurances of gaining his brother’s titles when the dust settled.
Whilst le Scrope was welcoming Richard of Conisburgh into the Percy fold, his patron, Henry Percy, was still besieging Lancaster, a task that was proving difficult as the Lancasters shipped in supplies through the town’s well-defended port on the River Lune to bolster the town garrison. In August, after some six months of siege, Henry Percy, tired of waiting and feeling secure in his position in the north after the defection of Richard of Consiburgh to his cause and the distraction that the Mortimers were providing to the Lancasters in the south, decided that the time had come to try and assault take the town castle by force and thus all but secure the north under their control. The castle of Lancaster was a strong one, thanks in no small way to the efforts put in by Henry IV early in his reign after the town had been devastated by an invading Scottish army in 1389. The most notable of Henry IV’s improvements was a new gatehouse which, despite being incomplete, rivalled the keep as the strongest part of the castle. Against these considerable fortifications, Henry Percy arrayed an arsenal of siege engines that had been acquired or constructed over the course of his campaign, but had seen little significant use until now. The assault on the castle began with the Percys’ cannons and catapults bombarding the castle’s walls and the Percys began to move siege towers up ramps into position to storm the walls. The Lancaster garrison was starving after the months of siege, despite the supplies coming in my sea, and the Percy soldiers initially encountered limited resistance as they poured on to the walls around the gatehouse, but once they tried to move to storm Henry IV’s great gatehouse, they were repulsed by the garrison, who threw rocks and fired arrows from the ramparts. The Percy forces also moved to try and break down the gates with a battering ram but were that attack was also repulsed by the gatehouse garrison, who rained missiles of all kinds on the attackers through the murder holes. With their assault on the gatehouse defeated, the Percy forces drew back to regroup and settled back to starve the Lancaster garrison into submission.
The gatehouse of Henry IV
They had to wait some time for this, with the garrison’s morale boosted by the failure of the Percys’ assault on the castle and the supplies continuing to come in by sea. After three more months, however, reinforcement for the Percys arrived from across the Pennines, under the command of the newly defected Richard of Conisburgh. These reinforcements effectively ended the possibility of the siege being lifted by any action the garrison could take and it was also looking increasingly unlikely that the Lancasters would make any moves to lift the siege themselves, what with the Mortimers proving a more challenging opponent than expected in the south of England. As such, William Rygmayden finally agreed to surrender to the Percys in late October and, in handing over the keys to Lancaster castle, handed the Percys the keys to the north.
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The Percys have all but secured the north now, but if the Lancasters can mop up the Mortimers, things will get problematic for them. As usual please do comment and, more importantly, enjoy.
Gwyn
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My beautiful hometown of Ross-On-Wye, a part of Wales?
This must be a 20th Circle of Hell for such horrors as Welsh language and culture to be visited upon it.
This must be a 20th Circle of Hell for such horrors as Welsh language and culture to be visited upon it.
I'll fight you to the last and hole up in Goodrich Castle over this grave insult!
TruthfulPanda
Gone Fishin'
Will you blow your nose at me and fart in my general direction?I'll fight you to the last and hole up in Goodrich Castle over this grave insult!
You are - of course - invited to call me "an empty headed animal food trough wiper!" too
Returning to it's roots rather. Being firmly within the Archenfield (roughly, Hereford south of the Wye) Rhosan ar Wy is almost certainly Welsh speaking at this time (as it will have been for centuries), as most of the Archenfield was until at least Elizabethan times with Welsh not finally dying out in the area until some time in the 19th century.
The Archenfield has a fascinating place in the history of this period - being not fully a part of England or Wales, it was outside the feudal systems of both countries, with Welsh customary law followed and the men of Archenfield owing loyalty directly to the English crown, with no feudal intermediary (and having a military obligation to provide the vanguard whenever the king invaded Wales, the rearguard when he was sent packing again, and interpreters in both cases). It's also one of the possible resting places of Glyndwr himself, there being a tradition that he passed the last years of his life posing as a Franciscan friar employed by his son-in-law's family, the Scudamores of Kentchurch and is buried in a (presumably unmarked) grave in a nearby church.
I should be clear that I was aware of this and it was more playful than anything.
TruthfulPanda
Gone Fishin'
I know that it's in jest - and I simply cannot get over the image of you on the walls doing the Monthy Python routine:
"I blow my nose at you, you so-called Owain King - you and all your silly Welsh kniggets!"
I thought that was probably the case, I've just been looking for an excuse to share that background about the Archenfield since this thread started
The name Archenfield always brings to mind Archenland, that kingdom in between a land of talking animals and a land of decadent barbarians masquerading as civilised .
.Now I wonder what role it would fulfil in Glyndwr's Wales, my guess is as something akin to a Welsh March to protect against any English invasion.
First stop on the butterfly tour is Armagnac-Burgundian Civil War in France.
Another chapter should be up on Monday.
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