Men of Harlech

DESCRIPTION: Welsh, with various translations, the most typical beginning "Men of Harlech in the hollow, do you hear like rushing billow Wave on wave that surging fellow battle's distant sound. 'Tis the tramp of Saxon foemen," so fight
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1794 (Jones, "Musical and Poetic Relicks of the Welsh Bards," according to Fuld)
KEYWORDS: foreignlanguage battle
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Fuld-BookOfWorldFamousMusic, p. 363, "Men of Harlech"
Sanders-SingHighSingLow, pp. 21-23, "March of the Men of Harlech" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, HARLCH*
Roud #24790
SAME TUNE:
Woad (File: Hopk024)
John, Get Up and Light the Fire (File: PKKB058B)
Men of Hardwick (File: WJ245)
NOTES [703 words]: Very well known as a tune, with multiple translations (and often used as a platform for parodies). The words I've personally heard most often begin "See the glares of fires like hell there, Tongues of flame that writhe and swell there...." Fuld reports that the standard Welsh words, which are more recent than the tune, are by John Ceiriog Hughes.
The original Harlech Castle was built by the English King Edward I in the 1280s, one of his five great castles in newly-conquered Snowdonia (Powicke, p. 430), so its purpose was to hold down the Welsh. Prior to that, Harlech hadn't even been a town, really (Powicke, p. 433); it was just a place with access to the sea -- which was to Edward's advantage, since he could supply the new castle remotely (Wagner, p. 107). The castles of Wales seem to have been designed by James of St. George, believed to have been from Savoy (Powicke, p. 431); that at Harlech had "a square inner ward featur[ing] round corner towers, and a massive twin-towered gatehouse in the centre of one wall. This was developed on the courtyard side into what looks more like a mansion than a fortification" (Prestwich, p. 210; there is a sketch of the plan on p. 213).
According to Davies, p. 169, the cost of the five castles built at this time (Carnaerfon, Conway, Cricieth, Harlech, and Beaumaris slightly later) was about 60,000 pounds, so the cost for Harlech would have been between 10,000 and 15,000 pounds -- which, to put it in perspective, was more than the annual income of even the richest earls. Harlech was not a cheap building!
Although an English fortification, it did not always stay in their hands; the Welsh under Owain Glyndŵr made it theirs in 1404 (Given-Wilson, p. 240; Davies, p. 200) and held it for five years (Given-Wilson, p. 319; many of Glyndŵr's relatives, including his wife and three of his children, were captured when it was retaken; Davis, p. 202, implies that its capture was the final major act in suppressing Glyndŵr's revolt), so it became a symbol for the Welsh as well.
In the Wars of the Roses, Harlech Castle held out for the House of Lancaster from 1461 to 1468, making it the last Lancastrian stronghold prior to Warwick's (first) rebellion of 1469. It was held by a Welshman, David ap Eynon, although many of those with him were English Lancastrians (Evans, p. 84).
Although the Lancastrians held the castle for seven years, and raided from there into the countryside, it is not really true to say that the castle was under siege for the entire time. Jasper Tudor, the Lancastrian Earl of Pembroke, had garrisoned it after the Battle of Towton in 1461 (the battle that finally won England for the Yorkists). Sir William Herbert then defeated Pembroke at Twt Hill/Tuthill, and took over most of Wales (Wagner, pp. 278-279). And, because Herbert was chasing Jasper Tudor, he couldn't spare much attention for Harlech, allowing it to hold out. Tthe new King Edward IV doesn't seem to have been worried about it; remote as it was, Harlech was a symbol of Lancastrianism, but not a real threat. It was not until 1464 that Herbert tried -- and failed -- to take Harlech. In 1468, Jasper Tudor came back to Harlech and raised a Lancastrian revolt. Herbert had to fight him off, and after that was done, he returned to besiege Harlech. He didn't manage to take it by assault, but he did talk the garrison into surrendering. David ap Eynon was pardoned; many of the others suffered; Herbert was given the earldom of Pembroke that was taken from Jasper Tudor (Wagner, p. 108).
The last big event in Harlech's history came almost two hundred years later, when Charles I was in the process of being overthrown: "The First Civil War came to an end when Harlech Castle yielded to the Parliamentary forces in March 1647" (Davies, p. 280).
It is sometimes claimed this song goes back to that siege of Harlech in the 1460s. I don't really buy that; the Welsh would fight for Henry Tudor, who was part-Welsh, in 1485, but that doesn't mean they were Lancastrians. If anything, most would be Yorkists, because the first Lancastrian king, Henry IV, had overthrown Richard II, whom the Welsh tended to like, and Henry IV had also been the king who suppressed Glyndŵr. - RBW
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