Owain Lawgoch

The Siege of Mortagne, below right Owain Lawgoch, depicted unhistorically, killed by an arrow

Owain Lawgoch (German: Owain von der Roten Hand), actually Owain ap Thomas ap Rhodri , also called Owen of Wales or Ivo of Wales (* around 1330 in Tatsfield, Surrey ; † July 1378 near Mortagne ), was a Welsh mercenary leader. He was the last direct male descendant of the Princes of Gwynedd to claim the title of Prince of Wales .

origin

He was born around 1330 in Tatsfield, Surrey, probably the only son of Thomas ap Rhodri and his wife Cecilia. His grandfather was believed to be Rhodri ab Gruffydd, brother of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd and grandson of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth , according to which Owain would have been the rightful heir to the title of Prince of Wales. However, in 1272 Rhodri had waived his inheritance claims on Gwynedd in return for a payment of 1,000 marks . Instead he had acquired real estate in England, including Cheshire and Surrey, and from then on lived as a country nobleman.

Military career in France

Owain entered the service of the French King Philip VI as a teenager . and probably fought as a mercenary during the Hundred Years War for the next several years . He returned to England only once in the summer of 1365, to inherit his father's estate after his father's death. After he had asserted his claims and arranged the administration of the goods, he returned to France in March 1366. In France he had risen to become one of the leaders of the Grandes Compagnies during the war . Owain's mercenary company, which consisted largely of Welsh exiles, not only fought against the English, but also during the Castilian Civil War in Spain, during the War of the Breton Succession and in Lombardy . In 1375 Owain served Enguerrand VII. De Coucy during the Gugler War during his campaign in Alsace and Switzerland. Owain's company suffered a heavy defeat on December 27, 1375 at Fraubrunnen against the Bernese vigilante group. The Grandes Compagnies were generally hated and feared in the 14th century because of the Chevauchée they used as a means of warfare, but Owain himself was respected as a military by Bertrand du Guesclin , Ludwig von Anjou and others.

Claim as Prince of Wales

After open war raged again between England and France in April 1369, he was expropriated in England at the end of 1369 as an enemy of the English king. Although neither he nor his father had ever lived in Wales, he was aware of his princely ancestry and was now making his claim as heir to the Princes of Gwynedd. Before Christmas 1369 he tried for the first time to set off for Wales with a small fleet from Harfleur , but because of the winter storms in the English Channel, he broke off the attempt. His plan was well known in England, for in Wales preparations for defense were being made. The French King Charles V saw Owain's claim as a welcome opportunity to hit England directly in an attack on Wales and supported Owain with a loan of 300,000 francs. After Owain had declared himself Prince of Wales in Paris in May 1372, he set sail again from Harfleur in June with a small fleet and 600 to 800 soldiers. However, he did not sail directly to Wales, but first sacked the island of Guernsey, which was under English rule . However, he could not conquer their fortifications, and from Guernsey he did not sail on to Wales, but presumably on the king's orders to La Rochelle , where he was to block the port with his ships. At the end of August his mercenaries defeated an Anglo-Gascon army at Soubise . In the battle he was able to defeat the famous military leader Jean III. de Grailly, Captal de Buch and the Seneschal of Poitou, Thomas Percy . Subsequently, Soubise surrendered and, on September 8, La Rochelle too.

Five years later he prepared a new attempt to sail to Wales with a fleet. The English, who viewed him as a potential threat to their rule in Wales as early as 1369, now decided to kill him. To do this, they hired the Scotsman John Lamb, who entered Owain's service as a mercenary. Lamb succeeded in earning Owain's trust and in his immediate vicinity as a squire . One morning during the siege of Mortagne, Lamb murdered Owain from behind with a dagger. After the fact, Lamb managed to escape to the English. Owain was buried in the nearby church of St. Leger.

Owain's claims as Prince of Wales were probably never a direct threat to English rule over Wales. The French king used his claims as long as they were useful in the war against England, but no one expected Owain to succeed in an expedition to Wales. Nonetheless, it became a symbol of the Welsh resistance to English rule.

Web links

• AD Carr: Owen of Wales (d.1378). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
• Thomas Jones Pierce: OWAIN ap THOMAS ap RHODRI ('Owain Lawgoch') . Dictionary of Welsh Biography, National Library of Wales
• Castles of Wales: Owain Lawgoch ... one last hero?
• 100 Welsh heroes: Owain Lawgoch (Owain of the Red Hand)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rees R. Davies: The Age of Conquest. Wales 1063-1415 . Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford 1991. ISBN 0-19-820198-2 , p. 348
2. ↑ Barbara Tuchman: The distant mirror. The dramatic 14th century . dtv, Munich 1982, p. 309
3. ^ David Walker: Medieval Wales . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1990. ISBN 978-0-521-31153-3 , p. 166