A Tudor April Fools' Trick

Did you hear about the greatest April Fools’ trick the Tudors ever pulled?

On the evening of 1 April 1401, which happened to be Good Friday, a tightly-knit band of just over forty Welshmen stealthily approached Conwy Castle and made their way up the steeped ramp to the west barbican.

At the head of this throng was Gwilym ap Tudur, condemned as a traitor and excluded from the general pardon granted by Henry IV a few weeks earlier for his part in the Welsh rebellion against English rule the previous year. The timing of his abrupt appearance outside Conwy’s towering castle walls wasn’t a coincidence – most of the garrison were away from their posts attending a divine service in the town’s parish church, which crucially stood just outside the castle’s protection.

Only a couple of guards remained on duty on what was the holiest of days in the Christian calendar, a day usually dedicated to peace and mourning and certainly not one for acts of war.

According to the chronicler Adam of Usk’s understanding, a ‘certain carpenter’ approached the gateway, putting the guards at ease that he was merely returning to complete some unfinished work. Certainly, in the years leading to 1401 there were at least three Welsh carpenters employed in Conwy, and any one of these may have assisted. However their attentions were momentarily diverted, the Welsh rebels stormed into the barbican and swiftly overpowered the stunned guards with ease, with both of them slain in the brief scuffle.

Before the rest of the garrison in the church were alerted to what was happening, it seems that a significant part of the town around the Mill Gate area, including the offices of the local exchequer, was torched, possibly by Gwilym’s brother Rhys ap Tudur’s separate band, with all records of debts and other financial obligations destroyed. When considering why such records were destroyed, it is probably no coincidence that Rhys was in arrears to the crown of £60, and as recently as 1398 he had been reprimanded for his debts.

That one of the most formidable English castles, designed to be impenetrable, had fallen to a gang of wily Welshmen with modest equipment proved a momentous coup for the Tudur brothers. It was also a bitter humiliation for the English crown, faced with the prospect that one of its premier fortresses had fallen to rebels. News of the audacious raid quickly swept through North Wales, swelling the hearts of dejected Welshmen that despite their patent limitations against a far superior foe, victories were there to be won. It was this episode which truly rekindled a stuttering revolt that would take the best part of a decade to suppress.

Once the castle was secured, the drawbridge lifted and the portcullis lowered, Gwilym and his companions assessed their position, satisfied to discover the fortress was ‘well stored with arms and victuals’, which included meat and boar. Rhys ap Tudur, meanwhile, had not chosen to enter the castle, but instead retreated into the nearby mountains to observe matters from a distance, ready to pounce with his men if Gwilym needed the support. The intention of the Tudur brothers was clear – to surrender the castle, they demanded the king grant the pardon denied to them. As far as bargaining chips go, the Tudurs held one of the largest.

The man tasked with recovering Conwy Castle for the king was Sir Henry Percy, son and heir to the 1st Earl of Northumberland and a knight regarded by Adam of Usk as the ‘flower and glory of the chivalry of Christendom’. Nicknamed ‘Hotspur’ by the Scots for his enthusiasm to join battle, in October 1399 he had been rewarded well by Henry IV for supporting the latter’s usurpation, which included a huge concentration of royal power in North Wales. Despite holding no inherited lands or possessing any previous interest in Wales, Hotspur was nevertheless named justiciar of North Wales and Cheshire in 1399, plus given a lifetime grant of Anglesey as well as the castles of Conwy, Chester, Flint, Caernarfon, and Beaumaris. As the principal royal official in North Wales, not to mention personal pride as constable of Conwy, on Hotspur’s shoulders now fell the responsibility of recapturing the castle from the Tudurs.

On 18 April, just over a fortnight since the castle had been taken, Hotspur was handed a commission by the king ‘to treat with William ap Tudur and other rebels of North Wales who have taken and hold the castle of Conewey and Rees ap Tudur his brother and others who have risen in insurrection in North Wales’. These negotiations, led by Hotspur and Sir Arnold Savage on the one side and Gwilym, Rhys and Hywel Fychan on the other, provided the latter an opportunity to publicise their demands of the king.

First and foremost, the brothers demanded a comprehensive pardon for their activities since the start of the revolt, along with recovery of all lands and possessions which had been confiscated albeit upon a fine of one hundred marks. It was also expected that no charges would be brought for six months for burning the town of Conwy during the recent raid, which including despoiling the homes of the burgesses and destroying official documents, and a safe conduct home would be granted. During any subsequent inquisition, it was requested that any jury must feature an equal number of Welsh and English.

If Hotspur was content to accept these terms to recover Conwy, noting how the rest of North Wales remained obedient to the king, in a letter to his son, Henry IV made it clear he was not prepared to grant the rebels such favourable conditions which would set a ‘most evil precedent’. Prince Henry had 120 men-at-arms and 300 archers at his disposal, ‘a good arrangement’ the king believed that would be sufficient to recover a castle that had originally only been lost ‘through the negligence of your Constable’, Hotspur. The king was willing to fund the soldiers throughout the summer and into the autumn so ‘the rebels might be punished according to their deserts, or that we should have at least some other treaty which should be agreeable to us’.

Further talks followed between Hotspur and the Tudurs, with a deal only finally concluded on 24 June, twelve weeks to the day since the castle had been so spectacularly captured. It seems likely by this stage Hotspur was growing more impatient in recovering the castle whilst the occupiers’ enthusiasm was starting to wane as their supplies grew less by the day. On 5 July, the terms were formally agreed by the king’s council, and three days later at Westminster, a pardon was granted to thirty-five men for ‘all offences committed’, first among which was ‘Gwyllym ap Tydur’. He had, in effect, received a pardon for committing treason by committing another act of treason. His brother Rhys ap Tudur, however, who doesn’t appear to have been present in the castle itself during the siege, was not exonerated.

Adam of Usk reported that the Tudurs’ surrender of Conwy was not without its bloodshed, however. ‘Cowardly for themselves and treacherously for their comrades’ wrote Adam, Gwilym and his some of his accomplices ‘bound nine of their number’ by ‘stealth as they slept after the night watches’, handing them over to the English ‘on condition of saving their own and the others’ lives’. The unlucky nine were then immediately hanged, drawn, and quartered, whilst the rest of their collaborators, walked out of the castle free men with their lands and possessions returned. The official records hold no information about this incident, but that is not to say it did not occur, for the king was sure to have requested some form of penalty exacted on at least a handful of rebels.

The capture of Conwy Castle, a detested symbol of English domination, was a remarkable feat led by a small but determined band of Welshmen that proved deeply embarrassing for three Henrys – the king, the prince of Wales, and the justiciar of North Wales. It was cunning in its implementation, bold in its ambition, and unquestionably successful in its immediate objective of gaining pardon.

Furthermore, the Tudurs’ daring scheme had far-reaching political consequences that extended far beyond Conwy’s town walls. That a towering stone structure with a reputation of impregnability had fallen, however briefly, into Welsh hands offered encouragement to scores of indignant Welshmen who were bristling in resentment at the recently passed Penal Laws. It is the perhaps the Tudurs, and not their much-extolled yet conformist cousin Owain Glyn Dŵr, who should be credited with initiating the last Welsh War of Independence, an uprising that only truly took hold after the extraordinary capture of Conwy Castle.

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I featured in History Hit’s show ‘Castles That Made Britain’ episode on Conwy Castle last year, discussing this very April Fool’s castle capture with my good friend Matthew Lewis - subscribers can watch that episode HERE

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