Expedition to Ruthyn - The Column - Slate Quarries - The Gwyddelod
- Nocturnal Adventure.


NOTHING worthy of commemoration took place during the two following
days, save that myself and family took an evening walk on the
Wednesday up the side of the Berwyn, for the purpose of botanizing,
in which we were attended by John Jones. There, amongst other
plants, we found a curious moss which our good friend said was
called in Welsh, Corn Carw, or deer's horn, and which he said the
deer were very fond of. On the Thursday he and I started on an
expedition on foot to Ruthyn, distant about fourteen miles,
proposing to return in the evening.

The town and castle of Ruthyn possessed great interest for me from
being connected with the affairs of Owen Glendower. It was at
Ruthyn that the first and not the least remarkable scene of the
Welsh insurrection took place by Owen making his appearance at the
fair held there in fourteen hundred, plundering the English who had
come with their goods, slaying many of them, sacking the town and
concluding his day's work by firing it; and it was at the castle of
Ruthyn that Lord Grey dwelt, a minion of Henry the Fourth and
Glendower's deadliest enemy, and who was the principal cause of the
chieftain's entering into rebellion, having, in the hope of
obtaining his estates in the vale of Clwyd, poisoned the mind of
Harry against him, who proclaimed him a traitor, before he had
committed any act of treason, and confiscated his estates,
bestowing that part of them upon his favourite, which the latter
was desirous of obtaining.