7 - The Battle of Hyddgen, 1401: Owain Glyndŵr’s Victory Reconsidered

Summary

High up in the central mountains of Wales, in a parking lot beside the dam that forms the reservoir of Nant-y-Moch, is a memorial, dedicated in 1977, intended “to commemorate Owain Glyndŵr's victory at Hyddgen in 1401.” It is a simple monument, fitting for the stark wilds of the countryside surrounding it, and we can say one other thing for certain about this construct of stone: it is not in the right place.

The battle is named for the mountain of Hyddgen, next to or upon which it was reportedly fought, and that mount is roughly three-and-a-half miles northeast from this point as the crow flies, up dirt paths and the trackless rock-andbog slopes beyond. The memorial was placed where it is as a simple matter of convenience. What the setting of the monument lacks in terms of geographical accuracy, however, it makes up for in terms of its geographical precision: the wild feel of the place, subjective and immeasurable though that might be, is appropriate, as is the looming closeness of the mountains that surround Nanty- Moch: for the story of the battle of Hyddgen starts with the fastness of these remote mountains, an environment that is now, as it was then, high and hard and foreboding. Cold in summer, frozen in winter, ever deep and dire and deadly, these mountains of Wales have long stood as sentinel reminders of the smallness of man; and that power is evident whether you stand before the monument or at the foot of the mount of Hyddgen itself. These peaks have driven back kings and armies. A refuge for the hunted, a bane to the hunter, they have stood and withstood for ages. And in the summer of 1401 they made Owain Glyndŵr a prince.

Or they didn’t. Because one of the first and most important questions about the battle of Hyddgen is one that cannot be answered definitely: Did it happen at all? Certainly there is little doubt displayed in the scholarship. J. E. Lloyd thought it was real. So did R. R. Davies. Ian Fleming thought its reality so certain that he wrote a book about the event, reconstructing this “crucial battle” that is the “pivotal victory” from which “all the subsequent events of the Glyndŵr Revolt flow.”