The Long Struggle for Identity: The Story of Wales and its People

by Peter N. Williams, Ph.D.

The history of Wales is primarily a story of struggle. It is a tribute to the people of Wales' determination to survive against overwhelming odds -- a struggle reflected not only in its castle-dominated landscape and its surviving Celtic language, but also in its long literary history. Created in a time when the flood of Germanic pagan invaders from the continent threatened to destroy Christian Celtic civilization in Britain, its history continued through the depredations of the Vikings, the invasions of the Normans, the oppression of the powerful Marcher Lords, and the ever-constant, ever threatening power of the English people and the English language. The early literature of Wales, documenting the beginnings of that struggle, was followed by a millennium and a half of writing that tells of the survivors -- the Welsh people themselves-- a people that Dylan Thomas, in the 20th century, praised as "not wholly bad or good." It tells the story of a people who have managed to retain much of their fullness of spirit despite a very early loss of most of their territory and political independence. It tells the story of a people who are still struggling to avert the loss of their ancient culture and language upon which much of that culture depends.

This is the story of that struggle: the theme is constant: it is a struggle for survival against almost impossible odds.

The

Beginning of Wales

PRE-ROMAN BRITAIN The traveler to the British Isles soon becomes aware of distinct dialectal differences as he moves around from town to town and county to county. For example, the inhabitants of Liverpool in the Northwest use a dialect completely different from that of Manchester, only a few miles away. The Cockneys of London, in the Southeast, are well known for their equally colorful speech habits, documented early in the 20th century by George Bernard Shaw in such plays as "Major Barbara" and "Pygmalion" and later recorded in such Hollywood movies as "My Fair Lady." It is something of a surprise to visitors, as they travel into Wales, over the centuries-old and much-worn ditch and earth-mound barrier known as "Offa's Dyke," for almost without warning they find themselves in areas where not only the dialects become incomprehensible, but where even the basic language itself has changed. The roadside signs "Croeso i Gymru" let it be known that one is now entering a new territory, inhabited by a different people, for the translation is "Welcome to Wales," written in one of the oldest surviving vernaculars in Europe. To account for the abrupt linguistic change, one must journey far, far back into history. From evidence found in such caves as Paviland, in the Gower Peninsula in Southwest Glamorgan, and the Elwy Valley in Flintshire, it is known that the area now known as Wales was probably inhabited as early as 250,000 BC (the Lower Paleolithic Age), and hand-worked tools have been found at various sites that date from around 26,000 BC. It wasn't until the retreat of the glaciers during the Ice Age around 10,000 BC, however, that human settlement in any significant numbers could begin. It was at that time that mainland Britain became an island, separated from the continent of Europe and the large island to the west that is now known as Ireland. Then, in what we call the Neolithic Age, just around 5,000 years ago, many settlers came over from the European continent and perhaps from Ireland. Their huge stone structures, the Megaliths and their chambered-tomb companions, the Cromlech, dot the landscape of much of southwestern Britain even today. The immensity of these undertakings points to the skills and ingenuity of their builders, even if time and weather have long since eroded evidence of their purpose. These were the same people who built Stonehenge, perhaps their finest monument, certainly the best known, although even this is dwarfed by the huge circle at Avebury, not too far away. The inner circle of uprights at Stonehenge was formed of the so-called "blue stones" transported somehow from the mysterious heights of Preseli, far away in Southwest Wales, long considered a holy or magic mountain and still an area regarded with awe by the locals. By 2,000 BC, people entering the island of Britain included those we now call the Beaker Folk, who it is believed came from the area of the Rhine River in Germany. Excavated battle axes, bronze knives and other weapons of war and hunting show us that these people were already quite expert with the use of metal, a skill they passed on to the native tribesmen. By 1,000 BC, the Iron Age proper had arrived in Wales; there, its people grouped themselves into large hill forts for protection, such as are found at Tre'r Ceiri in the Llyn Peninsula. They seem to have practiced mixed, settled farming, but they also worked extensive copper mines, the remains of which can still be seen in such places as the Great Orme (Pen y Gogarth) Llandudno, Gwynedd. More advanced metalworking seems to have been introduced as a result of contact with the Halstatt culture of Austria, from an area near present-day Saltzburg.

This culture had benefited from prolonged contact with others in the Mediterranean area, whose use of the symbols and patterns so characteristic of Celtic design, is named La Tene, after a village on the shores of Lake Neuchatel in Switzerland. It was also at this time that the Celtic languages arrived in Britain, probably introduced by small groups of migrants. The advanced skills of the Celts seemed to have made them dominant in their new western homelands, despite their relatively few numbers. They were part of a great-unified Celtic "empire" encompassing many different people all over Northern Europe. The Greeks called these people, with their organized culture and developed social structure, Keltoi, the Romans, Celtai. We call them Celts. In spite of the fact that they were perhaps the most powerful people in much of Europe in 300 BC, with lands stretching from Anatolia in the East to Ireland in the West, the Celts were unable to prevent inter tribal warfare. Their seeming lack of political unity, despite their fierceness in battle, ultimately led to their defeat and subjugation by the much better disciplined, and certainly much-better armed legions of Rome. On the European continent, as a result of the administrative skills and military power of Rome, the majority of the Celtic languages eventually gave way to those stemming from Latin. Very few modern European languages can be derived from Celtic, despite its former widespread use. But in Britain, at least for a few hundred years after the Roman victories on mainland Europe, the Celts held on to much of their customs and especially to the distinctive language which has survived today as Welsh. This language, used throughout most of Britain at the time of the Roman invasions (except in the far north where Pictish survived for a while) was derived from a branch of Celtic known as Brythonic: it later gave rise to Welsh, Cornish and Breton. These differ from other Celtic languages derived from the branch known as Goidelic: namely, Irish, Scots, and Manx Gaelic (now confined to a western fringe in Ireland, to the north and west of Scotland, or to the history books as an extinct spoken tongue). Along with the new languages, new religions entered Britain, particularly that of the Druids, the guardians of traditions and learning and caretakers of shrines to the myriad Celtic gods and goddesses. From what we know of the Druids, they did not commit their learning to writing, they glorified the pursuits of war, feasting and horsemanship. They controlled the calendar and the planting of crops and they presided over the religious festivals and rituals that honored local deities. They had nothing at all to do with the building of huge stone monuments such as Stonehenge and Avebury, in place long before their arrival.

The Beginning of Wales

ROMAN BRITAIN The Roman armies first arrived in Britain in 55 BC under Julius Caesar, but there was no significant occupation until a century later. Caesar had some interesting, if biased comments concerning the native inhabitants. "All the Britons," he wrote, "paint themselves with woad, which gives their skin a bluish color and makes them look very dreadful in battle." He also vividly described human sacrifices supposedly practiced by the Celts, but this may have been mere propaganda to justify his conquests. It was not until an expedition ordered by the Emperor Claudius that permanent expeditions to the grain-rich southeastern territories of Britain begun in earnest. From their base in what is now Kent, the Roman armies began a long, arduous and perilous series of battles with the native Celtic tribes. In what was later to be called Wales, the Romans were awestruck by their first sight of the druids who accompanied their warriors to battle. Roman historian Tacitus described them along the shores of the Menai Strait (in present-day Anglesey) as being "ranged in order, with their hands uplifted, invoking the gods and pouring forth horrible imprecations." By attacking and killing these druids, their wives and children, the Romans were able to defeat the formations drawn up against them. As on the Continent, superior military discipline and leadership advanced weaponry, along with a carefully organized system of forts connected by straight roads, led to the eventual triumph of Roman armys. I it was not long before a great number of large, prosperous villas and farms were established in many parts of lowland Britain, but especially in the southeast and southwest. The villas, the remains of many of which can be seen today, testify to the rapidity by which most of lowland Britain became Romanized, for they functioned as centers of a settled, peaceful and urban life. Mountainous Wales and Scotland were not as easily settled; they remained "the frontier", sparsely settled rugged, misty lands where military garrisons were strategically placed to guard the Northern and Western extremities of the Empire. The windswept western plateau that is now Wales would surely have been left alone if it had not been for its valuable mineral deposits, including lead, tin and gold. The fierce resistance of its tribes meant that two out of the three Roman legions in Britain were stationed on the Welsh borders. Deva (Chester) in the northeast, was the largest roman fortress in Britain, covering some sixty acres on the banks of the River Dee and guarding the approaches to North Wales. Two impressive Roman fortifications remain to be seen in Wales proper: Isca Silurium at Caerleon, in Gwent with its fine ampitheatre (shown at above) and remains of a huge bath complex; and Segontium, near Caernarfon, in Gwynedd.

Though the Celtic tongue survived in Britain as the medium of everyday speech, Latin being used mainly for administrative purposes, a great deal of Latin words entered the native vocabulary, and many of these are still found in modern-day Welsh. Today's visitors are surprised to find hundreds of place names containing Pont (bridge), while ffenest (window), pysgod (fish), milltir (mile), mil (thousand), mor (sea), mel (honey), melys (sweet) cyllell (knife), ceffyl (horse), perygl (danger), eglwys (church), milwr (soldier), cantor (singer), llyfr (book), sant (saint) and many others attest to Roman influence (though many of these may have entered the language in subsequent centuries). Rome had became Christianized with the conversion of Constantine in 337, and thanks to the missionary work of Martin of Tours in Gaul and the edict of 400 AD that made Christianity the only official worship of the Empire, the new religion was brought to Britain, where the Romanized people quickly adopted it. Due to the activities of the Christian missionaries, who introduced the monastic system into the island, the old Celtic gods had to slink off into the mountains and hills to hide, reappearing fitfully and almost apologetically only in the poetry and myths of later ages. When the city of Rome fell to the invading Goths under Alaric, Roman Britain, which had experienced hundreds of years of comparative peace and prosperity, was left to its own defences under its local Romano-British leaders. Apart from the mountainous, agriculturally poor north and west, much of the island eventually crumbled under the onslaught of Germanic tribes, themselves under attack from tribes coming from the East. These tribes wished to settle in the sparsely populated, richly fertile lands across the narrow channel that separated them from the islands of Britain. The Germanic invasions of those islands, like those of the Romans before them, met fierce and prolonged resistance; they were stopped from conquering the whole island by such Romano-British leaders as Arthur (Arthur's Stone to the right), most certainly a Christian warrior king based in Wales. More than three hundred years of fighting took place between the native Celts, who with one or two notable exceptions were never strong enough, or capable enough, to offer organized resistance. The ever-increasing number of Germanic newcomers spread westward like a slow moving flood, were eventually contained. By the end of the sixth century, Britain had more or less sorted itself out into three distinct areas: the Teutonic East, the Britonic West and the Britonic-Pictish North soon to be invaded and settled by the Scotti, from Ireland, who brought their Gaelic language with them. It was these areas that later came to be identified as, England, Wales and Scotland, all of which were to develop with very separate cultural and linguistic characteristics. As early as 440, an anonymous writer penned the following: Britain, abandoned by the Romans, passed into the power of the Saxons (Chronica Gallica) The writer could not possibly have been referring to the whole of Britain; it was far too early for that, but it is certain that the Saxons had come to much of the islands to stay. The people of Wales had a new, powerful and numerous enemy with which to contend. Sense of Wales

Though it is now apparent that a great mingling of the different people took place in Britain for centuries after the initial Anglo-Saxon incursions, in the western peninsular now known as Wales, the majority of the people remained primarily Celtic (Celtic village to the left). They were soon to be isolated from their fellow Britons in Cornwall to the south and Cumbria to the north. From the momentous year 616, the date of the Battle of Chester, which divided the Celts the north from those of the southwest, the people of Wales were mostly on their own. They soon began to think of themselves as a distinct nation in spite of the many different rival kingdoms that developed within their borders such as Morgannwg, Powys, Brycheinion, Dyfed and Gwynedd. It is also from this period that we can speak of the Welsh language, as distinct from the older Brythonic. In a poem dated 633, the word Cymry appears, referring to the country of Wales. Historians see its use signifying the beginnings of a feeling of self-identity among the Britons, desperately trying to hold on to their lands in the face of unrelenting pressure from the Germanic tribes already in possession of most of the eastern half of the British island. It was not too long before the native people themselves came to be known as the Cymry, though outside Wales for many centuries they continued to be known as Britons. At this point, we should point out that the word Welsh is a later word used by the Saxon invaders perhaps to denote people they considered "foreign" or at least to denote people who had been Romanized. It originally had signified a Germanic neighbor, but eventually came to be used for those people who spoke a different language. The Welsh people themselves still prefer to call themselves Cymry, their country Cymru and their language Cymraeg.

Most historians think that, apart from the area now known as Wales, the British (Brythonic) kingdoms that survived in the north and west were Rheged, Gododdin and Strathclyde (in present-day Scotland). A new theory is that these kingdoms were in northern Wales, the confusion arising out of Geoffrey of Monmouth's identification of Britannia with the whole of Britain instead of with Wales alone. Accepting the former view, we see Wales as being cut off politically in the seventh century, Strathclyde continuing as a centre of the old poetic traditions for a few more centuries when the burden (and the honor) fell to Wales. It is also thought by many historians to be the birthplace of St. Patrick. Surviving works in Old Welsh date all the way back to the late seventh century, making them part of the oldest attested vernacular in Europe. Composed either in the northern kingdom of Strathclyde (in present day southwest Scotland, soon to be overrun by invaders from Ireland, speaking Gaelic), or in a north Wales kingdom, the earliest Welsh-language poems are part of what is known as the heroic tradition. Taliesin and Aneirin are the two most well known poets of the old Celtic bardic traditions, regardless of their place of origin. Aneirin is best remembered for the poem "Y Gododdin," which commemorates the heroics of small band of warriors and their allies at the Battle of Catraeth about 600 AD in which they were defeated by a much larger force of Angles. In the poem, after slaying many times their number of enemies, all except one of the band were killed. Their willingness to die is emphasized as a duty owed their lord in return for his hospitality. According to the poet, their deaths also ensured them everlasting glory. Perhaps one of the most significant features of "Y Gododdin," as far as later literature is concerned, is that it is the first work to mention the Welsh warrior-leader Arthur. He was described as a paragon of virtue and ferocity, though nothing like the figure that has come down to us from the works of later authors. Catraeth has been generally accepted as being Catterick, in Yorkshire, but new scholarship has placed it in Wales itself, perhaps in Clwyd, in the northeast. In 731, the English churchman and historian Bede wrote "There are in Britain, in harmony with the five books of the divine law, five languages and four nations - English, British, Scots and Picts. Each of these has its own language, but all are united in the study of God's truth by the fifth, Latin." It was also apparent, that the differences between native Briton and the now long-settled and Christianized Saxons had become a subject of religious discord. Not the first Englishman to show his prejudices against the native people, Bede then went on to add "The Britons for the most part have a natural hatred for the English and uphold their own bad customs against the true Easter of the Catholic Church; however, they are opposed by the power of God and man alike." It is significant that Bede calls the Welsh Britons; it would be many, many centuries before this name would also be given to the English invaders of the Island of Britain (Ynys Prydain). It is also from this time that the Welsh word Llan appears, signifying a church settlement and usually followed by the name of a saint, for example, Llandewi (St. David) or Llangurig (St. Curig). It was sometimes used by the name of a disciple of Christ, such as Llanbedr (St. Peter) or even by the mother of Jesus, such as Llanfair (St. Mary). Bede claimed that the Welsh had possessed no desire to Christianize the pagan English; subsequently, this task had been left mainly to the Irish missionaries and later to St. Augustine. He added: It is to this day the fashion among the Britons to reckon the faith and religion of Englishmen as naught and to hold no more converse with them than with the heathen. Wales did not adopt St. David (Dewi Sant) as its patron saint until the 18th century, with the reputed date of his death March 1st chosen as the day of a national festival. Very little is known about him for certain except that he lived in the sixth century and probably died in 589. Information concerning his life comes from the Latin "The Life of St. David" written in the late 11th century by Rhigfarch but supplemented by Geraldus Cambrensis around 1200. David's fame as a missionary reached Ireland and Brittany, and from the 12th century the church named for him at Ty Dewi (St. David's) became an important place of pilgrimage. Though the Welsh Church was eventually forced to conform to the new forms of the Roman Church introduced by Augustine, made permanent by the Synod of Whitby in 664, political differences remained between Celt and Saxon. In the mid-eighth century, these differences were emphasized when a long ditch was constructed, flanking a high earthen rampart that divided the Celts of the West from the Saxons to the East. The boundary, known as "Offa's Dyke," in memory of the powerful king of Mercia (the Middle Kingdom) who ordered it built, runs from the northeast coast of Wales to the southeast coast. Offa's name was given to the lengthy extension of the earlier Wat's Dyke (attributed to Aethelbald, King of Mercia), that had more or less fixed the boundary between the Welsh and Saxons between Chester and Shrewsbury. The rest of the defensive wall was probably built to follow the lines of an earlier boundary made by the Emperor Severus, and known as Gaual, a prominent landmark noted by writers such as Nennius, Bede and others. The much more substantial second dyke was fortified and strengthened by Offa to show his power, but was also a defensive measure, not only giving his territories a well-defined western boundary, but also marking the eastern border of Wales proper. To cross the ramparts, for hundreds of years, meant bloody defiance, even though many Welsh-speaking communities remained to the east of the boundary, in the lands that became known as England (Lloegr) and English-speaking communities existed to the

west, in the lands that became known as Wales (Cymru). Today, you can still see some of the remains of this barrier consisting of a bank of earth, ditched mostly on the western side. Its average height is six feet, with an average overall width of sixty feet across bank and ditch. It travels 149 miles, from Prestatyn, in Flintshire all the way south to Sedbury, just outside Chepstow in Gwent, on the banks of the River Severn. Behind this barrier, as insignificant as it may seem to the modern observer, the people of Wales were able to think of themselves as a separate nation. Behind it, too, they continued the long, hard struggle to retain their language and culture.

Unified People
The visitor to West Wales cannot help but notice that many of the holy shrines lie in valleys, or hollows, often hidden from the sea. One of them, at St. Govan's (left), is placed in a steep, narrow crevice in the coastal rocks themselves, completely concealed. For the sea was the pathway of the marauding Vikings, intent on voyages of plunder and easy pickings from the poorly defended, but richly endowed monastic communities of the Celtic Church. Despite its own hiding place, down in the lovely, sheltered valley of the Glyn, St David's itself, perhaps the holiest spot in Wales, was still plundered in 999 and its Bishop killed. Place names all round the Welsh coast signify a Viking presence, including Anglesey and Great Orme in the North, and Swansea and Flat Holme and others in the South. In the latter half of the ninth century, the danger presented by the terrifying sight of the long, high-prowed Viking ships and their fierce crews did, however, produce an enormous benefit to Wales. For in Wales, as in England, the need arose for some kind of political unity under strong leaders to defend their own property and that of the Church. While the various English kingdoms eventually united under Alfred the Great in the face of the threat of complete subjugation by the Kingdom of the Danes, something similar took place in Wales. Sad to relate, its results were not as firmly established or as permanent as they were over the border. The first leader of importance to emerge among the Welsh was the warrior king Rhodri Mawr (Rhodri the Great). In 855, through skilful alliances and practical marriages, he became king of Powys as well as much of the rest of Wales. Successful in warding off Danish attacks, even killing in battle the Viking leader Gorm, Rhodri gave his country a short but welcome period of unity and stability. Unfortunately for the future of an independent Wales, Rhodri Mawr's death in 878 was followed by a period of internal strife, and the alliance of his sons with Alfred led to Wales' dependence upon the English king for protection. Dependence upon its stronger neighbor to the east was to be a permanent feature for the rest of the history of Wales, always struggling, but seldom able to break its chains. Rhodri was killed in battle fighting an English army; it was left to his grandson, Hywel Dda (Howell the Good, right) to re-establish some sort of predominance among the various petty kingdoms of Wales by wisely keeping the peace with his English neighbors through a policy of conciliation. In his reign, lasting from 904-50, Hywel's territories were known as Deheubarth, which united with Gwynedd and Powys to cover most of Wales with the exception of Glamorgan, in the southeast. The only Welsh king to have earned the title "The Good," he is described in the great medieval history, "The Brut Y Tywysogion" (The Chronicle of the Princes) as "the chief and most praiseworthy of all the Britons." During Hywel's reign at least, the major struggle was never within the borders of Wales, but continued against outside influences, especially English attempts at control. It is for his brilliant codification of Welsh law, however, not for any military prowess, that the Hywel is best remembered. Professor John Davies calls his set of laws among the most splendid creations of the culture of the Welsh. "For it contained proof, he writes, "not only of their identity, but also of their unity, and this is a point not to be overlooked by those who see the whole history of late medieval Wales as one of self-defeating internecine squabbles among minor princes and their offspring." A systemization of the legal customs which had developed in his country over many centuries, Cyfraith Hywel (The Law of Hywel) was far in advance of much English law; for one thing, it gave significant status to women. For example, they were guaranteed certain property rights, which did not become part of the laws of England for over one thousand years. A woman also had the right to seek compensation if struck by her spouse without cause; she could also receive up to one half the family property upon divorce. The primitive methods of proving guilt that were practiced in Anglo-Saxon England were also absent from the Law of Hywel. It was enlightened, too, in ways of dealing with execution and theft and in establishing the rights of an illegitimate son to claim his patrimony. Most significant was the fact that the majority of the surviving documents are in Welsh, with only a few in Latin, another sign of the legitimacy of the language of the Cymry. There was one great drawback, however. Though law as practiced in Wales was a most democratic judicial system, through the law known as Gavelkind, it specified that a father's lands be divided among all his sons, rather than be given intact to the eldest son. This led to unforeseen and tragic results for Wales, as it prevented the build up of a unified, powerful state such as took place in England, where Gavelkind was not

practiced and where the whole kingdom was inherited by a single heir. Administered throughout much of Wales until the 16th century, Cyfraith Hywel was finally replaced by the provisions of the Act of Union of 1536. In many areas, the Law of Hywel even survived the provisions of the infamous Statute of Rhuddlan of 1284 of Edward I that in many jurisdictions replaced Welsh procedures by English criminal law. During Good King Hywel's reign, Welsh law and literature were praised throughout Europe. Hywel is known to have visited the Pope in Rome in 928, and coins were struck in Wales bearing his name. In the development of the nation, which he seems to have kept free from the ravages of the Norsemen, his influence cannot be underestimated, yet even with all his statecraft, authority and fame, he could not succeed in creating a fully-united, independent state that would endure his passing. After his death, the people of Wales once again to find themselves living in minor kingdoms under a succession of rulers vying for power and influence, with only a few notable exceptions. In order to keep the peace throughout his lands, Hywel had been forced to accept the position of sub-regulus, subservient to King Athelstan of Wessex (left), a king who reigned supreme in all Britain south of Scotland. To many historians, it was this appeasement that led to the reaction manifested itself in the great poem of lament "Armes Prydain." The title of the poem translates as "The Prophecy of Britain" deals with the depiction of an alliance between the Celtic peoples of Britain and Brittany, along with the Norsemen of Dublin, to overthrow the Saxon invaders of their islands and to restore the old kingdoms. Probably composed by a monk in south Wales around 930, the poem expresses a deep sense of loss, perhaps irreversible. It deals with a prophecy built on false hopes -- the Saxons were far too thoroughly established in most of Britain by the beginning of the 10th century, and their powerful rulers had been consolidating their kingdoms. The Welsh poem was written about the same time as the English "Answer," a boasting account in verse in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (the rest of which is entirely in prose) of the Saxon victory at Brunanburgh, a site not yet properly identified, between King Athelstan and the Celtic alliance described in Armes Prydain. It is significant that the Celtic allies described in Armes Prydain are referred to as "Welshmen," yet the people of Wales itself were not ready for such an alliance and, if there were such a battle as Brunanburgh, they were not present. Despite the great victory of King Athelstan, Wales continued to exist, with or without its Celtic allies. During the time that Wessex had risen to dominance in England, Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, acceding to the throne of Gwynedd in 1039, became overlord of the whole territory of Wales. Through military preparedness, clever alliances and political maneuvering, he was recognized throughout its borders. Gruffudd's strength was his single-mindedness, perhaps his ruthlessness -- an enormous attribute in an age where the peace of Hywel's reign had been superseded by a century of lawlessness, intertribal warfare, petty princely squabbles and fratricide. In his brief and bloody rule from 1057-63, Gruffudd's fierce determination managed to bring all the kingdoms of Wales together under his control. Alas, the euphoria experienced by the people of Wales lasted only for seven years, if indeed they ever realized their good fortune, for once again the dream of a strong, fully integrated kingdom, independent of the English monarch, disappeared with Gruffudd's death. Some say it was betrayal by his own men that led to his defeat by Harold of Wessex in 1063 (Harold himself being killed at Hastings three short years later). Gruffudd's death happened at a most inappropriate time -- a new threat was looming on the horizon, and a new struggle was about to begin --the Normans were arriving on the Welsh borders in full force.

Norman Wales

Almost immediately after his decisive victory over Harold and the Saxon army, William of Normandy set about establishing a strong, centralized kingdom in England. To help govern Wales, he set up powerful, semi-independent earldoms on the borders -at Hereford, Shrewsbury, and Chester. From these heavily fortified bases, military zones we call the Marches, the Norman "Marcher Lords" made their influence felt not only in their own territories but also over the border, completely colonizing Gwent by 1087 and much of the rest of Southeast Wales by 1100. Norman Castles soon dotted much of the Welsh countryside -- it is hardly possible to find a settlement of any size where they were not built. Even today, their massive piles dominate such centres of urban settlement as Cardigan, Pembroke, Brecon, Cardiff, Caerphilly and many others. In each lordship, the Norman earl reigned as a minor king, usurping the powers previously enjoyed by the native Welsh rulers. In mountainous, forbidding Northwest Wales, however, Norman castles were scarce; under a few dynamic leaders, much of the area was gradually recovered from Norman rule. Thanks to the heroic efforts of such Welsh rulers as Owain Gwynedd and Madog

ap Maredudd, Gwynedd and Powys became re-established as major political units enjoying Welsh law. Even the coming of the Normans to the rest of Wales did not spell all gloom and doom. Though the newcomers seem to have despised the Saxons whom they had so easily subdued, they had much more respect for the Welsh, whose Cymric language was probably much more intelligible to them than that of the barbaric English. In many parts of Wales, especially along the borders, parts of Glamorgan and southern Pembrokeshire (where the Normans invited Flemish weavers to settle), relationships between the two people were quite amicable at times, and for generations Norman and Welshman of the same relative social status would meet as equals. Even intermarriage was not uncommon. At the same time, while the Saxon language was quickly abolished from law and government in England, to be replaced by Latin or Norman French, the Welsh language flourished west of Offa's Dyke as a medium of both institutions. It was in the Norman Lords' interests to develop close ties with the Welsh aristocracy, for their main interest seems to have been a relatively simple one: to keep the peace by establishing a secure frontier. It was in south Wales that the Norman presence was most felt, as their many strongholds testify. Their presence there helped bring Wales out of its western-facing, introspective world and made it part of the Continent. It was to undergo an explosion of literature that made it the envy of Europe, covering a wide area, including writings on history, law, medicine and healing, geography and the lives of the saints and theology. The lives of St. Beuno and St. David, the "Book of the Anchorite," and some mystical works have all survived. So has the "Mabinogion," seen by many as perhaps Wales' greatest contribution to European literature (though some reserve this honor for the work of poet Dafydd ap Gwilym). The title "Mabinogion" (Bendigeidfran character from Mabinogion, right) was unknown in the Norman period; the tales may have been composed by a single cleric sometime in the 11th century using material from a much earlier period involving figures from Celtic mythology. The title was first used by Lady Charlotte Guest in her remarkable translation published between 1838 and 1849; it seems to have developed from a word "Mabinogi," originally meaning "boyhood," through a tale of a hero's boyhood to a tale in general. The texts are preserved in the "White Book of Rhyderch" (written in mid-14th century) and the Red Book of Hergest (written later). Gwyn Williams cites Matthew Arnold's use of a passage from the "Mabinogion" as an example of Celtic magic: "And they saw a tall tree by the side of the river, one half of which was in flames from the root to the top, and the other half was green and in full leaf." Such magic is the very stuff of the Mabinogion, unknown outside Wales until the translations of Lady Guest. It is part and parcel of that glorious tradition of Welsh poetry that is so little known outside the borders of Wales itself. The magic is continued in that other great contribution of Wales to the world -- the body of literature as Arthuriana. While the "Mabinogion" may have been unknown outside Wales, the Arthurian tales certainly were not. As we have seen earlier, the name Arthur appears in early Welsh poems In "Y Gododdin" and "Marwnad Cynddylan," Arthur is praised as a ruler of valor and ferocity. Perhaps the most authentic of the early Arthurian references is the chronicle entry for the year 537 that briefly refers to the Battle of Camlan in which Arthur and Medrawd were killed. In his "Historia Brittonum," in the early ninth century, Nennius described Arthur as "a leader of battles, who defeated the Saxons 12 times, the final battle being Mount Badon." In "Annales Cambriae" (written about 1100 but containing material from 445 to 954) the Battle of Mount Badon is recorded as having taken place in 516, and Arthur is praised as having defeated the Saxons "after bearing the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ on his shoulders for three days and nights." It is to the Norman-Welsh writer Geoffrey of Monmouth (c.1090- 1155), that the Arthuriana owes its greatest debt, for his most important work, the "Historia Regum Britanniae", became the basis for a whole new and impressive European literature of Arthurian romance. In Geoffrey's work, a wise, noble, and benevolent king is described as presiding over a chivalric court in a Golden Age of the British people that had existed before arrival of the Saxons. Geoffrey was born around the year 1090 probably in the vicinity of the town of Monmouth. In 1152 he became Bishop of St. Asaph (Llan Elwy) in Clwyd, a village on the banks of the River Elwy, though he probably never went near there, spending most of his life at Oxford. If not entirely historically accurate, his tales were of vital importance to a sense of national identity. His writings not only gave the Welsh people an account of a classical origin from Brutus of Troy, but it also provided them with their long-lasting claim to the sovereignty of the whole island of Britain. Other Welsh tales are found in the works of Geoffrey. One of these concerns "Magnus Maximus", (Macsen) Roman commander in Britain who was proclaimed Emperor by his soldiers in 383 and who took his army to Rome to dispossess the incumbent Gratian. He was eventually defeated and killed by Theodosius. More interesting, however, is the belief kept alive even today in folk tales and songs, including "Yma o Hyd" (We're Still Here) by Dafydd Iwan, that Macsen is responsible for the Welsh settling Brittany, earlier known as Armorica, for he is said to have granted lands there to Elen's brother Cynan. Of the Welsh, medieval French writer Chretien de Troyes wrote: "they are all, by nature wilder than the beasts of the field" (Le Roman de Perceval), yet he was indebted to Welsh sources for his own stirring tales of chivalry and romance. It seems probable that he relied heavily upon the same earlier material as the three Welsh Arthurian romances: Owain, (or Iarlles y Ffynnon: the

Lady of the Fountain), "Historia Peredur" and "Geraint ab Erbin". These correspond respectively to "Yvain", "The Perceval" and "The Erec tales of Chretien". It is also entirely possible that many tales of Arthur accompanied the migrations of British people to Brittany during the time of the Saxon invasions of their homelands. This might account for their popularity in 12th century France where Chretien transformed them into something like the Arthurian legends with which we are familiar today. In any case, Chretien's stories or the tales upon which his verses were based spread throughout France, Germany and England. He gave polish and sophistication to a large body of works that certainly originated in the British Isles among the Welsh people. They were certainly Celtic in origin, and many of the French tales have retained Welsh names for some of the characters, which the Welsh tales have lost. A century after Geoffrey yet another Welsh scholar and cleric not only helped cement this foundation, but also helped spread it further abroad. Geraldus Cambrensis (Gerald of Wales) or Gerald De Barri, to give his Norman name, one of the greatest Welsh writers in Latin, was born at Manorbier, Pembrokeshire around 1146. His parents were William de Barri and Angharad, the daughter of Gerald de Windsor and Nest (the daughter of Rhys ap Tewdwr, Prince of Deheubarth and the great Lord Rhys). Educated in Paris, Gerald served as an administrator of the see of St. David's, and a clerk at the court of Henry II. He accompanied Prince John to Ireland and Archbishop Baldwin on his journey through Wales. His writings were prolific, but it is generally agreed that his most distinguished works are those dealing with Wales and Ireland, with his two books on his beloved Wales the most important: "Itinerarium Kambriae" and "Descriptio Kambriae." Geraldus is the source for some of the most famous of the Welsh folk tales including the declaration of the old man of Pencader to Henry II: This nation, O King, may now, as in former times, be harassed, and in a great measure weakened and destroyed by your and other powers, and it will also prevail by its laudable exertions, but it can never be totally subdued through the wrath of man, unless the wrath of God shall concur. Nor do I think that any other nation than this of Wales, nor any other language, whatever may hereafter come to pass, shall on the day of severe examination before the Supreme Judge, answer for this corner of the earth. It was Geraldus who also wrote (of the Welsh) that "If they would be inseparable, they would be insuperable," and that, unlike the English hirelings, who fight for power or to procure gain or wealth, the Welsh patriots fight for their country. He had pleasant things to say about the poetic talents of his people, too: In their rhymed songs and set speeches they are so subtle and ingenious that they produce, in their native tongue, ornaments of wonderful and ex- quisite invention both in the words and the sent- ences...They make use of alliteration in preference to all other ornaments of rhetoric, and that partic- ular kind, which joins by consonancy, the first letters or syllables of words. Geraldus also penned the following words that give so much pride to Welsh singers of today, especially those who participate in the immensely popular Cymanfaoedd Ganu (hymn-singing festivals) held throughout Wales and North America and even Patagonia and Australia or wherever Welsh people or people of Welsh descent congregate: In their musical concerts they do not sing in unison like the inhabitants of other countries, but in many different parts...You will hear as many different parts and voices as there are performers who all at length unite with organic melody. The production of literature in Norman Wales flourished in favorable political conditions. In the year 1200, Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, the grandson of Owain Gwynedd, became ruler of the kingdom of Gwynedd, and under his strong and determined leadership, Wales was once more united as a single political unit. In 1204, he was recognized by King John of England, whose daughter Joan he married. King John's troubles with his barons, and the needless, wasteful wars on the continent, in which he lost Normandy, meant that Llywelyn was ultimately successful in resisting English influence in Wales, and he received homage from the other Welsh princes. At a conference held at Aberdyfi in 1216 he was recognized as their nominal leader, a true Prince of Wales. Modern historians a free that two entries in "Brut y Tywysogion" show Llywelyn's power, influence and confidence. The first is for the year 1230, following many years of military success during which castle after castle, town after town, fell to his armies. It shows his confidence and strength: In that year William de Braose the Younger, lord of Brycheiniog, was hanged by the Lord Llywelyn in Gwynedd after he had been caught in Llywelyn's chamber with the King of England's daughter, Llywelyn's wife. The second entry is for the year of Llywelyn's death in 1240. It shows his wisdom and political savvy:

He ruled his enemies with sword and spear, gave peace to the monks...enlarged his boundaries by his wars, gave good justice to all according to their deserts, and by the bonds of fear or love bound all men duly to him. Known to the future as Llywelyn Fawr (Llywelyn the Great), he himself paid his respects to the new English king Henry III at John's death in 1216. But Henry III was no King John; he was determined to show who was master in Wales, and despite all Llywelyn's achievements, after his death, the struggle began anew, quarrels between his two sons Dafydd and Gruffudd undoing practically all that their father had accomplished. The laments of the court poets who had enjoyed something of a cultural renaissance during the great prince's long reign, were also laments for the passing of the old bardic order that died with the death of their patron. The Welsh were for all intents and purposes now leaderless. Once again, despite their bravery and prowess in battle, their armies had to yield to superior forces. In 1247, at the Treaty of Woodstock, East Gwynedd was ceded to King Henry. Then, in 1254 to rub in his victory, the English king granted control of all the Crown lands in Wales to his young son, Prince Edward. It was up to another Llywelyn, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, the grandson of ap Iorwerth, to restore the situation. Through military conquest, after imprisoning his brothers and taking the kingdom of Gwynedd for himself, Llywelyn was able to re-unite much of his country in order to assert his claim to be called Prince of Wales. The title was accorded him officially by Henry III in 1267 at the Treaty of Montgomery, recognizing the Welsh leader's claim to the three major kingdoms of Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth. It seemed, for a short time at least, that the dream of the Welsh people had been realized -- they had their own prince, they governed their own territories, under their own laws and were able to conduct their own affairs in their own language free from English influence. Wales was poised to take an early place among the developing independent nation states of Europe. All was changed, however, and all too soon. The accession to the English throne of Edward I in 1272 completely reversed the tide of affairs. The struggle had to begin anew.

Edwardian Conquest
Edward I (left) was determined to rule a united island of Britain under his kingship, and this meant he had ultimately to conquer Wales and Scotland. The short period of peace between English and Welsh following the Treaty of Montgomery was an illusion. Dafydd, disappointed in the acclaim given to his brother, and supported by Edward, defected to the English. King Edward then took a huge army into Wales to assert his might. He was greatly helped by further family squabbles between Prince Llywelyn and many of the minor princes who resisted his authority. Even in his mountain stronghold of Gwynedd, Llywelyn's own formidable problems made one part of Edward's task much easier than was perhaps expected, considering the early defeats that the Welsh armies inflicted upon the invading English, not used to fighting in mountainous terrain. Consequently, after heavy defeats in the field and lacking any significant support, Llywelyn's great achievement at Montgomery was completely negated. At the Treaty of Aberconwy in 1277, he was forced to accept humiliating terms and to give up most of his recently acquired lands, keeping only Gwynedd west of the Conwy River. Edward followed his successes by building English strongholds around the perimeter of what remained of Llywelyn's possessions. Strong, easily defended, forbidding castles were erected at the strategic points of Flint, Rhuddlan, Aberystwyth and Builth, garrisoned by large detachments of English soldiers and their families and settled by merchants and immigrants. At Rhuddlan, in the northeast, Edward's castle builders even had the river diverted to provide easy access for men and provisions. Without having much of a choice and hoping for better fortune in the future, Llywelyn simply waited for better circumstances, going so far as to pay homage to the King of England. His wedding to Elinor at Worcester was even honored by Edward's attendance, but the harsh methods used by Edward to control the conquered principality were soon to produce a major revolt. The rebellion was initially led by Dafydd, now reconverted to the cause of his country and gaining widespread support, but Llywelyn could not sit idly by as conditions forced him to take control. An entry in "Brut y Tywysogion" reads: "The gentlefolk of Wales, despoiled of their liberty and their rights, came to Llywelyn ap Gruffudd and revealed to him with tears their grievous bondage to the English; and they made known to him that they preferred to be slain in war for their liberty than to suffer themselves to be unrighteously trampled upon by foreigners." At first, the Welsh leader enjoyed a period of success: the castles of Builth, Aberystwyth and Ruthin fell into his hands, and a large English force was utterly destroyed in the Menai Straits in Gwynedd. Edward was forced to devote the whole of his English kingdom's resources to deal with the "malicious, accursed" Welsh, yet it was a mere chance encounter that broke the spirit of his enemy and effectively ended the Welsh dream. At Cilmeri, in a quiet green meadow on the side of the road from Builth Wells to Llandovery, you will see a tall granite monolith. At first glance, it looks like one of the standing stones erected thousands of years

ago by our Neolithic ancestors, yet a close inspection reveals it to be a monument erected in 1956 to the memory of Prince Llywelyn: Ein Lliw Olaf (Our last ruler). Separated from the main body of his army, Llywelyn found himself in a minor skirmish in which, he was killed by an English knight unaware of the Welsh prince's identity. Upon discovery, Llywelyn's head was sent to London for display as that of a traitor. A poignant ballad by modern Welsh songwriter and nationalist Dafydd Iwan expresses the grief of the Welsh at the loss of their beloved Llywelyn: "Collir Llywelyn, colli'r cyfan" (losing Llywelyn is losing everything ). After Llywelyn's death, the struggle continued fitfully under his brother Dafydd, now calling himself Prince of Wales. Despite their being united by multiple grievances, however, lack of the needed resources to conduct a long campaign brought the stubborn resistance of the Welsh to an inevitable end. Edward, euphoric at the death of Llywelyn, was determined to "check the impetuous rashness of the Welsh, to punish their presumption and to wage war against them to their extermination." Unable to command more than a remnant of those who had flocked to the banner of his elder brother, Dafydd was quickly captured, executed as a traitor in London, and the King of England was now free to do with Wales ashe wished. In 1294, the Statute of Rhuddlan confirmed Edward's plans regarding the governing of Wales (apart from the Marches, left more or less as quasi-independent earldoms as rewards for their help in disposing of the Welsh problem). The statute created the counties of Anglesey, Caernarfon and Merioneth, to be governed by the Justice of North Wales; Flint, to be placed under the Justice of Chester and the counties of Carmarthen and Cardigan to be left under the Justice of South Wales. In the new counties the English pattern of courts was firmly set in place though some Welsh Law was retained in a few civil actions, mainly concerning minor land disputes. The Welsh counties did not elect representatives to Parliament; they remained outside the jurisdiction of the central courts of Westminster. Edward was more than jubilant; for all practical purposes, his troubles with the Welsh were at an end. From that time forward, Wales was to live under an alien political system, playing a subordinate role as an integral part of the kingdom of England. It was as if a nation or a people never existed. The situation was summed up in 1284 by an anonymous scribe: The Divine Providence...has now...wholly and entirely transferred the land of Wales with its inhabitants...and has annexed and united the same into the Crown... as a member of the said body. The status of the conquered nation seemed permanently confirmed when, in 1301, King Edward of England made Lord Edward his son (who had been born at Caernarfon Castle), Prince of Wales and Count of Chester. Ever since that date, these titles have been automatically conferred upon the first-born son of the English monarch. The Welsh people were not consulted in the matter, though an entry in "Historia Anglicana" for the year 1300 reads: In this year King Edward of England made Lord Edward, his son and heir, Prince of Wales and Count of Chester. When the Welsh heard this, they were overjoyed, thinking him their lawful master, for he was born in their lands. Suffice it to say, the above was written by an English scribe, most probably in the service of the King. Following his successes in Wales, signified by the Statute of Rhuddlan, sometimes referred to as The Statute of Wales, Edward embarked on his second massive castle-building program. He created such world-heritage sites as Caernarfon, Conwy, Harlech, and Beaumaris (below) in addition to the not so-well known (or visited) earlier structures at Flint and Rhuddlan. No expense was spared to construct these enormous fortresses. Below the huge, forbidding castle walls, new English boroughs were created, and English traders were invited to settle, often to the exclusion of the native Welsh, who must have looked on in awe and despair from their lonely hills at the site of so much building activity. Their ancestors must have felt the same sense of dismay as first, they watched the Roman invaders build their heavily defended forts in strategic points on their lands and next, they saw the huge, forbidding Norman castles built to straddle important river crossings. By rule of their new invaders, the Welsh were forbidden to inhabit such "boroughs" or to carry arms within their walls (some English border cities such as Chester and Hereford still have laws on the books proscribing the activities of the Welsh). With the help of the architect Master James of St. George, and with what must have seemed like limitless resources in manpower and materials, Edward showed his determination to place a stranglehold on the people of Wales, who were hemmed on all sides: the struggle seemed lost forever. The struggle did not die out completely, but occasional rebellions were easily crushed; it was not until the death of Edward III and the arrival of Owain Glyndwr (Shakespeare's Owen Glendower), that any Welsh leader felt confident enough to challenge their English overlords. In the meantime, conditions settled down somewhat under the status quo, and a whole new era of Welsh literature was to develop and flourish.

The Flowering of Literature

After the death of Dafydd ap Gruffudd (left), the place of the Welsh princes as patrons of the poets was filled by the native Welsh

gentry, whose growing importance and influence had been recognized as early as 1176, by an event that is of great significance in the long Welsh poetic tradition. This was the calling together of the bards of Wales to compete for a chair -- the tradition of the national Eisteddfod: At Christmas in that year the Lord Rhys ap Gruffudd held court in splendour at Cardigan, in the castle. And he set two kinds of contests there: one between bards and poets, another between harpists and crowders and pipers and various classes of music-craft. And he had two chairs set for the victors. Lord Rhys ruled supreme in much of Ceredigion (Southwest Wales), and it was he who richly endowed the Abbey at Strata Florida (left) in 1184. Henry II had made him a deputy in Wales as a counterpoise to the increasing power of the great Norman lords in Ireland. The 1176 Eisteddfod was one of the ways that he showed his importance and his independence. It was also of major importance to the continuance of the craft of the Welsh bards, a situation that was to change rapidly. At the end of the 12th century, Giraldus Cambrensis had described the magic of Welsh poetry, with its special emphasis on alliteration. He could not have anticipated the full flowering of what we now term "the poetry of the gentry" that replaced that of the courts of the princes. Though the church, long supportive of the native literary culture, continued to patronize the Welsh bards, it was the native gentry (the uchelwyr), the land-owing classes who took upon the task of maintaining the Welsh bardic order, especially since poetry now dealt with secular themes. No longer given an honored place at the courts, the bards could not rely on being permanently employed by the gentry either, so they were forced to travel from home to home on "bardic circuits." They were especially welcome at special occasions such as religious festivals or seasonal feast times. Poets were now free from the obligation to write works in praise of lords and princes. Highly trained in their craft, the bards were distinguishable from the host of itinerant mistrals. They were so popular throughout Wales, that they were encouraged by lesser and greater nobleman alike, always anxious to enhance their social status by having the services of a skilled, practiced bard at their disposal, but only when occasion demanded it. One of these bards was certainly most skilled and most practiced. At the time of Chaucer in England and just following that of Dante in Italy, Wales had its own "world-class" master of the poetic art. Many modern writers see Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320-70) as the greatest Welsh poet of all time, but certainly the most distinguished of medieval Welsh poets. Even in spite of the sad conditions following the death of Llywelyn and Dafydd and the harsh social and economic conditions that accompanied loss of political independence, Dafydd ap Gwilym was able to unite harmoniously the old Welsh bardic tradition and the newer European concepts of courtly love. Indeed, a body of literature was created in Wales that fully equaled that produced in either England or the continent. It may have been that the loss of power of the Welsh princes helped to strengthen the self-awareness of the Welsh people. In any case, during the reigns of Edward II and Edward III, there were periods of considerable tranquillity and stability in Wales. In particular, there was an increased contact with France and French literature that could encourage the Welsh poets to emulate such works as "Roman de la Rose." As exemplified by the works of Dafydd ap Gwilym, the period was one of the most glorious times in Welsh literary history. Dafydd's specialty was to exuberantly sing the praises of nature, of beautiful women, and finally, the fullness and joy of life itself. It is significant that his poetry contains no reference to any racial tension or national bitterness. He was thoroughly at home in the world of Welsh officialdom, being welcomed in all the Welsh courts, where he entertained his patrons with stories of love, beautiful and unattainable girls, or of the wonders of nature. In his poetry, written in such elegant county seats as Sycharth, there is no suggestion that presaged the soon-to-come national revolt under its owner, Owain Glyndwr. Much influenced by the poems of Ovid, to whom he acknowledged his debt as one considered the supreme authority on love, Dafydd went so far as to describe himself as "Ovid's man." His command of the language is unparalleled among Welsh poets. His primary theme, the pursuit of love, is usually associated with an idealized forest setting of animals and birds, but he was also adept at using a racy, colloquial dialog. A few lines translated from "Merched Llanbadarn" (The Girls of Llanbadarn) aptly show Dafydd's portrayal of his own feelings and experiences: I bend before this passion; a plague on the parish girls! Since, o force of my longing, I have never had one of them! Not one sweet and hoped-for maiden, Not one young girl, or hag, nor wife, What recoil, what malicious thoughts, What omission makes them not want me? What harm is it to a thick-browed girl To have me in the dark, dense wood? It would not be shameful for her To see me in a den of leaves. Contemporaries of Dafydd ap Gwilym were Llywelyn Goch (1350-90) whose best known poem is perhaps "Marwnad Lleucu Llwyd" (The Death of Lleucu Llwyd) one of the finest love-poems in Welsh in which the passionate, moving poem bids farewell to a wife who had died while the author was absent. Despite the beauty of this particular poem, Llywelyn Goch is not as well known as Iolo Goch (1320-98) one of the first of the gentry poets, writing eulogies to the gentry and others in Wales.

Three of the poems of the much-travelled poet Iolo Goch deal with Owain Glyndwr, his most famous patron: one of these describes Sycharth, Owain's court, with its fine mansion and bountiful gardens. Iolo's most notable poem is one in praise of "Y Llafurwr" (The Laborer), in which the excerpt below uses clever metaphors to describe the art of ploughing and the usefulness of the plough. Blessed is he ho through his youth holds in his hands the plough.' It's a cradle tearing the smooth long broom, a fishing basket lacing the field, a holy image of a dear praise, a heron opening a quick furrow, a basket for the wild earth, now to be tamed in honored, cultured order; a gander of the wild acres, grains come from its true skill. It brings forth crops from the rich earth, A good beast biting the ground Iolo had experienced the horrors of the Black Death and, unlike Dafydd ap Gwilym, wrote poetry that showed his concerns at social disintegration and the necessity of preserving order, thus anticipating countless generations of Welsh poets with the same concerns. The order found at the home of Owain Glyndwr is one expression of this feeling. It may have been these concerns that led to Iolo's ambivalence towards English rule in Wales; he resented it but praised those who could maintain social order. Iolo Goch's poems show his detailed knowledge of the period's wars and of people and places in his native Wales as well as those of Ireland, France and England. Despite his own claim to fame, however, Iolo records that Llywelyn Goch's "Marwnad Lleucu Llwyd" was always one of the first poems asked for when young people assembled to hear the work of the bards. Not all poets presented the image of a stable and peaceful society. Under the surface, things were not what they seemed: resistance to the English regime was too long-standing and too deep-seated to remain dormant forever. One scribe at Edward's court expressed the situation this way: The Welsh habit of revolt against the English is a long-standing madness . . . and this is the reason. The Welsh, formerly called the Britons, were once noble, crowned with the whole realm of England; but they were expelled by the Saxons and lost both name and a kingdom ...But from the sayings of the prophet Merlin they still hope to recover England. Hence it is they frequently rebel. The reference to Merlin is an indication of the tenacity of the Welsh traditions kept alive by its literary men. The "Brut y Tywysogion," in 682, had the following entry. "In that year Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon, the last king that ruled over the Britons, went to Rome and there he died. . .and thenceforth the Britons lost the crown of the Kingship, and the Saxons obtained it, as Merlin (Myrddyn) had prophesied to Gwrtheyrn Wrthenau." The 10th century the poem Armes Prydain had predicted that the Welsh would rise and give battle; that "they must become united as one band, as sworn brothers through warfare." Another writer around 1060 had referred to a Welsh king, Bendigeidfran, son of Llyr, being crowned king "over this island and exalted with the crown of London." A lament for Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, composed around 1063 had spoken of him as the "golden-torqued king of the Welsh and their defender...he who was sword and shield over the fate of all Wales." A great inspiration to the people of Wales to continue their struggle was the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth in the early part of the 12th century. This had kept alive the great pride of the Welsh in their ancient traditions, not the least of which was that they were a special people, descended from Brutus, and that their language was descended from Trojan. As fanciful as it might be, modern historians see Geoffrey's account of the Britain's founding as central to the consciousness of the Welsh for many centuries. It was a consciousness that finally led to revolt. RebellionWhen the long-awaited revolt finally materialized, Owain Glyndwr was ready to lead it. His banner was the Red Dragon, the old symbol of victory of Briton over the Saxon. His revolt was not unforeseen; the way had been prepared not only by the men of literature, but also by earlier uprisings begun by Madog ap Llywelyn and by Owain Lawgoch. Madog ap Llywelyn, calling himself Prince of Wales, had actually begun the revolt against English rule in 1294, only a dozen years after the death of Llywelyn Gruffudd. Though his efforts did not gain enough support to succeed, they brought a harsh response from King Edward in the form of humiliating and punitive ordinances further restricting the civil rights and economic and social opportunities of the Welsh. It wasn't long before Llywelyn Bren, Lord of Senghenydd, led a second rebellion, aided by some of the more prominent Marcher Lords in 1316. Prior to the arrival of Glyndwr, it was Owain Lawgoch (Owain ap Thomas: Owain Red Hand ) who had the greatest and most lasting influence upon Welsh aspirations for independence from England. Hailed as a brave and skillful soldier, Owain Lawgoch fought for the King of France against the English. He was hailed by Welsh poets as a deliverer, but he never arrived with his promised army to reclaim his native country despite his having taken the Isle of Guernsey on his way from Harfleur in France. He was betrayed and killed in 1378, but his legend lived on in the hearts of the Welsh whose prophetic poetry even compared his life to that of the legendary Arthur. It was this popular prophetic tradition, uniting with the social unrest and racial tension that opened the door for Owain Glyndwr,

Lord of Glyndyfrdwy (the Valley of the Dee). He seized his opportunity in 1400 after being crowned Prince of Wales by a small group of supporters and who subsequently felt confident enough to defy Henry IV's many attempts to dislodge him. At first, it seemed that Owain was attempting more than he could handle; his raids upon the English boroughs were easily repulsed and his supporters scattered. Repressive measures undertaken by the new King Henry, however, and the penal legislation of 1401 that further restricted Welsh civil rights at the expense of English settlers gave Owain the support he had previously lacked. The ancient words of Geraldus Cambrensis could have served to inspire his followers: The English fight for power; the Welsh for liberty; the one to procure gain, the other to avoid loss. The English hirelings for money; the Welsh patriots for their country. In addition, Owain, a direct descendant of the Princes of Powys, was linked by the Welsh bards to the old prophesies, including Iolo Goch. though he had praised the civility an order found at Owain's court at Sycharth. Iolo also expressed his patron's deep resentment at his disinheritance. As a wealthy landowner at Sycharth, in the Valley of the Dee, overlooking the Cheshire Plain, Owain was well educated, well travelled, and greatly experienced in civil and military matters. His wife Margaret was the daughter of a Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Yet he was willing to leave the security and prosperity he enjoyed at Sycharth to risk everything in his desire to create a self-governing Welsh state. One reason came from the usurpation of Richard II and the accession of Henry Bolingbroke as Henry IV in 1399, which had created feelings of great uncertainty among the Welsh concerning their future. Discontentment had fostered, but the revolt began with a dispute over land between Owain as Lord of Glyndyfrdwy, and Reginald de Grey, Lord of Ruthin, but a few miles distant. The English Parliament treated Owain's attempt at redress with contempt, referring to the Welsh as nothing less than "bare-footed rascals." This was indeed an insult that called for action: Owain and his small band of warriors struck back, attacking some of the newly created English boroughs in Wales. They captured Lord Grey, seized Conwy, threatened Harlech and Caernarfon and managed to take a great deal of North Wales under their control. Their early successes released the long-suppressed feelings of thousands of Welshmen who eagerly flocked to his support from all parts of England and the Continent. At long last, they had a chance to fight back and a leader under whom they could fight. By 1404, all had gone well with the Welsh rebellion. The English Parliament condemned the rebellion as a mere peasant's revolt, yet also stressed the importance of the prophetic element -- that part of "Glendower" characterized by Shakespeare as being influenced by divinations and magic. It was true that Owain received a great deal of his support from the peasantry, and the comet that appeared in 1402 was seen by the Welsh as a sign of their forthcoming deliverance from bondage as well as one that proclaimed the appearance of Owain. Glyndwr must have possessed a magnetic personality, for he rallied the long-suffering people of Wales, strengthening their armies and inspired their confidence. In June, 1402, Henry IV's invading army was totally destroyed at Pilleth. Even the weather was favorable to the Welsh. An entry in "Annales Henrici Quarti" of 1402 reads as follows: [Glyndwr] almost destroyed the King and his armies, by magic as it was thought, for from the time they entered Wales to the time they left, never did a gentle air breathe on them, but throughout whole days and nights, rain mixed with snow and hail afflicted them with cold beyond endurance. It soon seemed as if the long-awaited dream of independence was fast becoming a reality. Three royal expeditions against Glyndwr had completely failed. He held Harlech and Aberystwyth in the West, had extended his influence as far as Glamorgan and Gwent in the South and East, and was receiving support from Ireland and Scotland. He had also formed an alliance with France, been recognized by the leading Welsh bishops, and had summoned parliaments at various towns in Wales including Machynlleth where he was crowned as Prince of Wales. It didn't seem too ambitious for Owain to believe that with suitable allies, he could even help bring about the dethronement of the English king; thus he entered into a tripartite alliance with Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland and Edmund Mortimer to divide up England and Wales among them. Edmund had married Owain's daughter Caitrin after he had been captured at Pilleth and gone over to the Welsh side. The plan seemed perfectly logical and attainable. After all, Henry IV's crown was seen even by many Englishmen as having been falsely obtained, and many welcomed armed rebellion against their illegitimate ruler. Hoping to make the Welsh Church completely independent from Canterbury, and that appointments to benefices in Wales be given only to those who could speak Welsh, Glyndwr was also ready to implement his wish to set up two universities in Wales to train native civil servants and clergymen. Then the dream died. Owain's parliament was the very last to meet on Welsh soil; the last occasion that the Welsh people had the power of acting independently of English rule. From such a promising beginning to a national revolt came a terrible, disappointing conclusion,

even more upsetting because of the speed at which Welsh hopes crumbled with the failure of the Tripartite Indenture. Henry Percy, (Hotspur) was killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury, and the increasing boldness and military skills of Henry's son, the English prince of Wales and later King Henry V, began to turn the tide against Glyndwr. In France, Louis of Orleans, Owain's friend and supporter, was assassinated, and because of subsequent anarchy in that country, his French allies could not sustain their support; they withdrew their forces from Wales. Owain's other main ally, the Scottish king, was taken prisoner by the English. Saddest of all, like so many of his predecessors, Glyndwr was betrayed at home. It is not too comforting for Welsh people of today to read that one of the staunchest allies of the English king and enemy of Glyndwr was a man of Brecon, Dafydd Gam (later killed at Agincourt, fighting for the English). A sixth expedition into Wales undertaken by Prince Henry retook much of the land captured by Owain, including many strategic castles. Edmund Mortimer was killed at the siege of Harlech (right) in 1409. The boroughs, with their large populations, had remained English, and by the end of 1409, the Welsh rebellion had dwindled down to a series of guerilla raids led by the mysterious figure of Owain, whose wife and two daughters had been captured at Harlech and taken to London as prisoners. The English response was predictable: again the imposition of harsh, punitive measures were enacted against any signs of further resistance to their rule. The Welsh people were forced to pay large subsidies; they were prohibited from acquiring land east of Offa's Dyke or even within the boundaries of the English boroughs in Wales. The Charter of Brecon of 1411 is typical of the English response to Welsh hopes: The liberties of Brecon shall be restricted to whose whom we deem to be Englishmen and to such of their heirs as are English on both their mother's and their father's side. Englishmen were even protected from conviction at the suit of Welshmen within Wales. To Charles VI of France, Glyndwr wrote "My nation has been trodden underfoot by the fury of the barbarous Saxons." He went into the mountains, or into a secret monastery, becoming an outlaw. He may have suffered an early death for nothing is known of him either by the Welsh or the English. Owain Glyndwr simply vanished from sight. According to an anonymous writer in 1415," Very many say that he [Owain Glyndwr] died; the seers say that he did not." ("Annals of Owain Glyndwr") There has been much speculation as to his fate and much guessing as to where he ended his final days and was laid to rest.

Survival
The failure of Owain's dream of an independent Wales was a crushing disappointment. For the first time since the Anglo-Saxon conquests, the old prophecies, for a period of about ten years, had seemed to be near fulfillment. Yet, despite the failure of the rebellion, so recent in their memory, and so glorious in its early days, the struggle was not over; many Welshmen continued to hope that one day they would regain their lost sovereignty. Because of the hopes raised by Owain Glyndwr, a spirit lived on with the people of Wales. The rebellion had been no mere peasant uprising, but a general uniting of feeling and action. Gwynfor Evans, a 20th century Welsh leader and author describes it as a "genuine War of Independence that ... was the first in a series of extraordinary events to which the nation, which was to be incorporated in imperial England in the next century, owes her almost miraculous survival through the next six hundred years." It is in this very late part of the twentieth century, perhaps, that the work of Owain Glyndwr will see its ultimate fulfillment. We cannot overestimate the continuing mystery and power exerted by this most enigmatic figure in Welsh history. There is a spirit alive today that has fostered a renewed interest in Welsh language, culture, social institutions and politics. There have been more than four centuries of history between Owain's time and ours, centuries in which Welsh affairs were inseparably bound up with those of England, and centuries in which only the activities of a stalwart few kept the dream of Wales alive. When, in the year 1431, 1433, and 1447 the English Parliament continued to reaffirm the Penal Code that was based upon anti-Welsh sentiments, it was inevitable that the bitterness of the oppressed found expression in poetry. Professor John Davies believes that the Welsh literature of the century after 1415 is considered to be more nationalistic than that of any other period. He writes that Welsh literature of the period shows the ambiguity of a people fully aware of their defeat but anxious to make the best of a bad situation. That may be over-simplification, but there certainly was a revival of prophetic poetry, in which the tradition called for an overthrow of the Saxon overlords in favor of a Welsh monarch to rule all Britain and restore the rights and privileges of his people. It is certainly true that the major Welsh poets who wrote following Glyndwr's rebellion gave expression to the people's grievances. Both Guto'r Glyn and Lewis Glyn Cothi longed for the expulsion of English officeholders from their beloved country, in which the poets considered themselves no better than slaves. An even more radical poet was Sion Cent. Sion Cent's work had a lasting and profound influence upon his contemporaries and upon later poets. He also despaired of what was happening to his native Wales, but in addition, he wrote powerful poetic sermons on the mortality and vanity of all earthly things; through satire, he hoped to show Man in his true nature - the magic and color of this world were all illusory. A few lines translated from "Hud a Lliw y Byd" (The Illusion of this World ) will give some idea of his power of description, his biting wit and his outlook toward the everyday things and experiences of this world:

Where's all the world: It has only deceived us. Where are the worthies of old Wales, and the householders? Where is reverence which I had as a youth? No credible messenger, no herald of the wind knows where. The same dance, I hear it come, We gather riches, a fool's errand; magic and color, all to no avail. magic and color, our work is of no use. Around the time of Sion Cent's death, the Acts of Union brought profound changes in the relationship of Wales to England. It also brought, eventually, the translation into Welsh of the most influential book in both countries, the Holy Bible. For the practice of religion in Wales, the results were incalculable, as they were for the language and the literature. Far more than any heroic leader or skillful poet, the Welsh Bible became the instrument for the very survival of Wales itself. It is time to return to the political scene to determine how these results came about.

Union with England

After the failure of the Glyndwr rebellion, it was inevitable that Wales would be annexed to England. Union had really been achieved by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284; that formal recognition had to wait until 1536 was only because of the troubles faced by English kings in dealing with their territories in France and with their own subjects in England. The conclusion of what is known as the Hundred Years War took care of the first problem, and the conclusion of what is known as the Wars of the Roses took care of the other by the time Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509. After his great victory at Agincourt, Henry died on one of his French campaigns in 1422; his widow Katherine then married Owen Tudor, from a prominent Anglesey family. The Wars of the Roses involving rival factions for the throne of England began in the reign of the next king, Henry VI. They continued up to Bosworth in 1485 with the defeat of Richard III at the hands of the grandson of Owen Tudor, the Duke of Richmond, who took the crown as Henry VII. Most of Wales had supported Richmond's rebellion against King Richard and were delighted that the throne was to be occupied by one of Welsh lineage. Henry acknowledged Wales and Welsh support by naming his son and heir Arthur. His daughter, meanwhile, married James IV of Scotland. It was apparent that a united kingdom of Great Britain was rapidly being created by those in power in London. The policy was continued when Henry VIII succeeded his father in 1509 after young Arthur's premature death. The problem of Scotland remained a thorn in the side of the early Tudors, but in the meantime Wales could be dealt with permanently. After Henry VIII had broken with Rome, he felt ready to further show his power as rightful king of Wales as well as England. The first of the Acts of Union (a modern term describing several acts of legislation having to do with Wales) took place in 1536. Its provisions ensured the political annexation of Wales to England, for it gave notice that part of their intent was "[henceforth] . . .to utterly extirpate all and singular the sinister usage and customs differing from the same {English laws]." Despite the above, the Act was welcomed by many in Wales, certainly by the gentry, the commercial interests and the religious reformers among others, and why not? Didn't it also state that "Persons born or to be born in the said Principality...of Wales shall have and enjoy and inherit all and singular Freedoms, Liberties, Rights, Privileges and Laws...as other the King's subjects have, enjoy or inherit"? In any case, the foundations of the great Welsh landed-estates had already been firmly settled. Much of the day-to-day affairs of the nation were controlled by its landed gentry, many of whom were English or had descended from English families and intermarried with the Welsh. They looked to London for their advancement (they could hardly look elsewhere) Wales was not to get its own capital city until 1955. The Act authorized the appointments of many of these gentry as Welsh Justices of the Peace, abolished any legal distinction between citizens of Wales and those of England, settled the border by the creation of new counties (out of the old lordships), and gave Wales representation in Parliament. It was apparent that the Act of 1536 produced no great changes for the common folk of Wales; all the ingredients for its acceptance had been put in place long before. Even the harsh, repressive measures of Bishop Rowland Lee, who had been appointed President of the Council of Wales in 1534, seemed to have caused no great reaction on the part of the Welsh, whom he seemed to have regarded as little more than "congenital thieves." There was no major rebellion, for example, as occurred in Cornwall and Yorkshire, against the great religious changes instituted by the Crown. Either the majority of the people of Wales realized the hopelessness of their position, or their leading citizens were too busy enjoying the fruits of cooperation with London. The continuing struggle would have to wait for a while. There certainly were major benefits to be gained from close ties with England. The Act opened up opportunities for individual advancement in all walks of life, and hundreds of ambitious Welshmen flocked to London to take full advantage of their chances. Yet, it must be noted that the Act, one of the most important in the whole history of Wales, was passed without consultation with the Welsh people; there was no agreement of a central Welsh authority or parliament, simply because such an authority did not exist.

The title of the Act of 1536 is : "An Act for Laws and Justices to be ministered in Wales in like form as it is in this Realm." Its preamble states: His Highness. . .of the singular love and favour that he bears towards his subjects of this said dominion of Wales, and intending to reduce them to the perfect order, notice and knowledge of the laws of this Realm, and utterly to extirpate all and singular the sinister usage and customs differing from the same...hath...ordained, enacted and established that his said country or dominion of Wales shall stand and continue forever from henceforth incorporated, united and annexed to and with his Realm of England" From this time on, English law would be the only law recognized by the courts of Wales. In addition, for the placing of the administration of Wales in the hands of the Welsh gentry, a class was created, not only fluent in English, but also who would use it in all legal and civil matters. Thus inevitably, before very long, this Welsh ruling class would be divorced from the language and the common folk of their own country. This was hardly an unexpected or unanticipated development. As pointed out earlier, the eyes of the Welsh gentry were focused on what London or other large cities of England had to offer, not upon what remained as crumbs to be scavenged in Wales itself. Without a government of its own, without a capital city, and without even a town large enough to attract an opportunistic urban middle class, and stuck with a language "nothing like nor consonant to the natural mother tongue used within this realm." There is an expression coined in the 19th century that describes a Welshman who pretends to have forgotten his native language or who affects the loss of his national identity in order to succeed in English society or who wishes to be thought well of among his friends. Such a man is known as Dic Sion Dafydd (it is similar in meaning to the American term "Uncle Tom"). The term was unknown in 16th century Wales, but owing to the harsh penal legislation imposed upon its inhabitants, it became necessary for many Welshmen to petition Parliament to be "made English" so that they could enjoy privileges restricted to Englishmen. These privileges included the right to buy and hold land according to English law. Such petitions may have been anathema to the patriotic Welsh, but for the ambitious and socially mobile gentry rapidly emerging in Wales and on the Marches, they were very necessary for any chance of advancement. In 1561, William Herbert of Raglan, in Southeast Wales was appointed to Parliament. As Baron Herbert, he was the first fullblooded Welshman to become part of the English aristocracy and the first in a long tradition that for centuries to come would result in draining the Welsh nation of its leaders and men and women of influence. In the military, of course, Welsh mercenaries, no longer fighting under Glyndwr for an independent Wales, were highly sought after; the skills of the Welsh archers in such battles as Agincourt had become legendary. Such examples of allegiance to their commander, the English sovereign, went a long way in dispelling an latent thoughts of independence and helped paved the way for the overwhelming Welsh allegiance to the Tudors. By 1583, in fact, Sir Henry Sidney could write: "A better people to govern than the Welsh [Europe] holdeth not." Welsh men were found in strategic position in legal, military and professional circles. They were in the forefront of England's colonial enterprises, filled leading positions in the Welsh Church (for the first time in many centuries) and in 1571 were successful in having Jesus College, Oxford founded a Welsh college. Thus, according to modern historian Gwyn Williams, they moved upward from a position of junior partners in the Elizabethan state to that of senior partners in the creation of the new and imperial British identity. In 1603, George Owen had written: No country in England (sic) so flourished in one hundred years as Wales hath done since the government of Henry VII to this time; in so much that if our fathers were now living they would think it some strange country inhabited with a foreign nation, so altered is the countrymen, the people changed in heart with and the land altered in hue without, from evil to good, and from bad to better A few years later, Sir John Davies (of Hereford) was pleased to compare the peaceful nature of his native Wales with that of Ireland. Of the Act of Union Davies wrote: ...by means whereof that entire country in a short time was securely settled in peace and obedience, and hath attained to that civility of manners and plenty of all things, as now we find it not inferior to the best parts of England. It was apparent that a new and permanent British identity was being forged out of the people of Wales. Though its full expression had to wait until the Act of Union in 1707, which joined Scotland to England and Wales, it was the glorious age of Elizabeth I, scathingly called by historian A.L. Rowse as a "red-headed Welsh harridan," that saw the emergence of an overseas empire and the successful defence of the realm. It was then that the foundations of the new attitude were set firmly in place. A key figure in this expansion of Britain overseas was the enigmatic John Dee, (1527-1608) a London Welshman and scholar of note. After Britain's relatively peaceful conversion to Protestantism, certainly peaceful compared to what transpired on the Continent, threats of invasion from Spain and the fear of a return to what was considered a morally and spiritually bankrupt foreign church (or foreign rule, in the case of Mary and Philip) kept the majority of people in Wales closely allied to their fellow islanders in England. Any

measures to make the Counter-Reformation productive in Wales utterly failed. In spite of the activities of a few important Catholic intellectuals, mostly in exile on the Continent, the coercive power of the state kept Wales in the Protestant fold. It was this sense of a shared religious destiny that slowly integrated itself into the minds of the peoples of both countries so that they also began to think of themselves as sharing a common British heritage. Wales had no legal system of its own; its religious organization was modeled after that of England, and as we have seen, no capital city or center (or university) to serve as a center for its cultural life. Forward-looking Welshmen regarded London as a model for Wales. Humphrey Llwyd wrote of his fellow Welshmen in 1572: Of late, [they] are applying themselves to settle in towns, learn mechanics, engage in commerce, cultivate the soil, and undertake all other public duties equally with Englishmen. When Elizabeth died in 1603, it was a Scottish king who came to the throne of Britain. Outside London, in Wales, there must have been a sense of despair at the end of the Tudor reign: the old prophecy of Welsh supremacy over the island of Britain had not been fulfilled. From that time on, any differences between Wales and England, and the Welsh people and English people, cannot be found in the political arena. In so many ways, they were truly part of the diversity that made up Great Britain, yet the struggle to remain Welsh continued, however fitful, and with good reason. The social and cultural differences of the Welsh, especially in the matter of their language, kept them apart from their neighbors and made their society seem so strange and "closed" to the rest of Britain, and it is in the language of Wales where the differences are most experienced. To a large extent, language (with its corollary literature), and to a lesser extent the Protestant religion, were the two pillars that kept the struggle for independence alive, as dismal and as hopeless as it seemed after 1536 and even more so after 1603. Both had been helped immeasurably by the fortuitous arrival of and widespread dissemination of the Welsh Bible.

Welsh Bible
After the printing press had reached Wales, it is remarkable not how few books were printed in Welsh, but how many. In 1546, Sir John Price (John Prys of Brecon) published the first book in the Welsh language, his collection of basic religious texts "Yn Llyvyr Hwnn" (In This Book). Tradition has it that the very first book actually printed in Wales itself was "Y Drych Gristianogawl" (The Christian Mirror), produced in a cave at Llandudno, North Wales as a surreptitious counter-reformation text in 1585. "The true pioneer of publishing in Welsh," however, was not Price, but the ardent Protestant William Salesbury (1520-84). Salesbury, the most outstanding of the new scholars, was particularly alarmed at what he considered the baseness of the Welsh tongue: he strongly felt that the new spate of publications needed a more perfect language in which to express their most worthy contents. In 1547, he wrote "And take this advice from me; unless you save and correct and perfect the language before the extinction of the present generation, it will be too late afterwards." But it was in teaching religion rather than preserving the language itself that his true interest lay. Salesbury's mission to the Welsh nation was set out most clearly. In his "Oll Synnwyr Pen Kembero Ygyd" (1547): If you do not wish to be worse than animals . . . obtain learning in your own language; if you do not wish to be more unnatural than any other nation under the sun, love your language and those who love it. If you do not wish utterly to depart from the faith of Christ...obtain the holy scripture in your own tongue as your happy ancestors, the ancient British, had it. Salesbury's scholarship was astonishing: he published books in English as well as Welsh, covering linguistics, proverbs, science, law, and of course, religion. After the 1553 English Prayer Book had abandoned the belief in transubstantiation, thus, according to Professor Davies "establishing Protestantism in the territories of the crown of England," Salesbury worked tirelessly to make the scriptures known to the Welsh people in their own language. He had already begun this task with his Welsh-English dictionary of 1547 and in 1551, he published his "Kynniver Llyth a Ban," a translation of the main texts of the Prayer Book. In 1563, after John Penry and others had petitioned Queen and Parliament, a bill was passed ordering that the Bible be translated into Welsh. This act was not undertaken with any royal love or respect to the language, but one that, according to Dafydd Johnston, formed "an essential part of the program of the Protestant Reformation in Britain." Penry, of Breconshire, was helped by the fact that Elizabeth and her parliament were appalled at the slow progress in of the Welsh people in learning the English language, and perhaps at their sluggishness in converting from Catholicism. The Government welcomed Penry's suggestions, thinking that by having Welsh translations placed next to the English texts in Church, the congregations would learn English. It was also a good method to firmly establish Protestantism in Wales, certainly the chief reason. Whatever the intent, the Welsh language was given an unintended status and a place of honor by being used as a medium for the holy scriptures. Why bother with English, when there was a perfectly acceptable Welsh in which to worship God?

The Welsh bishops entrusted the momentous task mainly to Salesbury, who had prepared the way with his earlier translation of the Prayer Book. Bishop Richard Davies of Abergwili aided him. Unfortunately, the erudition of these learned gentlemen produced a book that could be read by scholars but was practically worthless for the common people. William Morgan (1545-1604), parish priest of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, and later Bishop of Llandaf and St. Asaph (Llanelwy) saved the day and perhaps the language. It is generally agreed that Morgan's education and his temperament made him an ideal person not only to complete the work begun by Salesbury, but also to make it acceptable to both scholar and layman. His scholarship was unmatched; he had studied Hebrew, Greek and Latin at Cambridge. In 1588 with a group of fellow-scholars, including the brilliant Richard Davies, Morgan completed his work. It was Davies who had helped make Protestantism more acceptable to the Welsh people by his exploiting the ancient schism between the old Celtic church and the "new imposter" the Catholic church brought into the country by St. Augustine in the late seventh century and promulgated by the Saxons. Morgan's expectations, like Salesbury's before him, were mainly to present God's word to his people in their own language and thus save them from damnation. Its influence upon the subsequent religious direction of the Welsh people was totally unexpected; it had enormous effects upon their language and literature. Many historians believe that it was this book alone that prevented Welsh from becoming nothing more than a bundle of provincial dialects or of even disappearing altogether. Perhaps it is mainly to this that much of the strength of present-day Welsh is owed, compared to Irish (which did not get its own Bible until 1690), and Scots Gaelic (which had to wait until 1801). In addition, however, the Book became the foundation and inspiration for all the literature written in the Welsh language after the end of the sixteenth century. Thus Meic Stephens can claim: "The Bible of 1588 was as influential in keeping alive the idea of an independent Wales as the defeat of the Amada [the same year] was in maintaining English independence." Since Morgan's language was that of the poets, "contemporary and classical, natural and dignified," it was also the Bible of Morgan "that ensured the purity, accuracy and strength of the poetic vocabulary should live on." at the time when the Bardic Order was facing extinction. It was the translation of the Bible that ensured the continuity of the literary language of Wales, linking the Medieval period to the modern. The Welsh Bible was so successful that all one thousand copies quickly became worn out (or stolen) and a new edition was desperately needed. In 1620, Dr John Davies of Mallwyd was responsible for minor corrections and standardization in his revision version that is a classic of Welsh literature, similar to the King James Bible in English. Generations of Welsh children learned to read and write from this book, or more correctly from the cheaper, smaller version published in 1630, "Y Beibl Bach". For many families it was the only book they could afford; and for those who couldn't, a copy was made available in church, or in the Sunday schools that later became such a prominent part of the Welsh social and religious life. Of his Bible, Dr. Davies wrote: It is impossible to believe that God would have seen fit to keep this language alive until these days, after so many crises in the history of the nation...had He not intended His name to be called and His great works to be proclaimed in it. Most scholars agree that the influence of the Welsh Bible is incalculable: because of it, and strengthened by it, through their faith, their religious leaders, their language and their literature, the people of Wales were able to continue the struggle.

Continued Survival
The Welsh Bible arrived just in time, so rapidly had the influence of continental literature and the anglicization process been achieved in certain areas of Wales by 1592 that Sion Dafydd Rhys lamented: For our part, we Welsh are sometimes so disgusting and so frippish, ...that we affect a shame about uttering our own language; yes, and how fortunate some of us can be that we can snobbishly pretend that we have utterly lost our ability to speak Welsh, and must now put up with speaking English, or French, or Italian or absolutely any other tongue as long as it is not Welsh. Yet all was not lost, for in spite of the above damning protest, the poetic tradition managed to continue in the Welsh language. Despite the frenzy of the rush to London, the time had not yet arrived when the majority of Welsh literary figures were to write in English. In his "An Apology for Poetry" of 1595, the English poet and courtier Sir Philip Sydney had praised the continuance of the poetic tradition: In Wales, the true remnant of the ancient Britons, there are good authorities to show the long time they had poets, which they called bards: so through all the conquests of Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans some of who did seek to ruin all memory of learning among them, yet do their poets to this day, last; so as it is not more notable in soon beginning than in long continuing. Modern historians have commented favorably on the fact that the essentials of the poetic craft did not entirely disappear during the latter part of the Tudor dynasty, but were handed down to amateurs who continued to play a central role in Welsh society.

Even today, the craft of medieval poetry remains an inspiration to the nation's poets, whose influence is widely felt in literary circles. A reading of some of the prize-winning entries at the National Eisteddfod, for example, would show their strong link with the verbal artistry displayed in the poetry of the past. One influential poet was the prolific Edmund Prys (1543-1623), a kinsman of William Salesbury, and who had mastered eight languages while studying and teaching at Cambridge. Much of his work, showing his familiarity with both the humanistic learning of the Renaissance and of the traditional culture of Wales consists of debate with William Cynwal (d. 1587?), in which he urges the poets of his country to adopt humanistic standards. Prys also composed lively secular poems including one describing a game of football and another over the controversial cutting of the forests of Snowdonia by the English, a topic that concerned many amateur poets at the time. Cynwal is best remembered for his metrical Psalms (Salmau Can) published as an appendix to the Welsh Book of Common Prayer in 1621. These psalms were practically the only hymnal used in Wales for over a century, and they still are used in many churches in Wales for congregational singing. As far as other secular writing was concerned, much of the early literature had been lost or destroyed. However, due to the tireless work of collectors and antiquarians such as John Prys, Robert Vaughan and John Jones, such medieval works as "The Book of Taliesin," "The Black Book of Carmarthen" and "The White Book of Rhydderch" were not only preserved as reminders of the long and splendid tradition of Welsh literature, but helped to inspire future generations. Prys and his colleagues were part of the new breed of scholars who wished to understand the world that had created such wonderful classical writings, and they therefore were anxious to interpret and assess ancient sources. They wanted to look closely at the claims of such as the Italian Polydor Vergil, who questioned much of Geoffrey of Monmouth's account of the central myth of Welsh identity -- the story of King Arthur. Vergil's work was viewed as heresy to patriotic Welsh historians who felt it their duty to refute his arguments: the anglicized Italian had to be answered by such works as "Historie of Cambria," Now called Wales, published in 1584 by David Powel. It closely followed the arguments of Humphrey Lluyd's adaptation of the ancient "Brut y Tywysogion." Powel's book remained the standard version of the history of Wales for the next few centuries. Geoffrey of Monmouth's histories were composed before the mid-12th century; a century later, Geraldus Cambrensis completed his "Itinerarium Kambriae" and "Descriptio Kambriae" based on personal observations undertaken on travels to all parts of the nation. It wasn't until 1586 that another Latin book of travels, that explored Roman Wales "Britannia" was completed by William Camden. Camden's book presented Britain within the framework of the divisions into the Celtic tribal areas, those of the Silures, the Demetai and the Ordovices, as recorded by the classical geographers. The book has been recognized as the best of its kind for two centuries. Through such revisions of the ancient works as those of Lhuyd and Powel, and the newer histories of Camden, the noble, wonderful tales of Geoffrey of Monmouth, concocted from his imagination as they might have been, retained their powerful hold on the Welsh consciousness. It enabled them to hold on to the idea that they, and they alone in the whole of Britain were the true British race and the rightful heirs to the Arthurian tradition. As scholar John Davies of Hereford put it in 1590: "We have long been afflicted and oppressed by those that sought our whole race to destroy." He added, "Caerleon, where king Arthur lived of yore shall be rebuilt and double gilt once more." Such sentiments were of great interest to Queen Elizabeth (left). When she felt it would benefit her rule, she took full advantage of her Welsh ancestry. Not only did she authorize the translation of the Bible into Welsh, but she also encouraged the writings of London Welshman John Dee, a key figure in the expansion of her island kingdom overseas. Dee publicized the traditions of Prince Madog of Gwynedd's discovery of the New World. During the 12th century when he supposedly brought his little fleet into what is now Mobile Bay, Alabama, explored the Mississippi Valley and joined the Mandan tribe, the pitiful remnants of whom still revere a white ancestor. Elizabeth's court officials eagerly seized the legend, diligently promoting attempts to find the Northwest Passage to India as justification for their war against the Spanish, and proof of their legitimate claims to the Americas. Dee's preposterous claims included King Arthur's ruling over large territories in the Atlantic, and that Madog's voyage had confirmed the Welsh (therefore Tudor) title to this empire. As successor to the Welsh princes, Elizabeth was the rightful sovereign of the Atlantic Empire. In the meantime, however, Elizabeth died in 1603, and a new monarch arrived in London to take his throne over the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Status Quo
When the Kingdom of Great Britain came into being in 1603, the Welsh were proud to be considered equal partners to the English and the Scots. The disclosure of the so-called Gunpowder Plot of 1605 to destroy Parliament in a belated attempt to restore Catholicism to Britain meant further discreditation of that religion in general. To reward their sympathy and support, James bestowed offices and honors upon a great number of Welshmen who had continued to flock to London seeking patronage and favors. In 1610, his son Henry was invested as the Prince of Wales.

Writing of Wales to King James in 1619, English poet Ben Johnson wrote the following: Remember the country has always been fruitful of loyal hearts to your majesty, a very garden and seed-plot of honest minds and men...Though the nation be said to be unconquered and most loving liberty, yet it was never mutinous, and please your majesty, but stout, valiant, courteous, hospitable, temperate, ingenious, capable of all good arts, most lovingly constant, charitable, great antiquaries, religious preservers of their gentry and genealogy, as they are zealous and knowing in religion. Such flattery had its effect: King James, of course, wished to see Scotland added to the Union as an equal partner and his own praise of the loyalty of the Welsh representatives in Parliament was lavish, for they could help bring his fellow Scots in line. James was anxious to see the Council of Wales remain intact; its supervision of law and order in Wales was a way of defending his own royal prerogative. Besides, the Welsh were not too concerned with the changes in London's political circles. What distinguished the Welsh, even from the more aggressive and independent-minded Scots, was their unique language, spoken by a large majority of its people who knew no other -- a language that was unintelligible to the English. Furthermore, their nation's literature could now be made available to all in Wales who could read. This was the source of much wonder in England, and perhaps some mistrust (as it still seems to be today). As John Davies of Malltwyd wrote in 1621: It is a matter of astonishment that a handful of the remaining Britons, in so confined a corner, despite the oppression of the English and the Normans, have for so many centuries kept not only the name of their ancestors, but also their own original language to this very day, without any change of importance, and without corruption. Sadly, the drain of manpower to London and the increasing anglicization of the gentry continued unabated. In 1625, upon the death of King James, he was succeeded by Charles I, for whom Welsh support was vital in his attempts to hold off the powers that united against his obstinate wish to rule without Parliament. Now irrevocably linked to England as part of a greater Britain, the Welsh no longer had a cause of their own, and more important, they lacked a leader of their own. The times were such that the king of England was as good a leader as any to follow. Perhaps his son could learn Welsh: John Davies wrote to the Prince of Wales in 1632: If the guardian of your tender youth see fit, Your Highness should be imbued from the cradle, at the same as with other languages, with the ancient language of this island, which is now restricted to your own Welsh people... for knowing languages is no indignity for princes. There is no record of any desire of King Charles to have his son participate in such a scheme. It would be another three hundred years before another young Prince Charles undertook the task of learning the Welsh language. Be as it may, during the Civil Wars, Welsh armies fought for an English king, if somewhat half-heartedly. But as Charles' fortunes fell and his demands for more money multiplied, the predominantly Royalist people of Wales no longer felt the need to support him: they became indifferent, if not hostile. In modern parlance, the king "blew it." Purely local factors governed the lives of most Welsh people, still relatively isolated in their rural communities, still clinging to their ancient myths, and still obstinately using their beloved Celtic language. Life continued its own unhurried way, mostly unchanged. Yet changes were imminent. One English author of the period noted: [Of the Welsh] Their native gibberish is usually prattled in their market towns, whose inhabitants being a little raised...do begin to despise it. Tis usually cashiered out of gentlemen's houses... so that if the stars prove lucky, there may be some glimmering hopes that the British language may be quite extinct and may be Englished out of Wales. The gentlemen thus spoken of, the ever-increasing class of country squires, greedily taking advantage of their ties to Parliament, and in whose homes the language was being "cashiered out," belonged, in the main to the established Church, whatever form of episcopacy it took at the time. On the other hand, though many of their great families and scholars had remained Catholic far longer than many of their counterparts in England, the great majority of Welsh people had felt a general religious apathy. For most, they had their Bible; it was enough. That is until the itinerant evangelical preacher arrived on the scene. A great awakening was to take place. After the defeat of King Charles, Parliament was anxious to provide sufficient ministers of the gospel to reach those areas of the country they deemed sufficiently in need, Wales being perhaps on top of their list. In 1650 the Act for the Better Propagation and Preaching of the Gospel was passed. It appointed many prominent government officials as Commissioners in Wales. Their job, and they carried out their duties most efficiently, was to investigate complaints against the resident clergy (who had mostly

supported Charles), following the doctrine of Divine Right (now anathema to the Puritans), and to eject those ministers they considered unsuitable or disloyal. They also appointed "godly and painful men" to replace those who were deprived of their livings. Once again, Welsh congregations seemed to take most of the changes in stride. Puritan doctrines had long been taking root in many of the urban centres and market towns, aided and abetted by wealthy London merchants. Since having their own Bible in 1588, in any case, (as Elizabeth had wished) the Welsh were fast becoming a "People of the Book"; the travelling clergymen now appealed to their sense of religious independence; furthermore, they were able to preach to them in their own language. They were thus welcomed in communities all over Wales. Evangelists such as William Wroth, Walter Cradock and Vavasor Powell provided a great and lasting influence. The latter, who first advocated public hymn singing, was the most dynamic preacher and recruiter of them all. From the efforts of such tireless and inspired workers came the founding of the first "gathered church" of independents in Wales in 1639. In 1649, John Miles launched the first Baptist Church in Wales, in Ilston in the Gower. The seeds were thus planted for a new religious consciousness in Wales that had an enormous impact on the future political, social and cultural The Propagation Act, in addition to rooting out dissident clergymen, attempted to establish in Britain a national system of schools. In Wales, sixty-three new schools were opened in the larger towns; in them, children of both sexes were taught to read, write and count (and memorize the scriptures) free of charge, albeit through the medium of English. Though the Commission was not renewed in 1653, "suitable" ministers continued to be selected by the agents of Parliament, and many gifted and enthusiastic preachers arrived in Wales to live and work. The influence of such tireless spiritual leaders was a lasting one, and the nonconformist chapels that sprang up everywhere in their wake, such as those of the Independents, Baptists, Quakers and others created a heritage that until very recently was still regarded as an integral part of the Welsh character. It certainly left a fertile field to be tilled by the Methodists in the next century. In the meantime, for those in power in Westminster, more rigid control of the Welsh was needed: the forces of Nonconformity were moving too rapidly for the likes of King and Parliament. Congregations in England and Wales had to be brought back into line: the Act of Uniformity of 1662 required all ministers to assent to the rites and liturgy of the Established Church, restored with the accession of Charles II. Next came The Clarendon Code (four acts passed 1661-65) that imposed severe penalties on those who refused to conform to the Act of Uniformity. For many, it was far too late. Whole congregations who were moving from Wales to the New World became instrumental in setting up such settlements as the Welsh Quakers that later became the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. (In the little village of Llangaches in Monmouthshire, the mother church of Welsh nonconformity was modeled after those established by the Puritans in the American colonies). An even more severe burden for the religious independents came with the first Conventicle Act in 1664 that prohibited groups of more than five persons from assembling for religious worship other than that prescribed by the Church. Other Acts ensured that such sects as the Quakers and Baptists were forced to meet in secret or join their brethren over the Atlantic Ocean. Even the Toleration Act of 1689 that allowed Dissenters to worship in their own chapels did nothing to keep them from being excluded from municipal government and the universities. It is noticeable that in the American colonies, Welsh people quickly became prominent in both fields. At home, Puritan writers continued their work, with or without royal blessing. One of the most influential was Charles Edwards (1628-91?) who believed sincerely that the Welsh were God's chosen people, having replaced the fallen children of Israel or having been directly descended from the Lost Tribes themselves (a myth that remained widely popular in Wales for generations). Edwards's "Y Ffydd Ddi-ffuant" (The Sincere Faith, 1667) was an attempt to prove his claim. The book dealt with the history of the Christian religion, the moral history of the Welsh people themselves and the spiritual condition of individual Welshman. Religion was also the prime subject of many popular poets. The most popular and influential was Rhys Prichard (1579-1644), Vicar of Llandovery, whose verses were published in 1681 as "Canwyll y Cymry" (the Candle of the Welsh) and recited and learned by generation after generation of Welsh children. At this time too, though their subject matter was not religious, we should mention the 17th century collection of "hen benillion" (old penillion), four-line stanzas recited to the harp that had been preserved orally for centuries, and which still play a major part in modern eisteddfodau. Yet another influence was at work, outside the realm of religion -- one that was to satisfy the Welsh people's long curiosity in their historical origins. The gentry of Wales, enjoying a period of peace and prosperity, were anxious to find out about both their origins and their localities, and historians were only too happy to oblige them with histories of the various Welsh counties. In 1602 George Owen had put together his "Descriptions of Wales" to chronicle all the features of the country, an attempt helped immensely by the Humphrey Lhuyd map of Wales of 1573 that was reprinted almost fifty times during the next two hundred years. Next, around the year 1660, in an age called by Professor Davies "a golden age of local history," Edward Lhuyd of Llanforda, Oswestry, published studies that were to have an enormous influence on antiquarian studies in Britain. His interest in botany and geology gained him recognition as the finest naturalist in Europe.

Training himself in the new science, Lhuyd placed Welsh studies on a firm and lasting foundation. An indefatigable traveler, he visited all the Celtic countries, studying the links between their various languages. His vast correspondence have been seen as instrumental in defining the customs and traditions of his people at a time when they could have been lost for ever or mercilessly diluted into the general history of Britain. In 1691 Lhuyd was appointed keeper at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, where he conducted scientific experimentation. Some of his notes, for a new edition of William Camden's Britannia (a description of Roman Britain first published in 1586) are regarded as a milestone in the history of topographical and archaeological studies in Britain. Known as "the father of British paleontology," Lhuyd's objectivity was in contrast to much antiquarianism later in the century that sought to recreate Wales in a romantic image. His influential "Archaeologia Britannia" was first published in 1707. Before leaving the 17th century, we should mention the Welsh poets George Herbert, Henry Vaughan and Thomas Traherne. Their writings more properly belong to the English school of metaphysical poetry and thus do not belong in a discussion of Welsh literary history. (Perhaps a glimpse of what was to come when Anglo-Welsh writing became a clearly recognized genre?) Henry Vaughan, nevertheless, was able to speak and write in Welsh and was certainly aware of Welsh cultural and historical traditions as well as being influenced by the landscape of the Usk Valley. There were other poets, however, who wrote exclusively in Welsh who played major roles in the literary renaissance of their country that helped keep alive the struggle in the next century.

Resurgence
At the start of the 18th century, Welsh authors were aided immensely by the benevolence of the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK). Founded in 1699 by Sir John Phillips of Picton, Haverfordwest, up a network of charity schools in Wales was set up. Unlike similar schools set up in Scotland, where the use of Gaelic was forbidden, those in Wales, begun between 1700 and 1740, condoned the Welsh language. It was the SPCK that published a great deal of books, mostly translations of religious works, including Ellis Wynne's "Gweledigaetheu y Bardd Cwsc" (The Vision of the Sleeping Bard) in 1703. Written by a clergyman from Harlech in North Wales, the poem's main theme is the improvement of morals. Wynne passionately believed that Great Britain, under its Protestant sovereign, Queen Anne had become the stronghold of "the true faith," in a world that had become mostly satanic and evil. He was particularly anxious that the political and religious unity of the island of Britain, so much in contrast to the rest of Europe, would be maintained. The Vision became one of the most popular and enduring of the Welsh classics. Theophilus Evans, a contemporary of Ellis Wynn, was another Anglican priest who was greatly disturbed by the new and sometimes violent forces of non-conformity that were sweeping through Wales. Evans wanted to uphold the authority of the established church, while keeping alive some of the ancient Welsh traditions in epic form. His most important work, first published in 1716 is "Drych y Prif Oesoedd" (Mirror or the First Ages), in which he recounts the history of the Welsh people all the way from the Tower of Babel to the death of Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282. Evans' book is regarded as a classic of Welsh prose, popularizing some of the myths of Welsh history, such as the descent from Gomer, a grandson of Noah; the founding of Britain by Brutus of Troy; and the betrayal of the British people to the Saxons by Hengest. The book' s real importance, however, is that it reminded its readers that Wales was a nation possessing its own history, distinct from that of England and the rest of Britain, with a language (at least according to Evans) that was the oldest in Europe, if not in the world. Another Welsh writer of the time who appealed to the classical past, thus fulfilling a great thirst of his people for their own history, was Lewis Morris, of a prominent Anglesey family. A cartographer, Lewis accurately chartered the entire Welsh coastline. He also published maps of Welsh harbors and coastal channels. Becoming concerned that the traditional patrons of Welsh culture were increasingly turning to English books and culture, Morris had the idea of producing entertaining books in the Welsh language. His "Tlysau yr hen Ooesoedd" (Treasures of the Ancient Ages) was published in 1717. Anticipating the future works of O.M. Edwards in the latter half of the 19th century, it was the first Welsh periodical. Morris was most influential in reviving the study of Welsh antiquities and the history of Wales. He also supported many of the younger poets, including Goronwy Owen. In 1727, following a tour of "the whole island of Great Britain," including Wales, English author Daniel Defoe jotted down his satirical viewpoint of this new-fangled Welsh obsession with their own history: They value themselves much on their antiquity, the ancient race of their houses, families, and the like, and above all, their ancient heroes...and, as they believe their country to be the pleasantest and most agreeable in the world, so you cannot oblige them more than to make them think that you believe so too.

Temperamental Anglesey-born Goronwy Owen has been regarded as perhaps the greatest poet of the remarkable literary renaissance that made possible such observations as Defoe's. Owen emigrated to the American Colonies in 1757 after serving many years as a low-paid curate as a parish priest in Wales, hoping to obtain a more lucrative post. He took up a teaching position at William and Mary College in Virginia, but before leaving Wales had completed his most important works, writing poetry in the classical manner which was instrumental in the revival of ancient Welsh traditions. Henry Rowlands was yet another Anglican priest from Wales who was deeply interested in the history and traditions of his native land. His famous work was "Mona Antiqua Restaurata" of 1723, that not only surveyed the antiquities of Anglesey, but also attempted to prove that the ancient order of Druids had originated in that north Wales county. A major result of this book was to begin the druidic fad, mainly originating in London at the end of the century that Professor John Davies believes did much to "muddy the stream of Welsh historiography." London was already beginning to play a major role in the social lives of many of the prominent families of Wales. Now it began to play a similar role in Welsh literary life. It was in London that most of the advocates of Welsh nationhood lived or worked. Society in the nation's capital had already been piqued by all things Celtic, especially following the travels of such intellectuals and authors as Daniel Defoe and Dr. Samuel Johnson, both of whose writings can be said to have started the tourist trade in the British Isles. Another impetus came from the publication of the so-called Songs of Ossian, by the unfortunate Scot, James Macpherson. Forgeries or not, these epic poems, written in the ancient Gaelic tongue, created a huge appetite for more such romantic literature. As fellow Celts with the Scots, Welsh writers obligingly filled in the void. In 1764, Evan Evans published the results of his painstaking research into Old Welsh manuscripts: "Some Specimens of the Poetry of the Ancient Welsh Bards". Yet another Anglican clergyman, Evans was responsible for the preservation of many priceless medieval Welsh manuscripts that gave the lie to so many English literary critics who saw no literature coming out of Wales at any period. Though another century was to pass before the appearance in English of the "Mabinogion," not published by Lady Guest until the 1840's, Evans's copies of the "Red Book of Hergest" made the English literary world aware of the glories of much that had previously been unknown. Unlike Macpherson, Evans was hailed in London as a genuine scholar. His greatest fame came from his discovery and publication of many important texts including the works of "Taliesin" and the poem "Y Gododdin," from the earliest period of Welsh literature, ironically, it may have been written in what is now part of Scotland. Thomas Grey, Thomas Percy and others supported Evans in his successful attempts to make the study of Welsh literature acceptable in English circles. The literary giant Dr. Johnson may have deplored Evans' excessive drinking, but he could not fault his scholarship. Others who criticized his personal lifestyle were the Welsh bishops, none of whom knew the language of the flocks they ministered to, and all of whom resented Evans' severe castigation of that fact (knowledge of Welsh was not a requirement for ordination in the Church for positions in Wales). Evans' publication of the ancient Welsh manuscripts not only brought him fame, but were also greedily seized and exploited by those expatriate Welshmen in London such as Edward Williams and Edward Jones, in their efforts to bring about a revival of the study of Celtic literature and of what they considered to be Celtic customs. As a result of their efforts, two Welsh societies sprang up in London in the 1770's. The Honorable Society of Cymmrodorian and the Gwyneddigion, with similar aims: gave the people of Wales a society equal to the English Royal Society so that they could have a voice in the cultural and social affairs of the British nation. It was important to "defend the purity of the Welsh language by stimulating interest in the history and literature of Wales and promoting economic and scientific ventures of benefit to the country." The Gwyneddigion Society tried to revive the ancient competition known as the Eisteddfod, which had been allowed to lapse with little accomplished in music or poetry. They had become nothing more than noisy, perhaps boozy, meeting in taverns. Edward Williams, a stone mason from the Vale of Glamorgan, in South Wales, solved the problem. Known to posterity by his bardic title "Iolo Morgannwg", he created the elaborate, colorful ceremonies that eventually led to those of today's National Eisteddfod of Wales. Williams may have invented most of these ceremonies (they were given further embellishment in the 1930's by archdruid Cynan), but by his speeches in defense of his country's traditions, he gave the people of Wales a sense of importance and pride and helped ensure that these traditions (invented or not) would be passed on to posterity. Williams and many of his fellow London-Welsh were greatly influenced by the success of the American colonies in winning their independence from the English Crown. They began to make known their own desires for recognition of a separate identity for Wales. The French Revolution, following hard on the American, with appeals for liberty and equality, also added to these longings. In the institution of the Eisteddfod (first recorded in the late 12th century) the London Welsh saw a chance to restore the dignity of an ancient and honorable Welsh custom and make it source of national pride. In 1792 an article in The Gentleman's Magazine noted the following: This being the day on which the autumnal equinox occurred, some Welsh bards, resident in London, assembled in congress on Primrose Hill, according to ancient usage.

The president of the above meeting was Edward Jones, musician and antiquary who was harpist to the Prince of Wales (the future King George IV). Jones was unhappy with what had been happening to so many Welsh musical traditions at the hands of the uncompromising, Puritanical new religious leaders, who, in their misguided zeal, were busy stamping out so much that had been part and parcel of informal gatherings and dances for centuries. His writings were an attempt to stop the rot. A prolific author, Jones' major work was "The Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bard," published in 1784, followed by two further additions. In 1802, he explained his great work of scholarship: The sudden decline of the national minstrelsy and customs of Wales is in a great degree to be attributed to the fanatick imposters, of illiterate plebian preachers, who have too often been suffered to over- run the country, misleading the common people from their lawful church, and dissuading them from their innocent amusement, such as singing, dancing and other rural sports, with which they had been accustomed to delight in from the earliest times...The consequence is Wales, which was formerly one of the merriest and happiest countries in the world, is now become one of the dullest. Also in 1802, in the same work, Jones gave his reasons for reviving the ancient Eisteddfod: Seeing with regret the rapid decrease of performers on the harp in Wales, with the consequent decline of that elegant and expressive instrument, as well as of our National music and Poetry, gave me the first idea of reviving the ancient Eisteddfod ... which meeting I caused to be convened at Corwen, in Merionethshire, about the year 1788. With so much of what was essentially an oral tradition, it was apparent to Iolo Morgannwg that a body of cultural traditions need to be re-established and set down in writing. Iolo Morgannwg took up the challenge; he cannot thus be criticized too severely for inventing some of these "traditions." He came up with many innovative ideas, among them the institution of the Gorsedd (the assembly of bards) that ever since its introduction into the Carmarthen Eisteddfod of 1819, has played such a prominent role in Welsh cultural affairs. Iolo also called for a national library for Wales and a national museum, though these were not to come to fruition for over a century. Much of his inspiration, like that of Edward Jones, his contemporary and rival, may have come from his distaste at the excesses of Methodism (then sweeping like wildfire through Wales). In a letter to a friend in 1799, he wrote: "North Wales is now as Methodistical as South Wales, and South Wales as hell." It was Iolo who came up with the stirring and emotional three-time cry of the archdruid at the Eisteddfod: "A Oes Heddwch?" (Is there peace?). Other prominent London Welshmen were also busy recreating tradition. In 1792, a dramatic address by Sir William Jones reestablished the ancient claim that Prince Madog, of Wales, had discovered North America three hundred years before the voyage of Columbus. Jones praised the so-called "Welsh Indians," descended from Madog and his fellow explorers, who were, he stated, a "free and distinct people, who have preserved their liberty, languages, and some traces of their religion to this very day." Though subsequent discoveries did not bear out the truth of Sir William's theories, first promulgated by John Dee in the reign of Elizabeth I, the revival of the legend had an enormous effect upon the Welsh people, restoring an almost lost sense of pride and dignity. It was also Sir William, while working in India with the East India Company, who discovered the connection (hitherto unknown) between the Celtic languages and Sanskrit, the ancient language of Indian holy books. The Welsh language was thus given an honored place in history, a full partner in the Indo-European family of languages. National pride was also a product of the dissemination of the writings of Richard Price, a prolific author of works on divinity and theology, but best known for his "Observation on the Nature of Civil Liberty", published in 1776, the year that began the American Revolution. Price fervently believed that the American colonies had an absolute right to their independence and tirelessly advocated their cause. For his work, he was granted many honors in both England and America, which offered him citizenship in the new republic of the United States. Price also waxed eloquent in his praise of the French Revolution and its defiance of longestablished, but long-corrupted authority. As far as Wales itself was concerned, Price claimed that communities everywhere had the right to govern themselves. He had the revolutionary and most startling idea that British Members of Parliament were simply trustees to carry out the wishes of their constituents. Price's arguments were very influential in the writings of another Welshman, David Williams, whose essays on religious freedom, universal education, and the need for voting rights put him way ahead of his time. His Letter on Political Liberty was published in 1782, though its real influence was not felt in Wales until the arrival of the Chartist Movement in the 1840's. By the end of the 18th century, thanks to writers such as Sir William Jones, Richard Price and David Williams, the first serious democratic and popular movements in Wales had been planted and begun to grow. The Welsh language could only grow in stature and strength along with them and later became an essential part of the continuing struggle. In this, despite what Edward Jones had to say about the movement, it was enormously aided

Methodism and the Reinvention of the Welsh Nation

Visitors to modern Wales, if they are lucky enough to get in on a "singing night" at a local pub, are usually thrilled by the quality of the singing and the extraordinary harmony of the singers. The songs are usually the standards for large choirs, classical and semiclassical or hymns. As Wales still regards itself as a Celtic nation, one would expect to find the kind of music played and enjoyed in Ireland, Scotland or Britanny; certainly it may come as a shock to one not accustomed to the repertoire of Welsh Male Voice choirs to hear a whole room full of people burst into the chorus of the hymn "Cwm Rhondda" (Guide Me, Oh, thou Great Jehovah) without missing a beat. But the Welsh have a long, long tradition of singing in harmony. Wasn't it Geraldus Cambrensis himself who wrote of his fellow countrymen as early as 1193? In their musical concerts they do not sing in unison like the inhabitants of other countries, but in many different parts...You will hear as many different parts and voices as there are performers who all at length unite with organic melody. Yet there can be a feeling of regret, too, that despite the magnificent music, it seems too controlled, too redolent of the chapel rather than of the more spontaneous "Noson Lawen" (Merry Night). Where are the harpists and fiddlers and the happy sea shanties and frisky dance music? The answer is that these are still present, if hard to find at times. During the last twenty-five years, they have been undergoing something of a revival as the youth of Wales discovers its heritage. However, they have not yet fully emerged from what some people have seen as a great shadow cast over Wales for the past three centuries, and for what others have seen as a great awakening -- the Methodist Movement. Whatever it did bring to Wales, and there were certainly incalculable benefits, it also managed to stifle in many ways its native musical and artistic talents by transferring so much of its energy to other, more pious causes. The 18th century in Wales can be called the century of Methodism, for the lives of its people were altered immeasurably, for better or for worse, by the coming of the Spirit. Historians generally agree that it was as if a different Wales came to be invented out of the turmoil brought on by the benign neglect of the English Parliament, the Royal family, and the Welsh landed gentry. Wales needed new and effective leadership if it were to remain in any sense a nation, and this was provided, not by those in government at Westminster, nor by its great families, mostly gone over to the English cause, but by the soldiers of the Methodist Church. When the great Methodist preachers burst upon the Welsh scene, they found the ground had been well prepared. We have already seen the work of the results of the Propagation Act and of the pioneer Puritan laborers. Their work had been made relatively easy by the dismal state of the regular clergy in Wales. One problem for the Church had been that the Parish priests no longer could receive the lucrative tithes, which had been awarded to the local gentry. The result was a dismal compensation for the clergy, few of who had been to the university and very few of who knew the language of their parishioners. From 1713, not a single Welsh speaker was appointed to a Welsh bishopric for over 150 years. Appointments in Wales were seen as mere stepping stones for more lucrative positions east of Offa's Dyke: they were mostly filled by non-residents. The Established Church in Wales had neither the financial resources nor the willingness to reform itself, thus the way was open for the ministers of the new faith. Before the Nonconformist movement could develop fully, however, and especially that part dominated by the Methodists, there had to be a groundwork laid in the field of general education among the masses, mostly ignorant and all too often ignored by those in authority. Hand in hand with the religious reformers, then, there was a burst of activity in more secular matters, such as teaching the people to read and write. The new preaching zeal, with its emphasis on individual salvation, and especially by its emphasis on "the word," brought home the need for literacy and education and thus the demand for more printed works. The number of books printed in Welsh increased rapidly in the fifty years after the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660. As so often in Welsh history, the impetus came from outside -- in 1674, a charitable organization, the Welsh Trust, was set up in London by Thomas Gouge to establish English schools in Wales and to publish books in Welsh. There were impressive results: over 500 books came off the printing presses in Wales in 1718 and 1721 at Trefhedyn and Carmarthen respectively. Many of these were translations of popular English works, mainly Protestant tracts that encouraged private worship and prayers. But along with the six major editions of the Bible that appeared during the same period, the books had the unpredicted effect of ensuring the survival of the language in an age where more than one scholar was predicting its rapid demise. Of equal importance were the cheap catechisms and prayer books, highly prized by rural families who read them in family groups during the long, dark winter nights. One English writer in 1721 commented: There is, I believe, no part of the Nation [Britain] more inclined to be religious, and to be delighted with it, than the poor inhabitants of these mountains.

So successful were educators, benefactors and itinerant teachers that perhaps as many as one third or more of the population of Wales could read their scriptures by the time of churchman Griffith Jones' death in 1761. Jones had been greatly aided by such men as Stephen Hughes, who published religious literature in Welsh; wealthy landowner and patron Mrs. Bridget Bevan of Laugharne; and Sir John Philipps of Picton, one of the founders of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. These three philanthropists started a large number of charity schools in 1699. In these schools, in an attempt to deal with the widespread problems of poverty and ignorance, the Society allowed the use of Welsh alongside that of English and set up libraries in many of the towns. Jones, who had married John Philipps' sister, had realized that preaching alone was insufficient to ensure his people's salvation: they needed to read the scriptures for themselves. In 1740 he wrote: What length of time...how many hundreds of years must be allowed for the general attainment of English, and the dying away of the Welsh language...And in the meantime, while this is adoing...what myriads of poor ignorant souls must launch forth into the dreadful abyss of eternity, and perish for want of knowledge Consequently, Jones persuaded the Society to donate Welsh Bibles from which he could teach people to read. As there were not enough qualified teachers in each parish to maintain a school, itinerant ministers were employed, and by this method, schools were conducted in almost every parish in Wales. Evening classes were set up for the laborers and farm workers and those who worked in the trades, and the "circulating schools" as they were called, have been regarded as one of the few great success stories in the long history of Wales. Eighteenth century Wales was thus made one of the most literate countries in Europe, with much of its population acquainted with the literary language of the Bible. Jones provided details each year of the number of pupils attending the circulating schools that showed almost half the total population of Wales was affected: once again the Welsh had found a way to hold on to their language, of which Jones wrote (in his Welch Piety): She has not lost her charms, her chasteness, remains unalterably the same...still retains the beauties of her youth, grown old in years, but not decayed. I pray that due regard may be had to her great age, her intrinsic usefulness, and that her long standing repute may not be stained by wrong imputation. Let her stay the appointed time to expire a peaceful and natural death, which we trust will not be till the consummation of tall things, when all the languages of the world will be reduced into one again. Though not intended by Jones (the rector of Llanddowror Parish and therefore not a Nonconformist minister) his writings created a substantial Welsh reading public. The were primed and ready to receive the appeal of the Methodists, whose ability in such preachers as Hywel Harris was matched by their eloquence in the pulpit, and who obviously filled a great need among the masses. It is to Hywel Harris that the title of the Father of the Methodist Revival in Wales can be given. Refused ordination by his Bishop at Oxford University because of his preaching activities, he converted to the Methodist cause in 1735. He worked closely with other religious enthusiasts such as Daniel Rowland, William Williams, and Peter Williams, who produced a very popular version of the Bible and John Wesley, the English evangelist Another influential convert to Methodism was Thomas Charles, who joined in 1784, and who set up the successful Sunday School movement in North Wales that had such a profound and lasting influence on the language and culture of that region. Under his leadership, the British and Foreign Bible Society published the standardized text of their first Welsh Bible and the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge published an edition of the New Testament. Charles' own publication of the Welsh Bible in 1814, the year of his death, was also a major achievement. Hywel Harris shared the leadership of the Methodist Revival in Wales with Daniel Rowland, who had converted in 1737 after hearing a sermon by Griffith Jones. His sermons held at the chapel at Llangeitho that made him famous were published in two volumes along with a number of other works in Welsh. Rowland's enthusiasm, along with that of his colleagues attracted thousands of converts. Though their initial intention was to work within the Established Church, opposition from their Bishops, all of who had little real interest in Wales and knew practically nothing of its language and culture, led finally to the schism of 1811 when an independent union was founded. This was the Calvinistic Methodist Church that is today known as the Presbyterian Church of Wales. The overwhelming success of the Methodist Revival in Wales, especially its espousal of the Welsh language, created a flood tide of energy and vitality. In 1752, Richard Morris wrote in a letter to the Bishop of Bangor setting out some of the reasons: [That]..the mad Methodists...have in a manner bewitched the major part of the inhabitants is generally attributed to the indolence and...ignorance of too many of the parochial ministers. Some members of the landed gentry clung to the established anglicized Church; just about everyone else joined the new religion. The new movement provided the excitement and fervor that the established church had been lacking for so long. It certainly did

much to pave the way for the rapid growth of the other non-conformist sects such as the Baptists and Independents. In addition, Methodism was responsible for producing two names that are outstanding in the cultural history of Wales are William Williams and Ann Griffiths. Much has been written about William Williams (1717-91), the greatest of all the Welsh literary Methodists. Williams was converted after hearing a sermon preached by Hywel Harris at Talgarth. He adopted the name Pantycelyn (the name of his family farm in Carmarthenshire) as his bardic title. Refused priest's orders for his radicalism, even though he had been ordained as a curate, Williams became a preacher and organizer of Methodist societies, but he is best remembered as a the most important hymn writer that Wales has ever produced. In ten years, he produced a collection of over 130 hymns, the great classical body of Welsh hymnody, "Caniadau y rhai sydd ar y Mor o Wydr" (Songs of those that are on the sea of Glass). John Wesley has an interesting entry in his journal dated 27 August, 1763 concerning his fellow preacher William Williams: It is common in the congregations attended by Mr. W.W., and one or two other clergymen, after the preaching is over, for anyone that has a mind to give out a verse of a hymn. This they sing over and over with all their might, perhaps above thirty, yea,forty times. Meanwhile the bodies of two or three, sometimes ten or twelve, are violently agitated and they leap up and down, in all manner of postures, frequently for hours together. One of Williams' lovely hymns is "I Gaze Across the Distant Hills," of which a translation of three stanzas can give some idea of the intensity of the poet's emotion: I gaze across the distant hills, Thy coming to espy; Beloved, haste, the day grows late; The sun sinks down the sky. All the old loves I followed once Are now unfaithful found; But a sweet sickness holds me yet Of love that has no bound! . Regard is dead and lust is dead For the world's gilded toys; Her ways are nought but barrenness, And vain are all her joys. Williams' best-known hymn has remained a standard, sung throughout Wales (even at rugby football games): Cwm Rhondda, sung to the words "Guide me, oh, thou great Jehovah." He was particularly fond of using the quality known as "the hiraeth" -- a word that describes a nostalgic longing for home and things long-missed that is said to be an essential part of the Welshman's character. Williams also wrote numerous prose works, rebuking the Welsh people for their sinful state and providing spiritual guidance for those who wished to mend their ways by converting to Methodism. William Williams inspired many contemporaries. These include Dafydd Jones (Caio: 1771-77) who translated many of the hymns of Isaac Watts; Morgan Rhys (1716-79); David William (Llandeilo Fach: 1720-94), whose most well known hymn and a popular Welsh classic is Ebenezer; Peter Jones (Peter Fardd 1775-1845), who was a master of the traditional poetic forms with their strict rules of rime and alliteration; David Charles (1762-1834), whose brother Thomas founded the Welsh Sunday School movement and who himself wrote many fine hymns, including "Llef" (A Cry) with its opening lines: "O Iesu Mawr, rho d'anian bur" and the equally classic funeral hymn "Crug y Bar" and Evan Evans (1795-1855), whose parents founded the Methodist movement in Trefriw in the Conwy Valley and who won many Eisteddfod prizes for his poems. Of all his contemporaries, only one was able to match William Williams in the sheer intensity and power of his writing, and that was Ann Griffiths (1776-1805). She converted at the age of twenty to devote the rest of her life to the Methodist cause. From Dolwar Fach, a little village in Montgomeryshire, which subsequently became a centre of Methodist preaching, her intense spiritual and sensuous hymns show her abilities as a poet using rhythmic, melodious language that expresses so well her religious intensity and devotion to Jesus, her personal savior and object of an almost obsessive love. Ann is regarded as the most important female writer in the history of Welsh literature before the 20th century. Though she died giving birth to a child before her 30th birthday, she left behind a collection of letters, poems and hymns that vividly reflect not only her own religious awakening, but also indicate the great emotion experienced by the Movement in general. It is generally recognized that the hymns she produced on her spiritual pilgrimage makes her one of the great poets of her native Wales, but also of Europe. Ann had little formal schooling, but she was lucky enough to be raised at Dolwar Fach, in an area rich in traditional culture and where the art of carol and ballad singing is retained today. According to author Alan Luff, the making of poetry was and is taken for granted in such a Welsh community. Historian Meic Stephens also sees much of Anne's work influenced by the folk-song and seasonal carols of her native district by the hymns and sermons she heard weekly, but especially by the Bible. Ann's poetry were expressions of intense personal spiritual experiences and not written for publication or use by congregations. On her twenty-mile journeys to take part in religious services at Bala, the center of Methodism in North Wales, she was accompanied by Ruth Evans, her maid, who memorized what Ann was composing and singing to herself. Ruth could not read or write, but her intense memory of Ann's recitations enabled her to dictate the hymns to her husband after the death of her friend.

Though it is not her most well known hymn, Ann's "Rhyfedd, rhyfedd gan angylion" (Freedom through the angels) is regarded by modern Welsh poet Saunders Lewis as "one of the greatest religious poems in any European language." Another one of Anne's great hymns, still very popular is "Dyma babell y cyfarfod" (This is the Temple of Meeting). The most famous of Ann's hymns, however, and the one most often sung today (to the tune Cwm Rhondda) is "Wele'n sefyll rhwng y myrtwydd" (See him standing between the myrtles). A translation by H. Idris Bell gives some idea of the power of Ann's devotion to Christ: Lo, between the myrtles standing, One who merits well my love, Though His worth I guess but dimly, High all earthly things above; Happy morning When at last I see Him clear! Rose of Sharon, so men name Him; White and red his cheeks adorn; Store untold of earthly treasure Will His merit put to scorn Friend of sinners, He their pilot o'er the deep. What can weigh with me henceforward All the idols of the earth? One and all I here proclaim them, Matched with Jesus, nothing worth; O to rest me All my lifetime in His love! Ann's poetic gifts still amaze us. If this were not enough, her surviving letters, vividly reflecting the atmosphere of the Methodist meetings at Bala under the leadership of Thomas Charles, are considered to be the most sublime examples of religious prose in the Welsh language. She was the last of her kind. The earnestness of the new religion, out of which sprang William Williams and Ann Griffiths, and those other numerous denominations, did much to shape the Welsh character for the next two centuries (we can see the same kind of development taking place in Scotland, where severe Calvinism replaced a native Celtic joy in life). Sin and evil were emphasized at the expense of delight in a natural spontaneity and love of life in all its forms. The Methodist hymns, powerful and majestic became practically the only form of music known by much of the population of Wales. Traditional forms of music, folk dancing and long-practiced games and customs went by the wayside, many forever, unless preserved by a few gypsy families such as that of Abram Wood, (Teulu Abram Wood) in North Wales. The chapel became the main focal point of so much social life in Wales, creating an atmosphere that lasted right up until the end of World War II. Yet, all that took place was not doom and gloom; there were some remarkable individuals and some striking events that, in many ways, acted as a counterbalance to the religious atmosphere created by the Methodist Revival. And to be fair, it was Methodism that greatly aided the people of Wales in their ever-lasting struggle to retain their spirituality, their language and their sense of independence. It wasn't only Methodism that changed life in Wales during the 18th century. Other great changes were about to take place that not only included an impressive literary renaissance but also the coming of a giant industrial revolution. Both were to make permanent imprints upon the life of a nation that somehow continued to cling stubbornly to its separate identity within the British Isles.

The Changing Face of Wales: The Coming of Industry

It was impossible to have foreseen the changes that industry would bring to Wales in the mid-19th century. While the diggings on the Great Orme (Pen y Gogarth) at Llandudno show that there had been a deal of industrial activity going on since the Bronze Age in that region and elsewhere, it had been small scale and extremely localized. The Romans had extensive quarries for lead and other ores in Flintshire and had sought gold in various locations throughout Wales. They made little impact on the landscape and very little on the social structure of the country. After the middle of the 18th century, however, there was an explosion of mining, quarrying, iron manufacturing and all their related industries. In northwest Wales, on what was then the green, unspoiled Island of Anglesey, the huge Mona and Parys copper mines helped transform both the economy and the landscape: copper smelting employed hundred of workmen and poisoned the hillsides around Amlwch. Even today, hideous scars remain on now derelict Parys Mountain. In the ancient kingdom of Gwynnedd, also in the northwest, huge quarries began to disfigure the landscape, but also helped employ thousands of men to dig out the slate that roofed houses and municipal buildings throughout Europe. Today, the mining and manufacture of copper has disappeared. Welsh slate is no longer extensively mined, roofing materials being produced much more efficiently and cheaply elsewhere, though the mountains of waste remain. Elsewhere, the landscape is still being altered immeasurably by monstrous stone quarries to build English roads. Whole mountains near Penmaenmawr are being torn apart in a process that seems to have no end. Before the end of the 18th century, the Greenfield Valley, below St. Winifred's shrine at Holywell in Flintshire, fed by an ample supply of water, sustained a long line of industrial workings. Copper and brass foundries, supplied by ships brought raw materials from the Thomas Williams mines at Parys Mountain to join the older more traditional woolen and flannel mills. Collieries at nearby

Flint and Bagillt; iron foundries at Mostyn, on the Dee estuary; the beginnings of extensive coal mining at Llay, Gresford, and Point of Ayr; and the pioneering John Wilkinson iron works at Bersham, near Wrexham also helped make the Northeast corner of Wales a center of industry. (A stronghold of the English language long before the area attracted the Merseyside hordes as a place of retirement or holiday homes). Much of the products of the Welsh quarries and the Welsh woolen mills was exported overseas; a flourishing maritime trade kept the weavers of Bala (whose stockings were famous all over Europe); the flannel workers of Llanidloes and Newtown; and the quarrymen of Gywnedd and Anglesey fully occupied. In the South, rapidly-growing Swansea, (Abertawe) became the chief copper producer of Britain, if not the world; the Tawe Valley became notorious for its hell-like appearance that even today continues to stubbornly resist attempts at regreening its bare, blackened slopes. The Seven Years' War of 1756-63, involving most of Europe, accelerated the demand for domestic iron, and all the raw materials necessary for its production were found in a narrow band at the northern edge of the Southeast Wales coalfield. The process of puddling invented by Henry Cort in Hampshire, England in 1783 finally ended the iron industry's reliance on charcoal, at that time in increasingly short supply throughout Britain. The bituminous or semi-bituminous coals of the Welsh Valleys provided a perfect solution: they provided an extremely valuable, readily available fuel in prodigious quantities. Investment capital came mainly from London, bringing in to southeast Wales and influx of experienced iron masters and their workers, mainly from the Midlands, to supply the technical know-how to produce high quality iron. Other workers flocked in from all parts of Britain, though a large supply came from the farming districts of Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire. Some of the major iron masters that helped develop Welsh industry were John Guest, associated with the Dowlais and Plymouth works; Anthony Bacon and William Brownrigg, who began the Cyfartha Works; Richard Crawshay, who later bought and expanded Cyfartha; and the Homfrays, who owned Penydarren. The work of such industrial giants was in great demand, not only during the aforementioned war, but also during the War for American Independence, the Napoleonic Wars and especially for the coming of the railways that were to change Britain (and the world) forever. Professor John Davies has commented that the investment of London bankers in the Welsh iron industry, in at least a dozen large-scale enterprises, was "a concentration of capital in heavy investment without parallel anywhere in the world." And with this investment in industry, of course, came the accompanying investment in methods of transporting the finished products to the waiting ports and ships. By the year 1827, the south Wales iron industry was producing one half of all Britain's iron exports, much of it to the United States. Before the end of the 19th century, all this feverish activity meant that Wales was about to undergo momentous changes that were to transform it from a quiet backwater on the western edge of Europe to one of the foremost centres of industry in the world in a few short years. It possessed what Ireland did not --- coal. And it was coal that brought about so many changes and so rapidly that there was hardly time to realize just what was happening to the economic, political, social and literary life of the nation, not to mention the language. In light of its subsequent history, it is with an amused detachment that we read what a customs official at Cardiff said of his town in 1782: We have no coal exported from this port nor ever shall, as it would be too expensive to bring it down here from the internal part of the country. At the end of the next century, Cardiff would be exporting more coal than any other port in the world, and more than a million people had crowded the valleys that radiated out in the valleys north of the city. South Wales coal was the ideal fuel for the domestic fireplaces of London and other rapidly growing urban centers of England. It also was the preferred fuel for the everexpanding navies of the world when steam replaced sail and iron replaced wood. In 1839, to export the vast amounts of coal now reaching the city from the Rhondda Valleys, there was feverish activity to complete the Bute Docks at Cardiff out of the mud in the Severn Estuary. Many impressive fortunes were made from South Wales coal; not all the profits went over the border to England. The foremost coal owner was David Davies of Llandinam who founded the Ocean Coal Company and built a rail link from the coalfields to a purposely-built new port at Barry, near Cardiff. According to historian Gwyn Williams, Wales was transformed practically overnight from "a marginal province into a sector of an imperial economy." Professor Davies also describes its growth as the result of having become a central part of a capitalist system that "spread its tentacles... to all corners of the earth." Along with industrialization came a dramatic increase in the numbers of inhabitants -- from approximately 500,000 people in the 1750's to over 1,600,000 in 1851 and 2,600,000 before Word War One. The rural northwest and central areas of Wales, however, did not share in this growth. They began a process of continually losing people to an increasingly anglicized and urbanized southeast, where iron, coal and tinplate, steel and rails made the area one of the most prolific in the world in terms of industrial production, or to industrial communities in England. The movement into the five

great valleys of the South was so great that Wales ranked second to the United States as a world center of immigration in the latter half of the 19th century. It was around Merthyr Tydfil (the town of Tydfil the Martyr) that most of the industrial growth in Wales took place. The insatiable demand for iron led the small country village into overtaking Swansea as the largest town in Wales early in the 19th century. It was in the Merthyr district that the great iron works of Cyfartha, Pen y Darren and Blaenavon produced an inordinate share of British Iron, and at Dowlais was made practically the sum total of all iron rails for the fledgling United States railroad industry. South of Merthyr, and greatly profiting from its heavy industry and relentless toil of its workers, was Cardiff, its outlet to the sea at the bottom of the five valleys (Rhymney, Rhonda, Cynon, Taff, and Ebbw) and the main center of export to the overseas empire. As early as 1794, the two towns were connected by the Glamorgan Canal; two more canals were constructed to link Ebbw Vale with Newport in 1796; and Swansea to its rapidly growing industrial hinterland in 1798. In less than 19 years, by 1839 the Glamorgan Canal alone increased its traffic seven-fold, to 350,000 tons. By that date, the railways had begun to take over much of the burden of transporting the raw materials to the ports and centres of production: the Taff Vale and the Rhymney were constructed by the middle of the century. It seemed as if everyone would benefit, especially after the discoveries of David Thomas, working under George Crane at the Yniscedwyn Iron Works in Ystradgynlais, in the Swansea Valley, opened up the West Wales coalfield by making it possible to use anthracite coal in the smelting of iron ore. Thomas's discovery, that the hot blast, invented by James Neilson in Scotland, could be also used to smelt iron ore with anthracite, transformed the Swansea Valley, where ample supplies of anthracite had remained unused, but had its greatest effect in the iron industry of the United States. Thomas was invited to set up a blast furnace in 1839 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where his expertise and management skills soon led to the Lehigh Valley becoming one of the world's great centres of iron production in the second half of the nineteenth century. The future of the New World looked bright; its promises beckoned a new wave of emigration from Wales. At home, at the same time, progress was much more sporadic. There were all kinds of problems in the iron and coal industries, and a period of great unrest came to the valleys. This unrest led to their becoming known as one of the premier centers of British radicalism, an unrest that led to a particular Welsh kind of political activity and that, in time, would lead to a socialist-thinking, Labour-voting electorate that was still predominant in the 1990's. The Merthyr Rising began in 1831; for the people of Wales it was a new struggle, of a different kind true, but a struggle as intense as any that had gone before.

The Great Rising

In 1820 Robert Jones wrote in "Drych Yr Amseroedd" (Mirror of the Times): There has been riot and commotion in England, Scotland and Ireland, because [those countries] neither feared God nor honoured the King . . . but our nation [Wales] remained wonderfully faithful to the Government in all troubles. Jones had somehow neglected to mention that serious troubles had indeed come to Wales. In 1793, several hundred copper workers and colliers from the Valleys had marched on Swansea protesting the high prices of grain, cheese and butter, and demanding higher wages. Nor did Jones mention three Merthyr men who were sentenced to death for rioting in 1801. But compared to other places in Britain, most of Wales had been relatively peaceful in the haste to industrialize. Then came the unrest brought about by the infamous Corn Laws, passed in Parliament in 1815 that kept the price of bread artificially high to benefit the landed interests and wealthy farmers. In an attempt to better conditions, workers tentatively began to form unions, but their members were treated harshly. At the Abbey Works in Neath, for example, in the 1820's, when fifty men tried to form a union, they were immediately fired. The rest of the workers, fearful for their jobs abandoned the idea. "The Cambrian," Wales' leading English-language newspaper, published in Swansea, and ever on the side of the authorities, portrayed the union leaders as "gin-swilling degenerates." The very idea of workers' union was also roundly condemned by the Calvinistic Methodists, who called on all church members to boycott such "devilish" activity. The times were not yet ripe for the general acceptance of unionism, though they were becoming increasingly attractive to the workers. In 1831 a miner at Merthyr Tydfil told his magistrate: "My Lord, the union is so important to me that I would live on sixpence a week rather than give it up." With the failure of the unions to win concessions, however, there was a return to violence as a way of improving working conditions and of keeping workers in line with union rules. In Monmouthshire, a group called the Scotch Cattle fought back against the absolute control and power over their lives by the iron masters and coal mine owners. They began a reign of terror in the valleys, destroying property of employers and threatening many workers who refused to go along with their demands. After one of their leaders, Edward Morgan, was hanged in 1834 by the authorities, their activities faded considerably, but by that year the Merthyr Rising, with its fearful consequences for its leaders had already taken place. Early in 1831, what began as a popular protest against unjust and often deplorable working and living conditions, the Merthyr

rising quickly grew into a full-scale, armed rebellion. John Davies has described it as "the most ferocious and bloody event in the history of industrialized Britain." The revolt was inevitable: the great depression of 1829 had led to massive unemployment and wage cuts leading to substantial debts among the working population. At Merthyr, where iron master William Crawshay had lowered wages, there was a crisis among the shopkeepers and tradesmen, and the Debtor's Court (the Court of Requests) was responsible for a widespread confiscation of working men's property. A demonstration led by Thomas Llewelyn, a Cyfartha miner, demanded compensation; an angry mob of workers, traders, and townspeople freed the prisoners in the local gaol and marched on to Aberdare. At the same time, at Hirwaun, a few miles away, when the Court seized a cart belonging to a local man named Lewis Lewis, miners and iron workers joined the political radicals and disgruntled tradesmen and raised the red flag of rebellion -- the first time it was to be so used in Britain. On its staff was impaled a loaf of bread, the symbol of the needs of the marchers. The crowd, growing ever larger, and probably emboldened by drink (for beer was both plentiful and cheap, and far safer to drink than water), marched into the streets of Merthyr, raided shops and houses to seize property and goods earlier confiscated in order to return them to their owners. A troop of Scots Highlanders was sent from Brecon Barracks to restore order, and when the large crowds of rioters appeared outside the Castle Inn, the troopers opened fire. In the resulting panic and mass confusion, over two dozen workers were killed and hundreds wounded, but the soldiers lost 16 men and were forced into retreat. A detachment of Swansea Yeomanry to restore order the following day, but the workers, described by the Cambrian as "thousands of men and women and a body of Irishmen carrying clubs" had set up camp near Cefn Coed, up in the valley, where they ambushed and disarmed the military reinforcements. It took a week for the forces of the Crown to finally bring order to the area. Punishment was severe: Lewis Lewis, after first receiving the death sentence, was exiled for life, and poor Richard Lewis, known as Dic Penderyn was executed on a charge of wounding a highlander. On 31 July, 1831, he was hanged in Cardiff Gaol, despite the appeal of many thousands of people for his life. Lewis thus became a martyr of the Welsh working class. A popular ballad of the time ran: I saw the Merthyr riots, And the great oppression of the workers; And some of the soldiers wounded. . . But dear heaven! the worst trick Was the hanging of Dic Penderyn. It is recorded that the last words spoken by Richard Lewis on the scaffold were O Arglwydd, dyma gamwedd (Oh Lord, what an injustice). Forty years later, Ieuan Parker of Cwmafan, a Welshman living in the United States confessed to the charge that had hanged Lewis. The martyrdom of Dic Penderyn is well remembered in Wales, but in England there seems to have been general indifference. An earlier event at Peterloo, in Manchester in 1829, took precedence in the public imagination over anything that happened in South Wales, as pointed out by an entry in the diary of a Mrs. Arbuthnot in June, 1831: There has been a great riot in Wales and the soldiers have killed twenty-four people. When two or three were killed at Manchester, it was called the Peterloo Massacre and the newspapers for weeks wrote it up as the most outrageous and wicked proceeding ever heard of. But that was in Tory times; now this Welsh riot is scarcely mentioned. In Parliament, Lord Melbourne had recognized the severity of the Merthyr riots. He advocated severe repression of all popular workers' movements as "unlawful assemblages of armed individuals," and declared that South Wales was "the worst and most formidable district in the kingdom." He later wrote to a friend that "the affair we had there in 1831 was the most like a fight of anything that took place." It wasn't only in the industrial areas that discontent made its presence known. There were other causes of social unrest that manifested themselves in Wales, especially in the Carmarthen area, where the most tangible and visible symbols of oppression were the numerous tollgates on the turnpike roads, with their crushing fees. Some towns were entirely surrounded by tollgates and farmers were hard hit by excessive rates on the transportation of such necessities as lime and the movement of livestock to and from market. One night in May, 1839, gates at Efailwen were destroyed when a group of about 400 people, many dressed as women, drove away the special constables gathered to protest the tollgates. The leader of the protestors, reputed to be Thomas Rees was known locally as Twm Carnabwth. He disguised himself in the clothes of a local woman named Rebecca, and thus the term "Rebecca Riots' came to designate the disturbances, burning and destroying of tollgates and work houses that continued for some years in Southwest Wales. A statement in The Welshman of September, 1843 expressed the feelings of those who took part in the demonstrations:

The people, the masses, to a man throughout the counties of Carmarthen, Cardigan, and Pembroke are with me. O yes, they are all my children...Surely, say I, these are members of my family, these are the oppressed sons and daughters of Rebecca. It was not until a government commission recommended reduction of tolls, especially on lime and other agricultural products that the riots finally came to an end. The rise of the movement known as Chartism constituted a far more serious threat to public order throughout Britain. The Chartists were part of a new popular movement named after the radical London reformer Williams Levett, who drafted a bill known as The People's Charter in May 1838. With the early failure of the unions, much of the energy of the disgruntled workers was channeled into the ranks of the Chartists. They believed, mistakenly, that they could somehow bring about a democratic parliament and an enfranchised working class that would be able to solve some of their problems and redress their grievances. Like the unionists, they were far too premature in their hopes in spite of their impressive strength. In the Welsh industrial valleys, however, the movement received a warm welcome, attracting a large following among the largely immigrant miners and iron workers, many of them Irish, and not as reticent as many of their Welsh fellow-workers to challenge authority. Henry Vincent, an early Chartist leader and a fiery orator, issued a call to arms in The Western Vindicator in April 1839: I could not help thinking of the defensible nature of the country in the case of foreign invasion. A few thousand of armed men on the hills could successfully defend them. Wales would make an excellent republic. There were many that were emboldened by such appeals. The Cambrian of May 11, 1839 noted that a large number of colliers in the hills of Tredegar had given notice to discontinue work, and the leaders of the Chartists were to give a demonstration requesting many of those who were out of employment to join them. A meeting was to take place at Duke's Town, about a mile beyond Tredegar. The inhabitants felt considerable apprehension, and Mr. Samuel Homfray, acting magistrate, took efforts to preserve the public peace, including the banning of all sales of alcohol from mid-day until six the following morning. A serious riot was averted, however, when the arrival of the military led to a rapid dispersal of the crowd. Despite its early enthusiasm, the editors of the Cambrian labeled the whole event a complete disaster. The newspaper badly underestimated the strength of the movement and the anguish of the workers. The Tredegar fiasco had closely followed another attempt to stir the conscience of those in power that had taken place also during April at Llanidloes, a mid-Wales center of the woolen industry. The newspaper reported that the Chartists, having previously been apprehended for rioting, came armed with guns, pistols, pikes and bludgeons to the Trewythen Arms, where they broke doors and windows to force their way in. The rioters were then reported as having rescued the parties that had been apprehended, "nearly killed the police officers," turned the landlord and his family out of the house, and completely ransacked the whole place. They even went so far as to "run a spike through the hat of the resident magistrate." In the face of this threat to the British Crown, the Montgomeryshire Militia were ordered to hold themselves ready to act, and if necessary, the South Salopian Yeomanry "will be instantly marched to the neighbourhood." In May, The Cambrian reported on an anti-Chartist meeting held the previous month, chaired by Crawshay Bailey (the iron master of Dowlais, in the Merthyr District, who had fortified his mansion against possible assaults from his own workers). It seems that many of the iron masters were terrified of the new radical movements that were spreading throughout the valleys. They were determined to show their strength. Bailey praised his efforts at bringing work to the valleys. Other speeches by iron-masters and coal owners then took place in similar vein, some in English, some in Welsh, but all speaking out against the evils of Chartism, praising the goodness of the British Constitution, and stressing the need for loyalty. The speakers contrasted "the happy, well-fed, well-housed working classes of Britain" with those of such countries as Canada or France, where "revolution or Roman Catholicism or laziness or dishonesty had caused butchery and inhumanity." There were voices in Wales, however, that did not lavish such praise on the workers. Williams Jones, for example, saw conditions in the Valleys from a much different viewpoint than that of the well-fed, extravagantly rich iron and coal masters. In 1841 he wrote: Merthyr, the Gehenna of Wales, where black beings dwell, amidst fire and smoke, who dive into deep caverns, where opportunities are afforded them to concoct their treasonable designs against the inhabitants of the upper world. While the coal owners and iron masters lived lives of luxury in their splendid mansions: their workers toiled in squalor in row upon row of squat cottages, without adequate supplies of water or means of sanitation. A government report, which looked at life in the Valleys, condemned the state of education in Wales and towns and put the blame on the employers; one of the commissioners wrote:

I regard the degraded condition [of the people of Monmouthshire] as entirely the fault of their employers, who give them far less tendance and care than they bestow on their cattle, and who with few exceptions, use and regard them as so much brute force instrumental to wealth, but as nowise involving claims on human sympathy. Many of the working population agreed with such sentiments and turned their backs on the hated factory owners and mine. They put their trust in their Chartist leaders such as Henry Vincent, John Frost, Hugh Williams, Charles Jones, Zephania Williams and John Rees, all of whom pressed for revolutionary activity following the government's complete refusal to consider the six points of the Charter presented on June 14, 1839. These were simple enough: universal male suffrage, vote by ballot, equal electoral districts, annual parliaments, abolition of the property qualifications for election to Parliament, and payment for members (so that it could be open to all classes). Rather than consider such radical ideas, and to safeguard their positions of privilege in Parliament, the government took measures to suppress the movement, ruthlessly if necessary. Many of those who had taken part in the earlier riot at Llanidloes were found guilty and deported for life. Undeterred, workers throughout the country joined in the protests, though their efforts were at first spasmodic and unorganized. Far more serious events were about to take place in the port town of Newport, on the southeastern edge of the south Wales coalfield, and the site chosen for a monster Chartist rally. In May 1839, the Cambrian contained a lengthy report of the arrival of the military. Fearing some kind of massive disturbance to the public order, the Lord Lieutenant of Monmouthshire had sent a division of "the gallant 29th" from Bristol. According to the authorities, his fears were justified: in November came the Newport Rising. According to The Cambrian, up to 5,000 armed rioters "from the hills" (Ebbw Vale and surrounding districts) entered Newport in three columns, one being commanded by John Frost. In a heavy rainstorm, they marched to the Westgate Hotel, where a small detachment of military waited inside. Accounts of what happened next vary, but it appears that someone opened fire on the soldiers, who responded with a volley into the crowd. It was a repeat of Merthyr all over again. In the ensuing panic, mass confusion reigned; a score of workers were killed and many more wounded; the bewildered crowd scattered in all direction, most of them fled back into the hills, the first shattering volley from the troops having brought this particular rebellion to a violent and speedy end. On December 7, Newport held a public meeting to thank the soldiers for their brave defense of the town "thus saving it and the whole of England (italics mine) from rebellion." According to The Cambrian , the troops, chiefly recruited in Ireland and commanded by Lt. Gray (who was promoted to captain for his part) "had gallantly defended the Westgate Inn." The paper also commented that there was every reason to believe that the Chartists's order of the day was for simultaneous attacks of the crowd upon Cardiff and Pontypool, but the outbreak at Newport had taken place a day too early. According to the paper, the failure of the Newport mob had prevented a general uprising expected to take place throughout South Wales that would have been the signal for simultaneous uprisings throughout Britain. The whole affair at Newport had lasted no more than twenty minutes though repercussions lasted for more than a century in the political life of South Wales and Monmouthshire. Harsh sentences followed the arrest of the Chartist leaders. Frost was found guilty of high treason along with William Jones and Rees (Jack the Fifer). The sentences were imposed despite the stirring speech of the defense council Mr. Rickard, who said that many of the witnesses who had given testimony against Frost, who had been praised for their honesty by the prosecution, had themselves been concerned in the transaction, and were protecting themselves by giving information worth rewarding. Surely, argued Rickard, the jury could not believe that the taking of Newport was to be preliminary to a general insurrection, and surely not by a famished and hungry mob, perishing with cold on a winter's night and pathetically armed. Surely they were no threat to the Government and Her Majesty's forces? Mr. Rickard's stirring, impassioned appeal went for naught. Frost, along with other leaders of the mob, was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to one of life imprisonment in Australia. Petitions from thousands of people in towns all over Britain had implored the Queen for pardon. In addition, not only was there a huge strike of workers in the Monmouthshire collieries, but no-one would work alongside the witnesses at the trial. As the mine owners were anxious to get their men back to work; their influence probably counted far more than the signatures presented to Victoria. By 1858, the year of the final National Chartist Convention, the movement was fading rapidly. That year an act was passed declaring that property qualifications were no longer necessary for a seat in Parliament, and thus the first great democratizing point of the Charter had been conceded by the Government. In any case, as the Corn Laws had been repealed in 1846 and bread was a little cheaper, people were less inclined to an armed revolt. The Great Reform Bill of 1867 finally ended the Chartist Movement, for in that year nearly one million voters were added to the register, almost doubling the electorate. Forty-five new seats were created and the vote given to many working. Frost later returned to Wales after many years of servitude "down under" to a hero's welcome. He died in 1877 at the age of ninety-three: his pioneering work in the effort to secure basic rights for the workers, alongside that of the others, had not been in vain.

In the meantime, Wales was again forced to continue the struggle to retain its separate identity and its precious language.

The Language Dilemma Continues

The great increase in the number of people owning automobiles and the improvements in the road system meant that many areas in Wales were now easily reached. Their beauty and tranquility were an irresistible magnet to thousands ready to retire from the squalor, drabness and overcrowding of the big industrial cities of northern and midland England. Welsh communities founds themselves inundated with flood of new residents or casual visitors who were either too disinterested in learning the Welsh language or were too old and who just couldn't be bothered. It was far too easy to get by perfectly well in Wales without knowing a single word of its language. The whole north Wales coast, known as "the Welsh Riviera," became first a weekend playground, and then an extension of, Mersyside, with all the problems of that conurbation. Similarly, the mid-Wales coast was transformed by a huge influx of people from the Midlands. Liverpool accents became the norm in Llandudno and its surrounding resort towns (with Rhyl in particular losing all trace of its former Welshness); Birmingham accents became as common in Aberystwtyth (and even Machynlleth, home of Glyndwr's Parliament) as those of the native Welsh. The result of such massive invasions, often by retirees but sometimes by young couples lured by low prices, low crime rates and high scenic delights, certainly by many with little or no apparent incentive to learn Welsh, were drastic. From almost one million speakers of the language in 1931, the number fell to just over 500,000 in less than fifty years, despite the large increase in the population. Strongholds of the old language and its attendant culture were crumbling fast, and it seemed that nothing could be done to stem the tide. In 1957 occurred an event that only exemplified the situation: the Liverpool Corporation got the go-ahead from Parliament sitting in London to drown a valley in Merioneth named Tryweryn. No matter that the valley contained a strong and vibrant Welsh-speaking community with ancient ties to the area; Liverpool needed more water for its thirsty multitudes (many of whom were immigrants from Ireland). The scheme went ahead despite protests from all corners of Wales, many of whose people were now convinced that their nation was on its way to extinction, with the survival of its language doomed. Not enough people seemed to care, and those that did were helpless to prevent the removal of the people of Tryweryn to make way for a source of water for a city in England. Then a miracle happened. Someone cared after all. At Pontardulais in 1962, at the summer school held by Plaid Cymru, the seeds of a new movement were planted. Mainly involving a younger, active post-War Welsh generation, many of them college students, a new society Cymdeithas yr Iaith Cymraeg (Society for the Welsh language) decided to take matters in hand. The decline of the language had to be halted and the Government's hand had to be forced. Saviors to many, scoundrels and trouble-makers to others, the frustrated members of the newly formed society were galvanized into action after a talk given on the radio by Saunders Lewis in February, 1962. In his address on the BBC entitled Tynged yr Iaith (Fate of the Language), Lewis asked his listeners to make it impossible for local or central government business to be conducted in Wales without the use of the Welsh language. This was the only way to ensure its survival. Plaid Cymru could not help, he reasoned; it was too much a political party. Who was to take up the banner? The answer came from Cymdeithas yr Iaith Cymraeg. During 1962, a Welsh language activist decided to ignore an English language summons to appear in court for allowing his girl friend to ride side saddles on his bicycle. The protests began. At Trefechan Bridge, at a busy intersection in Aberystwyth that controlled the access and egress from the town center, dozens of the society sat down in the road to stop all traffic from coming in or going out. They sat all day to defy the local authorities (and irate local drivers) to remove them. Many were dragged off to face prison sentences. This was the beginning of a series of protests and civil disobedience that was to last for the next twenty years. Undeterred by their forcible removal, arrests, and prison sentences for disturbing the peace, and led by such activists as Fred Francis and folk-singer Dafydd Iwan, the society began a serious campaign. In the face of much hostility from passive locals and prosecution from the authorities, Cymdeithas pressed for the right to use Welsh on all government documents, from Post Office forms to television licenses, from driving permits to income tax forms. In particular, the society engaged in surreptitious nighttime activities removing English-only signposts and directional aids, or obliterating them with green paint. They were inspired by a Dafydd Iwan ballad "Painting the World Green, Boys." All over the country, early morning motorists were faced with the green paint daubed slogan that had mysteriously appeared overnight, or the equally mysteriously missing road sign. It became increasingly frustrating and expensive for local authorities and the Ministry of Transport to remove, renovate or replace damaged signs. Eventually, in 1963, faced with an ever growing campaign, increased police and court costs, destruction of government property, and the vociferous demands for action, the central Government decided to establish a committee to look at the legal status of Welsh. Its report, issued two years later, recommended that the Welsh language be given equal validity with English, a diluted version of which was placed into the Welsh Language Act of 1967.

In the meantime, and not simply because of the belated act of Parliament, there was a new feeling abroad in the land of Wales. The young people were answering the call of Saunder Lewis. The older generation began to reconsider their passiveness in letting the language die. Dafydd Iwan and his contemporaries had inaugurated a whole new movement in Welsh music, (hitherto dominated by the old Methodist traditions) translating popular English and American songs into Welsh, or writing stirring new lyrics and music of protest. The popularity of mournful hymns sung by male voice choirs found a competitor -- the loud, cheerful rhythms and rebellious music of new bands. Groups such as Ar Log rediscovered and popularized old folk tunes and brought them up to date. Even the revered, staid (and often pompous) Eisteddfod entered into the spirit, each year erecting a Roc Pavilion where such groups could attract the young audiences who had previously been sorely neglected. In matters musical, Wales began to cast off the shrouds that had been put ever so firmly in place by the Methodists, and the spin off was reflected in matters political and social. Since the refreshing, albeit radical happenings of the 1960's, in Flint (Edward I's first borough in Wales) and in other towns in Clwyd, attempts to reintroduce the Welsh language in the schools has been warmly welcomed by many of the townsfolk. A whole generation of children who can read and speak and write Welsh may help ensure the future of first, Plaid Cymru and ultimately, of the nation itself. Other areas, such as the Cardiff region and the great late-industrial valleys have already experiences some growth in the numbers of those able to speak Welsh. Factors for this welcome news include the growth of a Welsh bureaucracy, expansion of the Welsh-oriented mass media, the continued activities of Cymdeithas Yr Iaith Cymraeg, with its appeal to the younger generation, the continued success of the youth movement Urdd Gobaith Cymru and the effects of the Welsh Language Act of 1967. Of crucial importance has been the success of Welsh television, and for that, much of the credit is due to Gwynfor Evans. In 1962, BBC Wales had been producing a meager six hours a week of Welsh language programs. Among many others, Hadyn Williams, the dynamic director of education in Flintshire (responsible for setting up two major Welsh secondary schools in that county), was not satisfied. He established a company to broadcast to many areas out of reach of the English transmitters. Highly successful in the Welsh-speaking communities, its activities were soon taken over by TWW, and then by Harlech television (which counted among its patrons actor Richard Burton). Soon came demands for a separate channel for all-Welsh programs. Ironically, many English speakers were in full support as they resented Welsh language broadcasts "interfering" on what they considered their channels. When the Government refused to honor its commitment to the proposed channel, a vigorous protest movement developed, with thousands of Plaid Cymru members vowing to refuse to pay their television license fees (and their subsequent fines) and prepared to be imprisoned. When Evans, the much-loved and highly respected leader of Plaid announced that he would undergo a hunger strike to the death, the Government capitulated. On the 2nd of November, 1982, the people of Wales finally got their Welsh-language channel, "S4C" (Sianel Pedwar C). The spin off was immense. In Cardiff, where most of the programs originated, a new urban class was created in which it became fashionable to speak Welsh, a language that for the very first time could be used by film directors, translators, language dubbers, editors, writers and so on all working together through the medium of the ancient tongue. The Channel produced not only some very highly regarded television programs, but also turned out films that compete with those of Hollywood and London, and that have proved to be immensely popular on the Continent. The new attitude towards Welsh has helped make Wales the envy of other small nations such as Ireland where attempts to revive the beautiful old language of the Gaels have not met with such success. Perhaps most important is the subtle change in attitude towards the language brought about by the tangible advantages that can be gained by its speakers in all fields, not just the social and academic. One noticeable change in attitude towards the language can be seen in the pages of the Western Mail (perhaps to increase its circulation?). In the late 1960's Dafydd Iwan sarcastically sang his humorous account of eating fish and chips in the pages of the newspaper as his favorite meal. At that time the editors hadn't changed their opinion towards the Welsh language since this astonishing column of the previous century (May, 1885): There is an effort made by certain well-meaning but ill-advised friends of Wales to bring the Welsh language to the front and make it a class subject in our elementary schools. The true and disinterested friends of the country admit that its low social and educational condition is due to the prevalence of the Welsh language. No one objects to the study of the old language but it is quite a different matter to make it a part of the curriculum of our day schools. The children of those who earn their living by manual labour attend school for the purpose of fitting themselves the more successfully to compete in the battle of life. A knowledge of Welsh can be of no possible help to them. It is in fact a positive disadvantage.

In the 1990's (as the Western Mail now begrudging admits), it makes sense to speak and use Welsh; the economic advantages alone are too many (and too tempting) to ignore. In those areas of Wales long anglicized, we may yet again read such sentiments as that given by Sir Walter Scott in a letter to his son, dated December 1820: You hear the Welsh spoken much about you, and if you can pick it up without interfering with more important labours, it will be worth while. In the 1990's it was the business of Welsh-language activists to make sure that it would indeed be worth while to learn Welsh--that the learning of the language be given priority as an important labor, of equal merit with anything else in ones' life. With the late Saunders Lewis, they have taken up the challenge of ensuring the survival of their language and of the culture upon which it so heavily depends. In the meantime, a sea change had taken place in the political arena.

The Referendum of 1997

Notwithstanding the defeat of the 1979 referendum, the people of Wales were not yet finished in their bid for a measure of home rule. The long, long struggle was still not over. In an edition of the Guardian (June, 1994), Glenys Kinnock, the Welsh-speaking wife of the former leader of the Labour Party, received great acclaim at her election to the European Parliament at Brussels with a huge majority. The same edition mentioned that the Scottish Nationalist Party had staked its claim as force in British politics with a conclusive victory over Labour in the Scotland Northeast Euro seat. Plaid Cymru, the Party of Wales did not receive a mention, yet by that time political intrigue, mistrust, and outright misrule by what is known as the system of quangos (non-elected government bodies) by 1995, had the effect of catapulting Plaid into second place among the political parties in Wales. Plaid's success in attracting members and votes meant that Labour, which for son long had taken most of Wales for granted, now had to woo its support, a hitherto almost unheard of occurrence. They were particularly excited about the Tory government's humiliating defeat in the bye-election at Islwyn (Kinnock's constituency) when Labour received nearly 78 percent of the total votes cast. An article in the Guardian in February, 1995 entitled "Labour Plans Welsh Pact" stated that the party was to offer Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats talks on an electoral pact to make Wales a "Tory-free zone." Senior party officials were considering deals with these two parties to try to remove the last six Tory M.P.'s in Wales (out of a total of 38 Members). Other newspapers reported that devolution appetites had been whetted by the resounding defeat of Robert Buckland, fervent pro-unionist and antidevolutionist, who came in fourth. Plaid trebled its support to 12.7 percent, gaining second place. Perhaps even more significant, was the fact that the three parties in favor of devolution won 90 percent of the poll. Notwithstanding the Britain-first views of Neil Kinnock (now out of the seat of power at Westminster or of Prime Minister John Major, who eventually found himself totally out of touch with the British electorate, the issue was dramatically brought to the center of the Welsh political agenda. The results of the bye-election meant that Labour began to think seriously in terms of electoral arrangements with the other two pro-devolution parties in which they would make way for Labour in key marginal elections in return for a guaranteed Welsh Assembly. As a fair exchange, they argued, Labour would commit itself to holding the first elections to the proposed Assembly on the basis of proportional representation, ensuring a strong presence for both the smaller parties and for rural districts. However, such proposals did not appeal to the Welsh nationalists, certainly not to Plaid, whose continuing gains had given confidence that the would soon be a Welsh parliament as the first stage to independence. Their hopes were strengthened by a speech by John Major in Glasgow during early March, 1995. He stated that this was "not the time to scratch and infect the sore of separation," and nor was it time he continued, "to stir ill feeling between different parts of the United Kingdom." Showing a complete lack of knowledge of the history of the British Isles, and the aspirations of many of its people, Major reiterated that he believed an Assembly was wrong for Scotland, though right for Northern Ireland. His antiquated, hopelessly imperialistic views could only have given encouragement to the ever growing and for more realistic forces of devolution. During the week ending December 10, 1995, the Guardian stated that Labour and the Liberal Democrats were offering for Scotland a devolved parliament of 73 Members headed by a Scottish chief minister. Nationalists, however, were demanding much more -- an elected parliament with 200 Members and a written constitution in addition to a Bill of Rights for a non-nuclear Scotland in which the Gaelic language would enjoy official status. The paper commented: "What the Scots will eventually get will be decided at the next general election." And what was true for Scotland would surely be true for Wales Dafydd Wigley, the head of Plaid Cymru and M.P. for Caernarfon, was confident that a Welsh Assembly would be fully in place by the year 1998. Dafydd was a bit premature in his hopes, and the results of theelections of 1997 were very close indeed. Before voting day, in many areas, it was apparent that things hadn't changed all that much since 1979. There was still tension between north and south Wales, between the thousands of English immigrants and the hard line, mostly Welsh-speaking nationalists. There was also tension between the Labour heart lands of the southeastern valleys, and those in other districts who feared the imposition of a costly, Labour-dominated "talking shop" instead of a real assembly free from

the clutches of a Westminster controlled collection of puppets. Other fears included that of domination by Cardiff, or the loss of funds from London. Many Welsh people stated they had enough of English M.P.'s and ministers telling them what was best for them. In addition, of the 2.25 million eligible to vote, over half a million had been born outside Wales, and felt no particular affection for their adopted country (even less for its culture and language). They showed not a flicker of interest in devolution. Of the rest, most people had not made up their minds, except to express the opinion that the proposed Assembly would simply mean "jobs for the boys," or another way for the Labour "Taffia" (Welsh Mafia) to fill their pockets. Thus, many of the factors that had led to the defeat of the 1979 referendum were still present. After all, it surely would take generations to erase what can only be considered as anti-Welsh prejudice, so prevalent in the anglicized areas -- yet subtle changes had been taking place that helped swing the vote ever so slightly in favor of an elected Assembly. Many of these changes were brought about by the sheer arrogance of the Conservative Party in its dealings with the people of Wales. This arrogance had led to the complete defeat of all its candidates in Wales (and Scotland, where the same conditions had also swung public opinion) during the General Election held earlier in the year, in which the issue of devolution figured heavily in the campaigns. It was heartening that two of the most influential newspapers read in Wales, the Liverpool Daily Post (read mainly in the north) and the Western Mail (read mainly in the south) advocated a "yes" vote. Disgust with the way affairs were handled in Westminster surely meant that there would be heary support for the proposed changes expressed by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. Prescott proposed that Wales must be in the vanguard of a constitutional reform package that would include Lords reform, electoral reform, and a referendum for an elected body. Another change from 1979 was that in the later proposals, only a simple majority would be needed to pass the Referendum Bill, whereas in the former, a majority of the electorate had been required for passage. In order to clarify just what it was the people of Wales would be voting for, it might be worthwhile to list some of the main points of the Labour Government's White Paper. It was published in July 1997 to establish a directly elected Assembly to have responsibility for policies and public services in Wales.

The points included:

Sixty members (40 to be elected; 20 to be chosen by proportional representation. The responsibilities of the Welsh Office to be transferred to the Assembly, with the Secretary of State for Wales acting as a link with Westminster. A budget of 7 billion pounds to be managed by the Assembly, to meet in Cardiff. Elections for the Assembly to take place every four years. An Executive Committee to be appointed to act as a Cabinet The work of the Assembly to be carried out by 2,000 civil servants. The Assembly to be granted secondary legislative powers; non-government agencies to be democratized, and the granting of equal status with English to the Welsh language. All these seemed simple and straightforward enough. But were they? There were many questions raised by the Welsh people, many of whom were completely puzzled as to the immediate effects this elected Assembly would have on their lives. Plaid Cymru, in its attempts to secure a place for Wales in Europe as an independent nation and not just as a western region of the United Kingdom, had some questions of its own. Especially concerning the increased powers given to Scotland's Assembly; the future of education and health, and many others. The man and woman in the street also had questions: would the setting up of the Assembly lead to the break up of the U.K.? Would the Assembly force everyone living in Wales to learn the Welsh language? Would the Assembly be yet another gang of politicians to feed at the public trough? Would it be dominated by the Anglicized, eastward-gazing professional politicians from Cardiff, and so on. Such questions reflected not only the very basic fears of those who primarily wished not bothered by the political machinations of those in Westminster, but also the enormous propaganda campaign waged by those who preferred the status quo. Indeed by those who wished for an even tighter grip over the affairs of the Welsh people. It was sad to experience so much fear on the one hand, and indifference, on the other. It was especially sad to see such a lack of political knowledge among the voting population at large. For many Americans, who have much more input into what goes on in the seats of power at the state level, the apathy of much of the Welsh constituted a source of genuine amazement as well as a serious concern at what generations of whitewashing can accomplish in an otherwise worldly, intelligent people. Not enough Welsh people, it seemed, were aware of the basic aims of Plaid Cymru, to wit: To secure self-government for Wales and a democratic Welsh state, based on socialist principles. To safeguard the culture, language, traditions, environment and economic life of Wales through decentralist socialist policies. To secure for Wales the right to become a member of the United Nations Organization.

Perhaps the word "socialist" scared away many that would otherwise agree with most of these aims. Even the Labour Party's overwhelming victory in the 1997 General Election had come about because of it move the center and its abandonment of so many of the old socialist platitudes and worn-out slogans about the need to nationalize industry, etc. Thus, it was all the more heartening that the trade unions in Wales united in urging their members to vote for the proposed Assembly. They blamed the results of 1979 vote on the fall of the Labour government and the seizing of power by the Tories, with the resulting loss of "hundreds of thousands of Welsh jobs." Also affected, stated George Wright, Wales Regional Secretary of the Transport Union, had been public services, especially the National Health Service, which had become semi-privatized, its staff overworked and demoralized as a result of job lost and cutbacks in funding. Wright stated that a "yes" vote in 1979 would have avoided the trauma of the dreaded poll tax and Wales would not have suffered being governed by a party [Tory} with no majority or support within its own boundaries, which remained remote, and displayed an arrogant disregard for the damage caused by its decisions. Devolution, he argued, offers ordinary people some control and influence over decisions affecting their lives and communities. It is about democratic accountability, where those who take the decisions and spend the money are required to face the people in elections. Devolution, he went on, would give a proper sense of identity to Wales; it would, above all, create a proper sense of Welsh nationhood. Despite such stirring rhetoric, the majority of the Welsh people failed to stir themselves out of their lethargy. Their struggles had gone on too long: it was as if they were exhausted. They needed a movie such as "Braveheart" that appeared just at the right time in Scotland, and which had done much to remind the Scots of their glorious history and independent spirit. In contrast to Scottish patriot William Wallace, Welsh leader Owain Glyndwr remained a relatively unknown figure, even in Wales. Undeterred by English propaganda, Scottish voters marked the 700th anniversary of Wallace's famous victory at Stirling Bridge by opting for an historic return of their Parliament to Edinburgh that had been lost in the 1707 union with England. Votes were 74.3 for and 15.7 against (of perhaps more significance, over 63 percent voted in favor of the parliament having taxation powers). The proposed Scottish Assembly was supported by all 32 of Scotland's voting regions. Wales had to manage without the glamour of a Hollywood movie. Its heroes were the common folk, the men and women whose sense of history and of the value of timeless Welsh traditions finally tipped the scales in favor of the Assembly. A look at the map of the results confirms that the majority of the "yes" votes came from the western, Welsh-speaking areas and from the Welshthinking former industrial valleys of the south. The turn out was just over 50 percent, reflecting the general apathy of so many of the eligible voters; thus the plan for the Assembly was approved by only 25 percent of the Welsh electorate. It was a touch and go affair, and lots of nail biting took place all through the night of the 19th of September until the final result was announced in the wee hours of the morning. A quintessential English newspaper, the Guardian, stated that "the final 'yes' vote was delivered by Carmarthen, the birthplace of Lloyd George." All Welshmen know that the World War I Prime Minister was born in Manchester, of Welsh parents, a long way from Carmarthen. He was raised in Llanystumdwy in Gwynedd, not too far from Caernarfon, and it was typical of the English paper to mix up the two towns. The ignorance of Wales and Welsh history shown by such an influential newspaper should be a cause of shame and embarrassment. Returning to the role played by Carmarthen to ensure that Wales would have its first ever democratically-elected national body, it was surely just that the county that turned the tide of victory had been the one that had elected Gwynfor Evans as Plaid Cymru's first M.P. in 1966. Gwynfor was now 85 years old; the event, in his own words, was one of the happiest in his life. "In a sense," he stated, "the wheel has come full circle for me. Here in Carmarthenshire there is a tradition of supporting a measure of self-rule." The old politician, whose threat to embark on a hunger strike had been influential in ensuring the government's decision to support S4C, the Welsh television channel, went on to state: "but it would be wrong to forget the contribution of people elsewhere, like the more than 10,000 in Monmouthshire [Gwent] who voted Yes...this is the difference between the last referendum and now." Gwynfor also pointed out that the vast majority of the Labour Party had been against devolution. The Welsh Assembly, apart from the opportunity it will give to improve education, health, and so on, the most important consequence will be to give the Welsh people more confidence in themselves. Gwynfor believed that this confidence had been lost for Wales as a people "since we were incorporated with England in the 16th century and have suffered from a sort of inferiority complex." He added, agreeing with Baron Richard of Ammanford, that the Assembly would bring Wales closer to the European Union and would enable [Welsh] people to see themselves as part of an order that is not just nationalist, but internationalist."

Welsh in the New World

As we saw earlier, in our discussion of the Tudor period, Welsh interest in the New World had been kindled by the writings of John Dee in the reign of Elizabeth I. London Welshman and scholar of note, Dee (1527-1600) was a key figure in the great expansion of Britain overseas that began in the Tudor period. He claimed descent from Rhodri Mawr, the great Medieval Welsh ruler. More important, however, was his interest in the Arthurian legends and the traditions involving Prince Madoc's supposed discovery of the New World long before Columbus. Madoc (or Madog) ab Owain Gwynedd was a 12th century prince who was supposed to have sailed westwards with a group of followers seeking lands to settle away from the constant warfare of his native Wales. According to the legend, a landing was made

at what is now called Mobile Bay, Alabama in 1169. Liking what he found, Madoc then returned to Wales for additional settlers, but after sailing westward with his new crew, was never heard from again. Imaginative minds, including John Dee's, have pictured Madoc as befriending the Mandan chieftains, his men intermarrying with their womenfolk, and a whole new race of fair-skinned blue-eyed Indians being created. In Robert Southey's long poem "Madoc" (1805), the poet develops the theme, garnered from sketchy Spanish evidence through Cortez from Montezuma, that Madoc may have been the white leader from the east who brought an American tribe south into Mexico. Some sources describe the Welsh explorers as moving northwards through Alabama, battling the Iroquois in Ohio, then moving westwards where they were discovered at the time of the Revolutionary War as the Mandan Indians of North Dakota. The Mandans were decimated by smallpox in 1838, but many scholars have supposedly found many of their customs (including use of a bullboat similar to a coracle) and many words in their language similar to those of Wales. In Elizabeth I's time, English attempts to find the North-west passage to India were eagerly seized by court officials as at least part justification for their war against the empire of Spain and proof of their legitimacy of their involvement in the Americas. Dee claimed that King Arthur had ruled over large territories in the Atlantic, and that Madoc's voyage had confirmed the Welsh title to this empire. The argument went that Queen Elizabeth, as successor to the Welsh princes, including Madoc, was the rightful sovereign of the Atlantic Empire!! In the late 17th century, it was thus natural to look to America as the promise land for many Welsh emigrants who braved the horrors of the Atlantic passage to flee religious persecution (or increasing anglicization). Following the Act of Uniformity in 1662, Welsh Baptists under John Myles founded a church at Swansea, Massachusetts, the first church in the American Colonies to be founded by a Welshman. Other religious groups were troubled by the measures to ensure conformity enforced by the English Parliament after the return of the Stuart Monarchy. The Quakers, the Society of Friends, in particular sought lands where they could practice their own form of religion and where they could live under their own laws in a Welsh Barony, and their success was quickly followed by additional Baptist congregations as well as many other religious groups. The Quaker project, envisioned a kind of "Holy Experiment," involved an oral understanding with William Penn and the Society of Friends that 40,000 acres of land in southeastern part of what later became Pennsylvania (some sources give 30,000) were to be set aside as this Barony. Unfortunately, this agreement was never put into writing and later became a source of bitter controversy between Penn and the Welsh Quakers. William Penn himself was not Welsh (though his ancestors may have been from Wales before settling in Ireland). Even before his arrival to take up lands granted to him by the Duke of York in payment of a debt to his father, Admiral Penn, Welsh settlements had begun to spread out, on the west side of the Schuylkill River around the nucleus of the new city of Philadelphia. In this socalled Welsh Tract , however, in 1690, to the dismay of the Welsh settlers, the Colonial government abolished the civil authority of the Welsh Quaker meetings in order to set up regular township government. William Penn himself refused the legality of the Quaker appeal for self-government. Adding to the bitter disappointment of many of the Welsh, even the name of the colony was changed. In a letter written one day after the granting of the Charter, Penn wrote to his friend Robert Turner, giving particulars of the naming of the new province: . . . this day, my country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England, with privileges, by the name of Pennsylvania, a name the King would give it in honor of my father. I chose New Wales , being as this, a pretty, hilly country, but Penn being Welsh for head as in Penmanmoire (sic), in Wales, and Penrith, in Cumberland, and Penn, in Buckinghamshire . . . called this Pennsylvania, which is the high or head woodlands; for I proposed, when the secretary, a Welshman, refused to have it called New Wales, Sylvania and they added Penn to it, and though I opposed it and went to the King to have it struck out and altered he said it was past; . . nor could twenty guineas move the under-secretary to vary the name In 1698 William John and Thomas ap Evan bought a tract of 7,820 acres, settling it in smaller parcels to other arrivals from Wales and calling it Gwynedd (the white or peaceable kingdom) after the ancient North Wales kingdom. Many followers soon arrived, the Baptists being numerous enough to establish Pennepak Church in 1688, the mother church of their faith in the middle colonies followed by the Great Valley Church (at Tredyffryn) in 1711. During the early part of the 18th century, the Welsh language was a major tongue in the streets of Philadelphia, many of whose streets were laid out by such as Thomas Wynn of Caerwys, North Wales, personal physician to William Penn (his house Wynnewood remains standing, the first stone-built house in the state). Large tracts of land to the north and west of the city were given Welsh names: Uwchlyn, Bala Cynwyd, Bryn Mawr, Llanerch, Merion, St. David's, North Wales, Gwynedd, Treddyffryn, and so on -- all of which remain today in an area called "Main Line." At the same time Welsh Anglicans were becoming prominent in Philadelphia. The Welsh Society of Philadelphia was begun in 1729, and thus it is the oldest ethnic society of its kind in the US. Since its founding, it has provided many men of distinction

throughout the ensuing centuries, making their influence felt in politics, agriculture, and the administration of justice, as well as in industry, particularly mining and the manufacturing of iron and steel. On a plaque mounted on the east facade of the imposing City Hall in Philadelphia, the following inscription is seen: Perpetuating the Welsh heritage, and commemorating the vision and virtue of the following Welsh patriots in the founding of the City, Commonwealth, and Nation William Penn, 1644-1718, proclaimed freedom of religion and planned New Wales, later named Pennsylvania. Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, third President of the United States, composed the Declaration of Independence. Robert Morris, 1734-1806, foremost financier of the American Revolution and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Gouverneur Morris, 1752-1816, wrote the final draft of the Constitution of the United States. John Marshall, 1755-1835, Chief Justice of the United States and father of American constitutional law. According to the Welsh Society of Philadelphia, 16 signers of the Declaration of Independence were of Welsh descent: George Clymer, Stephen Hopkins, Robert Morris, William Floyd, Francis Hopkinson, John Morton, Britton Gwinnett, Thomas Jefferson, John Penn, George Read, John Hewes, Francis Lewis, James Smith, Williams Hooper, Lewis Morris, and William Williams. In addition to President Thomas Jefferson (whose autobiography tells that his family emigrated from a place "at the foot of Snowdon" in North Wales), there were many more leading citizens with at least some Welsh in their family trees who played instrumental parts in the founding of the new nation, including Presidents James Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge and Richard Nixon as well as Vice President Hubert Humphrey. President Jefferson Davies of the Confederacy could also claim some Welsh blood. We should also mention General Morgan Lewis, quarter-master general of the US Army and governor and chief justice of New York; Thomas Cadwallader, co-founder of the Philadelphia Library; Joshua Humphries, builder of the U.S. Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, John Morgan, Physician-in-Chief of the Revolutionary Army and founder of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, Robert Wharton, Mayer of Philadelphia for 15 terms beginning in the late 1700's; and a host of others prominent in the founding of Harvard, Yale, and Brown Universities. Others who have made more modern but equally valuable contributions in the field of American and world entertainment and the arts include Bob Hope, Myrna Loy, Billy de Wolfe, Anthony Hopkins, Richard Burton, Ray Milland, Tom Jones, Jess Thomas, Frederick March, Shirley Bassey, Glynis Johns, Jonathan Pryce, Sir Geraint Evans, Bryn Terfel, Margaret Price, Denis O'Neil, Gwyneth Jones, Charlotte Church and many, many other distinguished actor, singers and musicians, some of whom were born in Wales. As far as the idea of a New Wales being founded in the territory now known as Pennsylvania is concerned, though the Welsh settlers were numerous enough to be of great influence in the subsequent development of the colony, the refusal of William Penn to grant them self-government was ultimately of little consequence as their lands were soon swallowed up in the great wave of immigration from other European countries, particularly Germany. For example, though Welsh names still predominate in "Main Line," there is no discernible Welsh presence today; and though the names Cymru, Caernarvon and others are still found in adjoining Berks County, it is German names that predominate. Over the Pennsylvania line, in Northern Delaware, Welsh farmers and ironworkers came late in the 17th century to an area known as Welsh Tract. In 1701, to counter the claims of Maryland to the area, Penn granted 30,000 acres to three Welsh immigrants (David Evans, William Davies and William Willis). They settled in part of the "three lower counties" in what is now Delaware in the area to be known as "Pencader Hundred" and with those who followed them, established two notable American congregations. Below Iron Hill in Newark, Delaware at Welsh Tract Church, founded by a congregation dissatisfied with services at Pennepak Baptist (Philadelphia) in 1703, and rebuilt in 1740, there are still Welsh inscriptions on some gravestones. One grave contains the remains of a former Welsh soldier in Oliver Cromwell's army who emigrated to the colony at the age of 82. (Local legend has Jefferson Davies' mother also interred there, but she is buried elsewhere.) Another of the Church's early members was Oliver Evans, the great inventor and industrialist whose mills along the Brandywine heralded the start of the rise of the United States as a nation able to function independently from Britain. The other Church, named Pencader Welsh Presbyterian, became the chief center of Presbyterianism in North America for a number of years and home to an academy. Both churches saw duty in the War of Independence: Pencader as an army hospital by British and Hessian troops; and Welsh Tract as a defensive position by American soldiers. Nearby Cooch's Bridge is reputed to be the place where the US Flag first appeared in battle, and a canon ball found its way through one of the walls of Welsh Tract Church. Pencader also nurtured Samuel Davies, missionary to Virginia and a founder and second president of Princeton University, in New Jersey. In Maryland, Welsh people were also prominent in the early days, such as Philip Evan Thomas, one of the founders of the Baltimore Library Company, first president of the Maryland Bible Society, and president of the Mechanics' Bank. He was instrumental in connecting Baltimore to the West by "the new invention" of the railroad and in 1827, he was elected the first president of the B and O Railroad. He financed the building of the first monument to George Washington (in Baltimore).

After the American Revolution, in which an a lieutenant in the British Army serving in Ohio claimed to have spoken in Welsh to an Indian chief, fresh interest in the Madoc legend was rekindled in Britain with the publication of an account in 1790 by John Williams (who was encouraged by the indefatigable Iolo Morgannwg). In 1792, John Thomas Evans of Waunfawr, Caernarfon, decided to search for the Welsh Indians. Evans' journey was unsuccessful, though his explorations of the Missouri Valley did lead to that territory being charted for the first time. His maps greatly help the later expeditions of Lewis and Clark. Welsh disappointment in his not finding any Welsh Indians were mollified by the justification that, after being imprisoned by the Spanish governor of the territory, Evans was working for the government of Spain. Thus, as part of the terms of his release, he could not have encouraged the hopes of Britain in the lands that he was exploring along the Missouri. Despite a letter of John Williams to the Cymmrodorion Society in 1797 that denied the existence of the Welsh Mandans, and an 1858 essay of Thomas Stephens that gave little credence to the story, it remained far too good a legend, and far too engrained in their consciousness for Welshmen to dismiss as mere fantasy. Hadn't the artist George Catlin claimed to have found the Welshspeaking Mandans in the late 1840's, even depicting some of them before their decimation by smallpox? Thus, despite the failure of Evans and others to find a Welsh-speaking Indian tribe in the American hinterland, a "Ma fever" developed, mainly led by the Baptist minister Morgan John Rhys, founder of Cambria County, Pennsylvania, that became a powerful incentive for emigration to the New World. As far as the legend itself affected the people of Wales, whatever the facts behind it, it became and has steadfastly remained one of the most enduring sources of national pride. It was not only John Evans who helped map the North American continent, for another Welshman, David Thompson can rightly be called "the man who measured Canada." Almost on his own, this prodigious explorer, known to his companions as "that Welshman" surveyed most of the Canadian-US border during the early days of the country. Covering 80,000 miles by foot, dogsled, horseback and canoe, Thompson defined one-fifth of the North American continent 200 years ago. Thompson's work, resulting in 77 volumes detailing his studies in geography, biology and ethnography entitles him to the title of the world's greatest land geographer He died in 1857, ten years before Canada received its independence. David Thompson deserves to be remembered as one of North America's founding fathers. In 19th century Wales there took place a steady migration from the rural districts to the rapidly growing industrial towns of Glamorganshire, Monmouthshire, and parts of Carmarthenshire; and to England (with Liverpool, Bristol and London benefiting the most). Some came to the New World, especially to upper New York State, to Pennsylvania, and to Ohio. In Pennsylvania, in particular, the emigrants joined their fellow "compatriots in exile" who had helped build the new nation. Welsh emigration to the United States intensified in the 1870's, following the increasing industrialization and the subsequent great unrest and miserable conditions of the coal fields. Additional emigration took place after the United States Government passed the McKinley Tariff Act of 189l that had a drastic effect on the Welsh tinplate industry, leading to closures of many factories and to massive unemployment. The Welsh chapels of such towns as Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Hazelton, Minersville, Edwardsville, Slatington, Delta, and others in eastern Pennsylvania as well as those in Poultney in Vermont and Allegany County, Maryland attest to the influence of the newcomers in those predominantly coal and slate-mining areas. At one time, there were approximately 30,000 people of Welsh descent in the Scranton area; many of their Welsh chapels survive. Many of these chapels continue to hold Welsh hymn-singing festivals (Cymanfaoedd Ganu) yearly, and there are Welsh societies in the majority of the states of the Union. At Edwardsville, Pennsylvania, there is an annual Eisteddfod begun in 1889 that continues to attract wide interest. There is also a National Cymanfa Ganu held in a different city each Labor-Day weekend that attracts thousands of Welsh-Americans and Canadians for a four-day celebration of Welsh culture, centered around a full day of hymn-singing, but including many more activities. A large Welsh settlement was established in the slate quarrying region of Vermont, around Poultney, attracting many from the North Wales slate belt centered in Bethesda, Gwynedd. Mention must be made too, of the large Welsh settlements in seven counties in Central New York State, where a few hundred people, mainly in Utica and Remsen continue to try to keep their traditions alive, though year after year the congregations have become fewer and fewer with little or no replacements either from the surrounding communities or from Wales itself. In Gallia County, Ohio, many Welsh families were forced to stay when their raft containing all their possessions drifted away in the night. At Oak Hill, a small museum is dedicated to the many Welsh who settled and worshipped in the area during the late 19th century. While most US states claim at least some Welsh settlements, some of the more successful ones were out west, far from the anthracite and slate regions of the east coast. Many Welsh went to Le Sueur and Blue Earth Counties in Minnesota, where an annual Cymanfa Ganu takes place in St. Peter. Even further west, in Oregon, the Bryn Seion Church at Beavercreek holds a Cymanfa each June that attracts many worshippers from other states. In Los Angeles, California, the Welsh Presbyterian Church still struggles to survive, but during the 1990's had something of a revival and has sponsored many Welsh events, including two Cymanfaoedd Ganu yearly and a St. David's Day Concert. A most successful and most professional Welsh choir has also been

recently created in southern California. In Utah, many settlers from Wales were attracted during the middle years of the 19th century to the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Missionary activity in Wales led to the formation of many branches of the movement and to the emigration of 249 members on the Buena Vista from Liverpool in May, 1849 led by Captain Dan Jones, a Welshman who had been active taking American converts to Salt Lake City for the past few years. Another large group followed in 1856 on the Samuel Curling. Over three hundred newly arrived Welsh converts left Iowa City in June, 1849 pushing hand-carts with their belongings to begin the long trek to Salt Lake City. They sang as they journeyed, thus fulfilling a prophecy of Joseph Smith: "The righteous shall be gathered out from among all nations, and shall come to Zion, singing with songs of everlasting joy." Less than two weeks after their arrival, they began to form permanent choirs in a temporary meeting house, a log structure known as "The Bowery." The very first program of the choir that was to become the famous Mormon Tabernacle choir took place on Sunday, August 22, 1847. Under some skilled and demanding Welsh conductors, it was to reach the highest possible standards in the world of choral music. In the past few years, just as in Wales, there have been many attempts to revive the ancient culture. An annual Welsh Heritage Week and a Welsh Language Week have been going strong for a number of years now, held in a different state or province each summer (and sometimes in Wales), and an annual conference attracts many distinguished scholars of Welsh and WelshAmerican studies to such college campuses as Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania and Rio Grande, in Ohio. Welsh-American societies include the prestigious NWAF (National Welsh-American Foundation), which gives scholarships to Welsh-Americans; publishes books on Wales and the Welsh in the US, distributes an informative newsletter, and supports many projects on both sides of the Atlantic; Cymdeithas Madog, which sponsors the language week and other activities; NWGGA (National Welsh Cymanfa Ganu Association), perhaps the largest North American Welsh Society, which sponsors the annual singing festival and also supports Welsh cultural activities through scholar shops and grants; WAGS (Welsh-American Genealogical Society); WAY (Welsh-American Youth); and the Welsh home for the Aged, in Rocky River, Ohio. In addition, there are two Welsh-American newspapers, Y Drych (published in St. Paul, Minnesota) and Ninnau (published in Basking Ridge, NJ). But the Welsh, wherever they settled in the US (and the latest census showed California with the greatest number claiming Welsh descent, followed by Pennsylvania), were all too few to keep a completely separate identity: there was no great wave of immigration to the colonies from a country whose total population in the late 18th century hardly reached half a million. In 1770, in fact, Carmarthen's 4,000 inhabitants made it the largest town in Wales. We have therefore to consider the influence of those Welsh who did emigrate to the United States to be out of all proportion to their small numbers, a phenomenon repeated in Patagonia, Argentina and in the Australian sub-continent.

Patagonia
With the increasing anglicization of much of the Welsh heart lands in the aftermath of the industrial growth of Wales in the 19th century, efforts to find a new homeland in which to practice their ancient culture and language continued. In 1850's a large area of land in Tennessee was bought by Samuel Rombers to establish a colony of Welsh settlers that failed to materialize. Other lands were sought in Wisconsin and in Ohio, but by far the best prospect seemed to be Australia, where the government offered free passage to wood-be immigrants in the mid-18th century. In Brazil, there was an attempt to found a Welsh state, which failed for lack of support, and even Chile came under consideration. Welshmen and women emigrated to all these areas, but not in sufficient numbers to sustain a Welsh way of life. The most "successful" colony, in so far as maintaining its cultural identity is concerned, even surpassing those in such "Welsh" towns at Utica, New York State and Scranton, Pennsylvania, was that founded by a group of hardy pioneers in the most unlikely place -- the Chubut Valley in the wastelands of Patagonia, southern Argentina. At a meeting held on the front lawn of Bod Iwan, the residence of Michael D. Jones in Bala, North Wales in 1861, a group of men were discussing the possibility of founding the new promised land somewhere other than Wisconsin, or even Pennsylvania, which had held out so much promise at first, but where the Welsh chapels and the Welsh language were becoming rapidly anglicized and the congregations divorced from their heritage. A few years earlier Jones had felt that the USA offered the best hope for saving the Welsh nation from extinction, but by the 1860's his hope had vanished. The Welsh congregations in the United States were not keeping in touch with one another, although the Welsh-American newspaper Y Drych (which is still published monthly, but now in English) had been started in 1855 to try to establish connections between the far-too scattered Welsh-American communities. It was all too apparent that chances of a distinct Welsh identity in the US were fading rapidly. At Bod Iwan, Michael Jones, the principal of Bala College, was elaborating on his dream. He had been corresponding with the Argentine government about settling the area known as Bahia Blanca in eastern Patagonia, where Welsh immigrants would be allowed to keep their language, their traditions and their self-identity. At home, there was no Welsh political party; the established church was asleep as usual, doing nothing to preserve any sense of Welsh nationhood; the government of Great Britain in Westminster was apathetic if not hostile to Welsh concerns; no one seemed to care about the fate of the Welsh nation, still fighting

desperately to survive after one thousand years of struggle. Now there was a new crisis: in the face of increasing Anglicization of their beloved land, for such as Michael Jones and a few other patriots, it was necessary for Welsh people to move away from Wales to preserve their heritage. As non-Welsh neighbors were swallowing up the Welsh people in the United States, perhaps opportunities existed in South America. Thus negotiations began with Argentina. The Argentine government, anxious to control a vast unpopulated area in which it was in dispute with the government of Chile, was willing to grant 100 square miles for the establishment of a Welsh state (Y Wladfa) and to protect it by the military. A Welsh emigration committee, meeting in Liverpool (where there was a large Welsh population) the same year (1861), decided that here was a chance to fulfill a dream that could not be turned down. The committee decided to publish a handbook to advertise the undertaking, Llawlyfr y Wladfa (Colony handbook) and to distribute it throughout Wales and in areas of Welsh settlement in the United States. In 1862 Lewis Jones went to Buenos Aires, followed by Captain Jones-Parry to confirm the agreement with the government of Argentina, represented by Dr. Rawson, the minister of the interior (after whom the capital of the province of Patagonia is now named). In the US the Welsh-American paper Y Drych warned its readers against the scheme to settle Patagonia, fearing troubles with the native Indian population. As it happened, once the scheme got under way, the natives were the least of the emigrants' troubles. Though the majority of those wishing to emigrate (and able to afford the trip) came from North and mid-Wales (a fact that is still reflected in the dialect of the Welsh areas of today's Patagonia), a sizeable number came from the Merthyr Tydfil area (where the Rising of 1831 had taken place). After many delays and problems with the ship initially chosen, the Halton Castle, a group of nearly 200 Welshmen sailed away from Liverpool in late May, 1865 to the promised land on the Mimosa, a brig of 447 tons. The journey took two months. Blessed by fair weather and with the death of only five children in those days of calamitous on-board sickness (two children were born at sea) the ship arrived safely at what is now Puerto Madryn on the 27th day of July, 1865, landing its passengers the next day. The area had been explored by Captain Fitzroy of the Royal Navy some 30 years before; he had called the landing place New Bay at the mouth of the river the Welsh were to call Camwy (swirling river) and had optimistically described the area as suitable for raising cattle and sheep, there being sufficient good land, fruit trees and water, and plenty of quality marble for mining. More important, however, the land was also offered free. The territory known as Patagonia is as radically different from Wales, (and Pennsylvania) as is possible to imagine. Lewis Jones and his companion Edwin Roberts, in their zeal to seduce Welsh settlers away from their green, fertile homeland were not the only ones who took liberties describing the advantages of the new territory. To the west are the high, snow-capped Andes, between the mountains and the sea, the inhospitable treeless, windswept, rainless pampas that stretch flat and seemingly lifeless in every direction. Captain Fitzroy's descriptions notwithstanding, much of eastern Patagonia is still a dusty, lonely land that, away from the coast, contains only small scattered settlements. Today, the Camwy Valley is known as Chubut; like the Nile Valley in Egypt, it offers a thin strip of green, fertile and welcome tree-dotted land surrounded on both sides by the hostile scrub-filled semi-desert. Unlike that of the Nile, however, the Chubut Valley is only 50 miles long, and its grey, sullen waters irrigate an area only 6 miles wide. Yet just as the Nile is known as the cradle of civilization in Egypt, so the Chubut Valley is the foundation of the Welsh settlement of Patagonia. In 1853, Welshman Henry Libanus Jones had been in the Chubut area attempting to capture wild cattle. He built something of a fort, which had a few huts remaining when the Mimosa arrived offshore. Here, in a place they named Hen Amddiffynfa (the old Fort), the Welsh arrivals settled in, built new homes from river mud or sun-dried brick, or even occupied caves in the hills while they pondered how to cultivate the plots of land (124 acres each family or bachelor) granted by the Argentine government and allocated by the drawing of lots. It was not an easy task; water was scarce, food was in short supply; there were no forests as in Pennsylvania to provide abundant building supplies and wild game. One group exploring the valley and crazed with thirst, were forced to shoot a hawk to drink its blood. Window coverings were made from the stomach lining of the flightless rhea. Even the joyful birth of the first Welsh child in Patagonia, Mary Humphries, did little to dispel the belief of the settlers that they had made a mistake in coming to such a desolate, inhospitable location. The colony looked as if it were doomed to fail for lack of food. A temporary respite from famine was made possible through the efforts of Lewis Jones, who brought a number of sheep, cattle, pigs, poultry and horses from Buenos Aires, along with some wheat, potatoes and blankets on the Mary Ellen, which had earlier failed to land supplies due to a violent storm. A diet of mutton salted with seawater helped fend off starvation. Further help came when the Denby arrived from Buenos Aires with more supplies later in the year. One night, when things were really desperate, a strange dog appeared that wandered out of the encampment into the prairie where it caught guanaco and wild hares, both valuable sources of food; the dog was duly baptized as Antur (liberty); it then disappeared from sight, but its diet was eagerly adopted by the starving Welsh who were completely unaccustomed to hunting wild animals.

The settlers also benefited from cordial relations with the native Indians, the Teheulche, who showed up one day with their chief, curious to see what was going on. It was the Teheulche who taught the Welsh how to catch the guanaco, rhea, and those other sources of food available on the prairie. In addition, the Indians would exchange meat for bread, going from house to house uttering the very first Welsh word they learned mixed with their Spanish to produce "poco bara" (a bit of bread). The meat was invaluable and ensured survival. Some problems occurred at first with the Indians' stealing Welsh goods and even burning a few houses, but all in all, relations benefited both sides. Many Indians learned to speak Welsh; some of their descendants still do, and take part in the annual bilingual Trelew Eisteddfod with pride. Despite the bounty provided by the supplies of meat, much suffering continued. Early trials, including many mistakes in misunderstanding the climate and the soil of the area led many to consider leaving Chubut altogether for a more northerly province. They were persuaded to stay by Lewis Jones and Abram Matthews. In November, 1867 the situation improved: a ship brought much-needed supplies, but more importantly, Rachel Jenkins suggested to her husband that channels be built from the Chubut River to irrigate the land. She had noticed how the river sometimes burst its banks and considered how their planted vegetables would benefit from water brought from the river. This has been considered by many local historians as the one decision that changed the history of the colony, for it was irrigation that saved the valley. Welsh hands toiled feverishly with whatever tools they could find to build the canals and dykes and pumping stations. The following spring saw a bountiful wheat harvest. Success meant that the government at Santa Fe took serious notice of the colony, and one immediate result was that Mr. Rawson sent additional food and livestock. The Welsh had arrived in the desert and had been delivered. In a roughly built barn that was used in Rawson as a public hall, Abram Matthews delivered the first sermon "Israel in the Wilderness." But more settlers were needed and the appeal went out. Additional immigrants, attracted by what was happening in Chubut arrived in 1875 and 1876, mainly from Wales but also from New York State. In 1877 a new chapel was opened in Gaiman with minister John Evans in charge. In 1880, land donated by some of the settlers was used for the building of Moriah chapel in Trelew, which thus began as a separate township. Moriah was followed by Tabernacle, which was erected on land donated by the new Port Madryn Railway Company. This company had come into being to take agricultural products to Port Madryn for export. Funds for its construction had been raised in Liverpool, and the necessary materials arrived in 1886 to build the railroad under the direction of builder Thomas Davies of Aberystwyth, and engineer Edward Williams of Mostyn, Flintshire. By 1888 Port Madryn had been connected by rail to Trelew (Welsh for Lewistown, named after Lewis Jones.) A disastrous flood in 1899 wiped out many farms and halted progress on the railroad. It almost destroyed the colony, for three years later a sizeable number of Welsh families left for Canada where not only would there be good land to farm, but where they would be able to learn English in schools rather than Spanish, as was now being required by the Argentine government, going back on its original agreement. Despite the loss of 234 settlers (whose journey to Winnipeg, Saskatchwan was funded by both the British and Canadian governments), a new era in the prosperity of the colony began when the rail was extended to Gaiman in 1909, to Dolavon in 1917, and eventually to Las Plumas, the western end of the line that continued in operation until the 1960's. The rough period had come to an end, and the old dream of Wladfa Gymreig. was fast becoming a reality. A new chapel was built in Rawson, and in 1914 Bethel Chapel was erected in Gaiman that continues its services today. The colony was extended westwards into the region of the Andes where Trevelyn and Esquel still show their Welsh heritage in their Sunday Chapel services. It was a Welsh pioneer in the region, Llwyd ap Iwan, a son of Michael D. Jones, who earned the dubious distinction as having been killed by famed outlaw Butch Cassidy in 1909. It was not just Chapel building however, in which the Welsh excelled. The vast distance between the colony and the central government led to the settlers soon establishing their own administration. They set up a system of government with a president, twelve councilors, a justice of the peace, a secretary, a treasurer and a registrar. for the first few years they even used a system of currency brought with them from Wales. The idea of bringing the Eisteddfod to Chubut began at a gathering in 1876 at Beti Huws' farm; it became firmly established in Trelew in 1900. Today, the Eisteddfod Mawr forms an important part in the life of the fast-growing town. A two-day event, it attracts competitors from all parts of Chubut and even farther afield. Like the Eisteddfodau in Wales, there is a competition for the chair and the crown, the first being given for the best prose entry in Welsh, the second for the best poem in Spanish. The standards are quite high, and competition in all categories is fierce, especially in choral singing, with choirs (singing in Welsh and Spanish) coming from miles around. There are many books that tell the story of the noble experiment. One of the best is "Cymry Patagonia", by R. Bryn Williams (Gwasg Aberystwyth, 1945), though a brief account for modern-day travelers in the region has been put together by Patagonian native Ricardo Lagiard (Dick Jones). Another good account is "Cuadernos de Historia del Chubut" (Estudios Historicos del Chubut, Trelew, 1970).

Recent efforts to make sure the Welsh language stays alive have seen the borrowing of teachers from Wales. For her work in fostering such attempts to preserve the Welsh heritage of Chubut, in 1999, Patagonian native Tegai Roberts received the coveted white robe of membership in the Gorsedd of Bards of Britain. Evidence of Welsh culture is still very strong in Chubut, in far-off Patagonia.

Down Under
After the United States, notwithstanding the fulfillment of the dreams concerning Patagonia, it was Australia that beckoned the largest group of Welsh emigrants. Figures for Australians of Welsh descent are hard to come by, especially since so many emigrants from Wales were simply classed as being from "England and Wales" (or from the United Kingdom). As in the United States, however, Welsh people played a very important part in the development of their new country in many diverse areas. In the early 1990's, about 30,000 Australians were Welsh-born, the majority sailing down under after World War II. The first known Welsh people to arrive in Australia came on the "First Fleet" of 1788. They were convicts, two men and two women. Even before this time, however, Welsh crews were present on James Cook's voyages. The medical officer aboard the Discovery, in fact, was Dafydd Ddu Feddyg (Black David the Doctor). In the 1830's more Welsh convicts arrived, including leaders of the fledgling Trade Union movement and the Merthyr Riots of 1831, including Lewis Lewis (Lewsyn yr Heliwr ) who had been sentenced to death along with Richard Lewis (Dic Penderyn), but who had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. These so-called "rebels" were followed by the Chartist leaders Frost, Williams and Jones for their part in the Newport Rising of 1839. While Frost eventually returned to Wales, Williams became a highly regarded industrial magnate in Launceston. One of the most famous of all Welsh emigrants, however, whose exploits as "the jolly swagman" of song earned him a prominent place in the pantheon of Australian folk heroes, was Joseph Jenkins, the farmer who left his native Cardiganshire because of a nagging wife. It was the great Australian Gold Rushes of the 1850's that brought a sizeable number of Welshmen (and women) to Australia. Before this time, however, many copper miners had helped settle the new colony of South Australia, particularly the towns of Kapunda and Burra. William Meirion Evans of Llanfrothen, Merioneth, is believed to have been the first person to hold religious services on the Australian continent in the Welsh language when he preached at Burra in 1849. Evans also founded and edited the Welsh-language periodicals Yr Awstralydd (the Australian) and Yr Ymwelydd (the Visitor) that acted a link among all the Australian Welsh communities throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. The gold fields of Victoria attracted many miners (mostly single men) to the Ballaret-Sebastopol area, which benefited greatly in later years from Welshmen who became political leaders, business managers and storeowners. David Jones, from Barmouth in North Wales became owner of the largest drapery store in the area. Also of Carmarthen was David John Thomas, who became Melbourne's most eminent surgeon and founded the Melbourne Hospital. In Victoria, as in other territories, the Welsh set up their chapels almost as soon as they arrived, and the eisteddfodau, Cymanfaoedd Ganu and other Welsh cultural activities were welcome diversions from the drudgery of the mines and factories. In New South Wales, many Welsh coal miners found ready employment. The names of towns in the Newcastle coalfield include Swansea, Cardiff, Neath, Aberdare, and others. A Welsh scientist, Edgeworth David, discovered and developed the major coal seams, and another David Jones (of Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire) became the leading draper of first, New South Wales, then of all Australia. Coal was also a magnet for many Welsh to move north into Queensland in the 1860's, when the first Welsh chapel was founded in Gympie. On the Ipswich Coalfield, a vigorous Welsh community established itself in the town of Blackstone. Lewis Thomas, of Talybont, Cardiganshire became known as the king of the Queensland coalfields. His house, Brynhyfryd became a center of Welsh cultural activities for many years. The St. David's Society began the Blackstone Eisteddfod in 1887. The modern Australia-wide Eisteddfod movement derives from these beginnings; they have developed into well-recognized breeding grounds for the nurturing of musical and artistic talents throughout the country. It is in industry, however, that Welsh people in Australia have made their presence felt most strongly. As in Pennsylvania, their long experience in mining helped them to become foremen and leaders, engineers and draughtsmen as well as workers on the coalface. In the two developments that have shaped much of the history of modern Australia, Welshmen were important: Federation and the Australian Labour Party. The principal architect of the federal constitution was Sir Samuel Walker Griffith from Merthyr Tydfil; an early leader of the Labour movement and Prime Minister of Australia from 1915-23 was William Morris Hughes (the Little Digger); and the first Labour Premier of South Australia was Welsh-born Thomas Price. In many other areas of Australian life, Welsh men and women have played important, if unheralded roles. As in many other areas in the world where Welsh have settled, gradual dispersion into the general population has meant a decline in their cultural activities. Not only that, but recent emigrants from Wales have been mainly monoglot English, reflecting the great decline in the Welsh language even in the homeland during the last fifty years. As in the United States, there are very few chapels in Australia that still continue to offer services in the Welsh language. To cater

to a belated Celtic revival, however, some Australian radio stations offer programs about Wales and even offer Welsh language classes, and many cities continue to conduct annual Cymanfaoedd Ganu and eisteddfodau with the proceedings mostly in English. Welsh groups were also active in New Zealand, where (as in Australia) vast distances between settlements have prevented much communication between them. A Cymanfa Ganu is still held yearly in Aukland, and once every two years in Christchurch. Canterbury also has an active Welsh society. The sign "Welshtown" in a now deserted gold mining area of the South Island points to former Welsh settlement and activities in that area. New Zealand rugby teams still discuss the world-beating Welsh teams of the 1970's, and on a recent tour of the country, the author found that the story of the 1905 defeat of the Kiwis by Wales has become a legend, passed on from generation to generation (New Zealand claimed to have been cheated out of a touchdown at Cardiff's famous Arms Park that would have won the game). For all the Welsh in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Patagonia, it is heartening that Wales has its own Assembly at long last. Unlike such settlers as the Quebecois of Canada, fearful of losing their distinct identity, but who have a French "homeland" across the sea to replenish and sustain them, the Welsh who live overseas have not had the luxury of a Welsh heartland, where the language obtains pride of place and is universally spoken. They consequently must do much more to help preserve their own homeland and to ensure that the language and culture of Wales does not soon disappear into the Celtic mists, never to be revived as a living, breathing natural entity. They must heed the words of such fighters for the cause as Dafydd Iwan, who reminds us that he knows what is "right and proper" for the survival of his beloved land.

Conclusion
The tiny country of Wales has proved itself. It is a country determined to survive as a cultural entity despite having been treated for so long as a mere bothersome adjunct to its powerful neighbor, who for hundreds of years has wished to ignore it, with its tricky, indecipherable language and customs (and even trickier, indecipherable people). The author, born in Wales, was very rarely made aware of the glorious heritage of his people. At an English school in Chester, right on the border, Wales was regarded as a mysterious land to the west that could be conveniently ignored: its history was considered non-important; the history of Britain meant the history of England; British literature meant English literature. Even in school in Wales, we were told of the poetry of Chaucer, but not of Dafydd ap Gwilym; that of Wordsworth, but not of Ceiriog; the accomplishments of Alfred the Great, but not those of Hywel Da; the military exploits of Edward the Black Prince, but not of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd or Llywelyn ap Iorwerth; the events of the Peterloo Massacre, but not those of the Newport Rising; the martyrdom of Wat Tylor, but not that of Dic Penderyn; the heroics of Hereward battling the Normans to preserve his Saxon heritage, but not of Owain Glyndwr, battling the armies of England to save his Welsh nation. We studied the joys of French literature, but not those of living Celtic; the history of the Union Jack, but never that of the Red Dragon; the Assize of Northampton, but not the Statute of Rhuddlan. I hope that this brief and necessary condensed study of almost 13 centuries of struggle has demolished the idea that since the Acts of Union Wales has ceased to exist. Almost three hundred years ago, Rhys Jones, in his "Gorchestion Beirdd Cymru" (The Exploits of the Bards of Wales, 1773), wrote the following: God has shown more love and favour to the Welsh than to almost any other nation under the sun.... Although we were conquered by the Romans, and driven by the Saxons from the lowlands of England to the Welsh highlands, and later conquered by the Normans; and although laws were passed specifically to delete our language totally from the face of the earth; yet the Most High has given us strength and resilience to withstand all the incursions of our enemies, however frequent they have been, and to retain our language and some of our possessions, also, despite them all; and let us hope that we shall remain so forever more. From Hywel Da to Gwynfor Evans, the leaders of Wales have shown their adaptability and courage, their resilience and their courage, their grandiose dreams and their eloquent hopes. They have long shown that an independent Wales belongs in the councils of Europe. Its time has been long overdue. In the meantime, "In spite of all and everything," as Dafydd Iwan so searchingly reminds us in his patriotic song Yma O Hyd, "We are still here."