This etext was produced from the 1922 T. Fisher Unwin Ltd. edition by
David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
A SHORT HISTORY OF WALES
by Owen M. Edwards
INTRODUCTION
This little book is meant for those who have never read any Welsh
history before. It is not taken for granted that the reader knows
either Latin or Welsh.
A fuller outline may be read in The Story of Wales, in the "Story of
the Nations" series; and a still fuller one in The Welsh People of
Rhys and Brynmor Jones. Of fairly small and cheap books in various
periods I may mention Rhys' Celtic Britain, Owen Rhoscomyl's Flame
Bearers of Welsh History, Henry Owen's Gerald the Welshman, Bradley's
Owen Glendower, Newell's Welsh Church, and Rees Protestant Non-
conformity in Wales. More elaborate and expensive books are
Seebohm's Village Community and Tribal System in Wales, Clark's
Medieval Military Architecture, Morris' Welsh Wars of Edward I.,
Southall's Wales and Her Language. In writing local history, A. N.
Palmer's History of Wrexham and companion volumes are models.
If you turn to a library, you will find much information about Wales
in Social England, the Dictionary of National Biography, the
publications of the Cymmrodorion and other societies. You will find
articles of great value and interest over the names of F. H.
Haverfield, J. W. Willis-Bund, Egerton Phillimore, the Honourable Mrs
Bulkeley Owen (Gwenrhian Gwynedd), Henry Owen, the late David Lewis,
T. F. Tout, J. E. Lloyd, D. Lleufer Thomas, W. Llywelyn Williams, J.
Arthur Price, J. H. Davies, J. Ballinger, Edward Owen, Hubert Hall,
Hugh Williams, R. A. Roberts, A. W. Wade-Evans, E. A. Lewis. These
are only a few out of the many who are now working in the rich and
unexplored field of Welsh history. I put down the names only of
those I had to consult in writing a small book like this.
The sources are mostly in Latin or Welsh. Many volumes of
chronicles, charters, and historical poems have been published by the
Government, by the Corporation of Cardiff, by J. Gwenogvryn Evans, by
H. de Grey Birch, and others. But, so far, we have not had the
interesting chronicles and poems translated into English as they
ought to be, and published in well edited, not too expensive volumes.
OWEN EDWARDS
LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD.
CHAPTER I - WALES
Wales is a row of hills, rising between the Irish Sea on the west and
the English plains on the east. If you come from the west along the
sea, or if you cross the Severn or the Dee from the east, you will
see that Wales is a country all by itself. It rises grandly and
proudly. If you are a stranger, you will think of it as "Wales" - a
strange country; if you are Welsh, you will think of it as "Cymru" - a
land of brothers.
The geologist will tell you how Wales was made; the geographer will
tell you what it is like now; the historian will tell you what its
people have done and what they are. All three will tell you that it
is a very interesting country.
The rocks of Wales are older and harder than the rocks of the plains;
and as you travel from the south to the north, the older and harder
they become. The highest mountains of Wales, and some of its hills,
have crests of the very oldest and hardest rock - granite, porphyry,
and basalt; and these rocks are given their form by fire. But the
greater part of the country is made of rocks formed by water - still
the oldest of their kind. In the north-west, centre, and west - about
two-thirds of the whole country, - the rocks are chiefly slate and
shale; in the south-east they are chiefly old red sandstone; in the
north-east, but chiefly in the south, they are limestone and coal.
Its rocks give Wales its famous scenery - its rugged peaks, its
romantic glens, its rushing rivers. They are also its chief wealth -
granite, slate, limestone, coal; and lodes of still more precious
metals - iron, lead, silver, and gold - run through them.
The highest mountain in Wales is Snowdon, which is 3,570 feet above
the level of the sea. For every 300 feet we go up, the temperature
becomes one degree cooler. At about 1,000 feet it becomes too cold
for wheat; at about 1,500 it becomes too cold for corn; at about
2,000 it is too cold for cattle; mountain ponies graze still higher;
the bleak upper slopes are left to the small and valuable Welsh
sheep.
There are three belts of soil around the hills - arable, pasture, and
sheep-run - one above the other. The arable land forms about a third
of the country; it lies along the sea border, on the slopes above the
Dee and the Severn, and in the deep valleys of the rivers which
pierce far inland, - the Severn, Wye, Usk, Towy, Teivy, Dovey, Conway,
and Clwyd. The pasture land, the land of small mountain farms, forms
the middle third; it is a land of tiny valleys and small plains, ever
fostered by the warm, moist west wind. Above it, the remaining third
is stormy sheep-run, wide green slopes and wild moors, steep glens
and rocky heights.
From north-west to south-east the line of high hills runs. In the
north-west corner, Snowdon towers among a number of heights over
3,000 feet. At its feet, to the north-west, the isle of Anglesey
lies. The peninsula of Lleyn, with a central ridge of rock, and
slopes of pasture lands, runs to the south-west. To the east, beyond
the Conway, lie the Hiraethog mountains, with lower heights and wider
reaches; further east again, over the Clwyd, are the still lower
hills of Flint.
To the south, 30 miles as the crow flies, over the slate country, the
Berwyns are seen clearly. From a peak among these - Cader Vronwen
(2,573 feet), or the Aran (2,970 feet), or Cader Idris (2,929 feet) -
we look east and south, over the hilly slopes of the upper Severn
country.
Another 30 miles to the south rises green Plinlimmon (2,469 feet);
from it we see the high moorlands of central Wales, sloping to
Cardigan Bay on the west and to the valley of the Severn, now a
lordly English river, on the east.
Forty miles south the Black Mountain (2,630 feet) rises beyond the
Wye, and the Brecon Beacons (2,910 feet) beyond the Usk. West of
these the hills fade away into the broad peninsula of Dyved.
Southwards we look over hills of coal and iron to the pleasant sea-
fringed plain of Gwent.
On the north and the west the sea is shallow; in some places it is
under 10 fathoms for 10 miles from the shore, and under 20 fathoms
for 20 miles. Tales of drowned lands are told - of the sands of
Lavan, of the feast of drunken Seithenyn, and of the bells of
Aberdovey. But the sea is a kind neighbour. Its soft, warm winds
bathe the hills with life; and the great sweep of the big Atlantic
waves into the river mouths help our commerce. Holyhead, Milford
Haven, Swansea, Newport, Barry, and Cardiff - now one of the chief
ports of the world - can welcome the largest vessels afloat. The
herring is plentiful on the west coast, and trout and salmon in the
rivers.
CHAPTER II - THE WANDERING NATIONS
By land and by sea, race after race has come to make the hills of
Wales its home. One race would be short, with dark eyes and black
hair; another would be tall, with blue eyes and fair hair. They came
from different countries and along different paths, but each race
brought some good with it. One brought skill in taming animals,
until it had at last tamed even the pig and the bee; another brought
iron tools to take the place of stone ones. Another brought the
energy of the chase and war, and another a delight in sailing a ship
or in building a fortress.
One thing they had in common - they wandered, and they wandered to the
west. From the cold wastes and the dark forests of the north and
east, they were ever pushing west to more sunny lands. As far back
as we can see, the great migration of nations to the west was going
on. The islands of Britain were the furthest point they could reach;
for beyond it, at that time, no man had dared to sail into the
unknown expanse of the ocean of the west. In the islands of Britain,
the mountains of Wales were among the most difficult to win, and it
was only the bravest and the hardiest that could make their home
among them.
The first races that came were short and dark. They came in tribes.
They had tribal marks, the picture of an animal as a rule; and they
had a strange fancy that this animal was their ancestor. It may be
that the local nicknames which are still remembered - such as "the
pigs of Anglesey," "the dogs of Denbigh," "the cats of Ruthin," "the
crows of Harlech," "the gadflies of Mawddwy" - were the proud tribe
titles of these early people. Their weapons and tools were polished
stone; their hammers and hatchets and adzes, their lance heads and
their arrow tips, were of the hardest igneous rock - chipped and
ground with patient labour.
The people who come first have the best chance of staying, if only
they are willing to learn; hardy plants will soon take the place of
tender plants if left alone. The short dark people are still the
main part, not only of the Welsh, but of the British people. It is
true that their language has disappeared, except a few place-names.
But languages are far more fleeting than races. The loss of its
language does not show that a race is dead; it only shows that it is
very anxious to change and learn. Some languages easily give place
to others, and we say that the people who speak these languages are
good linguists, like Danes and Slavs. Other languages persist, those
who speak them are unwilling to speak any new language, and this is
the reason why Spanish and English are so widespread.
After the short dark race came a tall fair-haired people. They came
in families as well as in tribes. They had iron weapons and tools,
and the short dark people could not keep them at bay with their bone-
tipped spears and flint-headed arrows. We know nothing about the
struggle between them. But it may be that the fairy stories we were
told when children come from those far-off times. If a fairy maiden
came from lake or mound to live among men, she vanished at once if
touched with iron. Is this, learned men have asked, a dim memory of
the victory of iron over stone?
The name given to the short dark man is usually Iberian; the name
given to the tall fair man who followed him is Celt. The two learnt
to live together in the same country. The conqueror probably looked
upon himself at first as the master of the conquered, then as simply
belonging to a superior race, but gradually the distinction vanished.
The language remained the language of the Celt; it is called an Aryan
language, a language as noble among languages as the Aran is among
its hills. It is still spoken in Wales, in Brittany, in Ireland, in
the Highlands of Scotland, and in the Isle of Man. It was also
spoken in Cornwall till the eighteenth century; and Yorkshire
dalesmen still count their sheep in Welsh. English is another Aryan
tongue.
The more mixed a nation is, the more rich its life and the greater
its future. Purity of blood is not a thing to boast of, and no great
and progressive nation comes from one breed of men. Some races have
more imagination than others, or a finer feeling for beauty; others
have more energy and practical wisdom. The best nations have both;
and they have both, probably, because many races have been blended in
their making. There is hardly a parish in Wales in which there are
not different types of faces and different kinds of character.
The wandering of nations has never really stopped. The Celt was
followed by his cousins - the Angle and the Saxon. These, again, were
followed by races still more closely related to them - the Normans and
the Danes and the Flemings. They have all left their mark on Wales
and on the Welsh character.
The migration is still going on. Trace the history of an upland
Welsh parish, and you will find that, in a surprisingly short time,
the old families, high and low, have given place to newcomers. Look
into the trains which carry emigrants from Hull or London to
Liverpool on their way west - they have the blue eyes and yellow hair
of those who came two thousand years ago. But this country is no
longer their goal, the great continent of America has been discovered
beyond. Fits of longing for wandering come over the Welsh
periodically, as they came over the Danes - caused by scarcity of food
and density of population, or by a sense of oppression and a yearning
for freedom. An empty stomach sometimes, and sometimes a fiery
imagination, sent a crowd of adventurers to new lands. And it is
thus that every living nation is ever renewing its youth.
CHAPTER III - ROME
It is not a spirit of adventure and daring alone that makes a nation.
Rome rose to say that it must have the spirit of order and law too.
It rose in the path of the nations; it built the walls of its empire,
guarded by the camps of its legions, right across it. For four
hundred years the wandering of nations ceased; the nations stopped -
and they began to till the ground, to live in cities, to form states.
The hush of this peace did not last, but the memory of it remained in
the life of every nation that felt it. Unity and law tempered
freedom and change.
The name of Rome was made known, and made terrible, through Wales by
a great battle fought on the eastern slopes of the Berwyn. The
Romans had conquered the lands beyond the Severn, and had placed
themselves firmly near the banks of that river at Glevum and
Uriconium. Glevum is our Gloucester, and its streets are still as
the Roman architect planned them. Uriconium is the burnt and buried
city beyond Shrewsbury; the skulls found in it, and its implements of
industry, and the toys of its children, you can see in the Shrewsbury
Museum.
The British leader in the great battle was Caratacus, the general who
had fought the Romans step by step until he had come to the borders
of Wales, to summon the warlike Silures to save their country. We do
not know the site of the great battle, though the Roman historian
Tacitus gives a graphic description of it. The Britons were on a
hill side sloping down to a river, and the Romans could only attack
them in front. The enemy waded the river, however, and scaled the
wall on its further bank; and in the fierce lance and sword fight the
host of Caratacus lost the day. He fled, but was afterwards handed
over to the Romans, and taken to Rome, to grace the triumphal
procession of the victors.
The battle only roused the Silures to a more fierce resistance, and
it cost the Romans many lives, and it took them many years, to break
their power. The strangest sight that met the invaders was in
Anglesey, after they had crossed the Menai on horses or on rafts.
The druids tried to terrify them by the rites of their religion. The
dark groves, the women dressed in black and carrying flaming torches,
the aged priests - the sight paralysed the Roman soldiers, but only
for a moment.
Vespasian - it was he who sent his son Titus to besiege Jerusalem -
became emperor in 69. The war was carried on with great energy, and
by 78 Wales was entirely conquered.
Then Agricola, a wise ruler, came. The peace of Rome was left in the
land; and the Welshman took the Roman, not willingly at first, as his
teacher and ruler instead of as his enemy. Towns were built; the two
Chesters or Caerlleons (Castra Legionum), on the Dee and the Usk,
being the most important from a military point of view. Roads were
made; two along the north and south coasts, to Carmarthen and
Carnarvon; two others ran parallel along the length of Wales, to
connect their ends. On these roads towns rose; and some, like
Caerwent, were self-governing communities of prosperous people.
Agriculture flourished; the Welsh words for "plough" and "cheese" are
"aradr" and "caws" - the Latin aratrum and caseus. The mineral wealth
of the country was discovered; and copper mines and lead mines,
silver mines and gold mines, were worked. The "aur" (gold) and
"arian" (silver) and "plwm" (lead) of the Welshman are the Latin
aurum, argentum, and plumbum.
The Romans allowed the Welsh families and tribes to remain as before,
and to be ruled by their own kings and chiefs. But they kept the
defence of the country - the manning of the great wall in the north of
Roman Britain, the garrisoning of the legion towns, and the holding
of the western sea - in their own hand.
Gradually the power of Rome began to wane, and its hold on distant
countries like Britain began to relax. The wandering nations were
gathering on its eastern and northern borders, and its walls and
legions at last gave way. It had not been a kind mother to the
nations it had conquered - in war it had been cruel, and in peace it
had been selfish and stern. The lust of rule became stronger as its
arm became weaker. The degradation of slavery and the heavy hand of
the tax-gatherer were extending even to Wales. The barbarian invader
found the effeminate, luxurious empire an easy prey. In 410 Alaric
and his host of Goths appeared before the city of Rome itself; and a
horde of barbarians, thirsting for blood and spoil, surged into it.
The fall of the great city was a shock to the whole world; the end of
the world must be near, for how could it stand without Rome? Jerome
could hardly sob the strange news: "Rome, which enslaved the whole
world, has itself been taken."
Rome had taken the yoke of Christ; and many said that it fell because
it had spurned the gods that had given it victory. Three years after
Alaric had sacked it, Augustine wrote a book to prove that it was not
the city of God that had fallen; and that the heathen gods could
neither have built Rome in their love nor destroyed it in their
anger. He then describes the rise of the real "City of God," in the
midst of which is the God of justice and mercy, and "she shall not be
moved."
CHAPTER IV - THE NAME OF CHRIST
The name of Christ had been heard in Britain during the period of
Roman rule, but we do not know who first sounded it. There are many
beautiful legends - that the great apostle of the Gentiles himself
came to Britain; that Joseph of Arimathea, having been placed by the
Jews in an open boat, at the mercy of wind and wave, landed in
Britain; that some of the captives taken to Rome with Caratacus
brought back the tidings of great joy.
We know that the name of Christ, between 200 and 300 years after His
death, was well known in Britain, and that churches had been built
for His worship. Between 300 and 400 we have an organised church and
a settled creed. Between 400 and 500 there was searching of heart
and creed, and heresies - a sure sign that the people were alive to
religion. Between 500 and 600 there was a translation of the Bible
from Hebrew and Greek into the better-known Latin. The whole of
Wales becomes Christian; and probably St David converted the last
pagans, and built his church among them.
Between 450 and 500 a stream of pagan Teutons flowed over the east of
Britain, and the British Church was separated from the Roman Church.
By 664 British and Roman missionaries had converted the English; and
the two Churches of Rome and Britain, once united, were face to face
again. But they had grown in different ways, and refused to know
each other. Their Easter came on different days; they did not
baptize in the same way; the tonsure was different - a crescent on the
forehead of the British monk, and a crown on the pate of the Roman
monk. In the Roman Church there was rigid unity and system; in the
British Church there was much room for self-government. The newly
converted English chose the Roman way, because they were told that St
Peter, whose see Rome was, held the keys of heaven. Between 700 and
800 the Welsh gradually gave up their religious independence, and
joined the Roman Church.
But there was another dispute. Were the four old Welsh bishoprics -
Bangor, St Asaph, St David's, Llandaff - to be subject to the English
archbishop of Canterbury, or to have an archbishopric of their own at
St David's? By 1200 the Welsh bishoprics were subject to the English
archbishop, and Giraldus Cambrensis came too late to save them.
But through all these disputes the Church was gaining strength.
Churches were being built everywhere. Up to 700 they were called
after the name of their founder; between 700 and 1000 they were
generally dedicated to the archangel Michael - there are several
Llanvihangels {1} in Wales; after 1000 new churches were dedicated to
Mary, the Mother of Christ - we have many Llanvairs. {2}
Times of civil strife, or of popular indifference, came over and over
again; and the old paganism tried to reassert itself. And time after
time the name of Christ was sounded again by men who thought they had
seen Him. In the twelfth century the Cistercian monk came to say
that the world was bad, that prayer saved the soul, and that labour
was noble. {3} He was followed by the Franciscan friar, who said
that deeds of mercy and love should be added to prayer, that Christ
had been a poor man, and that men should help each other, not only in
saving souls, but in healing sickness and relieving pain. In the
fifteenth century the Lollard came to say that the Church was too
rich, and that it had become blind to the truth, and Walter Brute
said that men were to be justified by faith in Christ, not by the
worship of images or by the merit of saints. In the sixteenth
century came the Protestant, and the sway of Rome over Wales came to
an end; Bishop Morgan translated the Bible into Welsh, and John Penry
yearned for the preaching of the Gospel in Wales. The Jesuit
followed, calling himself by the name of Jesus, to try to win the
country back again to Rome. Robert Jones toiled and schemed, and
some laid down their lives. The Puritan came in the seventeenth
century to demand simple worship, and Morgan Lloyd thought that the
second advent of Christ was at hand. The Revivalist came in the
eighteenth century, and, in the name of Christ, aroused the people of
Wales to a new life of thought.
After all this, you will be surprised to learn that many of the old
gods still remain in Wales, and much of the old pagan worship. Who
drops a pin into a sacred well, or leaves a tiny rag on a bush close
by, and then wishes for something? A young maiden in the twentieth
century, who sacrifices to a well heathen god. Until quite recently
men thought that Ffynnon Gybi, and Ffynnon Elian, and Ffynnon
Ddwynwen, had in them a power which could curse and bless, ruin and
save.
Lud of the Silver Hand was the god of flocks and ships. His caves
are in Dyved still, and his was the temple on Ludgate Hill in London.
Merlin was a god of knowledge; he could foretell events. Ceridwen
was the goddess of wisdom; she distilled wisdom-giving drops in a
cauldron. Gwydion created a beautiful girl from flowers, "from red
rose, and yellow broom, and white anemony." I am not quite sure what
Coil did, but I have heard children singing the history of "old King
Cole." Olwen also walked through Wales in heathen times, and it is
said that three white flowers rose behind her wherever she had put
her foot.
CHAPTER V - THE WELSH KINGS
The spirit of Rome remained, though Rome itself had fallen. And
Welsh kings rose to take the place of the Roman ruler, trying to
force the tribes of Wales - of different races and tongues - to become
one people.
The chief Roman ruler, at any rate during the later wars against the
invaders, was called Dux Britanniae, "the ruler of Britain." It
became the aim of the ablest kings to restore the power of this
officer, and to carry on his work, to rule and defend a united
country. And I will tell you briefly how the kings ruled and
defended Wales for more than five hundred years - how Maelgwn tried to
unite it, how Rhodri tried to prevent the attacks of Saxon and Dane,
how Howel gave it laws, and how Griffith tried to defend it against
England.
Between 400 and 450 Rome left Wales to look after itself. An able
family, called the House of Cunedda, took the power of the Dux
Britanniae, and they translated the title into Gwledig - "the ruler of
a gwlad (country)." Of this family Maelgwn Gwynedd is the most
famous. It was his work to try to unite all the smaller kings or
chiefs of Wales under his own power as "the island dragon." It was a
difficult thing to persuade them; they all wanted to be independent.
A legend shows that Maelgwn tried guile as well as force. The kings
met him at Aberdovey, and they all sat in their royal chairs on the
sands. And Maelgwn said: "Let him be king over all who can sit