After Glyn Dŵr: An Age of Reconciliation?

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, following Edward I's final conquest, the inhabitants of the whole of Wales were adjusting to the fact that they were a cosmopolitan people of diverse origins. Their communities were interleaved, in varying measure, with migrants from England and Ireland, France and the Low Countries, and from elsewhere in Wales, and this process was unlikely to be reversed. In particular, contacts between English and Welsh multiplied, and relationships between them deepened. The revolt of Owain Glyn Dŵr in the first decade of the fifteenth century, the most serious of the challenges that faced the unsteady Lancastrian king, Henry IV, threatened for a time to disrupt this process. The gradual defeat of Glyn Dŵr's supporters and allies in the decade after 1406 posed large and pressing questions: how to ensure security for the English kingdom in the west thenceforward; how to restore peace and stability to the commonwealth; and how to achieve reconciliation among the peoples of Wales and with the king's subjects in England. This chapter examines the aftermath of Glyn Dŵr's revolt, particularly the relationship between English and Welsh in the borderland.