The Revolt of Owain Glyndŵr in Medieval English Chronicles by Alicia Marchant (review)

This book employs the Welsh revolt of the early fifteenth century as a prism through which to examine the nature and evolution of English chronicle sources over a 180-year period. Based on a doctoral thesis completed at The University of Western Australia – the author, Alicia Marchant, is presently a Research Associate in History based in Tasmania – the book’s aim is not ‘to extend empirical knowledge of the revolt’, but to ‘contribute to a better understanding of the narrative sophistication of which medieval chronicles were capable’ (p. 9). The focus of the study is sixteen chronicles written, in Latin and English, from an English perspective. Or in the case of Adam Usk’s chronicle, written for consumption by an English audience. Six of the chronicles considered date from the period of the revolt itself; ten were written in the subsequent decades, with the latest being the work of Holinshed first published in 1577. The result of Marchant’s close reading is a reflective and thoughtful analysis that reminds us of the value of taking a fresh approach to well-known sources.

Marchant begins with a considered Introduction that demonstrates a sound understanding of the historiography connected with Owain Glyndŵr’s rebellion. While the book might have taken greater account of both older and more recent continental scholarship on chronicles, the author’s clear appreciation of the complexity of her source material is reinforced by an appendix that offers revised editions and new translations of the relevant passages in seven of the Latin sources under consideration. The main body of the book is broken down into two parts, each of which is divided into three chapters. The first part, ‘Narrative Strategies and Literary Traditions’, explores the presentation of the Welsh revolt across a range of chronicles to illustrate differing approaches to constructing narrative, and the ways in which chroniclers employed time and space. This is a salient and important reminder that ‘medieval chroniclers were in many cases capable of considerable sophistication in their construction of narrative’ (p. 213). In the second part, ‘Imagining the Rebellion’, the book turns to focus on the ways in which the selected sources present individuals (notably Henry IV), the Welsh, and Wales itself in their accounts.

The Revolt of Owain Glyndŵr contains genuine and useful insights, nowhere more so than in its exploration of the way in which the presentation of the revolt evolved over time and the factors that shaped those changes. The various ways in which the chroniclers addressed the marriage of Owain’s daughter is one striking instance. Another is Marchant’s fascinating illustration of the way in which Shakespeare was responsible for unambiguously establishing the idea that Owain’s birth was marked by signs and portents. While this connection lingers on in modern readings of the sources, Marchant argues that Holinshed and his predecessors may in fact have meant this passage to apply to Edmund Mortimer rather than Owain Glyndŵr.

Some readers may conclude that Marchant occasionally ‘over-reads’ the sources. For my own part, I found her argument that an account of the mutilation of English soldiers was intended to function as a political metaphor to be ultimately unconvincing. On the other hand, Chapter 6 is particularly notable for its nuanced discussion of the way in which the presentation of Wales developed over the course of two centuries in response to political changes. Against a backdrop of a landscape that was depicted as ‘strange and alien’ throughout this period and in which ‘[t]he English not only battle the rebels, but the landscapes of Wales’ (pp. 187, 196), Marchant provides plausible explanations for seemingly insignificant details: the incorporation of Pembroke castle is explained in relation to the rise of the Tudor dynasty, while the disappearance of the abbey of Strata Florida is linked to the Dissolution of the monasteries. Similarly, Marchant convincingly links mention of...