Shakespeare and the Welsh Part III.

Shakespeare’s Henry IV.

(Read Part One of this Series First?)

Bolingbroke’s usurpation of the English throne has proved successful – he is now King Henry IV and his cousin Richard II is no more. However, Henry’s reign is troubled. 

There are problems in England with the Earl of Northumberland, his son Henry Percy [Harry Hotspur] and the Archbishop of York attempting to rebel against Henry. They’ve joined with the Mortimer family and the Welshman Owain Glyndwr.

The rebels plan to overthrow Henry IV and divide the kingdom in three – the north for the Northumberland family, the south for the Mortimers, Wales and the western midlands of England for Owain Glyndwr.

The whole of Wales is in revolt at this time under the leadership of Glyndwr. Castles are being seized across Wales and even Welsh students at Oxford are abandoning their studies in order to return home and join under the disgruntled nobleman Owain.

This Owain Glyndwr (Owen Glendower) is one of the most important figures of Welsh history and much has been written about him already. But how does Shakespeare choose to represent him?

Shakespeare’s Owain Glyndwr.

Like the Welsh depicted in Richard II, Shakespeare’s Owain Glyndwr (written in the play as Owen Glendower) is also highly superstitious. However, it’s not just the Welsh this time – the English also believe Owain to be a magician (a belief commonly held at the time).

Shakespeare’s Owen even believes it himself: he comes across as being a bit over-inflated in his opinion of himself:

“At my nativity/ The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,/ Of burning cressets; and at my birth/ The frame and huge foundation of the earth/ Shaked like a coward./All the courses of my life do show/ I am not in the role of common men.”

Shakespeare’s Owen also boasts of his learning (he was an educated lawyer in reality before becoming a revolutionary), but his speech is peppered with noticeable Welsh ticks and he comes across as common or comical:

“I can speak English, lord as well as you;/ For I was train'd up in the English court,/ Where, being but young, I framed to the harp/ Many an English ditty lovely well.”

Glendower's ally Harry Hotspur constantly teases him for greater comic effect. Hotspur is a rash and quarrelsome character who doesn’t believe any of Owen’s hype or is simply trying to provoke him into an argument.

Hotspur works as a foil to make Glendower look like a bit of an idiot. Converesley, Glendower’s patience with the rude and arrogant Hotspur could be seen as admirable.

Shakspeare’s Owen Glendower: A Positive Image?

Critics have been divided as to what Shakespeare’s intentions were in this scene. Is he putting Owen and the Welsh down, or making a defense of them by showing Hotspur and his opinions to be rash?

David Bevington: “Whether Glendower is to be perceived as a powerful magician (…) is a complex question.” But, “In general his claims to magical powers are undercut by Hotspur’s sardonic witticisms.”

It seems though that Shakespeare himself intended to present Glendower’s claims as authentic, because in the play Glendower conjures music (the musicians were perhaps hidden away behind curtains in different parts of the theatre, so that the audience was tricked into thinking that the music did indeed “hang in the air”).

Joan Fitzpatrick: “Whether or not Shakespeare wished us to think that Glyndwr summoned the music supernaturally (…) is less important than the fact that magic appears to occur. Although Hotspur’s response to the apparent magic is typically mocking, he does not deny that Glyndwr has done what he said he would on this occasion.”

Glendower and Other Characters in Henry IV.

The way the other characters respond to Hotspur is important to how Glendower is perceived. Hotspur is admonished by Mortimer and Worcester and even by his own wife.

Mortimer presents a positive account of Glendower, and according to Fitzpatrick this undermines Hotspur’s characterization of him, as well as writer and historian Christopher Highley’s opinion that Shakespeare wanted his audience to share Hotspur’s negative ideas about Owain Glyndwr and the superstitious Welsh.

Glyndwr’s son in law, Edmund Mortimer, ultimately defends his father in law’s merits:

“In faith, he is a worthy gentleman,/ Exceedingly well read, and profited/ In strange concealments; valiant as a lion,/ And wondrous affable; and as bountiful/ As mines of India.”

“Strange concealments” refers to the way Owain and his men were able to attack and then vanish. Glyndwr was so skillful at using the Welsh mountains, woods and weather to his advantage that in his own lifetime the English thought he was a master of the black arts.

Shakespeare’s Glyndwr and His View of the Welsh?

So, if Shakespeare really is presenting Owain Gyndwr in a positive light, does that mean his representations of the Welsh throughout his ‘history plays’ are well intended? Not necessarily.

As I pointed out in Part Two of this serial post, the Welsh in Richard II have perhaps not been depicted in a fair or accurate manner (depending on whether you see Welsh loyalty to Richard II as an admirable thing or as a negative mark of the power of English imperialism).

And next week I’ll hopefully discuss Fluellen in Shakespeare’s Henry V – probably the most well-known of all Shakespeare’s Welsh characters – and show how Shakespeare’s portrayals of the Welsh can often contain insidious political influence that favours English superiority over a subjugated Welsh ‘otherness.’