History of Wales

 Wales before the Norman Conquest

The prehistory of Wales

Meaningful study of prehistoric Wales has to be pursued against the broader background of British prehistory, for the material remains of the period 3500–1000 BCE especially funerary monuments, provide regional manifestations of features characteristic of Britain as a whole. The Celtic origins of Britain, probably to be sought in a gradual process within the last millennium BCE, are a matter of continuing scholarly debate. Traditional archaeological and linguistic interpretation emphasizes an influx, from the late Bronze Age onward, of Celtic-speaking peoples, though not perhaps in vast numbers, and a dynamic relationship between continental and insular communities. Modern views emphasize that the ethnogenesis of the Celts must be seen as a complex process of social change and not entirely the result of migrations. As regards their social structure, the metalwork associated with feasting and military prowess, such as that found at Llyn Fawr and Llyn Cerrig Bach, coupled with the broad distribution of fortified sites, typifies the highly stratified but politically fragmented and warlike society which prevailed in Wales down to the Roman period.

Roman Wales (1st–4th centuries)

Wales in the Roman period shared broadly the experience of other parts of highland Britain, but modern archaeological study has tended to moderate the traditional contrast drawn between military and civil zones. Mediterranean culture is best exemplified in southern Wales, where there were important Roman towns at Caerwent and Carmarthen and villas at a number of other sites. Remains elsewhere consist mainly of the roads and forts of a phase of military occupation that lasted to about 200 CE But at Caernarfon (Segontium) there was a continuous well-ordered settlement to about 400 CE, and it is likely that civil influences were exerted much more widely than was once thought. Linguistic study suggests that the native language, known to scholars as Brittonic or Brythonic, was infused with Latin terms, though distinction needs to be made between borrowings of the period of Roman rule and the scholarly borrowings of subsequent periods. Early Welsh consciousness of a Roman heritage may owe a great deal to the Latinity sustained in later centuries by the Christian church.

The founding of the kingdoms

The origin of early Welsh political organization must be sought in the period following the cessation of Roman rule in about 400 CE. Native leaders, unable to sustain Roman methods of governance, initiated the processes that were to lead to the founding of a number of kingdoms. The Historia Brittonum, an antiquarian compilation dating from the early 9th century, explains the origin of the kingdom of Gwynedd by relating a tradition that Cunedda Wledig migrated from northern Britain to northwestern Wales to expel the Irish who had occupied the area. This may be an example of the origin stories that were current in early medieval Europe, and the Historia also contains an early reference to the Welsh claim to Trojan origin, which was to prove an enduring theme in Welsh historical consciousness. Tradition attributes the names of the various parts of Gwynedd, such as Dunoding and Rhufoniog, to a division of the kingdom said to have been made among Cunedda’s sons after his death, but these may be the names of territories that were gradually incorporated into the kingdom during a long period of growth. Cunedda’s descendants were to rule as kings; a 7th-century representative of the dynasty is commemorated upon an inscribed stone in Anglesey as Catamanus Rex (Cadfan the King).

In southwestern Wales the Irish presence led to the founding of the Irish kingdom of Dyfed, and some Irish influence was felt further afield in the neighbouring lands of Ceredigion, Ystrad Tywi, and Brycheiniog. In the southeast Glywysig and Gwent emerged, to be united, though impermanently, to form Morgannwg. In north-central Wales the kingdom of Powys, originally centred at Pengwern (a place not identified with certainty), was established, and it embraced at least part of the Roman province of the Cornovii, centred at Wroxeter in Shropshire.

Early Christianity

There are indications of a Romano-British Christian church in southeastern Wales, but Christian influence may also have penetrated much deeper into Wales in the Roman period. Inscribed stones, though themselves belonging to the 5th or 6th century, carry terms such as sacerdos (probably meaning bishop) and presbyter (priest), which may reflect a well-established Christian church of early origin. Stones with Irish (or Ogham) inscriptions and Christian symbols in southwestern Wales suggest that the immigrants, if not already Christian upon arrival, were Christianized soon afterward. The extent of the continuity of the early Romano-British church, however, has become the subject of scholarly debate. From the mid-20th century onward historians have argued in favour of discontinuity by stressing the importance of what they considered to be new Gallo-Roman influences exerted on western Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries. According to this view Celtic “saints” coming from the Continent reestablished Christianity by their missionary activities along the western seaways. More recently, however, the view held by an earlier generation of historians that the Christian church had a continuous existence from the Romano-British period has regained support. Scholars defending this position argue that much of the evidence for the missionary activity of Celtic saints was derived from the saints’ lives and church dedications of a later date. Basing their arguments on the De excidio et conquestu Britanniae, a work by the 6th-century British monk Gildas that suggests a long-established Christian tradition of Romano-British derivation, they postulate that the trade and cultural contacts along the western seaways may have served not to introduce Christianity or to revitalize a lingering faith but to bring to an existing church a form of monasticism that had proved to be an important influence in the development of the Gallic church.

Support for the argument of a “Celtic church” rests upon the church’s monastic character. A major church (clas, plural clasau) was headed by an abbot and bishop who was responsible for daughter houses. The clas was not a cloistered community, and its head was responsible for the ordination of priests and the pastoral care of the laity in neighbouring areas. But the hereditary succession to office and to ecclesiastical property that developed with time was among traditional practices, and, even though at places like Llanbadarn Fawr there were ecclesiastical families who maintained a Christian learning of a high order, these practices were considered to be contrary to the teaching of the reformed church.

Political development

The settlement of Anglo-Saxon peoples along the Welsh borderland separated the Brythonic peoples of Wales from those of northern and southwestern Britain. Whereas to the English they were “Welsh” (foreigners), they identified themselves as “Cymry” (compatriots). Offa’s Dyke, the great linear earthwork built in the times of King Offa (died 796) of Mercia, represents the demarcation line of English penetration into Wales.

Attempts during the next two centuries to bring the Welsh kingdoms west of the dike into a political unity proved to be only partially successful and impermanent. Rhodri Mawr (“the Great”; died 878), the king of Gwynedd who provided stern resistance to the Viking attacks, brought Powys within his dominion and then briefly extended his sway over two areas in the southwest (lying north and east of Dyfed), namely Ceredigion and Ystrad Tywi, which had previously been united to form the kingdom of Seisyllwg. The period following Rhodri’s death proved to be of far-reaching significance. The outlying kingdoms of Wales—Dyfed, Brycheiniog, Glywysing, and Gwent—being subjected to pressure by Rhodri’s sons or by Mercia, turned to the kingdom of Wessex and by a formal commendation entered into that allegiance, ultimately expressed in homage and fealty, which each of the kings of Wales owed, individually and directly, to the English monarchy. Anarawd (died 916), a son of Rhodri, subsequently submitted to Alfred (died 899) and completed the formal subjection of the Welsh kingdoms to the English sovereign. Rhodri’s grandson, Hywel ap Cadell (Hywel Dda, “the Good”; died 950), starting from a patrimony in Seisyllwg, secured Dyfed by marriage, thereby creating the kingdom of Deheubarth. Eventually Gwynedd and Powys also came under his rule. Hywel, possibly inspired by admiration for the Wessex court but more probably constrained by the power of King Athelstan (died 939), accepted the status of a sub-regulus, or under-king, of the king of Wessex. But, whatever its compulsions, Hywel’s policy provoked a reaction (expressed in the poem Armes Prydein) that envisaged the formation of a great alliance to withstand the Anglo-Saxon suzerain.

Before the close of the 10th century Maredudd ap Owain (died 999), a grandson of Hywel Dda, brought the northern and western kingdoms once more into a transitory unity. But his death opened a period of prolonged turmoil in which internal conflicts were complicated and intensified by Anglo-Saxon and Norse intervention. The established dynasties were challenged by men who asserted themselves within the kingdoms and exercised ephemeral supremacies. Of these, the most successful was Gruffudd ap Llywelyn (died 1063), who brought Gwynedd, then Deheubarth, and finally (though briefly) the whole of Wales under his dominion. The devastation wrought upon the English borderland, still not erased at the time of the making of Domesday Book (1086), was probably in large measure due to him. His death in 1063 meant that the most powerful ruler of independent Wales was destroyed only a few years before the Norman forces came to the Anglo-Welsh frontier.

Early Welsh society

The endeavours of the dynasties in the 9th and 10th centuries, though only partially successful with regard to the problem of Welsh unification, had important and lasting consequences. Scholarly activity such as that represented in the Historia Brittonum and in annals and genealogies, material relating both to northern Britain and to Wales, may well reflect the attempt of the descendants of Rhodri Mawr to consolidate their position and enhance their prestige. With regard to creative literature, it is likely that the origins of some texts preserved in medieval manuscripts, including some material in triad form (triple groupings of legal, literary, historical, and other materials), may be traced back to this period. The earliest Welsh law texts, though they date from the 13th century onward, attribute the original codification of law to Hywel Dda; and it is possible that a significant development in Welsh jurisprudence took place under the aegis of that ruler. These texts, along with other materials, reveal a society of relatively settled kingdoms ruled by kings (brenhinoedd, singular brenin) who were endowed with an extensive range of powers, notably the public enforcement of legal obligations.

The kingdoms were normally divided for purposes of royal administration into cantrefs. These in turn consisted of groups of maenors occupied by the bond or free elements of which Welsh society was composed. The bond population, which was probably larger than once thought and which was concentrated in fairly compact maenors in lowland areas that were favourable to an agrarian economy, was organized on conventional manorial principles. In the economy of the upland areas the emphasis was upon a pastoral economy practiced by free communities, which were accorded more extensive maenors. As a result of changes that quickened considerably in the 12th century, the maenor organization of Welsh society was superseded by new forms designed to ensure a more intensive exploitation of the soil. A smaller unit, the tref, or township, then replaced the maenor. In the sphere of royal administration the cantref, by a process probably already well advanced on the eve of the first Norman invasions, was largely replaced by a small unit, the commote, which was to remain, under Welsh and alien lords, the basic unit of administration and jurisdiction throughout the medieval period.

Wales in the Middle Ages

Norman infiltration

The Norman Conquest of England saw the establishment upon the Welsh border of the three earldoms of Chester, Shrewsbury, and Hereford, and from each of these strongpoints advances were made into Wales. Norman progress in southern Wales in the reign of William I (1066–87) was limited to the colonization of Gwent in the southeast. Domesday Book contains evidence suggesting that King William and Rhys ap Tewdwr, king of Deheubarth (died 1093), made a compact that recognized the Welsh ruler’s authority in his own kingdom and perhaps also his influence in those other areas of southern Wales outside Deheubarth, particularly Morgannwg and Brycheiniog, that still lay outside Norman control. Meanwhile, from Chester and Shrewsbury, the Normans had penetrated more deeply into Wales, so that at Domesday, though the area colonized was limited, Norman lordship had been asserted over numerous cantrefs and commotes that had previously formed portions of the kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys. The political situations in the northern and southern parts of the country were reversed during a period of renewed conflict in the reign of William II (1087–1100). Soon after Rhys ap Tewdwr’s death in 1093 while opposing the Norman advance into Brycheiniog, the Normans invaded virtually the whole of southern Wales. Advances from several bases along the Welsh border enabled Norman lords to establish the major lordships of Cardigan, Pembroke, Brecon, and Glamorgan. This advance constituted the decisive stage in the creation of the March of Wales; in this land, consisting of lordships, Norman lords and their successors exercised rights founded on the powers previously enjoyed by the Welsh kings but greatly expanded so as to give the lords, under “the custom of the March,” extensive powers in their lordships and a large measure of autonomy in their relations with the king of England.

Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth

The crucial years after 1093 saw also the initiation in northern Wales of a period of conflict by which the area was gradually recovered from Norman rule and the kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys reconstituted as major political entities. Gwynedd, first under Gruffudd ap Cynan (died 1137) and then under his son Owain Gwynedd (died 1170), gained a firm governance that enabled the younger ruler, controlling a kingdom extending from the Dyfi to the Dee, to withstand foreign pressure, which was particularly severe during the reign of Henry II (1154–89). In Powys the rule of Madog ap Maredudd (died 1160) likewise proved to be a period of stability and of expansion eastward beyond Offa’s Dyke into lands that had been subjected to alien settlement in both the Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods. In southwestern Wales, too, representatives of the dynasty of Deheubarth for more than 30 years waged a campaign that finally enabled Rhys ap Gruffudd (died 1197), a grandson of Rhys ap Tewdwr, to win from Henry II a recognition of his position. Rhys ruled a land that was not as extensive as the ancient kingdom, for Norman control of the lordship of Pembroke and of other lordships along the southern coastline was conceded, but it nevertheless constituted a considerable dominion.

The three kingdoms of Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth formed by the third quarter of the 12th century a well-defined sphere of Welsh political influence (Wallia, or Pura Wallia) in contradistinction to the sphere of Norman influence (Marchia Wallie). Throughout the remainder of the period of Welsh independence there remained a memory that Wales, outside the March, had consisted historically of three kingdoms ruled from the three principal seats of Aberffraw in Gwynedd, Mathrafal in Powys, and Dinefwr in Deheubarth. The rulers of these three kingdoms formulated a concept of Welsh kingship in which indigenous elements were blended with the new influences at work in the feudal monarchies. Each ruler, still known as a king (rex, brenin) but later to be styled prince (princeps, tywysog) or lord (dominus, arglwydd), governed an autonomous territory for which he did homage and fealty to the king of England.

Political stability enabled these territories to recover from the depredations of the Norman period, and the rulers sought to increase the resources of their demesne lands both by exploiting the labour services of bondmen and by providing some bondmen with more favourable tenurial conditions as an incentive to the colonization of marginal lands. With regard to lands held by freemen, a trend toward more intensive agricultural exploitation and a more precise definition of fiscal obligations may explain the description in late medieval land surveys of territorial assets vested in lineages that often traced their descent from a 12th-century ancestor. The endowment of some privileged proprietors with extensive estates facilitated, despite continued adherence to partible succession, the growth of a class of landowners who were linked with the rulers by ties of service and provided the personnel of their administration.

A renewed cultural vitality is noticeable in the Latin scholarship of this period and in a flowering of the literary tradition, exemplified in prose and in eulogistic poetry. The History of Gruffydd ap Cynan, probably written in the reign of his son Owain Gwynedd, provides a classic statement of the political and cultural values of independent Wales. Emphasizing the stability and prosperity of an ordered society, it provides an indigenous counterpoint to the more critical view of Welsh society embodied most notably, despite his subsequent identification with the cause of an independent Welsh church, in the works of the Welsh historian Giraldus Cambrensis.

In ecclesiastical affairs, the early Norman period saw the inauguration of a process by which the clas organization was replaced by arrangements consonant with the practice of the reformed church. The four territorial dioceses of Bangor, St. David’s, Llandaff, and St. Asaph were created, and a parochial organization was gradually established. The church structure was a creation of the Normans, and the bishops appointed to Welsh sees owed a profession of obedience to Canterbury. Even so, Bernard, bishop of St. David’s in 1115–48, claimed the status of an archbishop and, in furthering his campaign, appealed to the historical legacy of an early independent Welsh church. His bid was revived at the end of the century by Giraldus Cambrensis. But no less significant than Giraldus’ endeavour was the resistance of the clergy of Bangor, who, acting under the protection of Owain Gwynedd at a time of national resistance toward the end of his reign, steadfastly refused to meet the demands of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, that the newly elected bishop should swear fealty to Canterbury. The lay powers found adherents in the Cistercian Order; houses such as Margam and Tintern, situated in the March, had close associations with their marcher patrons. The offshoots of the Cistercian monastery of Whitland, notably Strata Florida and Aberconway, were handsomely endowed by the Welsh rulers, who in return were supported in their political endeavours.

Llywelyn ap Iorwerth

In each of the three kingdoms of Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth, the death of its powerful ruler was followed by a contested succession. In Powys and Deheubarth the unity of the kingdom was never restored; but with the emergence to power in the late 12th century of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (died 1240), a grandson of Owain Gwynedd, Gwynedd was united once more under the strong hand of a single ruler. Llywelyn’s aggression against neighbouring territories incurred resistance, which King John turned to his advantage in a campaign in 1211 whereby the prince of Gwynedd was subjected to humiliating terms. But availing himself of a general Welsh reaction to John’s measures for the permanent subjugation of the country, Llywelyn directed a sustained campaign in which his former adversaries participated. Llywelyn achieved a dominant position among the princes, which, while the contest with John persisted, augured the forging of a Welsh polity by bonds of homage and fealty to himself. But, though he remained a powerful influence over the other Welsh princes and thereby minimized the crown’s involvement in the affairs of Wales, Llywelyn was unable to secure a formal royal recognition of the territorial and conceptual achievements of the period of conflict. Llywelyn’s aspirations for a wider Welsh principality based upon the supremacy of Gwynedd then centred upon David ap Llywelyn, his son by Joan, daughter of King John. David was designated as Llywelyn’s heir in preference to his elder but illegitimate son, Gruffudd, and the Welsh dynasty looked to the English monarchy to ensure an unchallenged succession. In the event, the crown was able to use the dissension between the two sons and the disparate ambitions of the other Welsh princes to restrict David’s power to Gwynedd alone. During the war of 1244–46 David contended for a broader influence, but his promising endeavour was cut short by his early death in 1246, without heir.

In the following year his nephews Owain and Llywelyn, two of the four sons of Gruffudd, entered into a treaty obligation by which the crown decreed the partition of a truncated Gwynedd into two parts, with the prospect of further division to provide for the younger brothers. But between 1255 and 1258 Llywelyn ap Gruffudd (died 1282), one of the four brothers, asserted his supremacy first in Gwynedd and then farther afield. In this he was helped by the preoccupation of the English crown with the baronial conflict that led to the Provisions of Oxford in 1258. The prince secured a hegemony that was formally acknowledged by Henry III in 1267 by the Treaty of Montgomery, in which Llywelyn’s style, “prince of Wales,” first assumed in 1258, and his right to the homage and fealty of the Welsh lords of Wales were recognized. Llywelyn had thereby brought into being a Principality of Wales composed of the lands that had formed the 12th-century kingdoms of Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth as well as parts of the March. Historically, this meant the reversal of a situation, for which there were several centuries of precedent, whereby the increasingly fragmented territories under Welsh rule had been fiefs held directly from the king of England. The opportunity to consolidate the governance of the principality proved to be brief. Friction between Llywelyn and Edward I led in 1277 to a war in which the prince, isolated by the withdrawal of his vassals’ fealty and confronted with the great resources and superior organization of England, was forced to accept terms that restricted his power to Gwynedd west of the Conwy. By 1282 a deterioration in relations between Edward and a number of Welsh princes resulted in renewed conflict. Although Llywelyn may not have been the instigator of the rebellion, he placed himself at its head. In his negotiations with Archbishop Pecham late in 1282 he forcefully expressed the aspirations that had inspired his great endeavour to secure the internal unity of Wales and to stabilize its relationship with England. Shortly afterward, on December 11, Llywelyn was slain in combat, and the resistance, though sustained by his brother David ap Gruffydd (died 1283) for several months, finally collapsed in the summer of 1283.

The Edwardian settlement

Edward I provided for the security of his conquests by means of a program of castle building, initiated after the war of 1277 and subsequently extended to include the great structures of Conwy, Caernarfon, Harlech, and, later, Beaumaris. Each castle sheltered a borough where English colonists were settled. The king’s arrangements for the governance of Llywelyn’s former lands in northwestern Wales were embodied in the Statute of Wales (1284). Three counties (shires)—Anglesey, Caernarvonshire, and Merioneth—were created and placed under the custody of a justice of North Wales. In northeastern Wales a fourth county, Flintshire, was attached to the earldom of Chester. In southwestern Wales the counties of Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire, under the custody of the justice of West Wales, were formed out of lands over which royal power had been gradually extended by a process completed upon the failure, in 1287, of the revolt of Rhys ap Maredudd, the last of the princes of the dynasty of Deheubarth. Structurally, the shires that formed the Principality of Wales were similar to those of England, and certain common-law procedures were introduced into their courts, but the shires remained outside the jurisdiction of the central courts of Westminster and they did not elect representatives to Parliament. The March of Wales was extended through the creation by royal charters, out of parts of Gwynedd and Powys, of the lordships of Denbigh, Ruthin, Bromfield and Yale, and Chirk. In his relations with two of the major barons of the older March, Gilbert de Clare of Glamorgan and Humphrey de Bohun of Brecon, Edward showed a determination to assert the sovereignty of the crown over the March and to eradicate abuses of the Custom of the March such as the claim, defiantly expressed by Gilbert, to the right to wage war in the March. But neither Edward nor his successors attempted any far-reaching changes in the organization of the March, and political fractionization persisted over the next two centuries.

Rebellion and annexation

Both the crown and the marcher lords employed in the administration of their lands Welshmen drawn from an administrative class that had been fostered by the princes themselves. Those of the principality revealed a particular loyalty to Edward II in the political crises of his reign, and their continued attachment to his cause even after his deposition created a tense situation in 1327. During the 14th century there were occasional variances, but the identity of interest established between the crown and the leading Welshmen proved durable. Even so, the community endured both the economic difficulties encountered over wide areas of Europe at this time and the specifically Welsh problems created by the fact that an important phase in the transition from early medieval social arrangements coincided with the pressures exerted by an alien and fiscally extractive administration. At the very end of the century the deposition of Richard II, who had influential Welshmen among his partisans, released from allegiance to the monarchy a group that, associated with Owain Glyn Dŵr), raised a great rebellion which drew its strength from the community as a whole. In the period 1400–07 the royal government lost control of the greater part of Wales, and in some areas the insurrection remained unextinguished several years later.

The rebellion, however, quickened certain processes that were to lead ultimately to the enfranchisement provided by Tudor legislation. In northern Wales particularly, the availability of civil actions by English law led to an early but unrequited demand for English land law. After the rebellion the disabilities incurred by reason of Welsh nationality were underlined. Although often expressed in literature in militant terms and, during the years of dynastic conflict, manipulated by the protagonists of York and Lancaster, the aspirations of the community were focused in a demand for English denizenship. First individual petitioners looked for enfranchisement, and then whole communities in northern Wales secured from Henry VII, by negotiation and payment, charters conferring upon them English land law and other advantages. A realization by the crown of its inability to reverse a decline in the financial yield of its Welsh lands, an experience shared by the marcher lords, contributed to Henry VII’s policy.

Wales from the 16th to the 21st century

Union with England

In 1536 Henry VIII’s government enacted a measure that made important changes in the government of Wales. Whereas the Statute of Wales (1284) had annexed Wales to the crown of England, the new act declared the king’s wish to incorporate Wales within the realm. One of its main effects was to secure “the shiring of the Marches,” bringing the numerous marcher lordships within a comprehensive system of counties. For the first time in its history Wales was to have uniformity in the administration of justice. Welshmen were to enjoy the same political status as Englishmen, and the common law of England, rather than Welsh law, was to be used in the courts. Wales also secured parliamentary representation by the election of members for shires and boroughs. The implementation of the act was set aside until more detailed provision was made by a second act in 1543. Statutory recognition was now given to the Council of Wales and the Marches, which exercised a jurisdiction over both Wales and four border counties of England. But the council fell into abeyance during the Civil Wars and was finally abolished after the Glorious Revolution (1688–89).

In 1543 the Courts of Great Sessions were also created, modeled on the practice already used in the three counties that, since 1284, had formed the principality of North Wales (Anglesey, Caernarvonshire, and Merioneth), but with 12 counties now grouped into four judicial circuits and the 13th, Monmouthshire, linked with the Oxford circuit. The Great Sessions remained the higher courts of Wales until 1830 when, despite considerable opposition, they were abolished. Finally the Courts of Quarter Sessions were instituted in the manner in which they were already held in England, with the administration of the law vested in justices of the peace. Besides their judicial functions, the justices undertook a wide range of administrative duties, which they continued to fulfill until, with the reform of local government by the Local Government Act of 1888, the county councils were established.

The Reformation

Enacted in the wake of Henry VIII’s break with Rome, the union legislation, stressing the need for uniformity with the realm, required those who participated in administration under the crown to use the English language. The need to secure the Protestant faith, however, was to lead to an acknowledgement that the Welsh language had to be used in public worship. William Salesbury and Richard Davies were among a group of distinguished scholars, motivated both by Protestant conviction and passionate concern for the nation’s cultural heritage, who realized that the provision of the Scriptures and the Book of Common Prayer in Welsh was essential for the promotion of the faith and the vitality of the language. A petition to the Privy Council led to an act of Parliament in 1563 that required the translation of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into Welsh by 1567. Translations of the New Testament and the Book of Common Prayer were indeed published in 1567. The New Testament included an introductory essay by Davies that interpreted the establishment of the Protestant faith as a restoration of the true religion, which had flourished in Wales before the corrupt faith of Rome had been imposed upon its inhabitants. The demands of the Elizabethan government and the aspirations of the Welsh Protestant humanists were met in full when William Morgan’s translation of the entire Bible appeared in 1588. Alone among the Celtic nations in securing the Scriptures in the vernacular within half a century of the Reformation, the Welsh people had scored a success of profound significance for the future of the language and the sense of nationhood. Scholarly devotion to the language, also shown by Catholic exiles such as Gruffydd Robert, was accompanied by new interest in Welsh antiquities, and the work of the 16th-century historians Humphrey Llwyd, David Powel, George Owen, and their successors conserved the heritage of the Middle Ages and laid the foundations of modern historical scholarship.

Social change

Wales in the mid-16th century probably had a population not much above 250,000, though it was by then growing once more after a period of prolonged stagnation. Towns, though often prosperous, remained small, and Wales possessed no major urban and commercial focus. Although industrial enterprises had an effect upon the economy of certain localities and some Welshmen were enriched by entrepreneurial ventures outside Wales, income was largely derived, directly and indirectly, from pastoral and arable farming. During the 16th and 17th centuries gentry estates were enlarged and consolidated, and the holdings of innumerable proprietors were absorbed into the larger estates. Consequent changes in tenurial status, the growth in population, and inflation created intense problems that were only partially relieved by the enclosure of waste areas and the cultivation of marginal lands. While more and more land was concentrated in fewer hands, smaller proprietors who retained their stake in the soil were often forced to divide their holdings and convert summer dwellings, hitherto used by shepherds in summer months, into permanent homesteads. Many were forced off the land altogether, and it was not until the late 18th century that industry became a major outlet for a rural population which the land could not sustain.

Social trends and the interplay of indigenous and foreign influences were reflected in domestic architecture. The timber-framed hall house, already characteristic of the eastern borderland and of the northern parts of Wales in the late Middle Ages, continued to represent a strong vernacular tradition. But the varying scale and refinement of the houses told of a growing disparity in wealth. In some areas, notably in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, where a tradition in masonry houses had long existed, vernacular characteristics were increasingly set aside in favour of a new type of Renaissance house. Some houses were built on a scale that indicated the emergence of a class of great landowners who were to stand apart from Welsh society at large on account not only of their wealth but also of their intermarriage with English and Scottish families.

Politics and religion, 1640–1800

On the eve of the Civil War in 1642 there was much sympathy for the royalist cause in Wales. But the parliamentarians also found adherents among some landowners, such as Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, and Thomas Myddelton, as well as among individuals committed to the Puritan cause, such as the writer Morgan Llwyd and the zealous soldier John Jones of Maesygarnedd. It was mainly in the border counties and in Pembrokeshire, however, that Puritan influence and commercial contacts served to win support for the parliamentary cause. The imposition of parliamentary power on Wales and the sequestration of royalists’ property incurred resentment, and Puritan missionaries found themselves labouring in what they believed to be a dark corner of the land. The Act for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales (1650) set up a coercive authority encompassing both political and religious life, but state intervention remained largely unproductive.

Nonetheless, the Interregnum saw the formation of Dissenting congregations, which were to lay the foundations for some of the abiding influences of modern Welsh life. The most radical were the Quakers who, making particular headway in Montgomeryshire and Merioneth, penetrated not only Anglicized border territory but also the heart of the Welsh-speaking areas. Incurring the animosity of churchmen and other Dissenters alike, they were repressed with a severity experienced only by Roman Catholics and forced into emigration to Pennsylvania, in large numbers. On the other hand, small gathered churches of Congregationalists and Baptists, whose theology was Calvinist and whose belief and personal conduct were governed by a strict code expounded in their church covenant, established the Dissenting tradition within rural communities and small towns.

In the 18th century Methodism became a new and potent influence. Launched by a revival movement of great intensity in the years after 1735, Methodism was sustained within the established church by means of local societies and a central association. The combined influences of the old Dissent and the new Methodism, however, eventually transformed the religious adherence of the Welsh people at the expense of the established church. Although served by innumerable men of learning and devotion, among them Griffith Jones, whose circulating schools contributed immeasurably to the growth in literacy, the church was racked by poverty and inadequate leadership. Thus the Methodist secession from the Anglican church made the ultimate triumph of Nonconformity inevitable.

Methodism and Dissent were not the only influences at work in 18th-century Wales. The resilience of a native culture no longer able to depend upon traditional sources of patronage showed itself in a patriotic fervour to preserve a cultural heritage threatened by progressive Anglicization. Although its proponents drew upon Welsh scholarly achievements, notably those of Edward Lhuyd, Wales had no academic institutions capable of appraising critically the work of romantic antiquarians who looked back to Celtic myth and British druidism. Yet despite its shortcomings, the 18th-century cultural movement was an important expression of a preindustrial society’s resourcefulness in protecting its heritage. One of its key figures was Edward Williams (Iolo Morganwg), whose endeavours encompassed a vast range of literary and historical studies and who also represented the political radicalism inspired by the French Revolution. Radical convictions were held only by a small minority, some of them eccentrics and others distinguished expatriates, but their endeavours marked a significant stage in the emergence of a distinctively Welsh political consciousness.

The growth of industrial society

By 1800 Wales was rapidly ceasing to be a land whose people were almost entirely dependent upon a rural economy. Industrial development, already present in certain localities, now took place on a larger scale. There was considerable development in the coalfield of northeastern Wales; in the southwest, in Swansea, copper smelting, in particular, served to make the town an important metallurgical centre, and for a period it also could count fine porcelain among its range of manufactures. The main industrial expansion occurred, however, with the growth of substantial ironworks on the northern rim of the South Wales coalfield in Glamorgan and Monmouthshire. Not hitherto served by any major urban centres, the area now became densely populated, largely as a result of immigration from other areas of Wales. A natural increase in population accelerated considerably by the late 18th century, with an estimated population for Wales of 450,000 in 1750 rising to 587,245 by 1801. The population continued to grow, again mainly by natural increase, to 1,163,139 by 1851 and to 2,012,875 by 1901. It was only in the following decade that immigration into Wales occurred on a massive scale. In this period 126,529 persons, the majority of whom came from outside Wales, migrated into Glamorgan and Monmouthshire alone, further enlarging the population of the counties that had benefited most from the internal migration of the earlier decades.

Industrial growth made it possible for large numbers of people whom the rural economy could not sustain to find a livelihood within Wales, and the industrial communities of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire contained a substantial Welsh-speaking element throughout the 19th century. Merthyr Tydfil grew rapidly to become the main urban centre of a new industrial society, but it sadly lacked the facilities normally associated with settlements of a more gradual growth. Conditions in the mining areas were harsh; workers were subjected to long hours and low wages, their children were often forced to work at the mines from a young age, and their families lived in wretched and overcrowded circumstances. It was in Merthyr Tydfil that industrial and social unrest, first expressed in wage-related disputes and sporadic rioting in several areas, erupted into a serious rising in 1831. In the following years the workers’ main channel for expressing their aspirations was Chartism, which found its most forceful manifestation in the insurrection at Newport in 1839. Rural Wales, too, was subject to social unrest, and between 1839 and 1843 the Rebecca Riots, ostensibly directed against the exaction of road tolls, gave expression to the underlying difficulties of the tenant farmers of southwestern Wales.

Improved economic conditions from the middle years of the century onward ushered in a period of comparative quietude in industrial Wales. A new phase in industrial growth, brought about by the exploitation of the steam-coal reserves of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire during the last decades of the century, created new valley communities that drew immigrants both from rural and industrial settlements in Wales and from elsewhere. The growth in coal exports led to the building of docks on the coast between Newport and Swansea, notably at Cardiff, while increasing dependence on imported ore led to the relocation of the growing steel industry to areas in close proximity to the coast.

Political radicalism

Wales only gradually embraced the radicalism that came to be regarded as its traditional political allegiance. The political exigencies of the years of the French wars of the Napoleonic period forced the Methodists, in particular, into a passivity that was underlined by a sterner interpretation of Calvinist theology. Political passions were aroused, however, by the moral indictment of the Welsh nation, and especially its Nonconformity, carried in the Report of the Commissioners for Education in 1847. The Welsh, especially the women, were portrayed as depraved and immoral, backward and ignorant. Even the more able ones among them were thought to be impeded by their theological wrangling and often by their lack of English. The growth of a Welsh-language periodical press from its largely denominational origins into a distinctively radical force proved an important influence in rural and industrial Wales alike. By the later years of the 19th century, following the franchise reforms of 1867 and 1884, the hegemony of Welsh Liberal Nonconformity was well established. The passing of legislation specifically concerned with Wales, such as the Welsh Intermediate Education Act (1889) and the Church Disestablishment Act (1914), was a parliamentary success matched in cultural life by the founding of three university colleges and the federal University of Wales and the securing of a royal charter for the establishment of the National Library of Wales and the National Museum of Wales. The attempt by Welsh Liberal associations to secure a representative assembly reached its peak with the Home Rule movement of 1886–96, but it was wrecked by dissension within the associations.

The 20th century

By 1900 there were signs that the Liberal-Nonconformist supremacy would be gradually undermined. Traditional beliefs were challenged, and the experience of World War I created new tensions. The massive flow of workers into the steel and coal areas, largely from outside Wales, affected the composition, and hence the language, of the industrial communities, and immigration coincided with a new era of industrial unrest and political militancy. The miners’ efforts at combination led in 1898 to the founding of the South Wales Miners’ Federation; the coal owners strengthened their position by forming powerful combines. Despite fierce resistance, the miners won their campaigns for an 8-hour day and a minimum wage. Within the federation a new militancy, expressed in the policy document entitled the Miners’ Next Step (1912), espoused an industrial unionism with syndicalist tendencies. These influences, though potent in the Rhondda Valley, did not pervade the coal industry, nor did they shape the steelworkers’ and tinplate workers’ unions. After the war syndicalist influence was subsumed in orthodox communism, or, more generally, in democratic socialism. By 1922 the Liberal Party in South Wales had lost its hold upon the industrial communities to the Labour Party, whose influence was felt both at Westminster and in local government. In the northeast and in the slate-quarrying communities of northwestern Wales, which also experienced prolonged and enervating industrial disputes, an allegiance to radical Liberalism gradually evolved into adherence to Labour.

Economic depression between the world wars, made particularly acute by the collapse of the export market upon which the Welsh economy so heavily depended, brought massive unemployment. Wales lost about 430,000 people by emigration to England and to areas overseas. The war years of 1939–45 brought substantial industrial recovery, and upon the cessation of hostilities strenuous efforts were made to modernize the basic industries of steel and coal and to achieve a diversification of industry in general. Even so, coal production continued to fall, and in the industrial areas the exodus of workers and their families showed no signs of abating. To be sure, the rural economy benefited from government subsidies that facilitated investments in land improvements and new buildings as well as from advisory and marketing agencies. However, the working population continued to fall, even in the rural areas.

Labour continued to retain the political allegiance of the Welsh electorate. After World War II the party registered gains in rural Wales and held as many as 32 of 36 Welsh seats until 1966. Their position was not maintained, however. Plaid Cymru, which was founded in 1925 as the Welsh Nationalist Party, achieved a measure of influence that was not reflected in successes at parliamentary elections until 1966. It captured its first parliamentary seat in a by-election at Carmarthen that year, though it lost the seat in 1970. The party subsequently won three seats in northwestern Wales in October 1974. The Conservative Party also made gains at Labour’s expense, several members being returned in constituencies where boundaries were redrawn to take account of the growth of suburban communities. In the late 1970s and early ’80s the Conservatives made even greater gains, winning 14 of 38 Welsh seats in 1983. By the late 1980s, however, Labour was again dominant, and it maintained that dominance into the early 21st century.

The Welsh Language Society, founded in 1962, brought a measure of militancy to the cause of preserving the language and was among the influences that spurred a more positive response to the problem of its continuing decline, including the Welsh Language Act of 1967. In 1964 the Labour government honoured a pledge to appoint a secretary of state for Wales with departmental responsibility, and subsequent Labour and Conservative administrations promoted an extensive transfer of functions to the Welsh Office. Demands in Wales and Scotland for an elected assembly with devolved powers led to the appointment of a Royal Commission on the Constitution, which recommended devolution for both countries in 1973. An act providing Wales with a measure of devolution was passed at Westminster in 1978, but devolution was overwhelmingly defeated—by a margin of nearly 4 to 1—in a referendum held the following year.

Support for devolution and the protection of Welsh identity increased in 1979 with the election in London of a Conservative government, which enjoyed only minority support in Wales. A new phase of immigration in rural Wales in the 1980s and increased economic vulnerability to the global free market prompted renewed and more cohesive efforts to conserve Welsh heritage. In 1982 a Welsh-language television channel was created, and in 1993 the government passed another Welsh Language Act. The Welsh Language Board, established under the provisions of the 1993 act, promoted the use of the Welsh language and sought to give Welsh equal legal weight with English in the conduct of government business.

A second referendum on the creation of a Welsh assembly, held under the new Labour government of Tony Blair, was barely approved (50.3 percent) on September 18, 1997. The assembly was given responsibility for administering public services and implementing regional policies on education, health care, and economic development, among other areas. Its first elections—which were held under a system of proportional representation rather than under the plurality system used for Westminster elections—took place in May 1999 and produced a minority Labour government headed by Alun Michael, who assumed the title “first secretary.” Although Labour won 28 seats, a resurgent Plaid Cymru took 17 seats, including several in Labour’s traditional strongholds; the Conservatives won 9 seats and the Liberal Democrats 6.

The 21st century

In 2000 Labour’s Rhodri Morgan became first secretary, and later that year the position’s title was formally changed to first minister. Morgan remained in that office when Labour won the elections of 2003 and 2007, with Plaid Cymru finishing second both times. In March 2011 another milestone in devolving government for Wales was passed when a referendum granting the Welsh assembly the power to enact laws without first seeking consent from Parliament was approved by 63.5 percent of those voting. Two months later assembly elections were held, with Labour winning 30 seats, 1 short of an absolute majority. The Conservatives finished second, ahead of Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats.

On October 21, 2014, Carwyn Jones, first minister for Wales, called for further powers to be devolved from London to Wales. The request came in response to the commitment by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron to extend the powers of Scotland’s Parliament in the wake of the failure of a September 2014 referendum in Scotland on independence. In May 2015 the Conservatives had their best showing in decades in the elections for the House of Commons, gaining three seats for a total of 11. Despite losing one seat, Labour remained the largest delegation, with 25 seats. Plaid Cymru held steady with three seats, and the Liberal Democrats dropped two seats to send a single representative to Westminster.

A year later, in the May 2016 elections for the Welsh assembly, Labour fell from 30 seats to 29 but remained in power as a minority government still led by First Minister Jones. Plaid Cymru gained a seat to reach 12 seats, while the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats lost three seats and four seats, respectively. Arguably, the elections’ big winner was the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which went from no representation to seven seats.

In the June 2017 snap election for the House of Commons called by British Prime Minister Theresa May, Labour reversed its 2015 losses to rebound to 28 seats at the expense of the Conservatives, who lost three seats to fall back to eight seats. The Liberal Democrats relinquished their lone seat. Plaid Cymru added a seat to increase its representation in the House of Commons to four seats.In December 2018 Jones stepped down as first minister and was replaced by the new leader of the Welsh Labour Party, former finance minister Mark Drakeford. When Boris Johnson, May’s replacement as the United Kingdom’s prime minister, called for a snap election in December 2019, Labour lost six seats but remained the largest Welsh presence in the House of Commons, with 22 MPs. The Conservatives added six seats for a new total of 14 MPs, and Plaid Cymru held steady with four seats.

In the elections for the National Assembly, the Drakeford-led Labour Party matched its best performance ever by taking 30 seats to fall just one seat short of an outright majority. The Conservatives added five seats to their 2016 count for a total of 16 seats, and Plaid Cymru took an additional seat to bring its presence in the assembly to 13 representatives. These gains came principally at the expense of UKIP, which lost all seven of its seats.