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A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
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THE INTERPRETERS
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.
A SHORT
HISTORY
OF WALES
BY
OWEN EDWARDS
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
i ADELPHI TERRACE
MCMVI
[All rights reserved.]
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. WALES : WHAT IT IS MADE OF, AND WHAT
IT IS LIKE I
II. THE WANDERING NATIONS. THE IBERIANS
AND CELTS 5
III. ROME. ROMAN CONQUEST, SETTLEMENT, AND
INFLUENCE IO
IV. THE NAME OF CHRIST. THE OLD RELIGION
AND THE NEW 15
V. THE WELSH KINGS. WEARERS OF THE
"CROWN OF ARTHUR" .... 20
VI. THE LAWS OF HOWEL 25
VII. THE NORMANS IN WALES : ... 30
VIII. GRIFFITH AP CONAN AND GRIFFITH AP REES 35
IX. OWEN GWYNEDD AND THE LORD REES . . 40
X. LLYWELYN THE GREAT 45
XI. THE LAST LLYWELYN 50
vii
viii CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
XII, CONQUERED WALES. HOW IT WAS GOVERNED 55
XIII. THE CASTLE AND THE LONG-BOW 60
XIV. THE RISE OF THE PEASANT .... 65
XV. QWEN GLENDOWER AND HIS IDEALS . . 7O
XVI. THE WARS OF THE ROSES IN WALES . -75
XVII. THE RULE OF THE TUDORS 80
XVIII. THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION ... 85
XIX. THE CIVIL WAR IN WALES .... 90
XX. THE GREAT REVOLUTION .... 96
XXI. HOWEL HARRIS AND THE AWAKENING . IO2
XXII. THE REFORM ACTS 107
XXIII. THE FORMATION OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM 112
XXIV. THE GROWTH OF SELF-GOVERNMENT . -117
XXV. THE WALES OF TO-DAY 123
SUMMARY
I. THE ISOLATION OF WALES . . . .129
II. THE WALES OF THE PRINCES . . . .130
III. THE WALES OF THE PEOPLE . . . . 133
CONTENTS ix
TABLES
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE HOUSE OF CUNEDDA .... 135
II. THE HOUSE OF GWYNEDD . . . . 136
III. THE HOUSE OF DYNEVOR 136
IV. THE HOUSE OF POWYS 137
V. THE HOUSE OF MORTIMER ... 138
VI. THE HOUSE OF TUDOR 139
INTRODUCTION
THIS little book is meant for those who
have never read any Welsh history before.
It is not taken for granted that the reader
knows either Latin or Welsh.
A fuller outline may be read in The Story
of Wales, in the "Story of the Nations"
series ; and a still fuller one in The Welsh
People of Rhys and Brynmor Jones. Of
fairly small and cheap books in various
periods I may mention Rhys' Celtic Britain,
Owen Rhoscomyl's Flame Bearers of Welsh
History, Henry Owen's Gerald the Welsh-
man, Bradley 's Owen Glendower, Ne well's
Welsh Church, and Rees' Protestant Non-
conformity in Wales. More elaborate and
expensive books are Seebohm's Village
Community and Tribal System in Wales,
Clark's Mediceval Military Architecture,
Morris' Welsh Wars of Edward L,
xii INTRODUCTION
Southall's Wales and Her Language. In
writing local history, A. N. Palmer's
History of Wrexham and companion
volumes are models.
If you turn to a library, you will find
much information about Wales in Social
England, the Dictionary of National
Biography, the publications of the Cym-
mrodorion and other societies. You will
find articles of great value and interest
over the names of F. H. Haverfield,
J. W. Willis- Bund, Egerton Phillimore, the
Honourable Mrs Bulkeley Owen (Gwen-
rhian Gwynedd), Henry Owen, the late
David Lewis, T. F. Tout, J. E. Lloyd,
D. Lleufer Thomas, W. Llywelyn Williams,
J. Arthur Price, J. H. Davies, J. Ballinger,
Edward Owen, Hubert Hall, Hugh
Williams, R. A. Roberts, A. W. Wade-
Evans, E. A. Lewis. These are only
a few out of the many who are now
working in the rich and unexplored field
of Welsh history. I put down the names
only of those I had to consult in writing
a small book like this.
INTRODUCTION xiii
The sources are mostly in Latin or
Welsh. Many volumes of chronicles,
charters, and historical poems have been
published by the Government, by the
Corporation of Cardiff, by J. Gwenogvryn
Evans, by H. de Grey Birch, and others.
But, so far, we have not had the
interesting chronicles and poems trans-
lated into English as they ought to be,
and published in well edited, not too
expensive volumes.
OWEN EDWARDS.
LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD.
LIST OF MAPS
SECTION FROM HOLYHEAD TO CARDIFF facing p. I
I. WALES OF THE PRINCES . . following p. \y)
II. RELIGION AND EDUCATION .
III. THE SHIRES
IV. INDUSTRIES
A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
WALES
WALES is a row of hills, rising between the
Irish Sea on the west and the English plains
on the east. If you come from the west
along the sea, or if you cross the Severn
or the Dee from the east, you will see -that
Wales is a country all by itself. It rises
grandly and proudly. If you are a stranger,
you will think of it as "Wales" a strange
country ; if you are Welsh, you will think of
it as " Cymru" a land of brothers.
The geologist will tell you how Wales
was made ; the geographer will tell you what
it is like now ; the historian will tell you what
its people have done and what they are. All
a A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
three will tell you that it is a very interesting
country.
The rocks of Wales are older and harder
than the rocks of the plains ; and as you
travel from the south to the north, the older
and harder they become. The highest
mountains of Wales, and some of its hills,
have crests of the very oldest and hardest
rock granite, porphyry, and basalt ; and
these rocks are given their form by fire.
But the greater part of the country is made
of rocks formed by water still the oldest
of their kind. In the north-west, centre, and
west about two-thirds of the whole country,
the rocks are chiefly slate and shale ; in
the south-east they are chiefly old red sand-
stone ; in the north-east, but chiefly in the
south, they are limestone and coal.
Its rocks give Wales its famous scenery
its rugged peaks, its romantic glens, its rush-
ing rivers. They are also its chief wealth
granite, slate, limestone, coal ; and lodes of
still more precious metals iron, lead, silver,
and gold run through them.
The highest mountain in Wales is
Snowdon, which is 3,570 feet above the
level of the sea. For every 300 feet we
go up, the temperature becomes one degree
cooler. At about 1,000 feet it becomes too
WALES 3
cold for wheat; at about 1,500 it becomes
too cold for corn ; at about 2,000 it is too
cold for cattle ; mountain ponies graze still
higher ; the bleak upper slopes are left to
the small and valuable Welsh sheep.
There are three belts of soil around the
hills arable, pasture, and sheep-run one
above the other. The arable land forms
about a third of the country ; it lies along
the sea border, on the slopes above the
Dee and the Severn, and in the deep valleys
of the rivers which pierce far inland, the
Severn, Wye, Usk, Towy, Teivy, Dovey,
Conway, and Clwyd. The pasture land, the
land of small mountain farms, forms the
middle third ; it is a land of tiny valleys
and small plains, ever fostered by the warm,
moist west wind. Above it, the remaining
third is stormy sheep-run, wide green slopes
and wild moors, steep glens and rocky
heights.
From north-west to south-east the line of
high hills runs. In the north-west corner,
Snowdon towers among a number of heights
over 3,000 feet. At its feet, to the north-
west, the isle of Anglesey lies. The penin-
sula of Lleyn, with a central ridge of rock,
and slopes of pasture lands, runs to the
south-w r est. To the east, beyond the Conway,
4 A SHORY HISTORY OF WALES
lie the Hiraethog mountains, with lower
heights and wider reaches ; further east
again, over the Clwyd, are the still lower
hills of Flint.
To the south, 30 miles as the crow flies,
over the slate country, the Berwyns are seen
clearly. From a peak among these Cader
Vronwen (2,573 feet), or the Aran (2,970
feet), or Cader Idris (2,929 feet) we look
east and south, over the hilly slopes of the
upper Severn country.
Another 30 miles to the south rises green
Plinlimmon (2,469 feet) ; from it we see the
high moorlands of central Wales, sloping to
Cardigan Bay on the west and to the valley
of the Severn, now a lordly English river, on
the east.
Forty miles south the Black Mountain
(2,630 feet) rises beyond the Wye, and the
Brecon Beacons (2,910 feet) beyond the Usk.
West of these the hills fade away into the
broad peninsula of Dyved. Southwards we
look over hills of coal and iron to the
pleasant sea-fringed plain of Gwent.
On the north and the west the sea is
shallow ; in some places it is under 10
fathoms for 10 miles from the shore, and
under 20 fathoms for 20 miles. Tales of
drowned lands are told of the sands of
THE WANDERING NATIONS 5
Lavan, of the feast of drunken Seithenyn,
and of the bells of Aberdovey. But the
sea is a kind neighbour. Its soft, warm
winds bathe the hills with life ; and the
great sweep of the big Atlantic waves into
the river mouths help our commerce. Holy-
head, Milford Haven, Swansea, Newport,
Barry, and Cardiff now one of the chief
ports of the world can welcome the largest
vessels afloat. The herring is plentiful on
the west coast, and trout and salmon in the
rivers.
II
THE WANDERING NATIONS
BY land and by sea, race after race has
come to make the hills of Wales its home.
One race would be short, with dark eyes
and black hair ; another would be tall, with
blue eyes and fair hair. They came from
different countries and along different paths,
but each race brought some good with it.
One brought skill in taming animals, until
it had at last tamed even the pig and the
bee ; another brought iron tools to take the
6 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
place of stone ones. Another brought the
energy of the chase and war, and another a
delight in sailing a ship or in building a
fortress.
One thing they had in common they
wandered, and they wandered to the west.
From the cold wastes and the dark forests
of the north and east, they were ever push-
ing west to more sunny lands. As far back
as we can see, the great migration of nations
to the west was going on. The islands of
Britain were the furthest point they could
reach ; for beyond it, at that time, no man
had dared to sail into the unknown expanse
of the ocean of the west. In the islands of
Britain, the mountains of Wales were among
the most difficult to win, and it was only the
bravest and the hardiest that could make
their home among them.
The first races that came were short and
dark. They came in tribes. They had
tribal marks, the picture of an animal as a
rule ; and they had a strange fancy that
this animal was their ancestor. It may be
that the local nicknames which are still
remembered such as "the pigs of Angle-
sey," "the dogs of Denbigh," "the cats of
Ruthin," "the crows of Harlech," " the gad-
flies of Mawddwy " were the proud tribe
THE WANDERING NATIONS 7
titles of these early people. Their weapons
and tools were polished stone ; their hammers
and hatchets and adzes, their lance heads
and their arrow tips, were of the hardest
igneous rock chipped and ground with
patient labour.
The people who come first have the best
chance of staying, if only they are willing to
learn ; hardy plants will soon take the place
of tender plants if left alone. The short
dark people are still the main part, not only
of the Welsh, but of the British people. It
is true that their language has disappeared,
except a few place-names. But languages
are far more fleeting than races. The loss
of its language does not show that a race
is dead ; it only shows that it is very anxious
to change and learn. Some languages easily
give place to others, and we say that the
people who speak these languages are good
linguists, like Danes and Slavs. Other
languages persist, those who speak them
are unwilling to speak any new language,
and this is the reason why Spanish and
English are so widespread.
After the short dark race came a tall fair-
haired people. They came in families as
well as in tribes. They had iron weapons
and tools, and the short dark people could
8 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
not keep them at bay with their bone-tipped
spears and flint-headed arrows. We know
nothing about the struggle between them.
But it may be that the fairy stories we were
told when children come from those far-off
times. If a fairy maiden came from lake or
mound to live among men, she vanished at
once if touched with iron. Is this, learned
men have asked, a dim memory of the
victory of iron over stone ?
The name given to the short dark man is
usually Iberian ; the name given to the tall
fair man who followed him is Celt. The
two learnt to live together in the same
country. The conqueror probably looked
upon himself at first as the master of the
conquered, then as simply belonging to
a superior race, but gradually the distinc-
tion vanished. The language remained
the language of the Celt ; it is called
SHI Aryan language, a language as noble
among languages as the Aran is among
its hills. It is still spoken in Wales, in
Brittany, in Ireland, in the Highlands of
Scotland, and in the Isle of Man. It was
also spoken in Cornwall till the eighteenth
century ; and Yorkshire dalesmen still count
their sheep in Welsh. English is another
Aryan tongue.
THE WANDERING NATIONS 9
The more mixed a nation is, the more
rich its life and the greater its future.
Purity of blood is not a thing to boast of,
and no great and progressive nation conies
from one breed of men. Some races have
more imagination than others, or a finer
feeling for beauty ; others have more energy
and practical wisdom. The best nations
have both ; and they have both, probably,
because many races have been blended in
their making. There is hardly a parish in
Wales in which there are not different types
of faces and different kinds of character.
The wandering of nations has never really
stopped. The Celt was followed by his
cousins the Angle and the Saxon. These,
again, were followed by races still more
closely related to them the Normans and
the Danes and the Flemings. They have
all left their mark on Wales and on the
Welsh character. *
The migration is still going on. Trace
the history of an upland Welsh parish, and
you will find that, in a surprisingly short
time, the old families, high and low, have
given place to newcomers. Look into the
trains which carry emigrants from Hull or
London to Liverpool on their way west
they have the blue eyes and yellow hair of
lo A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
those who came two thousand years ago.
But this country is no longer their goal,
the great continent of America has been
discovered beyond. Fits of longing for
wandering come over the Welsh periodically,
as they came over the Danes caused by
scarcity of food and density of population,
or by a sense of oppression and a yearning
for freedom. An empty stomach sometimes,
and sometimes a fiery imagination, sent a
crowd of adventurers to new lands. And
it is thus that every living nation is ever
renewing its youth.
Ill
ROME
IT is not a spirit of adventure and daring
alone that makes a nation. Rome rose to
say that it must have the spirit of order and
law too. It rose in the path of the nations ;
it built the walls of its empire, guarded by the
camps of its legions, right across it. For
four hundred years the wandering of nations
ceased ; the nations stopped and they began
to till the ground, to live in cities, to form
ROME II
states. The hush of this peace did not last,
but the memory of it remained in the life of
every nation that felt it. Unity and law
tempered freedom and change.
The name of Rome was made known, and
made terrible, through Wales by a great
battle fought on the eastern slopes of the
Berwyn. The Romans had conquered the
lands beyond the Severn, and had placed
themselves firmly near the banks of that river
at Glevum and Uriconium. Glevum is our
Gloucester, and its streets are still as the
Roman architect planned them. Uriconium
is the burnt and buried city beyond Shrews-
bury ; the skulls found in it, and its imple-
ments of industry, and the toys of its children,
you can see in the Shrewsbury Museum.
The British leader in the great battle was
Caratacus, the general who had fought the
Romans step by step until he had come to
the borders of Wales, to summon the warlike
Silures to save their country. We do not
know the site of the great battle, though the
Roman historian Tacitus gives a graphic
description of it. The Britons were on a hill
side sloping down to a river, and the Romans
could only attack them in front. The enemy
waded the river, however, and scaled the wall
on its further bank ; and in the fierce lance
12 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
and sword fight the host of Caratacus lost
the day. He fled, but was afterwards handed
over to the Romans, and taken to Rome, to
grace the triumphal procession of the victors.
The battle only roused the Silures to a
more fierce resistance, and it cost the Romans
many lives, and it took them many years, to
break their power. The strangest sight that
met the invaders was in Anglesey, after they
had crossed the Menai on horses or on rafts.
The druids tried to terrify them by the rites
of their religion. The dark groves, the
women dressed in black and carrying flam-
ing torches, the aged priests the sight
paralysed the Roman soldiers, but only for a
moment.
Vespasian it was he who sent his son
Titus to besiege Jerusalem became emperor
in 69. The war was carried on with great
energy, and by 78 Wales was entirely
conquered.
Then Agricola, a wise ruler, came. The
peace of Rome was left in the land ; and the
Welshman took the Roman, not willingly at
first, as his teacher and ruler instead of as
his enemy. Towns were built ; the two
Chesters or Caerlleons (Castra Legionum),
on the Dee and the Usk, being the most
important from a military point of view.
ROME 13
Roads were made ; two along the north and
south coasts, to Carmarthen and Carnarvon ;
two others ran parallel along the length of
Wales, to connect their ends. On these
roads towns rose ; and some, like Caer-
went, were self-governing communities of
prosperous people. Agriculture flourished ;
the Welsh words for " plough " and " cheese "
are " aradr " and " caws " the Latin aratrum
and caseus. The mineral wealth of the
country was discovered ; and copper mines
and lead mines, silver mines and gold mines,
were worked. The "aur" (gold) and
"arian" (silver) and "plwm" (lead) of the
Welshman are the Latin aurum, argentum,
and plumbum.
The Romans allowed the Welsh families
and tribes to remain as before, and to be
ruled by their own kings and chiefs. But
they kept the defence of the country the
manning of the great wall in the north of
Roman Britain, the garrisoning of the legion
towns, and the holding of the western sea
in their own hand.
Gradually the power of Rome began to
wane, and its hold on distant countries like
Britain began to relax. The wandering
nations were gathering on its eastern and
northern borders, and its walls and legions
14 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
at last gave way. It had not been a kind
mother to the nations it had conquered
in war it had been cruel, and in peace it
had been selfish and stern. The lust of
rule became stronger as its arm became
weaker. The degradation of slavery and
the heavy hand of the tax-gatherer were
extending even to Wales. The barbarian
invader found the effeminate, luxurious
empire an easy prey. In 410 Alaric
and his host of Goths appeared before
the city of Rome itself; and a horde of
barbarians, thirsting for blood and spoil,
surged into it. The fall of the great city
was a shock to the whole world ; the end
of the world must be near, for how could
it stand without Rome? Jerome could
hardly sob the strange news : " Rome,
which enslaved the whole world, has itself
been taken."
Rome had taken the yoke of Christ ; and
many said that it fell because it had spurned
the gods that had given it victory. Three
years after Alaric had sacked it, Augustine
wrote a book to prove that it was not the
city of God that had fallen ; and that the
heathen gods could neither have built Rome
in their love nor destroyed it in their anger.
He then describes the rise of the real "City
THE NAME OF CHRIST 15
of God," in the midst of which is the God
of justice and mercy, and "she shall not be
moved."
IV
THE NAME OF CHRIST
THE name of Christ had been heard in
Britain during the period of Roman rule,
but we do not know who first sounded it.
There are many beautiful legends that
the great apostle of the Gentiles himself
came to Britain ; that Joseph of Arimathea,
having been placed by the Jews in an
open boat, at the mercy of wind and
wave, landed in Britain ; that some of the
captives taken to Rome with Caratacus
brought back the tidings of great joy.
We know that the name of Christ,
between 200 and 300 years after His
death, was well known in Britain, and that
churches had been built for His worship.
Between 300 and 400 we have an organised
church and a settled creed. Between 400
and 500 there was searching of heart and
creed, and heresies a sure sign that the
people were alive to religion. Between
16 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
500 and 600 there was a translation of
the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into
the better - known Latin. The whole of
Wales becomes Christian ; and probably
St David converted the last pagans, and
built his church among them.
Between 450 and 500 a stream of pagan
Teutons flowed over the east of Britain,
and the British Church was separated from
the Roman Church. By 664 British and
Roman missionaries had converted the
English ; and the two Churches of Rome
and Britain, once united, were face to face
again. But they had grown in different
ways, and refused to know each other.
Their Easter came on different days ; they
did not baptize in the same way ; the
tonsure was different a crescent on the
forehead of the British monk, and a crown
on the pate of the Roman monk. In the
Roman Church there was rigid unity and
system ; in the British Church there was
much room for self-government. The
newly converted English chose the Roman
way, because they were told that St Peter,
whose see Rome was, held the keys of
heaven. Between 700 and 800 the Welsh
gradually gave up their religious independ-
ence, and joined the Roman Church.
THE NAME OF CHRIST 17
But there was another dispute. Were
the four old Welsh bishoprics Bangor, St
Asaph, St David's, Llandaff to be subject
to the English archbishop of Canterbury,
or to have an archbishopric of their own at
St David's? By 1200 the Welsh bishoprics
were subject to the English archbishop, and
Giraldus Cambrensis came too late to save
them.
But through all these disputes the Church
was gaining strength. Churches were being
built everywhere. Up to 700 they were
called after the name of their founder ;
between 700 and 1000 they were generally
dedicated to the archangel Michael there
are several Llanvihangels l in Wales ; after
1000 new churches were dedicated to
Mary, the Mother of Christ we have
many Llanvairs. 2
Times of civil strife, or of popular in-
difference, came over and over again ; and
the old paganism tried to reassert itself.
And time after time the name of Christ
was sounded again by men who thought
they had seen Him. In the twelfth century
the Cistercian monk came to say that the
world was bad, that prayer saved the soul,
1 Mihangel = Michael. Llan Fihangel = St Michael's.
2 Mair=Mary. Llan Fair = St Mary's.
B
i8 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
and that labour was noble. 1 He was
followed by the Franciscan friar, who said
that deeds of mercy and love should be
added to prayer, that Christ had been a
poor man, and that men should help each
other, not only in saving souls, but in
healing sickness and relieving pain. In
the fifteenth century the Lollard came to
say that the Church was too rich, and that
it had become blind to the truth, and Walter
Brute said that men were to be justified
by faith in Christ, not by the worship of
images or by the merit of saints. In the
sixteenth century came the Protestant, and
the sway of Rome over Wales came to an
end ; Bishop Morgan translated the Bible
into Welsh, and John Penry yearned for
the preaching of the Gospel in Wales.
The Jesuit followed, calling himself by the
name of Jesus, to try to win the country
back again to Rome. Robert Jones toiled
and schemed, and some laid down their
lives. The Puritan came in the seven-
teenth century to demand simple worship,
and Morgan Lloyd thought that the
second advent of Christ was at hand.
1 About 1291 the abbeys of Aberconway and Strata
Marcella had over a hundred cows each, Whitland over a
thousand sheep, and Basingwerk over two thousand.
THE NAME OF CHRIST 19
The Revivalist came in the eighteenth
century, and, in the name of Christ,
aroused the people of Wales to a new life
of thought.
After all this, you will be surprised to
learn that many of the old gods still
remain in Wales, and much of the old
pagan worship. Who drops a pin into a
sacred well, or leaves a tiny rag on a bush
close by, and then wishes for something?
A young maiden in the twentieth century,
who sacrifices to a well heathen god. Until
quite recently men thought that Ffynnon
Gybi, and Ffynnon Elian, and Ffynnon
Ddwynwen, had in them a power which
could curse and bless, ruin and save.
Lud of the Silver Hand was the god of
flocks and ships. His caves are in Dyved
still, and his was the temple on Ludgate
Hill in London. Merlin was a god of know-
ledge ; he could foretell events. Ceridwen
was the goddess of wisdom ; she distilled
wisdom-giving drops in a cauldron. Gwydion
created a beautiful girl from flowers, "from
red rose, and yellow broom, and white
anemony." I am not quite sure what Coil
did, but I have heard children singing the
history of "old King Cole." Olwen also
walked through Wales in heathen times,
20 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
and it is said that three white flowers
rose behind her wherever she had put her
foot.
THE WELSH KINGS
THE spirit of Rome remained, though Rome
itself had fallen. And Welsh kings rose to
take the place of the Roman ruler, trying
to force the tribes of Wales of different
races and tongues to become one people.
The chief Roman ruler, at any rate during
the later wars against the invaders, was
called Dux Britanniae, "the ruler of Britain."
It became the aim of the ablest kings to
restore the power of this officer, and to carry
on his work, to rule and defend a united
country. And I will tell you briefly how
the kings ruled and defended Wales for
more than five hundred years how Maelgwn
tried to unite it, how Rhodri tried to prevent
the attacks of Saxon and Dane, how Howel
gave it laws, and how Griffith tried to defend
it against England.
Between 400 and 450 Rome left Wales
THE WELSH KINGS 21
to look after itself. An able family, called
the House of Cunedda, took the power of
the Dux Britanniae, and they translated
the title into Gwledig " the ruler of a
gwlad (country)." Of this family Maelgwn
Gwynedd is the most famous. It was his
work to try to unite all the smaller kings
or chiefs of Wales under his own power as
"the island dragon." It was a difficult thing
to persuade them ; they all wanted to be
independent. A legend shows that Maelgwn
tried guile as well as force. The kings met
him at Aberdovey, and they all sat in their
royal chairs on the sands. And Maelgwn
said : " Let him be king over all who can
sit longest on his chair as the tide comes
in." But he had made his own chair of
birds' wings, and it floated erect when all
the other chairs had been thrown down.
Before Maelgwn died of the yellow plague
in 547, his strong arm had made Wales
one united country, and had made every
corner of it Christian.
The new wave of nations, coming on as
surely as the tide, began to beat against
Wales. The Picts came from the northern
parts of Britain, and Teutonic tribes swarmed
across the eastern sea. The Angles came
to the Humber, and spread over the plains
23 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
of the north and the midlands of Roman
Britain ; the Saxons came to the Thames,
and won the plains and the downs of the
south-east. In 577 the Saxons, after the
battle of Deorham, pierced to the western
sea at the mouth of the Severn ; they crept
up along the valley of the Severn, burn-
ing the great Roman towns. Before they
reached Chester and the Dee, however,
they were defeated at the battle of Fethanlea
in 584. But the Angles soon appeared,
from the north ; and after their victory at
Chester in 613, they won the plains right
to the Irish Sea.
Wales was now surrounded on the land
side by a people who spoke strange languages,
and who worshipped different gods, for the
Angles and the Saxons were heathens.
From the sea also it was open to attack.
Sometimes the Irish came. But the most
feared of all were the Danes, whose sudden
appearance and quick movements and des-
perate onslaughts were the terror of the age.
The "black Danes" came from the fiords
of Norway, the "white Danes" from the
plains of Sweden and Denmark. The Danes
settled on the south coast : Tenby is a Danish
name. Offa, the king of the Mercian Angles,
took the rich lands between the Severn and
THE WELSH KINGS 23
the Wye ; but Offa's Dyke (Clawdd Offa)
is probably the work of some earlier people
whose history has been lost. It was only
by incessant fighting that the enemy could
be kept at bay.
Of all the kings who tried to defend his
country against the enemies which now stood
round it, the greatest is Rhodri, called Rhodri
Mawr "the Great." From 844 to 877, by
battles on sea and land, he broke the spell
of Danish and Saxon victories ; and his
might and wisdom enabled him to lead his
country in those dark days. Like Alfred
of Wessex, who lived at the same time and
faced the same task, he stemmed the torrent
of Danish invasion and beat the sea-rovers
on their own element. Like Alfred, he left
warlike children and grandchildren. One of
the grandsons was Howel the Good, who
put the laws of Wales down in a book.
Wales and England were now, both of
them in their own way, trying to become
one country. It was seen by many that
strength and peace were better than division
and war. In England, the Earls of Mercia
and Wessex tried to rise into supreme power.
In Wales Llywelyn ab Seisyll, victorious in
many battles and wishing for peace, made
the country rich and happy. Still, when
24 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
he died in 1022, the princes said they would
not obey another over-king.
But the long ships full of Danes came
again ; the Angles crossed the Severn : war
and misery took the place of peace and
plenty. Griffith, the son of Llywelyn, came
to renew his father's work. In the battle
of Rhyd y Groes on the Severn, in 1039, he
drove the Mercians back ; in the battle of
Pencader, in 1041, he crushed the opponents
of Welsh unity; in 1044 he defeated the
sea-rovers at Aber Towy. At the same
time Harold, Earl of Wessex, was making
himself king of England. A war broke out
between Griffith and Harold ; and, during
it, in 1063, the great Welsh king "the
head and the shield of the Britons" was
slain by traitors.
So far I have told you about a few, only
the greatest, kings of the House of Cunedda.
I know that you are wondering where Arthur
comes in. I am not quite sure that Arthur
ever really lived, except in the mind of
many ages. He is the spirit of Roman rule,
the true Dux Britanniae, and he has all the
greatness and ability of all the race of
Cunedda. I have been shown mountains
under which he sleeps, with his knights
around him, waiting for the time when his
THE LAWS OF HOWEL 25
country is to be delivered. Let us hope
that what Arthur represents courage and
wisdom, love of country and love of right
lives in the hearts of his people.
VI
THE LAWS OF HOWEL
THE two ideas which ruled Wales were
the love of order and the love of independ-
ence. The danger of the first is oppression ;
the dangers of the other are anarchy and
weakness. Wales was sometimes united,
under a Maelgwn or a Rhodri, and the
princes obeyed them ; oftener, perhaps, the
princes of the various parts ruled in their
own way.
The internal life of Wales is best seen in
the laws of Howel the Good. Howel was
the grandson of Rhodri ; and, about 950,
he called four men from each district to
Hendy Gwyn (Whitland) to state the laws
of the country. Twelve of the wisest put
the law together ; and the most learned
scribe in Wales wrote it.
26 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
It was thought that there should be one
king over the whole people, but it was very
rarely that every part of Wales obeyed one
king. The country was divided into smaller
kingdoms. In many ways Gwynedd was
the most powerful. It was very easy to
defend ; for it was made up of the island of
Mon (Anglesey), the promontory of Lleyn,
and the mountain mass of Snowdon. Its
steep side was thus towards England, and
its cornlands and pastures on the further
side. It was also the home of the family
of Cunedda, from Maelgwn to the last
Llywelyn.
Powys was the Berwyn country. Cere-
digion was the western slope of the Plin-
limmon range ; the eastern slopes had
many smaller, but very warlike, districts.
Deheubarth contained the pleasant glades
and great forests of the Towy country.
Dyved was the peninsula to the west ; the
southern slopes of the Beacons were
Morgannwg and Gwent.
Howel the Good found that the laws of
the various parts differed in details, and he
gave different versions to the north, the
south-west, and the south-east. But the
law and life of the whole people, if we
only look at important features, are one.
THE LAWS OF HOWEL 27
Several commotes made a cantrev, many
cantrevs made a kingdom, many kingdoms
made Wales.
In each commote there were two kinds of
people the free or high-born, and the low-
born or serfs. These may have been the
conquering Celt and the conquered Iberian.
It was very difficult for those in the lower
class to rise to the higher ; but, after passing
through the storms of a thousand years, the
old dark line of separation was quite lost
sight of.
The free family lived in a great house in
the hendre ("old homestead") in winter, and
in the mountain havoty ("summer house")
in summer. The sides of the house were
made of giant forest trees, their boughs
meeting at the top and supporting the roof
tree. The fire burnt in the middle of the
hall. Round the walls the family beds were
arranged. The family was governed by the
head of the household (penteulu], whose
word was law.
The highest family in the land was that of
the king. In his hall all took their own
places, his chief of the household, his priest,
his steward, his falconer, his judge, his bard,
his chief huntsman, his mediciner, and others.
The chief royal residences were Aberffraw
28 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
in M6n, Mathraval in Powys, and Dynevor
in Deheubarth.
Old Welsh law was very unlike the law
we obey now. I cannot tell you much about
it in a short book like this, but it is worth
noticing that it was very humane. We do
not get in it the savage and vindictive
punishments we get in some laws. I give
you some extracts from the old laws of the
Welsh.
The king was to be honoured. According
to the laws of Gwynedd, if any one did
violence in his presence he had to pay a
great fine a hundred cows, and a white
bull with red ears, for every cantrev the
king ruled ; a rod of gold as long as the
king himself, and as thick as his little finger ;
and a plate of gold, as broad as the king's
face, and as thick as a ploughman's nail.
The judge, whether of the king's court
or of the courts of his subjects, was to be
learned, just, and wise. Thus, according
to the laws of Dyved, was an inexperienced
judge to be prepared for his great office ;
he was to remain in the court in the king's
company, to listen to the pleas of judges who
came from the country, to learn the laws and
customs that were in force, especially the
three main divisions of law, and the value
THE LAWS OF HOWEL 29
of all tame animals, and of all wild beasts
and birds that were of use to men. He was
to listen especially to the difficult cases that
were brought to the court, to be solved by
the wisdom of the king. When he had lived
thus for a year, he was to be brought to the
church by the chaplain ; and there, over the
relics and before the altar, he swore, in the
presence of the great officers of the king's
court, that he would never knowingly do
injustice, for money or love or hate. He is
then brought to the king, and the officers
tell the king that he has taken the solemn
oath. Then the king accepts him as a
judge, and gives him his place. When he
leaves, the king gives him a golden chess-
board, and the queen gold rings, and these
he is never to part with.
I will tell you about one other officer
the falconer. Falconry was the favourite
pastime of the kings and nobles of the
time ; indeed, everybody found it very ex-
citing to watch the long struggle in the air
between the trained falcon and its prey,
as each bird tried every skill of wing and
talon that it knew. The falconer was to
drink very sparingly in the king's hall, for
fear the falcons might suffer ; and his
lodging was to be in the king's barn, not
30 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
in the king's hall, lest the smoke from the
great fire-place should dim the falcon's
sight.
VII
THE NORMANS
ON the death of Griffith ap Llywelyn, many
princes tried to become supreme. Bleddyn
of Powys, a good and merciful prince,
became the most important.
In January 1070, when the snow lay thick
on the mountains, William, the Norman
Conqueror, appeared at Chester with an
army. He had defeated and killed Harold,
the conqueror of Griffith ap Llywelyn, in
1066 ; he had crushed the power of the
Mercian allies of Bleddyn ; he had struck
terror into the wild north, and England lay
at his feet.
He turned back from Chester, but he
placed on the borders a number of barons
who were to conquer Wales, as he had
conquered England. They had a measure of
his ability, of his energy, and of his ambition.
The two great Norman traits were wisdom
THE NORMANS 31
and courage ; but the one was often mere
cunning, and the other brutal ferocity.
But no one like the Norman had yet
appeared in Wales no one with a vision
so clear, or with so hard a grip. A hard,
worldly, tenacious, calculating race they were ;
and they turned their faces resolutely towards
Wales.
From England, Wales can be entered and
attacked along three valleys along the Dee,
the Severn, and the Wye. At Chester,
Hugh of Avranches, called "The Wolf,"
placed himself. From its walls he could
look over and covet the Welsh hills, as he
could have looked over the Breton hills from
Avranches. He loved war and the chase : he
despised industry, he cared not for religion ;
he was a man of strong passions, but he
was generous, and he respected worth of
character. One of his followers, Robert,
had all his vices and few of his virtues.
It was he who extended the dominions of
the Earl of Chester along the north coast
to the Clwyd, where he built a castle at
Rhuddlan ; and thence on to the valley of
the Conway, where he built a castle at
Deganwy. The cruelty of Robert shocked
even the Normans of his time. He even
set foot in Anglesey, which looked temptingly
32 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
near from Deganwy, and built a castle at
Aberlleiniog.
At Shrewsbury, where the Severn, after
leaving the mountains of Wales, turns to
the south, Roger of Montgomery was
placed, with his wife Mabel, an energetic
little woman, hated and feared by all.
Roger himself, while ever ready to fight,
preferred to get what he wanted by
persuasion ; he was not less cruel than
Hugh of Chester, but he was less fond of
war. He and his sons pushed their way
up the Severn, and built a castle at
Montgomery.
To Hereford, on the Wye, William Fitz-
Osbern came. He was the ablest, perhaps,
of all the followers of the Conqueror.
He entered Wales ; he saw it from the
Wye to the sea, and he thought it was
not large enough, and that it was too
far from the political life of the time. So
he went back to Normandy, but he left
his sons William and Roger behind him.
William had his father's wisdom. Roger
had his father's recklessness in action ; he
rebelled against his own king, and found
himself in prison. The king sent him, on
the day of Christ's Passion, a robe of silk
and rarest ermine. The caged baron made
THE NORMANS 33
a roaring fire, and cast the robe into it.
"By the light of God," said William the
Conqueror, for that was his wicked oath,
"he shall never leave his prison. "
But another Norman, Bernard of Neuf-
marche, came to take his place. He
built his castle at Brecon, and defeated
and killed Rees, the King of Deheubarth ;
and, with great energy, he took possession
of the upper valleys of the Wye and the
Usk.
Further south William the Conqueror
himself came to Cardiff, and possibly built
a castle. The Norman conquest of the
south coast of Wales was exceedingly
rapid, and castle after castle rose to mark
the new victorious advances Coety, Cen-
fig, Neath, Kidwelly, Pembroke, Newport,
Cilgeran.
So far, the Norman advance has been a
most quick one. In less than twenty-five
years from the appearance of the Conqueror
at Chester, the whole country had been
overrun except the mountains of Gwynedd
and the forests of the Deheubarth. This
success is easily explained.
For one thing, the Normans had trained,
professional soldiers, who were well horsed
and well armed. In a pitched battle the
c
34 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
hastily collected Welsh levies, unused to
regular battle and very lightly armed, had
no chance.
Again, the Norman never receded. He
was willing to stop occasionally, in order
to bide his time ; but he clung tenaciously
to every mile he had won. His skill as a
castle builder was as striking as his prowess
in battle or his cautious wisdom in council.
He took possession of an old fortified post,
or hastily constructed one of turf and timber ;
but he soon turned it into a castle of stone.
At that time the Welsh had no knowledge
of sieges ; and their impetuous valour was
of no use against the new castles.
Again, the Welsh opposition was not only
not organised, but weakened by internal
strife. While the Norman was winning
valley after valley, the Welsh princes were
trying to decide by the issue of battle who
was to be chief. Bleddyn was slain in 1075 ;
and his nephews and cousins tried to rule
the country. Among these, Trahaiarn was
a soldier of ability and energy, and a ruler
of real genius. But he was the rival of the
exiled princes of the House of Cunedda,
and he found it difficult to bend Snowdon
and the Vale of Towy to his will. Two
of the exiles met him, probably near some
GRIFFITH AP CONAN 35
of the cairns in the valley of the Teivy ;
and there, in the battle of Mynydd Cam,
fiercely fought through the dusk into a
moonlight night in 1079, Trahaiarn fell.
It looked as if no leader could rise in Wales
to fight a Norman army or to take a Norman
castle.
VIII
GRIFFITH AP CONAN AND
GRIFFITH AP REES
IN the battle of Mynydd Cam, a young
chief led the shining shields of the men of
Gwynedd. He was Griffith, the son of a
prince of the line of Cunedda and of a sea-
rover's daughter. He was mighty of limb,
fair and straight to see, with the blue eyes
and flaxen hair of the ruling Celt. In battle,
he was full of fury and passion ; in peace, he
was just and wise. His people saw at first
that he could fight a battle ; then they found
he could rule a country. And it was he that
was to say to the Norman : " Thus far shalt
thou come, and no further."
When Bleddyn died in 1075, Griffith came
36 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
to Gwynedd, and found that his father's lands
were under new rulers. Robert of Rhuddlan
and Trahaiarn of Arwystli were mighty foes ;
but Griffith drove both of them back ; and,
by his prowess and success in battle, broke
the spell of conquest which kept Gwynedd
in bonds. But his enemies attacked him
again from all sides ; and, while Hugh the
Wolf and Robert of Rhuddlan were laying
Gwynedd waste, Trahaiarn and Griffith
met at the hard-fought battle of Bron yr
Erw. Griffith lost the day, and again be-
came a sea-rover. He sailed to Dyved, and
there he met Rees, the King of Deheubarth,
who also was of the line of Cunedda, and
had been driven from his land by the
Normans. The two chiefs joined, and they
crushed Trahaiarn at Mynydd Carn. Then
they turned against the Normans.
Rees soon fell in battle, and left two
children, Nest and Griffith. The beauty
of Nest and the genius of Rees ap Griffith
fill an important page in the history of their
country. Nest became the mother of the
conquerors of Ireland ; Rees became the
greatest of all the kings of South Wales.
The Normans found that the Welsh had
taken heart. Of their opponents, they feared
three : Griffith ap Conan, Owen of Powys,
GRIFFITH AP CONAN 37
and Griffith ap Rees. The kings of England,
the two sons of the Conqueror red, brutal
William and cool, treacherous Henry had
to come to help their barons.
Griffith ap Conan had a long life of strife
and success. In his struggle with Hugh the
Wolf, he was once in The Wolfs prison, and
more than once he had to flee to the sea.
But, backed up by the liberty - loving sons
of Snowdon and by his sea-roving kinsmen,
he made Gwynedd strong and prosperous.
He drove the Normans from Anglesey ; he
attacked and killed Robert of Rhuddlan ; he
saw the red King of England himself forced
by storm and rain to beat a retreat from
Snowdon. He was loved by his people
during his youth of adventure and battle,
and during his old age of safe counsel and
love of peace. His wife Angharad and his
son Owen live with him in the memory of
his country. When he died, in 1137, it was
said that he had saved his people, had ruled
them justly, and had given them peace.
In the Severn country the princes of
Powys were righting against the Normans
also, especially against the family of Mont-
gomery. The sons of Bleddyn Cadogan,
lorwerth, and Meredith were driving the
invaders from the valley of the Severn, and
38 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
from Dyved, defeating their armies in battle,
and storming their castles. Sometimes they
would make alliances with them, and defy
the King of England. But it is difficult to
follow each of them. The history of one of
them, Owen ap Cadogan, is like a romance.
He was brave and handsome, in love with
Nest, and a very firebrand in politics. The
army of Henry I. was too strong for him,
and he had to submit. He then became
the friend of the King of England. It was
the aim of the princes of Powys to be free,
not only from the Norman, but also from
Griffith of Gwynedd and Griffith of Deheu-
barth. They were an able and versatile
family ; noble and base deeds, revolting
crimes and sweet poems, come in the stirring
story of their lives.
What Griffith did in the north, and the
sons of Bleddyn in the east, Griffith ap
Rees did in the south ; he showed that the
Norman army could be beaten in battle, and
that a Norman castle could be taken by
assault. After his father's death he spent
much of his youth in exile or in hiding :
sometimes we find him in Ireland, sometimes
in the court of Griffith ap Conan, sometimes
with his sister Nest now the wife of
Gerald, the custodian of Pembroke Castle.
GRIFFITH AP REES 39
But he had one aim ever before him to
recover his father's kingdom and to make
his people free. Castle after castle rose at
Swansea, Carmarthen, Llandovery, Cenarth,
Aberystwyth to warn him that the hold of
the Norman on the land was tightening.
He came to the forests of the Towy ; his
people rallied round him, and his power
extended from the Towy to the Teivy, and
from the Teivy to the Dovey. His wife,
the heroic Gwenllian who died leading her
husband's army against the Normans was
Griffith ap Conan's daughter. The great
final battle between Griffith and the Normans
was fought at Cardigan in 1 136, in which the
great prince won a memorable victory over
the strongest army the Normans could put
in the field. In 1137 he died, and they said
of him that he had shown his people what
they ought to do, and that he had given
them strength to do it.
The work of Griffith ap Conan and Griffith
ap Rees was this : they set bounds to the
Norman Conquest, and saved Deheubarth
and Gwynedd from the stern rule of the
alien. But, though the Norman was not
allowed to bring his stone castle and cruel
law, what good he brought with him was
welcomed. The piety of the Norman, his
40 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
intellectual curiosity, and his spirit of adven-
ture, conquered in Welsh districts where his
coat of mail and his castle were not seen.
IX
OWEN GWYNEDD AND THE LORD
REES
THE men who opposed the Normans left
able successors Owen Gwynedd followed
his father, Griffith ap Conan ; the Lord Rees
followed his father Griffith ap Rees ; and in
Powys the sons of Bleddyn were followed
by the castle builder Howel, and by the
poet Owen Cyveiliog.
Owen Gwynedd ruled from 1137 to 1169;
the Lord Rees from 1137 to 1197. The
age was, in many respects, a great one.
It was, of course, an age of war. Up to
1154, during the reign of Stephen, the
English barons were fighting against each
other, and the king had very little power
over them. The most important Norman
barons in Wales were the Earls of Chester in
the valley of the Dee, the Mortimers on the
OWEN GWYNEDD 41
upper Wye, the Braoses on the upper Usk,
and the Clares in the south. Their castles
were a continual menace to the country they
had so far failed to conquer, and the Lord
Rees was glad to get Kid welly, and Owen
Gwynedd to get Mold and Rhuddlan.
It was, on the whole, an age of unity.
It was the chief aim of Owen Gwynedd
to be the ally of the Lord Rees ; and in
this he succeeded, though his brother Cad-
waladr, in his desire for Ceredigion, had killed
Rees' brother, to Owen's infinite sorrow.
The princes of Powys, Madoc and Owen
Cyveiliog, were in the same alliance also,
and they were helped in their struggle with
the Normans. Unity was never more
necessary. Henry II. brought great armies
into Wales. Once he came along the north
coast to Rhuddlan. At another time he
tried to cross the Berwyn, but was beaten
back by great storms. Had he reached the
upper Dee, he would have found the united
forces of the Lord Rees, Owen Cyveiliog,
and Owen Gwynedd at Corwen. There are
many stirring episodes in these wars : the
fight at Consilt, when Henry II. nearly lost
his life ; the scattering of his tents on the
Berwyn by a storm that seemed to be the
fury of fiends ; the reckless exposure of life
42 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
in storming a wall or in the shock of battle.
But the Norman brought new cruelty into
war: Henry II. took out the eyes of young
children because their fathers had revolted
against him ; and William de Braose invited
a great number of Welsh chiefs to a feast
in his castle at Abergavenny, and there
murdered them all.
It is a relief to turn to another feature
of the age : it was an age of great men.
Owen Gwynedd was probably the greatest.
He disliked war, but he was an able general ;
he made Henry II. retire without great loss
of life to his own army. He was a thought-
ful prince, of a loving nature and high ideals,
and his court was the home of piety and
culture. He is more like our own ideal of
a prince than any of the other princes of
the Middle Ages. The Lord Rees was not
less wise, and his life is less sorrowful and
more brilliant. He also was as great as
a statesman as he was as a general ; and
he made his peace with the English king
in order to make his country quiet and rich.
Owen Cyveiliog was placed in a more
difficult position than either of his allies ;
he was nearer to very ambitious Norman
barons. He was great as a warrior ; often
had his white steed been seen leading the
OWEN GWYNEDD 43
rush of battle. He was greater as a states-
man : friend and foe said that Owen was
wise ; and he was greater still as a poet.
The age was an age of poetry. A
generation of great Welsh poets found an
equal welcome in the courts of Gwynedd,
Powys, and Deheubarth ; and even the
Norman barons of Morgannwg began to
feel the charm of Welsh legend and song ;
Robert of Gloucester was a great patron
of learning. One of the chief events of
the period was Lord Rees' great Eisteddvod
at Cardigan in 1 176.
It was an age of new ideals. The
Crusades were preached in Wales ; the
grave of Christ was held by a cruel
unbeliever, and it was the duty of a soldier
to rescue it. It appealed to an inborn
love of war, and many Welshmen were
willing to go. It did good by teaching
them that, in fighting, they were not to
fight for themselves. It was in Powys
that feuds were most bitter. A young
warrior told a preacher, who was trying to
persuade him to take the cross : " I will not
go until, with this lance, I shall have avenged
my lord's death." The lance immediately
became shivered in his hand. The lance
once used for blind feuds was gradually
44 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
consecrated to the service of ideals of
patriotism or of religion.
The age of Owen Gwynedd and the
Lord Rees and Owen Cyveiliog brought
a higher ideal still. If the Crusader made
war sacred, the monk made labour noble.
The chief aim of the monk, it is true, was
to save his soul. He thought the world
was very bad, as indeed it was ; and he
thought he could best save his own soul
by retiring to some remote spot, to live a
life of prayer. But he also lived a life of
labour ; he became the best gardener,
the best farmer, and the best shepherd of
the Middle Ages. Great monasteries were
built for him, and great tracts of land were
given him, by those who were anxious that
he should pray for their souls. The monk
who came to Wales was the Cistercian. The
monasteries of Tintern, Margam, and Neath
were built by Norman barons ; and Strata
Florida, Valle Crucis, and Basingwerk
showed that the Welsh princes also welcomed
the monks.
_Better, then, than the brilliant wars were
the poets and the great Eisteddvod. Better
still, perhaps, were the orchards and the
flocks of the peaceful monks.
LLYWELYN THE GREAT 45
X
LLYWELYN THE GREAT
ON the death of the Lord Rees, one of the
grandsons of Owen Gwynedd becomes the
central figure in Welsh history. Llywelyn
the Great rose into power in 1194, and
reigned until 1240 a long reign, and in
many ways the most important of all the
reigns of the Welsh princes.
Llywelyn's first task was to become sole
ruler in Gwynedd. The sons of Owen
Gwynedd had divided the strong Gwynedd
left them by their father, and their nobles
and priests could not decide which of the
sons was to be supreme. lorwerth, the poet
Howel, David, Maelgwn, Rhodri, tried to
get Gwynedd, or portions of it. Eventually,
David I. became king ; but soon a strong
opposition placed Llywelyn, the able son of
lorwerth, on the throne. Uncles and cousins
showed some jealousy ; but the growing
power of Llywelyn soon made them obey
him with gradually diminishing envy.
His next task was to attach the other
princes of Wales to him, now that the Lord
46 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
Rees and Owen Cyveiliog were dead. To
begin with, he had to deal with the astute
Gwenwynwyn, the son of Owen Cyveiliog ;
and he had to be forced to submit. He
then turned to the many sons and grand-
sons of the Lord Rees Maelgwn and
Rees the Hoarse especially. They called
John, King of England, into Wales ; but
they soon found that Llywelyn was a
better master than John and his barons.
Gradually Llywelyn established a council of
chiefs partly a board of conciliation, and
partly an executive body. It was nothing
new ; but it was a striking picture of the
way in which Llywelyn meant to join the
princes into one organised political body.
His third task was to begin to unite
Norman barons and Welsh chiefs under
his own rule. He had to begin in the old
way, by using force ; and Ranulph of Chester
and the Clares trembled for the safety of
their castles. He then offered political
alliance ; and some of the Norman families
of the greatest importance in the reign of
John the Earl of Chester, the family of
Braose, and the Marshalls of Pembroke
became his allies. His other step was to
unite Welsh and Norman families by
marriage. He himself married a daughter
LLYWELYN THE GREAT 47
of King John, and he gave his own
daughters in marriage to a Braose and a
Mortimer. It is through the dark-haired
Gladys, who married Ralph Mortimer, that
the kings of England can trace their descent
from the House of Cunedda.
Llywelyn's last great task was to make
relations between England and Wales
relations of peace and amity. During his
long reign, he saw three kings on the
throne of England the crusader Richard,
the able John, and the worthless and mean
Henry III. It was with John that he
had most to do, the king whose origin-
ality and vices have puzzled and shocked
so many historians. John helped him to
crush Gwenwynwyn, then helped the jealous
Welsh princes to check the growth of his
power. Llywelyn saw that it was his
policy, as long as John was alive, to join
the English barons. They were then try-
ing to force Magna Carta upon the King,
that great document which prevented John
from interfering with the privileges of his
barons. In that document John promises,
in three clauses, that he will observe the
rights of Welshmen and the law of Wales.
When John died in 1216, and his young
son Henry succeeded him, the policy of
48 A SHORY HISTORY OF WALES
England was guided by William Marshall,
Earl of Pembroke. William Marshall was
one of the ministers of Henry II.; and,
by his marriage with the daughter of
Strongbow, the conqueror of Ireland, he
had become Earl of Pembroke. It was
with him that Llywelyn had now to deal.
He was too strong in Pembroke to be
attacked, but his very presence made it
easier for Llywelyn to retain the allegiance
of the chiefs who would have been in
danger from the Norman barons if Llywelyn's
protection were taken away. In 1219 the
great William Marshall died ; and changes
in English politics forced his sons into an
alliance with Llywelyn.
Llywelyn's title of Great is given him
by his Norman and English contemporaries.
He was great as a general ; his detection
of trouble before the storm broke, his
instant determination and rapidity of move-
ments, his ever - ready munitions for battle
and siege, made his later campaigns always
successful. He felt that he was carrying
on war in his own country ; so his wars
were not wars of devastation, but the crush-
ing of armies and the razing of castles.
He took an interest in the three great
agents in the civilisation of the time the
LLYWELYN THE GREAT 49
bard, the monk, and the friar. The bard
was as welcome as ever at his court ; the
monk, welcomed by Owen Gwynedd before,
was given another home at .Aber Conway.
Llywelyn extended his welcome to the friar,
and he was given a home at Llan Vaes in
Anglesey, on the shores of the Menai. The
friar brought a higher ideal than that of
the monk ; his aim was salvation, not by
prayer in the solitude of a mountain glen,
but by service where men were thickest
together even in streets made foul by
vice, and haunted by leprosy. Of the Mendi-
cant Orders, the Franciscans were the best
known in Wales ; and, of all Orders of that
day, it was they who sympathised most
deeply with the sorrows of men. And it
was this which, a little later on, brought
them so much into politics.
Great and successful in war and policy, in
touch with the noblest influences in the life
of the time, Llywelyn applied himself to one
last task. His companions and allies had
nearly all died before him ; but he wished
that the peace and unity, which they had
established, should live after them. He had
two sons Griffith, who was the champion
of independence ; and David, who wished
for peace with England. Llywelyn laid
50 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
more stress on strong government at home
than on the repudiation of feudal allegiance
to the King of England. So he persuaded
the council of princes at Strata Florida to
accept David as his successor.
DAVID II., a mild and well-meaning prince,
was too weak to carry his father's policy out.
He tried to maintain peace, and did homage
to his uncle, the King of England. But, as
the head of the patriotic party, his more
energetic brother, Griffith, opposed him. By
guile he caught Griffith, and shut him in a
castle on the rock of Criccieth. The other
princes shook off the yoke of Gwynedd, and
Henry III. tried to play the brothers against
each other. David sent Griffith to Henry,
who put him in the Tower of London. In
trying to escape, his rope broke, and he fell
to the ground dead. Soon afterwards, in
1246, in the middle of a war with Henry,
David died of a broken heart.
THE LAST LLYWELYN 51
The sons of Griffith Owen, Llywelyn,
and David at once took their uncle's place ;
and by 1255 Llywelyn ap Griffith was sole
ruler. By that year Henry III. had given
his young son Edward the earldom of
Chester, which had fallen to the crown,
and the lands between the Dee and the
Conway, which he claimed by a treaty
with the dead Griffith. Thus Edward and
Llywelyn began their long struggle.
Between 1255 and 1267 Llywelyn tries to
recover his grandfather's position in Wales.
In 1255 his power extended over Gwynedd
only. He found it easy to extend it over
most of Wales, because the rule of the
English officials made the Welsh chiefs long
for the protection of Gwynedd. The Barons'
War paralysed the power of the King, and
Llywelyn made an alliance with Simon de
Montfort and the barons. Even after Mont-
fort's fall in 1265 the barons were so powerful
that the King was still at their mercy. In
1267 Llywelyn's position as Prince of Wales
was recognised in the Treaty of Montgomery.
His sway extended from Snowdon to the
Dee on the east, and to the Teivy and the
Beacons on the south practically the whole
of modern Wales, except the southern sea-
board. Within these wide bounds all the
52 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
Welsh barons were to swear fealty to
Llywelyn, the only exception being Meredith
ap Rees of Deheubarth.
The second struggle of Llywelyn's reign
took place between 1267 and 1277. He
tried to weld his land into a closer union,
and many of the chiefs of the south and east
became willing to call in the English King.
Two of them, his own brother David and
Griffith of Powys, fled to England, and were
received by Edward, who had been king
since 1272. Llywelyn and Edward dis-
trusted each other. Edward wished to unite
Britain in a feudal unity, and to crush all
opponents. Llywelyn thought of helping
the barons ; he might become their leader.
Eleanor, the daughter of Simon de Montfort,
the old leader of the barons, was betrothed
to him. War broke out. The barons
Clares and Mortimers, and all joined the
King. Llywelyn's dominions were invaded
at all points, his barons had to yield, one
after the other; and finally, in 1277,
Llywelyn had to accept the Treaty of
Rhuddlan. His dominions shrunk to the
old limits of Snowdon, his sway over the
rest of Wales was taken from him, and the
title of Prince of Wales was to cease with
his life.
THE LAST LLYWELYN 53
The third struggle was between 1277 and
1282. The rule of the new officials drove
the Welsh to revolt ; and the chiefs who
had opposed Llywelyn, especially his brother
David, begged for Llywelyn's protection.
Eleanor, Llywelyn's wife and Edward's
cousin, tried to keep the peace, but she
died while they were arming for the last
bitter war of 1282.
It was comparatively easy for Edward to
overrun Powys or Deheubarth, if he had
an army strong enough. But at that time
Gwynedd was almost impregnable. From
Conway to Harlech lies the vast mass of
Snowdon, a great natural rampart running
from sea to sea. Its steep side is towards
the east, and the invader found before him
heights which he could not climb, and round
which he could not pass. If you stand in
the Vale of Conway, look at the hills on the
Arvon side the great natural wall of inmost
Gwynedd, with its last tower, the Penmaen
Mawr, rising right from the sea. The gentle
slopes are to the west, and there the corn
and flocks were safe.
Edward had to put a large army into the
field, and^ it cost him much. In the war
with Llywelyn he had to change the
English army entirely ; and, in order to get
54 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
money, he had to allow the Parliament to
get life and power. To carry supplies, and
to land men in Anglesey to turn the flank
of the Welsh, he wanted a fleet. But there
was no royal navy then, and the fishermen
of the east coast and the south coast who
had no quarrel with the Welsh, but were
very anxious to fight each other were not
willing to lose their fish harvest in order to
fight so far away.
In 1282, Edward's great army closed
round Snowdon. The chiefs still faithful to
Llywelyn had to yield or flee. But winter
was coming on, and could Edward keep
his army in the field ? An attempt had been
made to enter Snowdon from Anglesey, but
the English force was destroyed at Moel y
Don. It looked as if Edward would have to
retire. Llywelyn left Snowdon, and went
to Ceredigion and the Vale of Towy to
put new heart in his allies, and from there
he passed on to the valley of the Wye.
He meant, without a doubt, to get the
barons of the border, Welsh and English,
to unite against Edward. But in some
chance skirmish a soldier slew him, not
knowing who he was. When they heard
that their Prince was fallen, his men in
Snowdon entirely lost heart. They had
CONQUERED WALES 55
no faith in David, and in a few months
the whole of Wales was at Edward's
feet.
XII
CONQUERED WALES
THE war between Edward and Llywelyn
was not a war between England and Wales,
as we think of these countries now. Some
of the best soldiers under Edward were
Welsh, especially the bowmen who followed
the Earl of Gloucester and Roger Mortimer
from the Wye and Severn valleys.
It is not right that we Welshmen should
feel bitter against England, because, in this
last war, Edward won and Llywelyn fell.
It is easy to say that Edward was cruel
and faithless, and it is easy to say that
Llywelyn was shifty and obstinate ; but it is
quite clear that each of them thought that
he was right. Edward thought that Britain
ought to be united : Llywelyn thought Wales
ought to be free. Now, happily, we have
the union and the freedom.
On the other hand, I should not like you
to think that Wales was more barbarous
56 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
than England, or Llywelyn less civilised
than Edward I. Giraldus Cambrensis saw
a prince going barefoot, and the fussy
little Archbishop Peckham saw that Welsh
marriage customs were not what he liked ;
and many historians, who have never read
a line of Welsh poetry, take for granted
that the conquest of Wales was a new
victory for civilisation.
In many ways Wales was more civilised
than England at that time. Its law was
more simple and less developed, it is true ;
but it was more just in many cases, and
certainly more humane. Was it not better
that the land should belong to the people,
and that the youngest son should have the
same chance as the eldest ? And, in crime,
was it not better that if no opportunity
for atonement was given, the death of the
criminal was to be a merciful one? In
the reign of John, a Welsh hostage, a little
boy of seven, was hanged at Shrewsbury,
because his father, a South Wales chief,
had rebelled. In the reign of Edward I.,
the miserable David was dragged at the
tails of horses through the streets of the
same town, and the tortures inflicted on the
dying man were too horrible to describe to
modern ears And what the Norman baron
CONQUERED WALES 57
did, his Welsh tenant learnt to do. In Wales
you get fierce frays and frequent shedding of
blood ; on the borders you get callous cruelty
to a prisoner, or the disfiguring of dead
bodies even that of Simon de Montfort,
the greatest statesman of the Middle Ages
in England on the battlefield when all
passion was spent.
Take the rulers of Wales again. Griffith
ap Conan and Llywelyn the Great had the
energy and the foresight, though their
sphere was so much smaller, of Henry II.
And what English king, except Alfred,
attracts one on account of lovableness of
character as Owen Gwynedd and Owen
Cyveiliog and the Lord Rees do?
When Edward entered into Snowdon,
Welsh was spoken to the Dee and the
Severn, and far beyond. There were many
dialects, as there are still, though any two
Welshmen could understand each other
wherever they came from, with a little
patience, as they can still. But there was
also a literary language, and this was under-
stood, if not spoken, by the chiefs all through
the country. It was more like the Welsh
spoken in mid- Wales especially in the valley
of the Dovey than any other. There are
many signs of civilisation ; one of them is
58 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
the possession of a literary language for
romance and poem, for court and Eisteddvod.
Conquered Wales may be divided into
two parts the Wales conquered by the
Norman barons and the Wales conquered
by the English king.
The Wales conquered by the English
king was the country ruled by Llywelyn
and his allies. In 1284, by the statute of
Rhuddlan, it was formed into six shires.
The Snowdon district which held out last
was made into the three shires of
Anglesey, Carnarvon, and Merioneth. The
part of the land between Conway and Dee
that belonged to the king, not to barons,
was made into the shire of Flint. The
lands of Llywelyn's allies beyond the Dovey
were made into the shires of Cardigan and
Carmarthen. Instead of the chiefs of the
Welsh prince, the king's sheriffs and
justices ruled the country. But much of
the old law remained.
The Wales conquered by the Norman
barons lay to the east and south of the
Wales turned into shires in 1284. It in-
cluded the greater part of the valleys of
the Clwyd, Dee, Severn, and Wye ; and
the South Wales coast from Gloucester to
CONQUERED WALES 59
Pembroke. It remained in the possession
of lords who were subject to the King of
England, but who ruled almost like kings
in their own lordships. The laws and
customs of the various lordships differed
greatly ; sometimes the lord used English
law, and sometimes Welsh law. The great
ruling families changed much in wealth
and power, from century to century. In
Llywelyn's time the most important were
the Clares (Gloucester and Glamorgan),
the Mortimers (Wigmore and Chirk), Lacy
(Denbigh), Warenne (Bromfield and Yale),
Fitzalan (Oswestry), Bohun (Brecon), Braose
(Gower), and Valence (Pembroke).
Llywelyn was the last prince of inde-
pendent Wales. From that time on, the title
is conferred by the King of England on
his eldest son, who is then crowned. The
present Prince of Wales also comes, through
a daughter of Llywelyn the Great, from the
House of Cunedda, the princes of which
ruled Wales from Roman times to 1284. Of
all the houses that have gone to make the
royal house, this is the most ancient.
60 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
XIII
CASTLE AND LONG-BOW
So far I have told you very little about war,
except that a battle was fought and lost, or a
castle built or taken.
War has two sides attack and defence.
New ways of attacking and defending are
continually devised. When the art of
defence is more perfect than the art of
attack, the world changes very little, for the
strong can keep what he has gained. When
the art of attack is the more perfect, new
men have a better chance, and many changes
are made. The chief source of defence was
the castle, the chief weapon of attack was
the long-bow. Wales contains the most
perfect castles in this country ; it is also the
home of the long-bow. From 1066 to 1284
England and Wales were conquered, and
the conquest was permanent because castles
were built. From 1284 to 1461, England
and Wales attacked other countries, and the
weapon which gave them so many victories
was the long-bow.
I will tell you about the castles first, about
CASTLE AND LONG-BOW 61
the Norman castles and about the Edwardian
castles.
The Norman castle was a square keep,
with walls of immense thickness, sometimes
of 20 feet. But if the Norman had to build
on the top of a hill or on the ruins of an old
castle, he did not try to make the new castle
square, but allowed its walls to take the form
of the hill or of the old castle ; and this kind
of castle was called a shell keep. The outer
and inner casing of the wall would be of
dressed stone, the middle part was chiefly
rubble. At first, if they had plenty of
supplies, a very few men could hold a castle
against an army as long as they liked.
These were the castles built by the Norman
invaders to retain their hold over the Welsh
districts they conquered.
But many ways of storming a castle were
discovered. They could be scaled by means
of tall ladders, especially in a stealthy night
attack. Stones could be thrown over the
walls by mangonels to annoy the garrison.
Sometimes a wall could be brought down
by a battering-ram. But the quickest and
surest way was by mining. The miners
worked their way to the wall, and then
began to take some of the stones of the
outer casing out, propping the wall up with
62 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
beams of wood. When the hole was big
enough, they filled it with firewood ; they
greased the beams well, they set fire to them,
and then retired to a safe distance to see
what happened. When the great wall
crashed down, the soldiers swarmed over it
to beat down the resistance of the garrison.
If ever you go to Abergavenny Castle, in
the Vale of Usk, look at the cleft in the
rock along which the daring besiegers once
climbed. And if you go to the Vale of
Towy, and see Dryslwyn Castle, remember
that the wall once came down before the
miners expected, and that many men were
crushed.
In order to prevent mining, many changes
were made. Moats were dug round the
castle, and filled with water. Brattices were
made along the top of the towers, galleries
through the floor of which the defenders
could pour boiling pitch on the besiegers.
The walls were built at such angles that a
window, with archers posted behind it, could
command each wall. Stronger towers were
built round towers with a coping at each
storey, solid as a rock, which would crack
and lean without falling ; there is a leaning
tower at Caerphilly Castle. One other way
I must mention the child or the wife of the
CASTLE AND LONG-BOW 63
castellan would be brought before the walls,
and hanged before his eyes unless he opened
the gates.
The newer or Edwardian castles, those of
the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., are
concentric that is, there are several castles
in one ; so that the besiegers, when they had
taken one castle, found themselves face to
face with another, still stronger, perhaps, in-
side it. Of these castles, the most elaborate
is the castle of Caerphilly, built by Gilbert
de Clare, the Red Earl of Gloucester who
helped Edward in the Welsh wars. And it
was by means of these magnificent concentric
castles Con way, Beaumaris, Carnarvon,
and Harlech that Edward hoped to keep
Wales.
There are many kinds of bows. In war
two were used the cross-bow and the long-
bow. The cross-bow was meant at first for
the defence of towns, like Genoa or the
towns of Castile. So strength was more
important than lightness, and the archer had
time to take aim. It was a bow on a cross
piece of wood, along which the string was
drawn back peg after peg by mechanism.
The bow was then held to the breast, and
the arrow let off. It was clumsy, heavy, and
expensive.
64 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
The long-bow was only one piece of sinewy
yew, and a string. It was used at first for
the chase, and the archer had to take instant
aim. It was drawn to the ear, and it was a
most deadly weapon when a strong arm had
been trained to draw it. Its arrow could
pick off a soldier at the top of the highest
castle ; it could pierce through an oak door
three fingers thick ; it could pin a mail-clad
knight to his horse. It was this peasant
weapon that brought the mailed knight down
in battle.
The home of the long-bow is the country
between the Severn and the Wye. It was
famous before, but it was first used with
effect in the last Welsh wars. It was used
to break the lines of the Snowdon lances
and pikes, so that the mail-clad cavalry might
dash in. But later on, the same bows were
used to bring the nobles of France down.
From the Welsh war on, archers and infantry
became important ; battles ceased to be what
they had been so long the shock of mail-
clad knights meeting each other at full
charge.
The long-bow made noble and peasant
equal on the field of battle. The revolution
was made complete later on by gunpowder.
THE RISE OF THE PEASANT 65
XIV
THE RISE OF THE PEASANT
I HAVE told you much about princes and
soldiers, but very little about the lowly
life of peasants, and the trade of towns.
The conquest of Wales, by Norman baron
and English king, tended to raise the .serf
to the level of the freeman. The chief
causes of the rise of the serf were the
following :
1. The ignorance of the English officials.
The Norman baron very often paid close
attention to the privileges of the classes
he ruled, and the Welsh freeman retained
his superiority. But the English officials
and Edward II. found that they were far
too numerous in Wales often refused to
distinguish between a Welshman who was
an innate freeman and a Welshman who
lived on a serf maenol. Their aim was to
make them all pay the same tax.
2. The fall in the value of money. At
the time of the Norman Conquest, silver
coins were rare, and their value high. But,
in exchange for cloth and wool, of arrows
E
66 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
and spears, of mountain ponies and cattle,
coins came in great numbers, and it was
easier for the serf to earn them. That is,
the value of coins became less.
This was a great boon to all who were
bound to pay fixed sums the freeman who
paid to the king the dues he used to pay
to his prince, the serf who paid to his lord
a sum of money instead of service. All
ancient servitude, political and economic,
was commuted for money ; as the money
became easier to get, the serf became the
more free.
3. The rise of towns and the growth of
commerce. We must not, however, think
of commerce as if it had been first brought
by the Normans. There had been roads
and coins in Roman times. The Danes
had been traders, probably, before they
became pirates and invaders. Timber, mill-
stones, cattle, coarse cloth, and arrow-heads
crossed the Severn eastwards before the
Normans saw it ; and corn was carried
westward. There were close relations,
political and commercial, between Wales
and Ireland from very early times.
But the Norman and English Conquests
revived and quickened trade. Towns rose,
regular markets were established, and the
THE RISE OF THE PEASANT 67
barons who took tolls protected the merchants
who paid them. Every baron had a castle,
every castle needed a walled town, and a
town cannot live except by trade. In the
town the baron did not ask a Welshman
whether he had been free or serf; the
townsmen were strangers, and they welcomed
the serf who came to work.
4. The monk and the friar. The bard was
a freeman born, a skilled weaver of courteous
phrases, not a churlish taeog. The monk
or friar might be a serf. They worked like
serfs, and ennobled labour. The Church
condemned serfdom, and we find chapters
giving their serfs freedom.
5. The Scotch and French wars of the
English kings gave employment to hosts
of bowmen and of men-at-arms, and to the
numerous attendants required to look after
the horses by means of which the army
moved. The greater use of infantry after
the reign of Edward I. caused a greater
demand for the peasant ; and the use of the
cheap long-bow gave him a value in war.
There were five thousand Welsh archers
and spearmen on the field of Cressy. In
these and other ways the serf was becoming
free.
You would expect a gradual, almost un-
68 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
conscious struggle, between the serf and his
lord for political power. The struggle came,
but it was conscious and very fierce. It
was brought about by a terrible pestilence,
known as the Black Death. This plague
came slowly and steadily from the East ; in
1348 it reached Bristol, and it probably
swept away one half of the people of the
towns of Wales. It was not the towns alone
that it visited ; it came to the mountain glens
as well. It was a most deadly disease. It
killed, for one thing, because people believed
that they would die. They saw the dark
spots on the skin before they became feverish ;
they recognised the black mark of the Death,
and they gave themselves up for lost.
Labourers became very scarce. They
claimed higher wages. The lords tried to
drag them back into serfdom ; they tried to
force them by law to take the old wage.
On both sides of the Severn the labourers
took arms, and waged war against their lords.
The peasant war in England is called the
Peasant Revolt ; the peasant war in Wales
is sometimes called the revolt of Owen
Glendower.
A change came over the rebellions in
Wales. At first, the rebellions were those
of Llywelyn's country ; the allies who had
THE RISE OF THE PEASANT 69
deserted him, and then turned against
Edward, like Rees ap Meredith ; or his
own followers, like Madoc, who said he
was his son ; or men he had protected, like
Maelgwn Vychan in Pembroke. Later on,
under Edward II. and Edward III., the
rebellions were against the march lords,
and the king was looked upon as a pro-
tector such as the rebellion of Llywelyn
Bren against the Clares and Mortimers in
Glamorgan in 1316. But the wilder spirits
went to the French wars, and fought for
both sides. With the assassination of Owen
of Wales in 1378, the last of Llywelyn's near
relatives to dream of restoring the inde-
pendence of Wales, the rebellions against
the King of England came to an end.
When they broke out again, it was not in
Snowdon or Ceredigion ; the old dominions
of Llywelyn were almost unwilling to rise.
The new revolts were in the march lands,
and especially in the towns.
70 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
XV
THE English baron in Wales tried to add to
his possessions by encroaching on the lands
of the Welsh freemen. His estate always
remained the same, because it all went to
the eldest son, according to what is called
primogeniture ; their lands, on the other
hand, were divided between the sons,
according to what is called gavelkind. He
also, by laws they did not understand, took
the waste land forest and mountain. As
one man can more easily watch his interest
than many, the baron succeeded ; but the
freemen felt that they were being robbed.
The tenants of the barons were restless
and rebellious ; they said they were free,
that they would not work as serfs, that
they would not bring food rents, but that
they would pay a fixed rent for every acre
they held.
At Ruthin, in the Vale of Clwyd, there
was a baron called Lord Grey ; and in the
valley of the Dee there was a Welsh squire
OWEN GLENDOWER 71
called Owen Glendower. Their lands met,
and Grey took part of Owen's sheep walk.
Owen had been a law student at West-
minster, and he had served Henry of
Lancaster. In 1399 Richard II. had been
dethroned, and the barons had made Henry
of Lancaster king as Henry IV. Owen saw,
however, that the king was too weak to curb
his lawless barons, and in 1400 he attacked
Lord Grey, and burnt Ruthin.
The rebellion that had long been smoulder-
ing burst into a flame all over the country.
Owen was at once welcomed by the bard,
the friar, and the peasant. The bard hailed
his star as that of the heir of the princes,
who had come to deliver his country. The
friar welcomed him as the friend of the poor
and of learning ; and unruly students from
Oxford, then the centre of a great intellectual
awakening, flocked home to march under his
banner. The peasant welcomed him as his
protector against the steward of his lord.
The main strength of the movement was
the peasant revolt ; and Welsh poets, like
the English ones, sang the praises of the
ploughman and of the plough.
Owen's success was most rapid, so rapid
that it was put down to magic. In four
years the whole of Wales recognised him as
72 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
its prince. Henry IV. and Prince Henry
came to Wales, made rapid marches and
retook castles, punished the friars of Llan
Vaes and the monks of Strata Florida.
But their victories led to nothing, and the
storms fought against them. Owen's victories
were used to the full that of the Vyrnwy
was followed by an agreement with Grey
of Ruthin, that of Bryn Glas by an alliance
with the Mortimers. His marches were
nearly all triumphant ; he was welcomed
along the whole line of the marches by the
peasants to the furthest corners of Gwent.
Owen was wise enough to see that no
abiding power can be based on a popular
rising. He tried to establish a government
that the King of England could not over-
throw. He had three institutions in mind
an independent Wales, governed by him as
Prince in a Parliament of representatives of
the commotes ; an independent Welsh Church,
with an Archbishop of St David's at its
head ; and an independent system of learning
and civilisation, guided by two Universities,
one in North Wales and one in South Wales.
The new Wales was to be safeguarded
by four alliances with the English barons,
with the Pope, with Scotland, and with
France. He failed to save the Percies
OWEN GLENDOWER 73
from their defeat at Shrewsbury in 1403 ;
but he based all his plans on an alliance
with the Mortimers, the enemies of Lancaster
and the Percies. The head of the Mortimer
family had died in Ireland in 1398, and had
left four young children. They were the
real heirs to the crown, and Owen meant to
win their throne for them. Their uncle,
Edmund Mortimer, married Glendower's
daughter. But the young Earl of March,
the elder of the Mortimer boys, had no
ambition, and a plot to bring him and his
brother to Owen failed.
The Papacy had always proved to be a
broken reed for Welsh princes ; but Owen's
alliance with Peter de Luna, the anti-Pope
Benedict XIII., gave a certain amount of
prestige to his title. The alliance with
Scotland, based on common kinship, could
bring him no help at that time : because it
was torn between two factions during the
reign of the weak Robert III.; and the
next king, the poet James I., was captured
at sea and put into an English prison.
The French alliance was much more
promising ; it would give what Owen wanted
most siege engines, a fleet, and an army
of trained soldiers. Charles VI. of France,
the father-in-law of the deposed Richard,
74 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
refused to make peace with the usurper
Henry ; his fleet protected the Welsh coast,
and in 1405 a French army of 2,800 men
landed at Milford.
Owen struggled on, with waning power,
until his death in 1415. He came too soon
for success, while the power of the House of
Lancaster was increasing.
Of all figures in the history of Wales, that
of Owen Glendower is the most striking and
the most popular. The place of his grave is
unknown, his lineage and the date of his
death a matter of conjecture ; there is much
mystery about even his most brilliant years.
But his majestic figure, his wisdom, and his
ideals remained in the memory of his country.
His ghost wandered, it was said, around
Valle Crucis. His spirit, more than that of
any hero of the past, seems to follow his
people on their onward march. This is not
on account of his political ideals, but because
he was the champion of the peasant and of
education.
THE WARS OF THE ROSES 75
XVI
THE WARS OF THE ROSES
THE reign of Henry V. was a reign of
brilliant victories in France, and the reign
of Henry VI. one of disastrous defeats.
During both reigns the lords were becoming
more powerful in Wales as well as in England.
The hold of the king over them became
weaker every year ; they packed the Parlia-
ment, they appointed the Council, they over-
awed the law courts. If a man wanted
security, he must wear the badge of some
lord, and fight for him when called
upon to do so. In the marches of Wales
there were more than a hundred lords
holding castle and court ; and it was easy
for a robber or a murderer to escape from
one lordship to the other, or even to find
a welcome and protection. In Wales and
in the marches the lords preyed upon their
weaker neighbours, and the country became
full of private war.
The selfish families, all fighting for more
land and more power, gradually formed them-
selves into two parties the parties of the Red
76 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
Rose and of the White Rose. The leading
family in the Red Rose party was that of
Lancaster, represented by the saintly King
Henry VI.; the leading family in the
White Rose party was that of York. In
the Wars of the Roses, York and Lancaster
fought over the crown, and those who
supported them over a castle or an estate.
Wales was divided. The west was for
Lancaster, from Pembroke to Harlech, and
from Harlech to Anglesey. The east was
for York, from Cardiff and Raglan to
Wigmore, and from Wigmore to Chirk.
Lancaster held estates in Wales and on the
border the castles of Hereford, Skenfrith,
Ogmore, and Kidwelly being centres of
strength and wealth. York's chief country
was the march of Wales, with Ludlow as
its centre. The Welsh barons took sides
according to their interests. Jasper Tudor,
Earl of Pembroke, held the west for his half-
brother, the king. Sir William Herbert, who
was very powerful in the country south of
the Mortimers, took the side of his power-
ful neighbour. Others wavered, especially
Grey of Ruthin and the Stanleys in North
Wales.
One battle was fought between the Welsh
Yorkists and the Welsh Lancastrians, This
THE WARS OF THE ROSES 77
was the battle of Mortimer's Cross, near
Wigmore, in February 1461. The victor
was the young Duke of York, who was
crowned king as Edward IV. later in the
year. An old man, Owen Tudor, the
father of Jasper Tudor, and the grandfather
of the boy who was "to rule after them
all" as Henry VII., was taken prisoner.
They took him to Hereford, and there
they cut his head off and set it on the
market cross. The battles of the Wars of
the Roses were very cruel ones ; the noble
prisoners that had been taken, even children
of tender age, were murdered in cold blood
on the evening of the battle. " By God's
blood," said one, as he killed a child, "thy
father slew mine, and so will I do thee."
The Welsh barons led their men to nearly
all the important battles. North Wales
archers, wearing the three feathers of the
Prince of Wales, fought for Lancaster in
the snow at the great defeat of Towton on
the Palm Sunday of 1461 ; the archers of
Gwent, led by Herbert, fought vainly for
York at the battle of Edgecote, in the
summer of 1469. And the Welsh waverer
and traitor was seen in battle also Grey of
Ruthin led the van for Lancaster at the
battle of Northampton in 1460, and caused
78 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
the battle to be lost by deserting to York
at the beginning of the fighting. In Wales
itself, also, the war was fought bitterly ;
and the stubborn defence of Harlech for
the Lancastrians became famous through
the whole country. The last battle fought
between Lancaster and York was the
battle of Tewkesbury, in May 1471, and
Lancaster lost it ; the Prince of Wales,
the king's only son, was killed ; and his
heroic mother, Margaret of Anjou, gave
the struggle up. A young Welsh noble
Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond became
the Lancastrian heir. The fortunes of his
house were hopeless, however ; and his
uncle, Jasper, sent him in safety to Brittany.
The Yorkist kings, Edward IV. and
Richard III., in spite of cruelty and murder,
ruled well. They broke the power of the
barons, and they made the people rich
by maintaining peace, by repressing piracy,
by protecting the woollen industry of the
towns.
In Wales their rule was for peace and
order. They made a Court for Wales at
Ludlow, the home of their race. From
Ludlow they began to force the barons to
do justice and to obey the king. It seemed
as if the rule of the Yorkists was to be a
THE WARS OF THE ROSES 79
long one, for they were very popular in
London and the towns.
But the nobles were not willing to see
their power taken from them day by day.
Jasper Tudor appealed to the loyalty of the
Welsh, and the men of West Wales wanted
a king of their own blood ; for the laws
had been made unjust to them ever since
the time of Owen Glendower.
Many attempts were made, and they
failed. But at last, on August 7, 1485, the
fugitive Earl of Richmond came to Mil-
ford Haven. He marched on to the valley
of the Teivy, and he was joined by Sir
Rees ap Thomas, and an army of South
Wales men ; he journeyed on through the
valley of the Severn, and the North Wales
men joined him ; English nobles joined him
as he marched by Shrewsbury, Stafford,
Lichfield, and Tamworth. Richard's army
was also on the march. At Bosworth,
August 22, 1485, the two armies met in
the last battle of the Wars of the Roses.
Richard fought fiercely, wearing his crown ;
and when he was defeated and killed, the
crown was placed on Henry's head.
The people of England did not care who
ruled, Richard or Henry, as long as he kept
order, for they were very tired of civil war.
8o A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
But the people of Wales welcomed Henry
as a Welshman who would rule them
kindly and justly.
XVII
TUDOR ORDER
THE Tudors Henry VII., his son, Henry
VI II., and his three grandchildren, Edward
VI. and Mary and Elizabeth ruled England
and Wales from 1485 to 1603. Under them
the people became united, law-abiding,
patriotic, and prosperous. The Tudor period
is justly regarded as the most glorious in
British history, with its great statesmen, its
great adventurers, and its great poets.
The Tudors were loyally supported by
Wales, by the military strength of men
like Sir Rees ap Thomas or the Earl of
Pembroke, and by the diplomatic skill of
the Cecils. Under their rule hard and
unmerciful, but just and efficient the law
became strong enough to crush the mightiest
and to shield the weakest. Welshmen found
that, even under their own sovereigns, their
ancient language was regarded as a hindrance
TUDOR ORDER 8r
and their patriotism as a possible source of
trouble ; but they obtained the privileges of
an equal race, and they were pleased to
regard themselves as a dominant one.
They obtained equal political privileges.
The laws which denied them residence in
the garrison towns in Wales, or the holding
of land in England, came to an end. The
whole of the country, shire ground and march
ground, was divided into one system of
shires and given representation in Parlia-
ment, by the Act of Union of 1535. It
is called an Act of Union because, by it,
Wales and England were united on equal
terms.
Anglesey, Carnarvon, Merioneth, Flint,
Cardigan, and Carmarthen had been shires
since 1284 ; and small portions of Glamorgan
and Pembroke had been governed like
shires, so that some Tudor writers call
them counties. The chief difference be-
tween a shire and a lordship is that the
king's writ runs to the shire, but not to
the lordship. The king administers the
law in the shire, through the sheriff; the
lord administers the law in the lordship
through his own officials.
In 1535 the marches of Wales were turned
into shire ground. The bulk of them went
F
82 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
to make seven new shires Pembroke,
Glamorgan, Monmouth, Brecon, Radnor,
Montgomery, and Denbigh. The others
were added to the older English and Welsh
counties. Of these, those added to Shrop-
shire and Herefordshire and Gloucestershire
became part of England. Monmouth also
was declared to be an English shire, for
judicial purposes ; but it has remained
sturdily Welsh, and now it is practically
regarded by Parliament as part of Wales.
The whole country was now governed in
the same way, and Wales was represented,
like England, in Parliament. No attempt
had been made to do this before, except
by the first English Prince of Wales, the
weak and unfortunate Edward II.
Of even greater value than political equality
was the new reign of law. The Tudors used
the Star Chamber, the Court of Wales, and
the Great Sessions of Wales, to make all
equal before the law. To the Star Chamber
they summoned a noble who was still too
powerful for the court of law.
But it was the Court of Wales that did
most work. It was held at Ludlow. It had
very able presidents, men like Bishop Lee,
the Earl of Pembroke, and Sir Henry
Sidney. Bishop Lee struck terror into the
TUDOR ORDER 83
whole Welsh march, between 1534 and 1543.
Before his time a lord would keep murderers
and robbers at his castle, protect them, and
perhaps share their spoil. But no man could
keep a felon out of the reach of Bishop
Rowland Lee. If he could not get them
alive he got their dead bodies ; and you
might have seen processions of men carry-
ing sacks on ponies they were dead men
who were to swing on Ludlow gibbets. But,
severe as Lee was, the peasant was glad that
he could go to the Court at Ludlow instead
of going to the court of a march lord, as
he had to do before 1535. The shire had
been much better governed than the lord-
ship. When the lordship of Mawddwy was
added to the shire of Merioneth in 1535,
the officers of the shire found that it was a
nest of brigands and outlaws.
In the more peaceful and humane days of
Queen Elizabeth, Sir Henry Sidney became
President of the Court of Wales. He was
one of the best men of the day ; and he was
proud of ruling Wales and the border
counties, "a third part of this realm,"
because his high office made him able " to
do good every day."
Besides the Court of Wales for the whole
country, a court of justice was held in each
84 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
of four groups of shires ; and these courts
were called the Great Sessions of Wales.
So, though the law was the same for every-
body, Wales had a separate system to itself,
partly because there was so much to do, and
partly because the central courts in London
were so far away. Much was also done to
get wise and learned justices of the peace,
and fair juries.
By the end of the reign of Elizabeth, the
last of the Tudors, one may say that Wales
rejoiced in the following :
1. There was no hatred between England
and Wales ; the Welsh gentry served the
Queen on land and sea, and the people were
more happy and contented than they had
been since the time of Llywelyn.
2. There was no danger of private war
between lords, to which the peasant might
be summoned. The brigands which infested
parts of the country had been cleared away.
3. The law of land had been fixed. It
was determined that land was to go to the
eldest son, according to the English fashion.
All the land became the property of some
landlord, and it was decided who was a
landowner, and who was not. The Welsh
freemen were held to own their land ; the
Welsh serfs, the descendants of an old
THE REFORMATION $5
conquered race, sometimes became owners
and sometimes tenants. They all thought
that Henry VII., the Welsh victor of
Bosworth, had set them free.
4. The Tudors trusted their people, and
called upon them to govern and to administer
justice themselves. The squires were to be
justices, the freemen were to be jurors ; the
shire was to look after the militia, and the
parish after the poor.
XVIII
THE REFORMATION
THE Reformation in England was, to begin
with, a purely political movement. Henry
VIII. wished to rule his people in his own
way, in religion as well as in politics ; and,
eventually, he became Supreme Head of the
Church as well as the king of the country.
His new power brought changes. It was
necessary to reform the Church, and the
wealth of the monasteries tempted him to
do it. There was a new spirit of enquiry,
and the King was led on by that spirit,
with dilatory and hesitating steps, to examine
86 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
old creeds. The religious fervour of the
Reformation had caught the people ; and
the King stood still, if he did not turn back.
But his ministers had no misgivings.
Thomas Cromwell tried to hurry the Refor-
mation on the monasteries were dissolved,
the Bible was translated, and the sway of
Rome was disowned. The king appointed
the bishops, decided church cases, and even
determined what the creed of his country
was to be. Somerset, in the reign of
Edward VI., made the movement a doctrinal
one, and forced it on with equal vigour.
Wales looked on, with indifference and
apathy at first, and then with murmurs.
The movement had no attraction : it had
many causes of offence. In England the
political movement became a patriotic,
an intellectual, and a religious movement ;
and it succeeded. In Ireland, also, it
was political, but it could not appeal to
patriotism, because it was an English
movement ; and it failed. In Wales, it
was neither welcomed nor opposed ; it was
simply tolerated, and with a bad grace.
For one thing, it brought English instead
of Latin into public worship. Latin, the old
language of prayer and even of sermon, was
venerated, though not understood. But
THE REFORMATION 87
English was not only not understood, it was
also regarded as inferior to Welsh. The
Tudors' dislike of various tongues was as
strong as their dislike of various jurisdic-
tions. Henry VIII., in giving Welshmen
the Act of 1535, says that the tongue of
Owen Tudor is " nothing like ne consonant
to I the natural mother-tongue used within
this realm," and enacts that all officials in
Wales shall speak English. And, in the
same spirit, the Welshman was told that the
Kingdom of Heaven was now open to him,
but that he must seek it in English, or not
at all.
Again, the reformers men of the type of
Bishop Barlow despised and shocked a
people they never understood. The sanctity
of St David's, the theme of the best poets of
the Middle Ages and the goal of generations
of pilgrims, was described by its Protestant
bishop who unroofed the palace in order to
get the lead as a desolate angle frequented
only by vagabond pilgrims. A Welshman
is not appealed to by what is an insult to his
country and a shock to his religion at the
same time. The relics were ruthlessly swept
away ; they were taken possession of by the
agents of Cromwell and destroyed, or sent
to London. The images carried in the
88 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
village processions were lost the images
that could keep the superstitious Welshman
from hell, or even bring him back from it, or
heal his diseases, or keep his cattle from the
murrain, and his crops from blight. I only
know of one of those relics that can still
be seen. It is the healing cup of Nant Eos,
a mere fragment of wood. The people's
faith in the relics can be estimated from the
fact that the cup has been used within the
last century.
Again, the monasteries were dissolved.
The wealth of the monasteries, their meadows
and barns and sheep-runs and fish ponds,
were coveted by the rich ; the poor thought
of them as sources of alms. The monks
were good landlords ; and they gave freely,
not only the comforts of religion, but of their
medicinal herbs and stores of food. The
Welsh monasteries were not so rich as those
of England, and they were all dissolved
among the lesser monasteries those with
an income under ^200 a year. But though
none of them were very rich, they nearly all
had almost ^200 a year. Their loss affected
the whole country, as each part of Wales
had one or two of them Tintern, Margam,
Neath, and Whitland in the south ; Strata
Florida, Cwm Hir, Ystrad Marchell, and the
THE REFORMATION 89
Vanner in central Wales ; and Basingwerk
and Maenan in the north.
The Reformation brought the poorer
classes in Wales, not only insults to their
national and religious feelings, but material
loss. It appealed only to the English
bishops who had adopted the new Protestant
tenets, and to the Welsh and English land-
owners who had lost their reverence for
relics, and had learnt to hunger for land.
The movement was a severe strain on
the loyalty of the Welshman to the Tudors,
but he had learnt to look to the king for
guidance, and he suffered in silence. Mary
was welcomed, and no Welsh blood was
shed for the Protestant faith. The passive
resistance to the Reformation might have
broken out into a rebellion if a leader had
come.
In Elizabeth's reign two attempts were
made to disturb the religious settlement.
One was made by the Jesuits the wonderful
society established to check the Reformation
movement and to lead a reaction against it.
In 1583 John Bennett came to North Wales ;
in 1595 Robert Jones came to Raglan; and
several Welsh Jesuits suffered martyrdom.
The other attempt was that of John Penry,
who wished to appeal to the intellect of the
$0
people by means of the pulpit and the print-
ing press. The apostle of the new creed
was crushed, like those who wished to revive
the old ; he was put to death as a traitor
m *593 after a short life of importunate
pleading that he might preach the Gospel in
Wales.
Before the end of the reign of Elizabeth,
however, the Welsh language was recognised.
The last school founded, that of Ruthin in
1595, was to have a master who could teach
and preach in Welsh. And in 1588 there
had appeared, by the help of Archbishop
Whitgift, the Welsh Bible of William
Morgan. It was the appearance of this
Bible that aroused the first real welcome to
the Reformation. But the Reformation that
gave England a Spenser and a Shakespeare
aroused no new Itfe in Wales, not a single
hymn or a single prayer.
XIX
THE CIVIL WAR
AFTER the Tudors came the Stuarts. The
Tudors did what their people wanted ; the
THE CIVIL WAR 91
king and the people, between them, crushed
the nobles. The Stuarts did what they
thought right, and they did not try to please
the people. Under the Tudors, there was
harmony between Crown and Parliament ;
and Elizabeth left a prosperous people with
strong views about their rights and their
religion. But James I., and especially his
son Charles I., tried to change law and
religion. From the Tudor period of unity,
then, we come to the Stuart period of
strife.
From 1603 to 1642 the struggle went on
in Parliament. The Welsh Members nearly
all supported the king, and the Welsh people
followed the Welsh gentry in strong loyalty.
The most famous Welshman of the period
was John Williams, who became Archbishop
of York and Lord Keeper. He was a wise
man ; he saw that both sides were a little in
the wrong ; and if any one could have kept
the peace between them, he could have done
it. But the king did not quite trust him,
and the Parliament almost despised him ;
and this happens often to wise men who
get between two angry parties.
From 1642 to 1646, the First Civil War
was waged. This was a war between the
king and the Parliament over taxation,
92 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
militia, and religion. The south-east, and
London especially, were for Parliament ; the
wilder parts, especially Wales, were for the
king. The only important part of Wales
that declared for Parliament was the southern
part of Pembrokeshire, which had been
English ever since the reign of Henry II.
Wales was important to the king for two
reasons. For one thing, it could give him
an army, and he came, time after time, to
get a new one. When he unfurled his
flag and began the war at Nottingham in
1642, he came to Shrewsbury, and there five
thousand Welshmen joined him. With
these and others he marched against
London, fighting the battle of Edgehill on
the way. While the king made many
attempts to get London until 1644, an d
while the New Model army attacked him
between 1645 and 1647, the Welsh fought
in nearly all his battles, their infantry suffer-
ing heavily in the two greatest battles,
Marston Moor and Naseby. The war went
on in Wales itself also Rupert and Gerard
being the chief Royalist leaders, and Middleton
and Michael Jones being the chief Parlia-
mentary ones. No great battles were fought,
but there were several skirmishes, and much
taking and retaking of castles and towns.
THE CIVIL WAR 93
Wales was important to the king, also,
because it commanded the two ways to
Ireland. The King thought, almost to the
last, that an Irish army would save him.
Welsh garrisons held the two ports for
Ireland, Chester and Bristol. Bristol was
stormed by a great midnight assault, and
Chester was forced to yield. In March
1647 Harlech yielded, and the war came
to an end. By that time the king was a
prisoner in the hands of the army.
The Second Civil War, in 1648 and 1649,
was a struggle between the two sections of
the victorious army. The Parliament wished
to establish one religion, the army said that
every man must be allowed to worship God
as he liked. One was called the Presbyterian
ideal, the other the Independent. The army
was led by Cromwell, and Parliament was
overawed. Then the Presbyterian parts
rose in revolt Kent, Pembrokeshire, and
the lowlands of Scotland. The New Model
army marched against the Welsh, in order
to break the connection between the northern
and southern Presbyterians. The Welsh
generals were Laugharne, Poyer, and Powell,
who had all fought for Parliament in the
first war. They were defeated at St Pagans,
near Cardiff, and then driven into Pembroke.
94 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
They determined to hold out to the last
within its walls. Cromwell besieged them,
and the great feature of the war was the
siege of Pembroke. Walls and castles like
those of Pembroke had become useless
because of gunpowder. But Cromwell could
not at once bring his guns so far. His
difficulties were increasing daily : the Parlia-
ment was trying to come to terms with the
king, all Wales around him was disaffected,
the Scotch had crossed the border and were
marching on London. After many weeks of
assaults and desperate defence, the guns
came and the old walls were battered down.
Pembroke Castle, whose great round tower
still stands, had protected William Marshall
against Llywelyn and had enabled an im-
portant district to remain a "little England
beyond Wales," was the last mediaeval castle
to take an important part in war. The
Scotch were soon defeated at the battle of
Preston, and the king was brought to trial
and put to death, the death-warrant being
signed by two Welshmen John Jones of
Merioneth and Thomas Wogan of Cardigan.
The date of Charles' execution is January 20,
1649.
The Commonwealth was established im-
mediately, and Wales was looked upon with
THE CIVIL WAR 95
much distrust the Presbyterian parts and
the Royalist parts by the new Government.
It was represented in the English Parlia-
ments, it is true, but its representatives were
often English, and practically appointed by
the Government. When the country was
put under the military dictatorship of the
major-generals, Harrison was sent to rule
Wales.
Honest attempts were made to give it
an efficient clergy ; but the zeal of Vavasour
Powel aroused much opposition. Wales
either clung tenaciously to its old religion ;
or, if it changed it, the changes were
extreme. Though the country generally
returned to its old life and thought at the
Restoration in 1660, much of the new life
of the Commonwealth remained : congrega-
tions of Independents still met ; Quaker
ideals survived all persecution ; and even
the mysticism of Morgan Lloyd permeated
the slowly awakening thought of the peasants
whom, in his dreams, he saw welcoming the
second advent of Christ,
96 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
XX
THE GREAT REVOLUTION
EXCEPT to the reader who is of a legal or
antiquarian turn of mind, the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries are the least interest-
ing in the history of Wales the very
centuries that are the most glorious and
the most stirring in the history of England.
The older historians stop when they come
to the year 1284, and sometimes give a
hasty outline of a few rebellions up to 1535.
They then give the Welsh a glowing testi-
monial as a law - abiding and loyal people,
and find them too uninteresting to write
any more about them.
The history of Wales does, indeed, appear
to be nothing more than the gradual dis-
appearance of Welsh institutions. The
Court of Wales was restored with the king
in 1 660 ; but its work had been done, and
it came to an end in 1689. The Great
Sessions came to an end in 1830 ; and, though
we now see that their disappearance was
a mistake, the bill abolishing them passed
THE GREAT REVOLUTION 97
through Parliament without a division.
The last difference between England and
Wales was deleted ; and if Wales has no
separate existence left, why should we write
or read its history?
Because the two centuries of apparent
settlement and sleep were the period of a
silent revolution, more important, if our aim
is to explain the living present rather than
the dead past, than all the exciting plots
and battles of the House of Cunedda from
the rise of Maelgwn to the fall of the last
Llywelyn. During these centuries, the
history of Wales ceases to be the history of
princes and nobles, it becomes the history of
the people. Owen Glendower's few years
of power were a kind of prophecy ; but
Owen once appeared to the abbot of Valle
Crucis, so tradition says, to declare that
he had come before his time. We pass
then, very gradually, from the history of a
privileged class, speaking literary Welsh,
with a literature famous for the wealth of
its imagination and the artistic beauty of
its form we pass on to the history of a
peasantry, rude and ignorant at first, retain-
ing the servile traits of centuries of sub-
jection, but gradually becoming self-reliant,
prosperous, and thoughtful.
98 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
The real history of a nation is shown by
its literature. Its records and its chronicles
are but the notes and comments of various
ages. In the period of the princes and
nobles, you can trace the rise and decline
of a great literature ; watch how it gathers
strength and beauty from Cynddelw to
Dafydd ap Gwilym, and how the strength
begins to fail and the beauty to wane, from
Dafydd ap Gwilym to Tudur Aled. In the
period of the people, from Tudor times on,
the peasants tried at first to imitate the
poetry of the past ; then they began to
write and think in their own way. It is
not my aim to explain the periods of Welsh
literature now ; I am going to do that in
another book. But, as I have mentioned
three typical poets in the period of the
princes, I will also mention three poets in
the period of the people.
In 1579 Rees Prichard was born ; in 1717,
Williams Pant y Celyn ; in 1832, Islwyn.
We have, in these three, writers typical of
the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth
centuries respectively. Rees Prichard, still
affectionately remembered in every Welsh
home as the "Old Vicar," wrote stanzas
in the dialect of the Vale of Towy rough,
full of peasant phrases and mangled English
THE GREAT REVOLUTION 99
words ; and he wrote them, not in books,
but on the memory of the people. In
the same valley, a century later, Williams
Pant y Celyn wrote hymns, melodious and
inspiring, of great poetic beauty, though
with a trace of dialect ; they were written
and published, but they also haunted every
ear that heard them. Beyond the Black
Mountains, in the hills of West Monmouth,
after another century, Islwyn wrote odes
without a trace of dialect ; they were written
and remained for some time in manuscript ;
when published, they met with a welcome
which shows clearly that Islwyn is the
typical poet of modern Welsh thought. If
you wish to see and realise the rise of the
Welsh peasant, pass from the homely stanzas
of the good Old Vicar's Welshmen s Candle
to the poetic theology of Pant y Celyn, and
from that to the poetic philosophy of Islwyn,
where concentrated intensity of thought is
expressed in a style that is, at any rate
at its best, superior to the best work of the
poets of the princes.
If I were to tell you the reasons for this
change, I would be writing, in a slightly
different form, what I have already written
in this book about early Welsh history.
The fall of Llywelyn, the Black Death,
ioo A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
Owen Glendower's ideals and the Tudor
legislation, all prepared the way.
The long-bow and gunpowder, we have
seen, made the peasant as important as the
noble in war. The long-bow made the coat
of mail useless, gunpowder made the castle
useless the defence of the privileges of the
Middle Ages departed.
Ideas of equality were advanced. They
were looked upon at first as truths applicable
only to a perfect and impossible condition,
and their discoverers were ignored, if not
hanged or burnt. But they always became
a reality, and were victorious in the end.
Take the truths discovered or championed
by Welshmen. Walter Brute rediscovered
the theory of justification by faith that all
men are equal in the sight of God, and that
no lord could be responsible for them. Bishop
Pecock advocated the doctrine of toleration
that reason, not persecution, should rule.
John Penry claimed that the people had a
right to discuss publicly the questions that
vitally affected them. The history of the
past shows that the apostles were con-
demned, the life of the present shows that
their ideas lived.
Industry and commerce became more
free. In Tudor times piracy was repressed,
THE GREAT REVOLUTION 101
the march lordships were abolished, the
privileges of the towns ceased to fetter
manufacture, trade with England became
free. In Stuart times roads were made,
the industries depending on wool revived,
and the industries of Britain began to
move westwards towards the iron and the
coal. In the Hanoverian period waste
lands were enclosed, the slate mines of the
north and the coal pits of the south were
opened.
The Tudors succeeded in getting the
upper classes to speak English, and to turn
their backs on Welsh life. The peasant
was left supreme : he knew not what to do
at first, but light soon came.
Pass through Wales, and you will see the
life of both periods the ruined castles and the
ruined monasteries of the old ; the quarries
and pits, the towns and ports, the churches
and chapels, the schools and colleges of the
present.
102 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
XXI
HOWEL HARRIS
IT is difficult to write about religion with-
out giving offence. Religion will come into
politics, and must come into history. It has
given much, perhaps most, of its strength
to modern Wales ; it has given it many, if
not most, of its political difficulties.
There are periods of religious calm and
periods of religious fervour in the life of
every nation. I do not know whether it is
necessary, but it is certainly the fact the
two periods condemn each other with great
energy. With regard to creed the life of
religion you will find that the periods of
energy tend to be Calvinistic an intense
belief that man is a mere instrument in
the hands of God, working out plans he
does not understand ; while in periods of
rest it tends to be Arminian a comfortable
belief that man sees his future clearly, and
that he can guide it as he likes. With
regard to the Church the body of religion
it is fortunate, in times of calm, if it is
established, to keep the spirit of religion
HOWEL HARRIS 103
alive ; it is fortunate, in times of fervour, if
it is free, in order that the new life may
give it a more perfect shape.
Now we must remember that there can
be no calm without a little indifference, and
that there can be no enthusiasm without a
little intolerance. So men call each other
fanatics and bigots and hypocrites, because
they have not taken the trouble to realise
that there is much variety in human char-
acter and in the workings of the human
mind. Perhaps it is also worth remember-
ing that an institution is not placed at the
mercy of a reformer, but gradually changed.
The eighteenth century was a century of
indifference in religion in Wales, the nine-
teenth century was a century of enthusi-
asm. The Church at the beginning of
the eighteenth century, at any rate as far
as the higher clergy were concerned, was
apathetic to religion, and alive only to
selfish interests. The Whig bishops were
appointed for political reasons ; they hated
the Tory principles of the Welsh squires,
and they neglected and despised the Welsh
people they had never tried to understand.
In England, the Defoes and the Swifts of
literature were encouraged and utilised by
the political parties ; in Wales, where clergy-
104 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
men were the only writers, the Whig bishops
distrusted them, and silenced them where
they could, because they wrote Welsh. The
Church did not show more misapplication of
revenue than the State, perhaps ; but, while
the people could not leave the State as a
protest against corruption, they could leave
the Church. And, during the middle of
the eighteenth century, a great national
awakening began.
The trumpet blast of the awakening was
Howel Harris. He was a Breconshire
peasant, of strong passion which became
sanctified by a life-long struggle, of devour-
ing ambition which he nearly succeeded in
taming to a life of intense service to God.
Many bitter things have been said about
him, but nothing more bitter than he has
said about himself in the volumes of prayers
and recriminations he wrote to torture his
own soul, and to goad himself into harder
work. The fame of his eloquence filled
the land, and districts expected his appear-
ance anxiously, as in old times they ex-
pected Owen Glendower. Howel Harris
was, however, no political agitator. He had
an imperious will, and he wished to rule his
brethren ; he was aggressive and military in
spirit ; God to him was the Lord of Hosts ;
HOWEL HARRIS 105
he preached the gospel of peace in the
uniform of an officer of the militia, and he
sent many of his converts to fight abroad
in the battles of the century. He had
a love of organisation ; he established at
Trevecca what was partly a religious com-
munity, and partly a co - operative manu-
facturing company. But, wherever he stood
to proclaim the wrath of God, no shower
of stones or condemnation of minister or
justice could make those who heard him
forget him, or believe that what he said
was wrong.
If I were writing for antiquarians, and not
for those who read history in order to see
why things are now as they are, I would
write details important and instructive
about the Church of the eighteenth century,
and about the congregations of Dissenters
which the seventeenth century handed over
to the eighteenth to persecute and despise.
The Independents and Baptists sturdily main-
tained their principles of religious liberty, but
they found the century a stiff-necked one,
and their congregations were content with
merely existing. The Quakers maintained
that war was wrong while Britain passed
through war fever after war fever the
Seven Years' War and the wars against
106 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
Napoleon. Howel Harris' voice might
have been a voice crying in the wilderness,
if it had not been for the spiritual life of
the existing congregations, conformist and
dissenting. Modern ideas in Wales have
been profoundly affected by the Quakers,
and especially in districts from which, as a
sect, they have long passed away.
The voice of Howel Harris called all
these to a new life ; and it is about that
new life, in the variety given it by all the
different actors in it, that I want you to
think now. It made preaching necessary,
for one thing ; and it was followed by a
century of great pulpit oratory. It pro-
foundly affected literature. It gave Wales,
to begin with, a hymn literature that no
country in the world has surpassed. The )
contrast between the Reformation and the I
Revival is very striking one gave the
people a Church government established by
law and a literature of translations, the
other gave it institutions of its own making
and original living thought. The Revival
gave literature in every branch a new -
strength and greater wealth.
It created a demand for education. Griffith
Jones of Llanddowror established a system
of circulating schools, the teachers moving
THE REFORM ACTS 107
from place to place as a room was offered
them sometimes a church and sometimes
a barn. Charles of Bala established a
system of Sunday Schools, and the whole
nation gradually joined it. The Press
became active, newspapers appeared. It
became quite clear that a new life throbbed
in the land.
XXII
THE REFORM ACTS
THE new life brought an inevitable demand
for a share in the government of the country,
and this brought the old order and the
new face to face. The political power was
entirely in the hands of the squires, alienated
from the peasants in many cases by a
difference of language, and in most cases
by a difference of religion.
The Act of 1535 had, as we have seen,
given Wales a representation in Parliament.
Each shire had one member only ; except
Monmouth, which had two. Each shire
town had one member, except that of
Merioneth ; and Haverfordwest was given
io8 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
a member. The county franchise was the
forty shilling freehold ; it therefore excluded
not only those who had no connection with
the land, but the copyholder who was
really a landowner, but whose tenure was
regarded as base, on account of his villein
origin. This copyholder was undoubtedly
the descendant of the Welsh serf of mediaeval
times.
The first Preform Act, that of 1832, was
won for the great manufacturing towns of
England, but Wales benefited by it. It
extended the franchise to the copyholder,
and to the farmer paying ^50 rent, in the
counties ; it gave the towns a uniform 10
household franchise. It also brought many
of the towns into the system of representa-
tion. It raised the number of members
from twenty-seven to thirty-two ; the agri-
cultural districts getting two, and the mining
districts two.
The slight change in representation is a
recognition of the growing industries of the
country, especially in the coal and iron
districts. The coal of the great coalfield
of South Wales had been worked as far
back as Norman times ; but it was in the
nineteenth century that the coal and iron
industries of South Wales, and the coal
PARLIAMENTARY REFORM IN WALES
GLAMORGAN . . .
By the Act of 1535.
i County Member .
i Member for Cardiff
MONMOUTH . . .
CARMARTHEN . .
PEMBROKE . . ,
CARDIGANSHIRE .
BRECONSHIRE . .
RADNORSHIRE . .
MONTGOMERYSHIRE
MERIONETHSHIRE .
DENBIGHSHIRE . .
FLINTSHIRE . . .
CARNARVONSHIRE
ANGLESEY , . .
2 County Members . . .
i Member for Monmouth .
i County Member . . .
i Member for Carmarthen
i County Member . . .
i Member for Pembroke .
i Member for Haverford-
west . . .
i County Member . .
i Member for Cardigan
i County Member
i Member for Brecon
i County Member .
i Member for Radnor
i County Member . . .
i Member for Montgomery
i County Member .
i County Member
i Member for Denbigh
i County Member
i Member for Flint .
i County Member . .
i Member for Carnarvon
i County Member . .
j Member for Beaumaris
By the Act of 1833.
2 County Members
i Member for Cardiff,
Cowbridge, and Llan-
trisant
i Member for Swansea,
Loughor, Neath, Aber-
avon, and Kenfig.
1 Member for Merthyr
TydviL
2 County Members
1 Member for Monmouth
2 County Members
i Member for Carmarthen
and Llanelly
I County Member
i Member for Pembroke,
Tenby, Wiston, Milford
i Member for Haverford-
west, Nar berth, Fish-
guard
i County Member
i Member for Cardigan,
Aberystwyth, Adpar,
and Lampeter
i County Member
i Member for Brecon
i County Member
i Member for Radnor,
Knighton, Rhayadr,
Cefnllys, Knucklas,
Presteign
I County Member
i Member for Montgomery,
Llanidloes, Machynlleth,
Newtown, Welshpool,
Llanfyllin
1 County Member
2 County Members
i Member for Denbigh,
Ruthin, Holt, Wrexham
i County Member
i Member for Flint,
Rhuddlan, St Asaph,
Mold, Holywell,
Caerwys, Caergwrle,
Overton
i County Member
i Member for Carnarvon,
Conway, Bangor, Nevin,
Pwllheli, Criccieth
i County Member
i Member for Beaumaris,
Llangefni, Amlwch,
and Holyhead
I io A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
and slate industries of North Wales became
important. Cardiff, Swansea, and Newport
became important ports ; and places that
few had ever heard of before like Ystrady-
fodwg or Blaenau Ffestiniog became the
centres of important industries.
But, in 1832, Wales was still mainly
pastoral and agricultural ; and the Act,
though it did much for the towns, left the
representation of the counties in the hands of
the same class. Still, it was the towns that
showed disappointment, as was seen in the
Chartism of the wool district of Llanidloes
and of the coal district of Newport.
The second Reform Act, of 1867, gave
Merthyr Tydvil two representatives instead
of one, otherwise it left the distribution of
seats as it had been before. But the new
extension of the franchise to the borough
householder, the borough 10 lodger, and
especially the 12 tenant farmer gave new
classes political power. It was followed by
a fierce struggle between the old landed
gentry and their tenants, a struggle which
was moderated to a certain extentb y the
Ballot Act of 1870, and by the great
migration of the country population to the
slate and coal districts.
The rapid rise of the importance of the
THE REFORM ACTS in
industrial districts is seen in the third
Reform Act of 1885. The country districts
represented by the small boroughs of the
agricultural counties of Brecon, Cardigan,
Pembroke, and Anglesey, were wholly or
partly disfranchised. But the slate county of
Carnarvonshire had an additional member ;
and in the coal and iron country, Swansea
and Carmarthenshire and Monmouthshire
had one additional member each, and
Glamorgan three.
The third Reform Act enfranchised the
agricultural labourer and the country artisan.
In England many doubts were expressed
about the intelligence or the colour of the
politics of the new voter ; but, in Wales,
most would admit that he was as intelligent
as any voter enfranchised before him ; all
knew there could be no doubt about his
politics.
The character of the representation of
Wales has entirely changed. The squire
gave place to the capitalist, and the capitalist
to popular leaders. Wales, whose people
blindly followed the gentry in the Great
Civil War, is now the most democratic part
of Britain.
M2 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
XXIII
EDUCATION
THE chief feature of the history of Wales
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
is the growth of a system of education.
The most democratic, the most perfect,
and the most efficient method is still that of
the Sunday School. It was well established
before the death of Charles of Bala, whose
name is most closely connected with it, in
1814. It soon became, and it still remains, a
school for the whole people, from children to
patriarchs. Its language is that of its district.
Its teachers are selected for efficiency they
are easily shifted to the classes which they can
teach best ; and, if not successful, they go back
willingly to the "teachers' class," where all
are equal. The reputation of a good Sunday
School teacher is still the highest degree that
can be won in Wales. Plentiful text books
of high merit, and an elaborate system of
oral and written examinations, mark the last
stage in its development.
The Literary Meeting is a kind of secular
Sunday School. The rules of alliterative
EDUCATION 113
poetry and the study of Welsh literature
and history, and sometimes of more general
knowledge, take the place of the study of
Jewish history, and psalm, and gospel. The
Literary Meetings feed the Eisteddvod.
The Eisteddvod passed through the same
phases as the nation. It was an aspect of
the court of the prince during the Middle
Ages. In Tudor times it was used partly
to please the people, but chiefly to regulate
the bards by forcing them to qualify for
a degree a sure method of moderating
their patriotism and of diminishing their
number. .In modern times the Eisteddvod
is a great democratic meeting, and it is the
most characteristic of all Welsh institutions.
Its chairing of the bards is an ancient
ceremony ; its gorsedd of bards is probably
modern. But the people themselves still
remain the judges of poetry ; they care very
little whether a poet has won a chair or not,
while a gorsedd degree probably does him
more harm than good.
Elementary education, in its modern sense,
began with the circulating schools of Griffith
Jones of Llanddowror in 1730. They were
exceedingly successful because the instruction
was given in Welsh, and they stopped after
teaching 150,000 to read, not because there
H
114 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
was no demand for them, but on account
of a dispute about their endowments in
1779, eighteen years after Griffith Jones'
death. They were followed by voluntary
schools, very often kept by illiterate teachers.
Between 1846 and 1848 two organisations
the Welsh Education Committee and the
Cambrian Society were formed ; and they
developed, respectively, the national schools
and the British schools. After the Education
Act of 1870, the schools became voluntary
or Board ; education gradually became com-
pulsory and free ; and in 1902 an attempt was
made to give the whole system a unity and
to connect it with the ordinary system of
local government.
The training of teachers became a matter of
the highest importance. In 1846 a college
for this purpose was established at Brecon,
and then removed to Swansea. From 1848
to 1862, colleges were established at Car-
marthen, Carnarvon, and Bangor.
The history of secondary education is
longer. It was served, after the dissolution
of the monasteries, by endowed schools
like that of the Friars at Bangor and by
proprietary schools. By the Education Act of
1889, a complete system of secondary schools,
under popular control, was established. Two
EDUCATION 115
of the endowed schools still remain Brecon,
founded by the religionists of the Reforma-
tion, and Llandovery, the Welsh school
founded by a patriot of modern times.
It was principally for the ministry of
religion that secondary schools and colleges
were first established. Schools were founded
in many districts, and important colleges
at Lampeter (degree-granting), Carmarthen,
Brecon, Bala, Trevecca, Pontypool, Llan-
gollen, Haverfordwest. Many of these have
a long history.
Higher education had been the dream
of many centuries. Owen Glendower had
thought of establishing two new universities
at the beginning of the period of the Revival
of Letters ; among his supporters were many
of the Welsh students who led in the great
faction fights of mediaeval Oxford. Oliver
Cromwell and Richard Baxter had thought
of Welsh higher education. But nothing
was done. In the eighteenth century, and
in the nineteenth until 1870, the Test Act
shut the doors of the old Universities to
most Welshmen ; the new University of
London did not teach, it only examined ;
the Scotch Universities, to which Welsh
students crowded, were very far. In 1872,
chiefly through the exertions of Sir Hugh
n6 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
Owen, the University College of Wales was
opened at Aberystwyth, and maintained for
ten years by support from the people. The
Government helped, and two new colleges
were added the University College of
South Wales at Cardiff in 1883, and the
University College of North Wales at
Bangor in 1884. In 1893 Queen Victoria
gave a charter which formed the three
colleges into the University of Wales. Lord
Aberdare, its first Chancellor, lived to see
it in thorough working order. On Lord
Aberdare 's death, the Prince of Wales was
elected Chancellor in 1896 ; and when he
ascended the throne in 1901, the present
Prince of Wales became Chancellor.
The tendency of the whole system of
Welsh education is towards greater unity.
There is a dual government of the secondary
schools and of the colleges, the one by
the Central Board and the other by the
University Court a historical accident
which is now a blemish on the system.
The Training Colleges are still outside the
University, but they are gravitating rapidly
towards it. The theological colleges are
necessarily independent, but the University
offers their students a course in arts, so
that they can specialise on theology and its
LOCAL GOVERNMENT 117
kindred subjects. The ideal system is : an
efficient and patriotic University regula-
ting the whole work of the secondary and
elementary schools, guided by the willing-
ness of the County Councils, or of an
education authority appointed by them, to
provide means.
The rise of the educational system is
the most striking and the most interesting
chapter in Welsh history. But the facts
are so numerous and the development is
so sudden that, in spite of one, it becomes
a mere list of acts and dates.
XXIV
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
THE French Revolution was condemned by
Britain, and the voices raised in its favour
in Wales were few. The excesses of the
Revolution, and the widespread fear of a
Napoleonic invasion, caused a strong reaction
against progress. The years immediately
after 1815 were years of great suffering, but
the very suffering prepared the way for the
progress of the future, because it made men
ii8 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
willing to leave their own districts and to
move into the coal and slate districts, where
wages were high enough to enable them
to live.
The first demand was for political enfran-
chisement. In 1832, in 1867, and in 1884
the franchise was extended, and every interest
found a voice in Parliament. But, with the
exception of the sharp struggle between the
tenant and landlord after the Reform Act
of 1867, the effects of enfranchisement on
Wales have been very few. Two Acts alone
have been passed as purely Welsh Acts the
Sunday Closing Act, and the Intermediate
Education Act. In Parliament, the voice
of Wales is weak even though unanimous ;
it can be outvoted by the capital or by
four English provincial towns. Until quite
recently its semi - independence due to
geography and past history was looked
upon as a source of weakness to the Empire
rather than of strength. Its love for the
past appeals to the one political party, its
desire for progress to the other, but its
distinctive ideals and its separate language
are looked upon, at the very least, as political
misfortunes. Education and justice have
suffered from official want of toleration ; the
appointment of a County Court judge who
LOCAL GOVERNMENT 119
could not speak Welsh, within living memory,
has been justified by Government on the
ground that Englishmen resident in Wales
object to being tried by a Welsh judge.
Far more important to Wales than the
Reform Acts are the Local Government
Acts which followed them. When the
Reform Act of 1884 added the agricultural
labourer to the electors of representatives
in Parliament, every interest had a voice.
A further extension of the franchise would
not affect the balance of parties, it was
thought ; and a British Parliament has no
time or desire to think of sentiment or
theoretical perfection. The Parliament found
it had too much to do, the multiplicity of
interests made it impossible to pay effective
attention to them. The result has been that
half a century of extension of the franchise
has been followed by half a century of ex-
tension of local government. The County
Council Act came in 1888, and the Local
Government Act in 1894.
Of all parts of Britain, Wales had least
local government, and needed most. Its
justices of the peace were alien in religion,
race, and sympathy ; they were either country
squires who had lost touch with the people,
or English and Scotch capitalists who, with
120 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
rare exceptions, took no trouble to under-
stand the people they governed, or to learn
their language. The vestry meeting had
been active enough during the early part
of the eighteenth century ; but religious
difficulties made it impossible for a semi-
ecclesiastical institution to represent a parish.
The Tudor policy had separated the people
from the greater land-owners ; the iron masters
and coal-owners had not yet become part
of the people ; there was not a single institu-
tion except the Eisteddvod where all classes
met.
In no part of the country was local
government so warmly welcomed, and no
part of the country was more ready for it.
One thing the peasants had been allowed
to do they could build schools and colleges,
churches and chapels. They had filled the
country with these their architecture,
finance, government, are those of the peasant.
The religious revivals had left organisers
and institutions. Four or five religious
bodies had a system of institutions parish,
district, county, central. All these were
thoroughly democratic in character. When
the Local Government Acts were passed,
there was hardly a Welshman of full age
and average ability who had not been a
LOCAL GOVERNMENT 121
delegate or in authority ; and those of strik-
ing ability, if they could afford the time,
continually sat in some little council or other
and watched over the interests of some
institution.
It was from among these trained men that
the councillors for the new county, district,
and parish senates were elected. The
work of the councils, especially that of the
County Council, has been very difficult ;
and when the time comes to write their
history, the historian will have to set him-
self to explain why the first councils were
served by men who had extraordinary tact
for government and great skill in financial
matters. In the lower councils the village
Hampden's eloquence is modified by the
chilling responsibility for the rates, but the
Parish Councils have already, in many places,
made up for the negligence of generations of
sleepy magistrates and officials.
With a great difference, it is true, Wales
under local government is Wales back again
in the times of the princes. The parish is
roughly the maenol, the district is the com-
mote or the cantrev, the shire is the little
kingdom like Ceredigion or Morgannwg
which fought so sturdily against any
attempt to subject it.
122 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
The local councils were fortunate in the
time of their appearance. They came at
a period characterised by an intense desire
for a better system of education, and at a
time of rapidly growing prosperity. A heavy
rate was possible, and the people were willing
to bear it. The County Councils were able
to build over seventy intermediate schools
within a few years ; and that at a time
when both elementary and higher education
made heavy demands on what was still a
comparatively poor county. The District
Councils were able to lower the amount
of outdoor relief considerably, and without
causing any real hardship, for they had
knowledge of their districts as well as the
philanthropy that comes naturally to man
when he grants other people's money. The
Parish Councils have become the guardians
of public paths ; they have begun to provide
parish libraries, and the little parish senate
educates its constituency and brings its
wisdom to bear upon a number of practical
questions, such as cottage gardens and fairs.
THE WALES OF TO-DAY 123
XXV
THE WALES OF TO-DAY
THE most striking characteristic of the Wales
of to-day is its unity self-conscious and self-
reliant. The presence of this unity is felt by
all, though it may be explained in different
ways. It cannot be explained by race ; for
the population of the west midlands and the
north of England, possibly of the whole of it,
have been made up of the same elements.
It cannot be explained by language nearly
one half of the Welsh people speak no Welsh.
Some attribute it to the inexorable laws of
geography and climate, others to the fatalism
of history. Others frivolously put it down
to modern football. But no one who knows
Wales is ignorant of it.
The modern unity of the Welsh people
seen occasionally in a function of the
University, or at a national Eisteddvod, or
in a conference of the County Councils has
become a fact in spite of many difficulties.
One difficulty has been the absence of a
capital. The office of the University and
the National Museum are at Cardiff, in
124 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
the extreme south ; the National Library
is at Aberystwyth, on the western sea.
The thriving industries, the densely popu-
lated districts, and the frequent and active
railways, are in the extreme south or in
the extreme north ; and they are separated
by five or six shires of pastures and
sheep-runs, without large towns, and with
comparatively few railways. In the three
southern counties Glamorgan, Monmouth,
and Carmarthen the population is between
two and six people to 10 acres, and the
industrial population is from twelve to three
times the number of the agricultural. In the
central counties Brecon, Radnor, Cardigan,
Merioneth, Montgomery the population is
below one for 10 acres ; the industrial and
agricultural population are about equal,
except in Radnor, where the agricultural is
more than two to one. Though Merioneth
has more sheep even than Brecon and each
of them has nearly 400,000 its industrial
population, owing to the slate districts, is
double the agricultural. The population
begins to thicken again as we get nearer
the slate, limestone, and coal districts. In
Denbigh it is two to the 10 acres, in
Carnarvon it is three, and in Flint it
rises to four or five. In these northern
THE WALES OF TO-DAY 125
counties the industrial population is double
or treble the agricultural. The fertile
western counties of Pembroke and Anglesey
come between the industrial and grazing
counties in density of population. 1
Unity has arisen in spite of differences
caused by the intensity of a religious revival,
an intensity that periodically renews its
strength. The Welsh are divided into sects,
and the bitterness of sectarian differences
occasionally invades politics and education.
But there are two ever-present antidotes.
One is the Welsh sense of humour, the
nearest relative or the best friend of tolera-
tion. The other is the hymn creed has
been turned into song, and that is at least
half way to turning it into life ; the heresy
hunter is disarmed by the poetry of the
hymn, and its music has charms to soothe
the sectarian breast. The co-operation of
all in the work of local government has also
enlarged sympathy.
Unity has arisen in spite of the bilingual
1 According to the census of 1901 the population per square
mile of Glamorgan is 758, Monmouth 427, Carmarthen 141,
Brecon 73, Radnor 49, Cardigan 88, Montgomery 68,
Merioneth 74, Denbigh 197, Carnarvon 217, Flint 319,
Pembroke 143, Anglesey 183.
The rate of increase per cent, between 1891 and 1901 are
Wales 13.3 ; England 12.1 ; Scotland ii.i ; Ireland - 5.2.
126 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
difficulty. Rather more than one half of the
people now habitually speak English. For
three centuries an Act a dead letter from
the beginning ordered all Government
officials to speak English ; for many genera-
tions, until recently, Welsh children were not
taught Welsh in schools, and they could not
be taught English. The bilingual difficulty
is now at an end. The two languages are
taught in the schools, and as living languages.
It is clear, on the one hand, that every one
should learn English, the language of the
Empire and of commerce. It is also clear
that, on account of its own beauty as well
as that of the great literature it enshrines,
Welsh should be taught in every school
throughout Wales.
Next to its unity, a characteristic of modern
Wales is its democratic feeling, i/lt is af
country with a thoughtful and intelligent^
peasantry, and it is a country without a
middle class. There is a very small upper
class the old Welsh land-owning families
who once, before they turned their backs on
Welsh literature, led the country. They
have never been hated or despised, they are
simply ignored. Their tendency now is to
come into touch with the people, and they
are always welcomed. But a middle class,
THE WALES OF TO-DAY 127
in the English sense, does not exist. The
wealthier industrial class is bound by the
closest ties of sympathy to the farmer and
labourer. The farmer's holding is generally
small from 50 to 250 acres and he always
treats his servants and labourers as
The three great levelling causes religion,
industry, 1 and education have been at work
in Wales in recent years. Education helps
and is helped by equality. In town and
country alike all Welsh children attend the
same schools elementary and secondary ;
and they proceed, those that do proceed,
to the same University, and a university
is essentially a levelling institution. The
dialects, as well as the literary language,
are recognised ; and no dialect has a stigma.
In this respect Wales is more like Scotland
than England.
There is one other characteristic of modern
Wales a certain pride, not so much in what
has been done, but in what is going to be
done. Wales is small, though not much
smaller than Palestine, or Holland, or Switzer-
land, and every part of it knows the other.
1 In 1801 the population of Cardiff was 1870, and coal was
brought down from Merthyr on donkeys. In 1901 the three
ports of Cardiff, Newport, and Swansea exported nearly as
much coal as all the great English and Scotch ports put
together.
128 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
There is a healthy rivalry between its towns
and between its colleges ; each town can
show that it has done something for Wales
in the past by means of its industries, or
school, or press. In the strong feeling of
unity there is ambition to surpass, and each
part lives in the light of the action of the
other parts.
The day is a day of incessant activity
industrial, educational, literary, and political.
What is true in the life of the individual is
true in the life of a nation a day of hard
work is a happy day and a day of hope.
AN OUTLINE OF WELSH
POLITICAL HISTORY
INFLUENCES UNDER WHICH THE HISTORY OF
WALES WAS FORMED
1. The nature of its rocks Igneous, Cambrian, Silurian, Old
Red Sandstone, Limestone, Coal all belonging to the Primary
Period. Its rocks
(a) explain its scenery ;
(b) explain its wealth, the richest part of Britain in minerals.
2. The configuration of its surface.
(a) It is isolated, its mountains being surrounded by the sea,
or rising sharply from the plains. It is part of the
range of mountains which runs along the whole of the
west coast of Britain ; but the range is broken at the
mouth of the Severn and at the mouth of the Dee.
(b) It is divided, its valleys and roads radiating in all
directions. So we have in its history
A. Wars of Independence.
B. Civil War.
THE PEOPLE WHO CAME INTO WALES
1. The Iberians a general name for the short dark people who
still form the greater part of the nations. They had stone weapons,
and lived in tribes; they became subject to later invaders, but
gradually became free. Their language is lost.
2. The Celts a tall fair-haired race, speaking an Aryan tongue.
It was their migration that was stopped by the rise of Rome. Four
I 129
130 OUTLINE OF WELSH POLITICAL HISTORY
groups of mountains, four nations (Celtic and Iberian), four
mediaeval kingdoms, and four modern dioceses can be remembered
thus:
i. Snowdonia Decangi Gwynedd Bangor
ii. Berwyn Ordovices Powys St Asaph
iii. Plinlimmon Demetae Dyved St David's
iv. Black Mountains Silures Morgannwg Llandaff
3. The Romans. They made roads, built cities, worked mines.
50-78. The Conquest. The Silures were defeated in 50, the
Decangi in 58, the Ordovices in 78.
80-200. The Settlement. Wales part of a Roman province
including Chester and York.
200-450. The struggle against the new wandering nations. The
introduction of Christianity.
450- The House of Cunedda represents Roman rule.
4. The English.
577. Battle of Deorham. Wales separated from Cornwall.
613. Battle of Chester. Wales separated from Cumbria.
I. THE WALES OF THE PRINCES
Isolated after the battles of Deorham and Chester, mediaeval
Wales begins to make its own history. The House of Cunedda
represents unity, the other princes represent independence.
English, Danish, Norman attacks from without.
I. 613-1063. The struggle between the Welsh princes and the
English provincial kings. From the battle of
Chester to the fall of Griffith ap Llywelyn.
(a) Between Wales and Northumbria, 613-700; for the
sovereignty of the north. Cadwallon, Cadwaladr
v. Edwin, Oswald, Oswiu.
(b} Between Wales and Mercia, 700-815 ; for the valley
of the Severn. Rhodri Molwynog and his sons
v. Ethelbald and Offa.
(c) Between Wales and the Danes, 815-1000. Rhodri
the Great and Howel the Good.
OUTLINE OF WELSH POLITICAL HISTORY 131
(d) Between Wales and Wessex, 1000-1063; f r
political influence. Griffith ap Llywelyn v.
Harold.
2. 1063-1284. The struggle between the Welsh princes and the
central English kings,
(a) 1066-1137. The Norman Conquest. Norman barons v.
Griffith ap Conan and Griffith ap Rees.
1063. Bleddyn of Powys tries to unite Wales.
1070. William the Conqueror at Chester. Advance of
Norman barons from Chester, Shrewsbury,
Hereford, Gloucester.
1075. Death of Bleddyn ; succeeded by Trahaiarn.
1077. Battle of Mynydd Cam. Restoration of House
of Cunedda Griffith ap Conan in the north ;
Rees, followed by his son Griffith, in the south.
1094. Norman castles dominate Powys, Gwent, Mor-
gannwg, and Dyved. Gwynedd and Deheubarth
threatened.
1137. Death of Griffith ap Conan and Griffith ap Rees,
after setting bounds to the Norman Conquest.
(*) II 37' II 97- The struggle against Henry II. and his sons.
1137. The accession of Owen Gwynedd and of the Lord
Rees of the Deheubarth.
1157. Henry II. interferes in the quarrel of Owen and
Cadwaladr.
1164. The Cistercians at Strata Florida.
1164. Meeting of Owen Gwynedd, the Lord Rees,
and Owen Cyveiliog at Corwen, to oppose
Henry II.
1170. Death of Owen Gwynedd.
1 1 88. Preaching of the Crusades in Wales.
1 189. Death of Henry II.
1197. Death of the Lord Rees.
(c} 1194-1240. The reign of Llywelyn the Great.
1194-1201. Securing the crown of Gwynedd.
1201-1208. Alliance with King John.
1208-1212. War with John.
1212-1218. Alliance with barons of Magna Carta.
1218-1226. Struggle with the Marshalls of Pembroke.
1226-1240. Unity of Wales : alliance with Marshalls.
132 OUTLINE OF WELSH POLITICAL HISTORY
(d) 1240-1284. The Wars of Independence.
1241. David II. does homage to Henry III.
1244. Death of Griffith, in trying to escape from the
Tower of London.
1245. Fierce fighting on the Con way.
1254. Edward (afterwards Edward I.) Earl of Chester.
1255. Llywelyn ap Griffith supreme in Gwynedd.
1263. Alliance with the English barons.
1267. Treaty of Montgomery ; Llywelyn Prince of
Wales.
1274. Llywelyn refuses to do homage to Edward I.
1277. Treaty of Rhuddlan ; Llywelyn keeps Gwynedd
only.
1278. Llywelyn marries Eleanor de Montfort.
1282. Last war. Battle of Moel y Don. Llywelyn's
death.
1284. Statute of Wales.
3. 1284-1535. The rule of sheriff and march lord.
1287. Revolt of Ceredigion.
1294. Revolts in Gwynedd, Dyved, Morgannwg.
1315. Revolt of Llywelyn Bren.
1349. The Black Death in Wales.
1400. Rise of Owen Glendower.
1402. Battles of the Vyrnwy and Bryn Glas.
1404. Anti-Welsh legislation.
1455. The Wars of the Roses.
1461. Battle of Mortimer's Cross.
1468. Siege of Harlech.
1469. Battle of Edgecote.
1478. Court of Wales at Ludlow.
1485. Battle of Bosworth and accession of Henry VII.
1535. Act of Union. All Wales governed by king
through sheriffs.
OUTLINE OF WELSH POLITICAL HISTORY 133
II. THE WALES OF THE PEOPLE.
In 1535 the march lordships were formed into shires, and a reign
of law began.
1535-1603. Period of loyalty to Tudor sovereigns for equality
before law and political rights.
1536. The march lordships become shire ground. Wales
given a representation in Parliament, and its
own system of law courts the Great Sessions
of Wales.
1539. Welsh passive resistance to the Reformation.
1567. Sir Thomas Middleton opens silver mines of
Cardiganshire.
1588. Bishop Morgan's Welsh Bible.
1593. Execution of John Penry.
Results i. Destruction of power of barons.
2. Anglicising of gentry.
3. A Welsh Bible.
1603-1689. Struggle between new and old ideas.
1618. Coal of South Wales attracts attention.
1640. First Civil War.
1644. Brereton and Myddleton win North Wales,
Laugharne and Poyer win South Wales, for
Parliament.
1648. Second Civil War : siege of Pembroke.
1650. Puritan "Act for the better Propagation of the
Gospel in Wales."
1670. Vavasour Powell dies in prison.
1689. Abolition of the Court of Wales.
1689-1894. Rise of the Welsh democracy.
1719. Copper works at Swansea.
1730. Griffith Jones' circulating schools.
1750. Iron furnaces at Merthyr TydviL
1773. Death of Howel Harris.
1814. Death of Charles of Bala.
1830. Abolition of Great Sessions of Wales.
1832. First Reform Bill.
1839. Chartism at Llanidloes and Newport.
1867. Second Reform Bill.
134 OUTLINE OF WELSH POLITICAL HISTORY
1872, 1883, 1884. University Colleges.
1884. Third Reform Bill.
1888. County Council Act.
1889. Secondary Education Act.
1894. Local Government Act.
University of Wales.
THE HOUSE OF CUNEDDA
TABLE I
CUNEDDA WLEDIG (Dux Britannia}.
MAELGWN GWYNEDD.
CADWALADR.
Idwal
Rhodri Molwynog
Conan Tindaethwy
Esyllt=Mervin
RHODRI THE GREAT
I
Anarawd
Cadell
Mervin.
Idwal the HOWEL THE
Bald GOOD
lago Owen
Conan.*
(See Table
If.)
Einion
Meredith
Cadell. LLYWELYN AB SEiSYLLT=Angharad*=Cynvyn
Tewdwr.* | | \
(See Table f II.) GRIFFITH. BLEDDYN. Rhiwallon.
(See Table IV.)
* The links between the House of Cunedda and the three ruling families
after the Norman Conquest rest on the authority of tradition .rather than on
that of records.
135
136 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
TABLE II. GWYNEDD
GRIFFITH AP CONAN
I I I
OWEN GWYNEDD Cadwaladr. Gwenllian=>G. ap Rees.
lorwerth DAVID I.
LLYWELYN THE GREAT
Griffith DAVID II.
I
Eleanor de= LLYWELYN THE LAST Owen David. Rhodri
Montfort
the Red.
Thomas
Gwenllian. |
Owen of Wales.
TABLE III. DYNEVOR
REES AP TUDOR
GRIFFITH Nest.
THE LORD REES
I
GRIFFITH. Rees the Hoarse.
THE HOUSE OF POWYS 137
TABLE IV.-POWYS
BLEDDYN AP CYNVYN
!
I ! I
MEREDITH CADWGAN IORWERTH.
I I
I Owen of Powys.
MADOC OWEN CYVEILIOG
I I
Griffith Maelor GRIFFITH
I I
Madoc GWENWYNWYN.
I
Griffith of Bromfield
Madoc. Griffith Vychan
Madoc
Griffith
Griffith Vycban
OWEN GLENDOWER.
138 A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
TABLE V. MORTIMER
LLTWELVN THE GREAT
Gladys the Dark = Ralph Mortimer of Wigmore
Roger Mortimer = Matilda de Braose
I |
Edmund Roger of Chirk
Roger, first Earl of March EDWARD III.
Edmund i j r
, _, , ..... Lionel of John of Edmund of
Roger, second Earl of March Clarence. Gaunt. York
Edmund, third Earl of March =Philipa
l~ ~~j
Roger Edmund = d. of Glendower.
Edmund. Anne= Richard, Earl of Cambridge
Richard, Duke of York
(killed at Wakefield, 1460)
EDWARD IV. RICHARD III.
| (killed at Bosworth, 1485).
Henry VII. =Elizabeth
HENRY VIII.
THE HOUSE OF TUDOR
139
TABLE VI. TUDOR
HENRY IV.
Owen Tudor = Catherine of France=HENRY V.
HENRY VI.
EDWARD III.
I
John of Gaunt
I
John Beaufort I.,
Earl of Somerset
John Beaufort II.,
Duke of Somerset
Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond = Margaret Beaufort
HENRY VII.
HENRY VIII.
EDWARD VI.
MARY.
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THE SHIRES.
Shires of 1284 white. Shires of 1535 shaded.
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t T Ceased to be boroughs
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