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Welsh self-government

Encyclopedia : W : WE : WEL : Welsh self-government

Welsh self-government is a movement that became popular in nineteenth-century and throughout the twentieth century. It generally seeks independence for Wales within the United Kingdom or outside it. An opinion poll from the BBC suggests that around 16% of the population of Wales support the idea of Welsh independence. [link].

Contents

Conquest

The Medieval Kingdoms of Wales
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The Medieval Kingdoms of Wales

Through most of its history before the Anglo-Norman Conquest, Wales was divided into several kingdoms. From time to time, rulers such as Howell the Good and Rhodri the Great managed to unify many of the kingdoms, but their lands were divided on their deaths. By 1282, only Gwynedd stood out, whose ruler was accorded the title Prince of Wales. Following the defeat of Llywelyn the Last by Edward I Wales lost its last independent kingdom and became subject to the English crown, either directly or indirectly. It retained some vestiges of distinction from its neighbour however, namely the Welsh language, culture, law and customs.

Until the victory of Henry VII at Bosworth in 1485, the Welsh on many occasions revolted against English rule in an attempt to gain their independence. The greatest such revolt was that of Welsh nobleman Owain Glyndŵr, who gained popular support in 1400, and defeated an English force at Pumlumon in 1401. In response, the English parliament passed repressive measures denying the Welsh the right of assembly. Glyndŵr was proclaimed Prince of Wales, and sought assistance from the French, but by 1409 his forces were scattered under the attacks of King Henry IV of England and further repressive measures imposed on the Welsh. Glyndŵr himself vanished, and his final resting place remains a mystery.

Annexation

Throughout the period of conquest the Welsh poets kept alive the dream of independence. In what was known as the canu brud (prophetic poetry), the idea of the coming of a messiah-like figure, known as Y Mab Darogan (The Son of Destiny), who would not only remove the English yoke but win back the whole of the Great Britain for the Brythonic (i.e. Welsh) people. In the Welsh-born Henry VII the Welsh believed that "the Son of Destiny" had come and there were no more revolts or talk of revolt – the people of Wales became as loyal as any of the King's other subjects.

During the reign of Henry VIII the Laws in Wales Acts were passed, formally integrating Wales into the English legal system. The repressive measures against the Welsh that had been in place since the revolt of Owain Glyndŵr over a century earlier were removed. It also gave political representation at the Westminster Parliament for Wales. Wales continues to share a legal identity with England to a large degree as the joint entity of England and Wales. The laws also finished the partitioning of Wales into counties that was begun in 1282 and established local government on the English model. The laws also had the effect of making English the language to be used for all official purposes. This excluded most native Welsh from any formal office unless they adopted English to some degree or other.

On the whole the Welsh who had a way of expressing an opinion welcomed these moves and saw them as further proof that Henry VII and his descendants were the long-awaited sons of destiny and that Wales had regained what it had lost at the conquest of 1282. Patriotism, or a non-politicised form of nationalism, remained a strong force in Wales with pride in its language, customs and history common amongst all levels of society.

Revolutionary ideas

Along with the rest of Europe the effects of the French Revolution were felt in Wales. It brought to the forefront a small minority of Welsh people who sympathised with revolutionary ideas: people such as Richard Price (1723-1791), Iolo Morganwg (1747-1826), and Morgan John Rhys (1760-1804).

In the meantime, counter-revolutionary or even anti-revolutionary ideas flourished amongst the leaders of the Welsh Methodist revival, but the consequences of turning Wales into a nation with a nonconformist majority was to create a new sense of Welshness.

Nineteenth century

The rapid industrialisation of parts of Wales, especially Merthyr Tydfil and adjoining areas, gave rise to strong and radical Welsh working class movements which led to the Merthyr Rising of 1831, the widespread support for Chartism, and the Newport Rising of 1839.

With the establishment of the Presbyterian Church of Wales nonconformism triumphed in Wales, and gradually the previously majority of conservative voices within it allied themselves with the more radical and liberal voices within the older dissenting churches of the Baptists and Congregationalists. This radicalism was exemplified by the Congregationalist minister David Rees of Llanelli who edited the radical magazine Y Diwygiwr (= The Reformer) from 1835 until 1865. But he was not a lone voice: William Rees (also known as, Gwilym Hiraethog) established the radical Yr Amserau (= The Times) in 1843, and in the same year Samuel Roberts also established another radical magazine, Y Cronicl (= The Chronicle). Both were Congregationalist pastors.

The growth of radicalism and the gradual politicisation of Welsh life did not see any successful attempt to establish a separate political vehicle for promoting Welsh nationalism. But voices did appear within the Liberal Party, which made great gains in Wales in the nineteenth century with the extension of the franchise and the tacit support of Welsh nonconformity. An intended independence movement, Cymru Fydd, established on the pattern of Young Ireland was established in 1886 but was short lived.

But for the majority in Wales the important question was not independence or self-government, but the disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales and that is where most of their energy was expended. But their non-political nationalism was strong enough to establish national institiutions such as the University of Wales in 1893, and the National Library of Wales and the National Museum of Wales in 1907.

Treachery of the Blue Books

This feeling of difference was exacerbated by the results of the publication of the "Reports of the commissioners of enquiry into the state of education in Wales" in 1847. The reports found the education system in Wales to be in a dreadful state, although they formed this opinion because the Commissioners were exclusively English-speaking while the education system was then largely conducted in Welsh, therefore the Commissioners could not form a realistic opinion of the education system. However, they concluded that the Welsh as a people were dirty, ignorant, lazy, drunk, superstitious, lying, and cheating because they were Nonconformists and spoke Welsh. Very quickly, because of its blue covers, the report was labelled Brad y Llyfrau Gleision, or in English, "The Treachery of the Blue Books".

The influence of European nationalism

Two nineteenth-century figures are associated with the beginnings of Welsh nationalism in the specific political sense, Michael D. Jones (1822-1898) and Emrys ap Iwan (1848-1906). Inspired by the Revolutions of 1848 and the growth of Irish nationalism they saw that Wales was different from England in having its own language which the vast majority of its residents spoke and in holding to a nonconformist form of the Christian religion which faced many disabilities in the face of the state church. Gradually they started to ask what was the difference between nations like Italy and Hungary, and Wales, weren't they all nations "struggling to be free"?

Twentieth century

The Welsh Assembly Building in Cardiff.
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The Welsh Assembly Building in Cardiff.

Nationalism became a strong factor in twentieth-century Wales, but not as strong as it was amongst the people of eastern Europe, or Ireland. At various times both the Labour Party and the Liberal Party took up the cause of Welsh self-government, but it was with the establishment of Plaid Cymru (The Party of Wales) in 1925 that Welsh independence from the UK was first advocated.

The election of a Labour Government in 1997 included a commitment to hold a referendum on the establishment of a Welsh Assembly. The referendum was narrowly won, with support from Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and much of Welsh civic society.

Plaid Cymru

Plaid Cymru was founded in the 1920s by the existing organisations Byddin Ymreolwyr Cymru and Y Mudiad Cymreig. Plaid Cymru returned their first Member of Parliament in 1966 in the Carmarthen by-election, and today has three such reprentatives, along with 12 Members of the 60 strong Welsh Assembly (making them the second-largest party). Traditionally, support for the party is concentrated in the rural Welsh-speaking areas of north and west Wales, from where all their MPs hail. In the late 1960s and 1990s the party also enjoyed brief surges in support.

Other nationalist parties and movements

Violent nationalism

Though mainstream nationalism in Wales has been constitutional, there have been violent movements associated with it.

In 1952 a small republican movement, Y Gweriniaethwyr (= The Republicans), were the first to use violence when they made an unsuccessful attempt to blow up a pipeline leading from the Claerwen dam in mid Wales to Birmingham.

In the 1960's two movements were established in protest against the drowning of the Tryweryn valley and the 1969 investiture of Charles, Prince of Wales: Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (= Welsh Defence Movment, also known as MAC) and the "Free Wales Army" (also known as FWA). These two movements were responsible for numerous bombing attacks on water pipelines and power lines across Wales. On the eve of the investiture two members of MAC, Alwyn Jones and George Taylor, died as the bomb they were planting on the railway line to be used by the Royal Train exploded.

The late 1970s and the 1980s saw an organisation calling itself Meibion Glyndŵr (the sons of Glyndŵr) responsible for a spate of arson attacks against holiday homes throughout Wales.

See also

Sources/Bibliography

 

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