9. In the early 15th century, the city of Chester banned Welshmen from being there at night ‘under pain of decapitation’
Between 1400 and 1415, Wales got sick of being bullied and exploited by its noisy neighbour, England, and rebelled. Led by Owain Glyndŵr, the Welsh were ultimately unsuccessful after a series of bloody battles for independence. In 1403 the Earl of Chester was so worried he passed a notorious anti-Welsh law. He banished all Welsh sympathizers from Chester, a city near the Welsh border. Worse still, he banned all Welshmen from Chester between sundown and sunrise ‘on pain of decapitation’. There is no evidence the city ever repealed the law. The Earl, by the way, later became King Henry V.
