WELSH battlefield

[Kev]

as it says above
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8267897.stm

[robson (chris)]

i myself like going to these sites just thinkin what happend there is amazing

[crashland]

I remember seeing the battle of Bryn Glas on 'Battlefield Britain' with Peter Snow.
Wikipedia says:
Glyndŵr had a well-thought out strategy planned to defeat the English army. He had served in the English army before, and had a good grasp of battlefield command. Though always a risky tactic, he divided his army. 750 men, most or all longbowmen, were placed around 2/3 of the way up the hill. The remaining 750 men-at-arms and irregular infantry were placed in a valley, to the left of the hill, camouflaged by thick foliage. Mortimer's army formed up and immediately began loosing volleys of arrows into the Welsh.

However, due to the gradient of the hill, most of the arrows from Mortimer's army were falling short. The arrows from the Welsh, assisted by the gradient and gravity inflicted heavy casualties amongst the English longbow archers. The English men-at-arms waited impatiently for the order to attack. Eventually, Mortimer realised he had to attack before he lost his numerical superiority. He ordered his army to charge. However, abruptly, the Welsh longbowmen in his army defected, and fired point blank volleys into the English army.

To this day, nobody knows exactly why the Welsh defected, the two most popular theories are that they were "double-agents" and the whole thing was pre-planned, or they recognised Glyndŵr's obvious superiority in tactics and defected for self preservation. Either way, the point blank volleys inflicted devastating losses on the English. Glyndŵr's archers abandoned their bows and charged into the advancing English, who had been significantly reduced by Glyndŵr's men.

By this time, the troops who had been concealed in the valley were ordered to attack. These fresh troops struck the killer blow to Mortimer's army. Mortimer's exhausted troops collapsed, and broke. The Welsh rebels had won an important victory in open warfare against the English forces. For Glyndŵr's rebels, it was a much-needed morale boost.

It is said that immediately after the battle, many English corpses were mutilated by Welsh women camp followers, in revenge for a punitive expedition by Henry IV the previous year which had been marked by many acts of brutality and rape. Whether these mutilations took place remains open to debate, some suggest it was a story perpetrated by the English parliament to portray the Welsh as savages. Over 800 men were killed in the battle, around 600 of them, English.