Owain Glyndŵr

Owain ap Gruffudd Fychan or Owain Glyndŵr ('Owain of Glyndyfrdwy', Welsh pronunciation: [ˈoʊain ˈɡlɨ̞nduːr], c. 1359 – c. 1416) was a Welsh nobleman and military commander in the late Middle Ages who led a sixteen-year-long Welsh revolt establishing an independent Wales free from English rule. Owain was acclaimed Prince of Wales by his supporters on 16 September 1400 because of his descent from the rulers of pre-Conquest Wales. Following initial successes, the rebellion was able to take control of the entirety of the country between 1404 and 1405. However, an increase of English military pressure and the lack of foreign aid resulted in the loss of all rebel territory by 1409, after which Owain continued sporadic resistance until his disappearance from the historical record in 1412.

During the year 1400, Owain, a Welsh soldier and Lord of Glyndyfrdwy, had a dispute with a his English neighbour Reginald de Grey, a symptom of larger animosity between the Welsh and English in Wales which ultimately led to a national revolt that pitted common Welsh countrymen and nobles against the English military. In response to the rebellion, discriminatory penal laws were implemented against the Welsh people; this deepened civil unrest and significantly increased support for Owain across Wales. Then, in 1404, after a series of successful castle sieges and several battlefield victories for the Welsh, Owain gained control of most of Wales and held a parliament in Machynlleth in the presence of envoys from France, Scotland, the Spanish kingdoms of Castille and Leon, and representatives from every region of Wales. Military aid was given to the rebellion from France, Brittany, and Scotland. Owain wrote in the Pennal Letter of 1406 that he had plans to build two universities, one in North Wales and one in South Wales, and reinstate the traditional Welsh laws of Hywel Dda, and to expand Wales' borders into England, which would have affected the structure of the Church.