Chapter 10

Ambushed by the Red Bandits 1555

In the village of Mallwyd, located in a lonely part of Gwynedd, Wales, is an old hostelry called the Brigands’ Inn. Its name recalls a local band of rogues who terrorised the local countryside in the sixteenth century. The area had a reputation as a lawless region, home to a notorious group called the Gwylliaid Cochion Mawddwy or the Red Bandits of Mawddwy, who supposedly got their name thanks to the fact that many of them had red hair. This was high, rugged country on the borders of the old Principality of Wales and the Welsh Marches, territory in which the ruling classes had long struggled to establish control.

But Wales was changing. With the imposition of a new regime, there were determined men bent on bringing to an end the terror which pervaded the region. Since 1282, Wales had effectively been annexed by England and those running the Principality of Wales were appointed by the English crown. Under the Tudors, however, the process of unification would go even further. The dynasty itself did, of course, have its roots there. The first Tudor king, Henry VII, was the descendant of a powerful family from Anglesey. Concerned that Wales might pose a threat right on his doorstep, Henry VIII sought to accelerate the process of Anglicisation.

Between 1535 and 1542, the Laws in Wales Acts were passed, extending the legal system of England into the Principality of Wales and the Marcher Lordships (small buffer states between England and Wales). These reforms meant that Welsh MPs would now sit in the English parliament and a re-defined Wales would be divided up into English style counties. A similar court system was introduced, while sheriffs and justices of the peace were appointed to administer the law. It was further decreed that English would be the only language allowed in the law courts and speaking it was a pre-requisite to holding any official position.

Lewis Owen was one of the men at the forefront of the new Wales. He had come from a well-established family that could claim to be related to the nation’s old princes. But he saw that the English reforms would bring members of the Welsh gentry such as himself more rights, power and wealth. The new regime would also allow the ruling elite to take a tighter grip on the country. Owen and his peer group accepted the subjugation of Welsh tradition and culture in return for a more orderly, modern state. In the longer term, the changes caused social divisions to widen, not least because the rulings on language had ignored the fact that most of the nation’s ordinary folk spoke only Welsh.

It is believed that Owen was born around 1500, the eldest son of Owen ap Hywel ap Llywelyn and came from near Dolgellau, where the family had a house called Cwrt Plas-yn-dre. He married Margaret Puleston in about 1540 and must have had some legal training as, by the 1540s, he was appointed to some important posts in the wake of Henry’s administrative shake-up. In 1543, Owen became a justice of the peace for Merionethshire and, in 1545, a sheriff of the county. He would also become a vicechamberlain of North Wales and a baron of the exchequer at Caernarvon, a role involving the administration of local finances. Baron Owen was one of the first people to be made a Welsh MP and he built up large estates in the area around Dollgelau, acquiring other benefits such as the fishing rights of the coastal town of Barmouth. His estate was worth £300 a year.

In 1554, Owen, as sheriff, teamed up with another leading local figure and MP, Sir John Wynn ap Meredydd to try and impose order on Merionethshire. No doubt the Red Bandits played havoc with the profits from their estates and there was much self-interest in their campaign. But they had obtained an official commission and ‘in pursuance of these orders, they raised a body of stout men.’

It would be a tough task to rid the region of the Red Bandits, who were a well organised and ruthless bunch of hardened criminals. It was said that their original ‘captains’ had once been men of property who could command ‘eighty hearths’ but that these men had fallen on hard times. It is possible that they had been formed following the turmoil of the Wars of the Roses in the previous century or from outlaws who had fled other parts of the realm.

The bandits were a huge headache, specialising in violent robbery, as well as stealing sheep and cattle. Much of our information on them comes from the writer Thomas Pennant, who tells us that they would ‘rob and murder in large bands, setting defiance at the civil power and driving whole herds of cattle from one county to another in mid-day with the utmost impunity.’ Pennant goes on to tell us that the Red Bandits, ‘were so feared, that travellers did not dare to go the common road to Shrewsbury, but passed over the summits of the mountains, to avoid their haunts.’

Eventually, by Christmas 1554, Owen and Wynn’s campaign had some success. They captured around 100 of the bandits who were thrown in jail. Before long as many as eighty of their number were sentenced to death. The executions were carried out on moorland near Mallwyd that has since been called Rhos Goch or the red moor. Legend has it that an incensed mother of two of the bandits, named Lowri, pleaded for her sons to be spared but that Owen refused. Furious, she bared her bosom at him saying: ‘These breasts have nurtured other sons who will wash their hands in your heart’s blood.’ If this anecdote is true, it is unlikely that Owen, himself the father of seven sons and four daughters paid much attention to the woman’s threat. Perhaps he should have done, for the Red Bandits were now out for revenge.

In October 1555, Owen set out for Montgomeryshire to attend the assizes in Welshpool and discuss a marriage between his heir, John, and Ursula the daughter of another local dignitary, Richard Mytton. It was on his way home, on the evening of 11 October, that several score of the bandits took up position near dense woodland above the road about three miles east of Malwydd, since known as Llydiart y Barwn. They had cut down trees to block the road. When Owen and his party halted at the obstacle, a shower of arrows suddenly rained down upon them from the hidden attackers. One caught Owen in the face, but he managed to pull it out and prepared to fight. The bandits then descended on the men with daggers and swords, bills and javelins. The baron’s entourage fled and he was left with just his son-in-law John Lloyd for company. Though he fought bravely, Owen was eventually cut down. One of the bandits, by the name of John ap Gruffudd ap Huw is reckoned to have delivered the fatal blow, but when Owen’s body was discovered it was found to have around thirty separate wounds.

The killing only made the authorities more determined to seek the extermination of the gang and one by one they were hunted down with many sent to the gallows. Pennant tells us that the ‘most rigorous justice ensued and the whole nest of banditti was extirpated, many by the hand of justice; and the rest fled, never to return.’ In 1558, Lowri herself was brought to trial but pleaded pregnancy to avoid the noose. This claim was found to be true and she managed to avoid the death penalty.