Owen was bold, wary, and revengeful: he set no bounds to his resentment. He made a smoking ruin of the dwelling of his countryman, Sir David Gam, and thereby made him an implacable enemy. He was the cause of the loss of one hundred thousand lives, { 89} and of the destruction of immense property. Many houses and other buildings were burnt and destroyed by him; among which I find enumerated the Castle of Ruthin, the Cathedral of St. Asaph, the Cathedral of Bangor, the Bishop’s Palace, &c. at Llantaff, the towns of Leominster and Old Radnor, besides the house of Sir David Gam, &c.
It will be right to notice that Mr. Pennant gives the following account of the death of Owen Glyndwr; but as he states there is nothing confirmatory of Owen’s interment at Monnington, I have thought it right to adhere to the older authorities:—“He matched his daughters,” says Mr. Pennant, “into considerable families: his eldest, Isabel, to Adam Ap Iorwerth Ddu; his second, Elizabeth, or as some say, Alicia, to Sir John Scudamore, of Ewyas, and Home Lacy, in Herefordshire; Jane he forced upon Lord Grey De Ruthin; and his youngest daughter, Margaret, to Roger Monnington, of Monnington, in Herefordshire, at whose house some accounts say he died, and was buried in the church-yard there.” { 90}
The prison where Owen confined his captives, and of which some remains may still be seen, was near the church at Llansantffraid Glyndyfrdwy; and the place is still called Carchardy Owen Glyndwr. He is said to have died in the sixty-first year of his age.
I trust it will be deemed a pardonable digression, if I now give the sequel of the military career of that loyal and truly brave Welchman, Sir David Gam. I have before recounted that Glyndwr forced him to fly for protection to the court of England, where he continued in favour with King Henry IV. until the death of that monarch. I then find him accompanying his son, King Henry V. on his expedition into France, in the year of our Lord 1415, at the head and in the command of a numerous body of stout and valiant Welchmen, who on all occasions distinguished themselves by their courage and conduct. { 91}
To Sir David Gam was assigned the important office of reconnoitring the French army, on the approach of the famous battle of Agincourt. Finding the French nearly ten times more numerous than the English army, he replied to the King’s question as to the enemy’s strength—“An’t please you, my Liege, they are enough to be killed, enough to run away, and enough to be taken prisoners.” The King was well pleased with such an answer from a man of Sir David’s valour.