England and Wales

“ 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. ”

“ The Welsh are truly a people, in spite of their ancient subjugation, and deserve to be treated as such, all the more for their loyalty to the British Crown, and for the remarkable partiality which they seem to entertain towards the Prince of Wales, whose dignity I discovered to be something more, after all, than a mere fiction of heraldry. ”

“ In English history we study primarily the growth of the principle of Representative Government, which we can trace for centuries through a long series of authoritative records. That is the great gift of England to the world. Not only has Wales entered on this inheritance; it helped to create it. It was Llywelyn ap Iorwerth who began the revolt against John which led to the Great Charter, and the clauses of the Great Charter itself show that it was the joint work of English and Welsh. ”

“ CONQUEST OF WALES In their wild and mountainous country the Welsh long resisted all attempts to subjugate them. Harold exerted some authority over Wales, William the Conqueror entered part of it, and Henry II induced the local rulers to acknowledge him as overlord, but it was Edward I who first brought all Wales under English sway. Edward fostered the building of towns in his new possession, divided it into counties or shires, after the system that prevailed in England, and introduced the Common law. ”

“ We live in an atmosphere of nationality; we have seen it create the German Empire and the kingdom of Italy, and the Welsh University; we see it now labouring to break up the Austrian Empire, and perhaps changing the unchanging East. But the whole history of Europe shows that it is an idea of slow and comparatively late growth. The first appearance of nationality as a conscious principle of political action is found in England—and possibly in France—at the beginning of the thirteenth century, and in Wales about the same time ”

“ And so the people of Wales, turning their backs upon this splendid opportunity, began to tread that long road of political failure and futility which made them ultimately a mere appanage of England, and which, but for the efforts of bards and men of letters in the creation of a precious national literature, would have led inevitably to the total extinction of the Welsh nation. ”

“ The great disadvantage of Wales seems to be that it is not England, and the only solution is for the malcontents to divide their bodies, and, leaving one part in their native land, to have the rest sent to Wales, as they used to send Welsh princes to enjoy the air of two, three, and even four English towns, at the same time and in an elevated position. ”

“ In the making of modern Wales two men stand out pre-eminent, and without rivals—King Henry VIII, and the Revivalist Howel Harris. The former gave to Wales the opportunity of playing an equal part with England in the life of the Empire. ”

“ But geography irrevocably settled the destiny of Wales, as it eventually did that of Scotland. If the conditions under which Wales came into partnership were different and the date earlier, that, again, was partly due to its propinquity to the heart of England. Yet with all these centuries of close affinity to England, the Welsh in many respects—I had almost said in most—have preserved their nationality more successfully than the Celts of either Ireland or the North, and in so doing have lost nothing of such benefits as modern civilisation brings. ”

“ Wales has had very little for which to thank England, but her people have never been seditious. Pious, industrious people, with their simple amusements and weird superstitions, and blossoming out into their great religious revivals and reformations, they have had to thank themselves, chiefly, for all the good which has unfolded itself upon their soil. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The Danes had but followed in the wake of the German tribes who had come over, conquered, and bestowed a new name upon the larger and more fertile part of Britain. It is with the arrival of these last-named people that the history of England begins; but the history of Wales must be traced to a far earlier origin. Indeed, we can trace the descent of the people who now inhabit the hills and valleys of the westernmost parts of Britain to those dim prehistoric times about which only geology, ethnology, philology, and archæology can enlighten us. ”

“ Soon after that period, the legislation of the English Parliament for Wales, formerly restrictive and severe as for a conquered country, sought rather to reform the people and to assimilate the laws to those of England. Whenever it was possible, the statutes of the Realm of England were framed so as specially to include Wales. [47] Formerly, measures of restraint were chiefly directed against the Welchmen of the Marches by way of protection to the adjoining English counties ”

“ By these authorities it appears, that Wales was subject, by the feudal law, to the crown of England before the conquest of Lewellyn, but not subject to the laws of England; and indeed, after this conquest, Edward and his nobles did not seem to think it subject to the English parliament, but to the will of the king, as a conqueror of it in war. ”

“ Source.—Gesta Stephani, ed. Howlett, vol. iii., p. 10. (Rolls Series, Chronicles of Stephen, Henry II., and Richard I.)
Wales is a land of woods and pastures, adjoining England on its nearest borders, and jutting into the sea on the other side throughout its whole extent. It abounds in stags and fish, and cows and oxen. The men it rears are savage, swift of foot by nature, fighters by habit, and untrustworthy and unsettled alike. When the Normans had conquered England in battle, they established their sovereignty over this land also with numberless castles. ”

“ In order to extirp all the "sinister usages and customs" and to bring the subjects of his Realm and of his said Dominion of Wales to an amicable concord and unity, it was ordained that Wales should be incorporated with England, and that "all persons born, or to be born" in Wales should have all the liberties, rights, privileges, and laws which were enjoyed in England. It is in this preamble that the first instance is to be found where the Sovereign of England is unequivocally styled "King" of Wales. ”

“ But if Henry thought by this Act, and by forbidding all magistrates in Wales to use the Welsh language, he was going to make the country actually a part of England, he was greatly mistaken. The upper classes might flock to the English Court and forget their Welsh homes, but the greater part of the people—the workers of the nation—kept their own speech, their own customs, their own traditions. ”

“ Not for a moment, however, we may well believe, was such a surprise admitted nor the difference in the manner of its fulfilment. But who indeed would carp at that when the result was so wholly admirable? It is not our business to trace the tortuous ways by which fate removed the more natural heirs to the throne and seated upon it for the great good of England as well as of Wales the grandson of an Anglesey squire of ancient race and trifling estate. ”

“ The disorderly and turbulent Lordships Marchers within the Dominion of Wales, lying between the shires of England and the existing Welsh shires were dealt with by uniting some to English counties, and leaving the others to Wales. ”

“ But Scotland was not the only land within the four seas of Britain with which the kingdom of England has much to do, especially in the way of fighting, within the few years of this memorable reign. Affairs of Wales. The affairs of Wales are still more constantly coming before our eyes. While the Red King is on the throne, Welsh warfare supplies, year after year, no small part of the events which the chronicler of England has to record. The Welsh history of this time is one of deep interest on many grounds. ”

“ If we have disseised or removed Welshmen from lands or liberties, or other things, without the legal judgment of their peers in England or in Wales, they shall be immediately restored to them; and if a dispute arise over this, then let it be decided in the marches by the judgment of their peers; for tenements in England according to the law of England, for tenements in Wales according to the law of Wales, and for tenements in the marches according to the law of the marches. Welshmen shall do the same to us and ours. ”

“ The following year the king marched into Wales in person, with numerous forces, and overran a considerable portion of the country, delivering, in the course of his progress, upwards of 300 Saxons, whom the Welsh had enslaved. ”

“ The picture which some recent writers have drawn of a Wales deprived of the ancient religion to which it was devoted, {146} and of a Church plundered while faithfully discharging its functions, is as fanciful and as devoid of truth for Wales as it would be for England. ”

“ When the Welchman is under the children's notice, the teacher will tell them that he lives in a pretty country called Wales, which is joined to England, that is, no sea divides them, that the chief town is London, although London is in England and not Wales, because Wales has been governed by the same king as England for many hundred years, and the eldest son of the King of England is called Prince of Wales. ”

“ To create and organise six new counties out of [Pg 321] chaos, to enfranchise and give representation to twelve, to permanently attach one of the three tributary kingdoms to the British Crown, is a performance that should be sufficient to lift the reign of a monarch out of the common run. Every schoolboy is familiar with the figure of Henry VIII. prancing in somewhat purposeless splendour on the Field of the Cloth of Gold. But who remembers the assimilation of Wales to England which was his doing? ”

“ There is a harsh and aggressive flavour in their very titles—"Certain restraints laid on Welshmen," "The Lords Marchers to keep ward in their castles," "Welshmen shall not purchase lands in England," "Englishmen shall not be convict in Wales," "As to minstrels and vagabonds in Wales," "Welshmen not to carry arms," "No armour or victuals to be carried into Wales," "Welshmen not to have castles," "No Welshman shall bear office in Wales," "Castles and walled towns in Wales to be kept by Englishmen," "Englishmen married to Welsh women not to have office in Wales," etc. ”

“ It was long believed that it was by Lord-president Lee's advice that Henry VlII completed the division of Wales into shires, and incorporated it with England (Anglia Sacra, i. 45o ; Godwin, De Præsulibus, p. 342, ed. 1743) . The reverse was the case. He protested vigorously against the statute of 1536, making Wales shire-ground and giving it justices of the peace and gaol delivery as in England. ' If one thief shall try another, all we have here begun is foredone' (State Papers, i. 454) . ”

“ After the time of Henry the Eighth Wales made rapid progress. There was a strong national revival. Professor Tout, in "Wales under the Tudors," says, that "Schools were set up; a Welsh college founded at Oxford; Welsh grammars, dictionaries, histories were written; many Welshmen rose to eminence in the service of their Church, both in Wales and England. Agriculture prospered now peace was secure and markets accessible. As Churchyard, the Welsh poet, sang in describing the Worthiness of Wales:—
"Markets are good, and victuals nothing dear,
Each place is filled with plenty all the year ”

“ It is not recited in the 27 H. VIII., that Wales was ever parcel of the realm of England. The words of that statute are, “incorporated, annexed, united, and subject to, and under the imperial crown of this realm,” which is a decisive proof, that a country may be annexed to the one without being united with the other. And this appears fully in Lord Coke himself:2 “Ireland originally came to the kings of England by conquest ”

“ But all his Laws were general Scourges and punishments against the whole People of the Country of Wales being then his Subjects and his Son Prince of Wales. We in England to this Day have not made the like against the Spaniards or any other Capital Enemies to this Realm. ”

“ The Welshmen were not so discouraged herewith, but that they brake vpon him out of their starting-holes and places of refuge through the marishes, and slaieng their enimies horsses, put them backe to their power, & ceassed not to doo what mischéefe they could, by spoiling, killing, and burning houses and castels where they might come vnto them, and so the realme of England was dailie put to losses & hinderances. For out of Wales, England was accustomed to be furnished with horsses, cattell, and other things, to the great profit of both the countries. ”

“ United should one country be.
First Prince of Wales 1282
In twelve-eight-two annexes Wales;
Where afterwards no strife prevails.
He promised a Prince with English
So gave his new-born speechless son.
[p9]
Edward I. 1272–1307 (continued)
NEXT Scotland Edward tries to tackle
No easy task the Scotch to shackle;
Wallace and Bruce resistance make,
The King dies ere he gains the stake. ”