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Wales The History
The earliest inhabitants of Wales, like those of the rest of Britain, were a short, dark race, generally referred to as Iberians. These were succeeded by Celts, possibly first of the Gaelic division, although in the earliest historic times Wales, like Britain, was occupied by Cymric or Brythonic Celts. At the time of the coming of the Romans in 55 bc, the tribes of Wales represented a mixture of the primitive Iberians with the later invading Celts. They bore the general name of Cymry.
After a long struggle the subjugation of these tribes was completed during the ten-year reign of the Roman emperor Vespasian in the 1st century ad. The Celtic inhabitants of Britain, fleeing before the wave of Anglo-Saxon invasion, took refuge in the Welsh mountains, where, in time, they were merged with their native kin and maintained their independence against the Teutonic conquerors. The country was divided into several areas, of which Gwynedd, Gwent, Dyved, and Powys were the most important. Offa’s Dyke, built during the reign of Offa, king of Mercia, was an earthwork extending the length of the Welsh border; it helped isolate the Welsh from the English.
Subjugation by England
Between 1062 and 1064 Harold Godwinson (later Harold II) overran Wales with an English army after a struggle with Gruffydd ap Llewellyn, king of Gwynedd. William I, the Conqueror, forced recognition of his sovereignty from the Welsh princes, but they raided the English border, for protection of which the early Norman kings erected a number of feudal lordships with very extensive powers, the so-called lords of the marches. The marcher lords were a turbulent class and a source of trouble to the kings, but they served their purpose in holding the Welsh back. In 1136 the Welsh won a victory over Henry I, King of England, but were again reduced to homage by Henry II. Llewellyn ap Gruffydd, Prince of North Wales, sided with Simon de Montfort against Henry III, but later submitted to the king. In 1273, however, he refused to pay homage to the new English king, Edward I, who in 1276 invaded Wales and compelled Llewellyn to submit to humiliating terms, including the surrender of the eastern portion of his lands and the annual acknowledgment of fealty. Llewellyn rebelled in 1282, but died, and his brother David ap Gruffydd, who carried on the struggle, was captured in 1283 and beheaded. In 1284 Edward I completed the conquest of Wales and, by the terms of the Statute of Rhuddlan, it became an English principality.
Last Rebellion
In 1301 Edward I conferred on his oldest surviving son, later King Edward II, who was born in Caernarfon (Caernarvon), Wales, the title of Prince of Wales. This sufficiently satisfied the pride of the Welsh to keep them loyal for 100 years. It has become traditional for the firstborn son of each monarch to be given the title of Prince of Wales. The national spirit survived, however, and was nourished by the songs of the bards. When Henry IV seized the English throne, a revolt began in Wales, which, under the leadership of Owen Glendower in 1402, became formidable. Henry IV repeatedly invaded the country, but the revolt was not suppressed until the death of Glendower, about 1416. Glendower’s was the last national uprising. The Welsh submitted to Henry VII, the first Tudor king, whom they regarded as their countryman. Tudor policy toward Wales stressed assimilation and equality. By the Act of Union of 1536 Wales was incorporated with England, its inhabitants receiving all the rights and privileges of English subjects. Welsh representatives then took their seats in the English Parliament, and customary Welsh laws that differed with those of England were abolished. The Welsh gentry continued to exercise local authority in the name of the monarch, from whom they held their lands.
Welsh Nationalism
In time, however, the anglicization of the gentry created a breach in Welsh society that was further deepened by religious differences. Slow to adopt Protestantism, the Welsh people were decidedly cool to Oliver Cromwell’s Puritanism and had to be persuaded by force. In the 18th century they began to lean heavily toward Calvinism, and the growth of the Calvinistic Methodist Church was an assertion of Welsh nationalism; it culminated in 1920 in the disestablishment of the English church in Wales. This coincided with party politics, for the Welsh voted overwhelmingly for the Liberal Party, which supported disestablishment. Wales in turn supplied the party with one of its most forceful leaders, David Lloyd George.
Welsh nationalism has been kept alive up to the present by the Plaid Cymru Party (founded in 1925), which has at times elected members to the British Parliament and otherwise kept pressure on the major parties to protect the special interests of Wales. In 1979 a Labour Party plan to devolve some powers to an elected assembly in Wales was voted down by the Welsh people by a margin of four to one. The Conservative Party that was elected later that year dropped any further plans for a Welsh government. In 1997 the Labour Party came into power supporting the idea of devolving some of Parliament’s powers to national legislatures in Scotland and Wales. In a referendum held in September 1997 barely more than half of Welsh voters supported the creation of a Welsh assembly, with 50.3 percent for and 49.7 percent against.
Elections for the new Welsh Assembly were held in early May 1999, and the assembly convened later that month in Cardiff. A Labour Party administration took control, although with only 28 seats it did not hold a majority in the 60-seat assembly. In 2003 elections the Labour Party won 30 seats, still one short of an outright majority. The election was notable for the low voter turnout (38 percent) and the high number of women assembly members (30) to take office. In 2007 the Labour Party lost ground, falling five seats short of a majority, and formed a coalition government with the nationalist party, Plaid Cymru. As leader of the largest party, Rhodri Morgan remained first minister, a post that he had held since 2000. Also in 2007 the Welsh assembly was granted the power to make laws, with the approval of the Parliament in London. |
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