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Henry was an inveterate and formidable enemy to the interests of Wales. He speedily employed his utmost force in attempting to subjugate the Cambrian people; and it is recorded of Madog ab Meredydd, Prince of Powys, who had united with the enemies of his country, that he incited the English king to an invasion of North Wales. Henry listened to the solicitations of the Powysian prince, and eagerly exerted every means for the conquest of the country. He quickly raised a powerful army, and marched without delay into North Wales. Mathew Paris states that the levy of Henry, raised at this time, amounted to 30,000 men. Owain Gwynedd, in this campaign, gallantly led the Welsh, and in one of the actions, at Coed Euloe, near Hawarden, Flintshire, the monarch himself, who had encamped near the field of battle, escaped from the hands of the Welsh with the greatest difficulty. The English forces, having been strengthened, pursued the Welsh, and at length Prince Owain, fearful that his army would perish for want of provisions, concluded a peace with the King of England. He himself and his chieftains submitted to do homage to Henry, and to yield up the castles and districts in North Wales which, in the last reign, had been obtained from the English. Lord Lyttleton tells us, that to complete this humiliating position, Owain was obliged to deliver up two of his sons as pledges of his future obedience. The year after this important event a general peace took place between England and Wales; the princes and all the chieftains of South Wales repaired to the court of England, where Henry granted peace, on the Welsh doing homage for their own territories, and formally ceding to him the districts recovered from the English in the last reign. This peaceful state of things was but of short duration. Rhys, the son of Grufydd ab Rhys, immediate heir to the sovereign power of South Wales, having been outraged by several English lords, threw off his allegiance, commenced a revolt, and rallied around him a numerous force, which perplexed and baffled the English monarch. Shortly afterwards, fired by the gallant example of Rhys, the Prince of North Wales (Owain Gwynedd), and all his sons, his brother Cadwaladr, and the chieftains of Powys, united with him, in the endeavour to regain their independence and honour. After some slight skirmishes with the Welsh, Henry gathered together a formidable force, with which he marched into Powys, breathing slaughter and extermination against the inhabitants. All the historical writers, in describing this fearful onslaught, admit that few events of ancient times were more deeply stained with the blood of innocence. The English army, formed of the choicest troops, from Normandy, Anjou, Flanders, Brittany, and other territories which Henry possessed in France, entered the Welsh confines at Oswestry, where it was encamped for some time. The forces of North Wales were collected under the command of Owain Gwynedd and his brother Cadwaladr; the army of South Wales was headed by the chivalrous Rhys ab Grufydd; and the men of Powys were led by Owain Cyveiliog, and the sons of Madog ab Meredydd. The combined forces of the Welsh assembled at Corwen, where they awaited the approach of the English. Henry, burning with ardour to attack the enemy, marched his army to the banks of the Ceiriog, near the present village of Chirk, and at once ordered that the woods on each side of the river be cut down, to prevent ambuscades and sudden approaches of the enemy. It is related by some writers, that on the passage of the Ceiriog Henry was in imminent danger of losing his life: attempting to force a bridge, an arrow aimed at him by the hand of a Welshman must inevitably have pierced his body, if Hubert de St. Clare, Constable of Colchester, perceiving the danger, had not in a moment sprang before his sovereign and received it into his own bosom, and thereby met with his death-wound. Whilst the English soldiers were employed in felling the woods, a detachment of the Welsh forces forded the river, and suddenly attacked the van of Henry’s army, composed of pikemen, considered to be the most daring and gallant portion of his soldiers. A fierce battle ensued; many were killed on both sides, but at length Henry gained the passage, and advanced onward to the Berwyn mountains, to recruit his troops. There he remained in camp for several days. The Welsh were posted on the mountain-heights opposite, watching with lynx-eyed care every movement of the enemy. They succeeded in cutting off his supplies, and his army was reduced to extreme distress and privation, for want of food for man and horse. To increase his difficulties, sudden and heavy rains fell, which rendered the country on the Berwyn side so slippery and dangerous, that neither men nor horses could stand on their feet. Torrents of water, from the incessant rains, poured down from the mountains into the vale where Henry was encamped; and, unable to maintain his ground amidst all these unexpected disasters, he retired, with great loss of men, and, what was more annoying to his vaunting spirit, with defeat and disgrace. Fired with revenge, and urged by the barbarism which ever marks the tyrant, he commanded that the eyes of all the hostages which had been placed in his hands should be put out. The two sons of Rhys ab Grufydd, Prince of South Wales, and the two sons also of Owain Gwynedd, Prince of North Wales, became the unfortunate victims of Henry’s cruelty. Holinshead, in his Chronicles, tells us, that besides these young chieftains, the atrocious monarch caused the sons and daughters of several Welsh lords to be treated with the same severity; ordering the eyes of the young striplings to be pecked out of their heads, and the ears of the gentlewomen to be stuffed.