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CHAPTER
II.
OFFA'S DYKE — NORTHMEN'S INFLUENCE — LEOMINSTER AND ITS WELSH NAME - KING
HAROLD IN MONMOUTHSHIRE — THE FLEMINGS — WELSH FAMILY NAMES — ENGLISH
DESPISED AND IGNORED IN ENGLAND ITSELF — BARONIAL FAMILIES WELSH SPEAKING —
OWAIN GLYNDWR — THE ACT OF UNION — SUBSEQUENT DECAY OF WELSH CULTURE AND
REASONS THEREFOR
The history of Wales proper from the point of view we are now considering it,
might be said to begin with the formation of Offa's Dyke, in that is to say,
whereas previously we could scarcely give any limits to the extent of the
language, we can now afford pretty much to confine our attention to the
limits of this Dyke, although I have no doubt that communities of Welsh
speaking people were to be found in England, outside Devon and Cornwall for
centuries afterwards.
I incline to think that beyond perhaps a few years, the effects of the Dyke
in restraining attacks of Welshmen was comparatively small and that the
penalty attached to a Welshman being found on the other side could not be
strictly enforced, otherwise how is it we find native Welsh spoken East of
the Dyke to the present day in Shropshire and also that this was the case
some sixty years ago in Herefordshire?
How is it too, that only a century after Offa's time a learned Welshman,
Asser, was attendant at King Alfred's court for six months in the year,
though his property lay in West Wales?
Offa's Dyke was completed about the year 780 and the Welsh language was
spoken right up to the edge of it, from Chepstow to Chester with little or no
absolute break for no less than 900 years, except that the contemporaneous
use of English was current along the greater distance of it during the
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CHAP. II.] WALES AND HER LANGUAGE. 17
latter portion of that period; but throughout the middle ages, the area of
spoken Welsh in Wales and the Borders must have been remarkably constant.
Circumstances, however, were imminent which affected Wales, and ultimately
modified her future history, as they did that of her Saxon neighbours. The
Northmen who ravaged the East of England, carrying terror and desolation
along with them, did not spare the West coast, and left permanent relics of
their presence in various names on or near it, as the Nash (waes = nose of
land) in Monmouthshire, and also in Glamorgan; the Holms islands, Lundy, the
Skerries, and the important port of Swansea — the ea representing the Norse
ei for island, while further up we get VoY^dinorwic, near the Bangor slate
quarries (the Norwegians' port); the Orme's Head, and Bardset/ Island, also
Caldy Island in Pembrokeshire. Swansea is still called by the Welsh Abertawy,
in preference to the appellation given it by foreigners. Compare also
Anglesea — W., Ynys Mon.
A more remarkable instance of the persistence of Welsh names occurs in
Herefordshire where a monastery was founded in 660 by Merewald, King of
Mercia, a Saxon — Ealfrid being the first Abbot. In the 10th century,
however, the monks were supplanted by nuns, but about the time of William the
Conqueror, the nunnery ceased and the monastery was restored; though the name
Leofrici Monasterium evidently connects with the days when Leofric, a Saxon
general under King Canute, repaired the building, with a great “bravery of
gold and silver."
This monastery was a cell of the Abbot of Reading, and for many centuries,
English influences must have been prevalent in the district, as the names of
the surroimding villages are mostly Saxon, and were so, even at the advent of
the Conqueror.
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18 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. II.
Notwithstanding these cogent facts, the Welsh name Llanllieni (llieni =
nuns), referring to the nunnery, still survives. The writer has heard an old
Radnorshire woman, hailing from Abbey Cwmhir, near Rhayader, repeat the
doggerel which she had heard many years before: —
“How many miles, how many
Is it from Leominster to Llanllieni?”
and he is assured that Leominster is still known by
some Welsh people as Llanllieni. Those were days in which a well-to-do woman
who could have afforded to have ridden, walked,
40 miles from near Llanidloes into Leominster butter fair, and sold her
butter the same day; “and now," said my old friend almost indignantly,
"you take a train to go to Hereford," — thirteen miles.
Why the Welsh refused to recognize the 11th century monastery, and only spoke
of the nunnery when they referred to the town is not clear, unless it is,
that by the time the monastery was well established they entered the town as
strangers, speaking a foreign language, and did not wish to trouble
themselves about any new-fangled name coined by the Saxons.
After the Northmen had come and gone, or else settled down and had become
incorporated with the people, a great Englishman — no less a man than Kmg
Harold — pitched his tent, in the shape of a hunting lodge, in a corner of
Wales, at Portskewett (Porth Ysgewin),
near the "Moors" (the Morfa)
of Monmouthshire, which Roman skill had in time past reclaimed by a sea wall,
remains of which exist to the present day, more or less entire. Traces of his
settlement of the low land, may not, improbably, be found in the Saxon names
of Whitson, Redwick, Goldcliff, and
Itton.
King Harold's day was short; and with his fall came the subjugation of the
Saxons; for 300 years it was the
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CHAP. II.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 19
Frainc or Norddmein* rather than the Saeson, whom the Cymry feared: then was
ushered in the era of huge castles, with gloomy vaults, where the ray of hope
scarcely entered, while the common people toiled on in unrequited serfdom.
Wales was, at this period, in far too weak and divided a state to offer much
permanent resistance to these Norman spoilers, who erected stronghold after
stronghold all along the eastern borders and the southern coast of Wales.
Directly, however, the Norman rule did not much affect the language of the
people, but it was the means of extirpating the Welsh language from two
districts, viz.. South Pembrokeshire, and Gower near Swansea, by the
introduction of Flemish Colonies. Whether or no the populations there had
been very much reduced through the Norse invasions, I am not able to decide.
How far the Welsh flannel trade is originally due to Flemish industry I will
not attempt to decide; but in the case of family names ending in kin the
Flemings have left lasting traces, as the frequently recurring Watkins,
Jenkins, Hopkins, will testify. Not that the holders of these names
necessarily have a drop of Flemish blood in their veins, but such became
current in Wales, people adopted them for their children, and then, in the
third generation, a Robert ap Siencyn ap Einion Ddu would, if he lived in the
time when patronymics were becoming fixed, be simply known as Robert Jenkins.
Ivor James, the Registrar of the South Wales University
*Llywarch Brj'dydd y moch, writing on Llewelyn ap lorwerth, says, — “Ai gwell
Franc na ffrawdus Gymro." (Is a Norman better than a conquering Cymro.)
Einion Gwgan, about 1244: —
" Golud mawr ystrud ysgryd Norddmein.'' (Great was our happiness to put
the Normans to lear and consternation.) Quoted in “Specimens of Ancient Welsh
Poetry," by leuan P. Hir, Pryse's Edition.
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20 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. II.
College at Cardiff, contests the fact that these districts were mainly
settled by Flemings: the evidence adduced by him in support of his view is
partly based on the absence of Flemish family names there. He has overlooked
the force of the above mentioned fact, and even if not, the objection should
not carry great weight as many family names are of comparatively recent
origin, even in England; and in Welsh Wales very few of the family names can
be older than the 16th century, when the first name of a father came to be
borne by his son as a surname, and then by his descendants in perpetuity; and
when it also happened that custom ran in the direction of such first names
being from a few of English, Norman or Hebrew, rather than of national
origin, the choice accordingly admitted of but little variation, hence great
confusion has resulted to the present day.
Thus, we may suppose, that a Griffith ap Conan had a son in the 16th century
whom he named — in deference to prevailing ideas— John; this John ap Griffith's
son was named Risiart; this Risiart ap John would be called Richard Jones;
and thus, Jones be established as a family name; so with the Bdwardses, the
Davies, the Robertses, the Jameses; ap Harry and ap Huw becoming Parry and
Pugh.
Sometimes, however, family names were adopted which entirely broke the
ancestral connection, for instance. Dean Gabriel Goodman, of Westminster, was
a Welshman, who, if I am not mistaken, assumed the name Goodman. An ancestor
of the Mostyn family assumed that name at the suggestion of Roland Lee,
Bishop of Lichfield, of whom we shall hear later on. Some names of Welsh
origin but scarcely to be met with in Wales, are found in England, e.g.,
WaJmyn, in Ross, Herefordshire, Oough, CraMock, Camm, Says, &c. The
ancestors of these people must have hved away from Wales when this
casting-olf of vernacular names went on.
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CHAP. II.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 21
Whether Wales will be satisfied as population increases, to allow such a
poverty of family names to continue, I do not know: one well-known Welshman —
living at Manchester — R. J. Derfel has made a move against it by adopting
the name Derfel for his family instead of Jones. Though no movement of any
magnitude in this direction has set in, a somewhat curious custom prevails of
individuals bearing three names, the second a distinctively Welsh one, and
being generally known by the second and third name, sometimes the initial
only of the first name being mentioned. Thus we have Cynddylan, Einion,
Ossian, lUtyd, Tudor, Ceiriog, Gwynfe, Teganwy, prefixed to more or less
common surnames. For instance, John Ceiriog Hughes — always known in bardic
circles as Ceiriog — would, if he had been a lawyer, or doctor, and not an
author, have probably signed himself J. Ceiriog Hughes. Among writers the
difficulty is almost entirely removed by the adoption of noms de plume (enwau
harddonol).
In England, it is the exception rather than the rule to speak of a standard
author by an assumed name, or for the latter to exist; in Wales, authors are
frequently better known in the latter way, even when there is no attempt to
hide the personality. Few people in Wales talk of William Rees, or William
Tliomas, but many of “Gwilym Hiraethog” and “Islwyn": there are,
however, exceptions-^Goronwy Owain's name is sufficiently poetic and distinctive
by itself, and was the name given him at birth.
In early times there was a considerable variety of personal names in Wales;
in the appendix I give a list of some which have been preserved to us in the
names of places; many of their possessors were Christians of the fifth or
sixth centuries; had I also included personal names, handed down in
historical documents, the number might have been indefinitely enlarged.
One difficulty which Welsh parents would doubtless find in
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22 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. II.
re-introducing them is, that their English neighbours would be likely to
mangle the sounds of the double letters; and ignore the u sound of the y.
There are, however, some in the list which might, with advantage, be used,
even though the sounds be not English.
Several of the old Saxon names of men and women are now extinct, as
Ethelwolf, Athelstan, Edwy, Kenelm, Leofwin, Ella, Edgiva; a larger
proportion, however, than in the case of Welsh ones have survived, such as
Alfred, Edward, Egbert, Harold, Margaret, Winifred; besides this there
appears to be a tendency to revive some previously extinct; why should not
the Cymry do the same?
I have mentioned above that the Norman Conquest did not greatly affect the
language of the people in Wales. It was, however, the means of introducing
into it many warlike terms and words used in legal administration. As regards
English itself, or to speak more correctly a late form of Saxon, and its
social and literary status, the effect was much more marked, for we must
recollect that during most of the time under review, it was a despised,
down-trodden language. Eight hundred years ago it had ceased to be the Court
language or the language of legal affairs, and probably many of the nobles
were unable to hold a conversation in it. We know that Henry II. could not,
nor possibly Edward II.
Two hundred years later when the old enmity between English and Normans had
pretty much passed, the chance for English to become the permanent tongue of
the land appeared even smaller; Norman French was considered the language of
education and culture and not simply a badge of political superiority.
In the schools English was ignored much as the education department affected
until recently to ignore the existence of Welsh: children had to construe in
French,
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CHAP. II.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 23
and perhaps less than ever was the English language written.
In the reign of Edward I. Acts of Parliament and public letters were written
in French, it was not till 1385 that children at school began to construe in
English, and not before the reign of Henry VI. or nearly four hundred years
after the Conquest, was French disused for legal proceedings. Students of law
books may still find in the Norman French terms used there, relics of the
degradation of English.
There are still parts of the British Isles where a stranger finds that
English is no longer the Imperial language; where the supremacy of the same
language which the haughty Normans spoke is maintained.
Why is French allowed to be legal language of the Channel Islands while Welsh
is still out of court in Wales?
Is it because Englishmen now have any more love to French than to Welsh? No.
The reason is that, when utility demanded the abolition of French in England,
the French speaking population of those islands were allowed to retain their
native French in legal proceedings, because they had precedent and the
lingering respect for Norman customs in their favour: but in the case of
Wales, whatever precedent, there may have been in Plantagenet times, under
semi-independent governors, it was evidently feared later on, that there
would be an element introduced antagonistic to the stability of the
government by permitting its use in the law courts.
Robert of Gloucester (strangely anticipating John Edwards of 1651) says about
this period: "There is no nation that holdeth not to its kindly* speech
save England only." It is thought probable that the French wars of
Richard III. turned the
*Kindly here means native.
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24 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [ CHAP. II.
scale and encouraged the use of English, which to this day contains an almost
unparalleled proportion of words of extraneous origin, and as the historian
Freeman remarks, has lost the power [which Welsh still possesses] of forming
new compound words from the original stock, which power he regards as the
"test of a really living language."
This shews us that the linguistic condition of Wales has been to some extent
anticipated in the past history of England and the fact that Welsh is
scarcely allowed to enter a course of secular education, further than it can
be used as an instrument to learn English, is no argument against its
inherent worth or that it should not receive a larger meed of recognition.
At the close of the fifteenth century, I take the boundary of spoken Welsh to
have embraced the whole country west of Offa's Dyke, with the exception of
South Pembroke and Gower, and perhaps a district near Chepstow, and to have
included the whole, or nearly all Herefordshire South of the Wye, some
portions of the Forest of Dean, Clun Forest in Shropshire and the country
west of Shrewsbury. We may have to except some small portion of North
Herefordshire, west of the Dyke.
The great baronial families had to some extent become absorbed in the Welsh
speaking populations; and the Scudamores of South Herefordshire were pretty
certainly Welsh speaking; so were the Herberts of Raglan, who amassed a large
Welsh library; probably also the Turbervilles of Glamorganshire, the Aubres
of Breconshire and possibly the Pulestons of North Wales; other leading
families were themselves of directly Welsh descent, such as the Morgans of
Tredegar, and the Wynns of Gvi^dir.
It was a frequent occurrence for the sons of Norman barons to marry into
Welsh families, even the Mortimers did this,
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CHAP. II.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 25
hence it would easily happen that these descendants would be Welsh speaking.
For instance* — Nest, daughter of Trahaern ap Caradog, married Bernard de
Newmarch; Nest, daughter of lestyn ap Gwrgant, married Robert Fitz Hamon.
Margaret, daughter of Llewelyn ap lorwerth, married John de Breos. On the
other side, Dafydd ap Owain Gwynedd married a daughter of Henry II. Llewelyn
ap lorwerth — Joan, a sister of King John; and Llewelyn ap Grufiydd — EHnor
de Montfort, while Rhys Gryg married the daughter of Earl Clare. Later on,
than the preceding. Sir W. Scudamore married a daughter of Owain Glyndwr. It
was at Kentchurch ill Herefordshire, the seat of the Scudamores, that Sion
Kent, the Monk bard of the 15th century, found protection in those troublous
times; he was a learned man, and, even up to this nineteenth century, a
marvellous, traditional character has been given him among the peasantry of
Gwent. Two other reasons might be adduced for this Cymricizing tendency — One
was the state of semi-independence in which some of the leading men liked to
remain, hence their attachment was naturally lessened to the Court language,
which was, as we have seen French for some centuries.
Another, was the influence of the Arthurian romances and the story of the
Trojans being the ancestors of the British, which latter, though without a
shadow of a foundation, was sufficiently generally believed, to be adduced as
evidence of the high birth of Henry VII. and it is not surprising to find L.
Glyn Cothi writing of him:
Bvo yw'r atteg hir o Vrutus
Er wedi Selyf o waed Silius
O ddynion Troia Iwyddianes vonedd
Ac ais G-wynedd ar ysganus.t
*See "Hanes Llenyddiaeth Gymreig," page 279.
#See translation next page.
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26 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [HER LANGUAGE] CHAP. II.
This process of absorption into Welsh nationality was undoubtedly somewhat
similar to that which took place in Ireland during the same period, and it
proceeded there to such an extent, that the English Government was aroused to
the danger of the Anglo Norman families becoming more Irish than the Irish
themselves; so by the statutes of Kilkenny (Edward III. circ 1362), marriage with an Irish woman was declared high treason.
Linguistically, this fact is worth some consideration: Celtic languages have
shewn in the past a much greater power of vitality than Scandinavian ones.
Within a few generations after the settlement of the Northmen in Normandy,
their language was unknown there and they had become French speaking; perhaps
the same thing could be said of Sicily.
In the Isle of Man where Norse or Scandinavian existed side by side with the
Manx, it became extinct centuries ago; in the Orkneys it also died out, long
before the age of steam had time to interfere.
After the final conquest of Wales in 1283, there was no effort made to
destroy the distinctive nationality of the people; in fact, various different
laws and customs were retained and nothing like the statutes of Kilkenny was
put in force; but the provision for even-handed justice must have been weak.
The oppression of one of the border lords at Ruthin— probably one who had not
been "Cymricized," drew forth reprisals from Owain Glyndwr, which
eventually, involved nearly the whole of the marches from the Dee to the Wye;
and
[TRANSLATION]. # He is the great (long,
literally) support descended from Brutus,
Though after Selyf from the blood of Silius,
From the men of Troy of successful origin,
And from the ribs of Gwynedd on his wanderings.
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CHAP. II.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 27
the House of Commons in 1431, when requesting that the forfeiture of his
lands might be enforced, declared that had he been successful, the English
tongue would have wholly and for evermore perished.
In consequence of this outbreak, and as early in its course as 1401,
Parliament passed ordinances, calculated to promote in an eminent degree the
evil they were directed against, or, at least, to inspire hatred of England,
and discord among neighbours.
Among these provisions, after allowing an Englishman sued by a Welshman to be
sued only in England, it disenfranchised all Englishmen married to Welsh
women; no victuals or ammunition might be imported into Wales except by
permission of the King and his Council; the Welsh were forbidden to keep
their children at learning, or apprentice them to any occupation in any town
or borough in the realm.
How far these merciless ordinances were actually carried out, I have been
unable to ascertain, and as Wales was lost to English law for some years
subsequently, they cannot have had much immediate effect beyond that of
calling the Welsh from the English Universities or towns, whither they had
gone for study or for purposes of trade, to enlist in the cause of Glyndwr,
who is reputed to have died at Monnington, Herefordshire, shortly before the
battle of Agincourt.
Among the Welshmen engaged there under Henry V., was Owen Tudor, son of
Meredith ap Tudor, and a descendant of Prince Llewelyn, who was subsequently
attached to the English Court,
Here he gained the affections of Catherine de Valois, Henry Vs. widow shortly
after death of the latter, and in 1428 was married to her, thus becoming the
son-in-law of Charles VI. of France, Owain Glyndwr's former ally.
We can scarcely imagine an EngHsh ,Queen-dowager
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28 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. II.
marrying a representative of the Welsh royal line, and a scion of the Welsh
nobihty, which had been a few years before bitterly opposed to the Enghsh
crown and almost everything English. Nor was it so, a peaceful domestic union
of a Welshman with a Frenchwoman did more to bring jibout the final reception
of Wales on equal terms into the councils of England, and to remove the sores
of centuries, than the ebullitions of national hatred and the devastations of
fire and sword had done in generations past.
Two sons were bom of the marriage, Edward who was made Earl of Richmond, and
Jasper who played an important part in the Wars of the Roses. Edward married
Margaret Beaufort, heiress of the Lancastrian line of Plantagenets and died
about 1456, leaving one son Henry, Earl of Eichmond, who after the battle of
Mortimer's Cross in 1461, and the subsequent execution of his grandfather
Owen Tudor by the Yorkists, was imprisoned by order of Edward IV. On the
accession of Henry VI. to temporary power in 1470 he was released and escaped
to France, after recei\ang we may reasonably beheve, a Cymric education at
his place of confinement with the Herberts of Raglan, or at Usk, where, also,
Edward IV. and Richard III. passed part of their time. For fourteen yeara,
Henry, with his uncle Jasper, appears to have found it necessary to be absent
fi"om England, till seizing his opportunity in the summer of 1485,
during the unpopular reign of Richard III., and with the assistance of Rhys
ap Thomas, Governor of South Wales, Evan Morgan, ancestor of the present
Tredegar family and other Cambrian leaders, they effected a landing at
Milford Haven, vsdth some three thousand French or Breton troops.
After strengthening various positions on the border, and receiving
reinforcements from Wales and a few Shropshire men, Henry marched to Bosworth
field in Leicestershire, with
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CHAP. II.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 29
the result known to all readers of history. Richard III., it is said,
perished by the hand of Rhys ap Thomas, an ancestor of the present Lord
Dynevor, and Henry was crowned on the battle field by Lord Stanley, who, with
his "Welsh followers from Chirk, Yale and Bromfield had seceded to his
cause, “pitying” (so says the historian Powell) “the miseries of the
Welsh."
With the accession to the throne of Henry Tudor as Henry Vn. a new era begins
for Wales, old things were passing away and a new order, of which we see the
effects to-day, was beginning to appear. The ceaseless tumults, pillagings,
forrays, heart burnings and wanton disregard of life and property which had
prevented both high and low from receiving the benefits of civilization and
honest employment, and also had stood in the way of Christian principles
spreading among the people, though not perhaps wholly terminated, became more
and more things of the past, and the husbandman felt he could at last, till his
ground without fear of his crops being burnt or trampled on.
Whatever were the bad qualities of the Seventh Henry, Welshmen cannot say
that he was ungrateful. Not long after his accession he repealed the odious
ordinances of Henry IV. and actually granted the Abbot of Neath a charter for
a University of Wales. How the project fell through, is not known, but if we
had had another Cymric speaking, Welsh-bred King, it is probable that four
hundred years would not have passed and the want still be unsupplied. (I have
no positive evidence as to this qualification of the Bang, but consider it
most likely, as he passed part of his youth in Wales). Lewys Morganwg in 1490
thus vn-ites —
"A University at Neath! A subject of celebration!”
During the early years of Henry's reign, he was a frequent visitor at the
border town of Ludlow, where Arthur, the young
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30 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP, II.
Prince of Wales, was being brought up under the care of Sir Rhys ap Thomas,
and we can hardly doubt but that Cymric influences largely directed the actions
of the vice-regal Court of the Marches. Providence saw meet to cut short the
career of this promising youth in 1502, and the government of Wales was then
conducted by a council under a chief officer, styled the Lord President of
the Marches, the first of whom, strange to say, was the English Bishop of
Lincoln.
The semi-independent rule of the Lords Marchers does not, however, appear to
have entirely ceased with these events, and the common people were deprived
in greater or less degree of the ordinary protection granted to English
subjects. One historian, Woodward, says — “Writs issued in the King's name
were of no authority in the Marcher Lordships, but only such as bore the
signature and seal of the Baron of the district." Even in Edward Ill's, time
they were reminded “not to yield obedience to any one who might chance to be
OAvner of Wales."
The Statutes of Rhuddlan given forth when Wales lay prostrate at the feet of
Edward L, although destroying what remained at the pohtical entity of the Welsh
nation, scarcely took the Welsh language into consideration at all, it placed
Wales in the hands of officers of the crown, and without any regular
representation in the government. As may be gathered from what precedes the
various offices were filled to some extent, perhaps nearly entirely, by
persons of Welsh speech and sympathies. We get some trace in this in L. G.
Cothi's poems, Dosparth L, 24, where he eulogizes Rhys ap Sion* of Glyn
Neath, who would neither appoint an Enghshman to fill any pubhc office under
government, nor even allow them to be empannelled in a jury (circ 1470.)
*Senedd vawr Ujs Nedd yw vo “Lutenanl” a'r wlad tano.i
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CHAP. II.J [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 31
Na welir Sais diddirwy
Na Saeson mewn Sessiwn mwy
Na dyn o Sais yn dwyn swydd
Na deu-Sais na bon' diswydd. * * *
Ni ad Ehys ail entrio Sais.^
At this time, so far as the pendefigion (nobles) were
concerned, there was in fact no great inducement for them to become
Anglicized; the English tongue was only lately recognized as a medium for
publication of the laws, and it had as yet, but a
comparatively scanty literature; they had no call to the English Parliament,
and on the whole they could do without English in "Wales and attain as
much culture as their neighbours the English landowners of Worcester and
Gloucester. A great
change, however, was near at hand, which shortly profoundly affected the
relative position of the two languages.
This change was brought about by the following principal causes —
I. The provisions of the Act incorporating Wales with England.
II. The increasing importance of English in England itself, as the official
and literary language of the Country, after its long abasement.
III. The introduction of Printing into England — a mechanical [translation].
^ He is a lieutenant of the great Council of the Court of Neath, And the
country subject to him.
^Let not an unflned Englishman be seen, Nor Englishmen in the assizes any more,
Nor an Englishman in ofiSce; Nor two Englishmen, nor gentry, without office.
» * »
Rhys will not suffer an Englishman to be twice entered [on the jury list.]
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32 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. II.
art which could only be practised under great difficulties in a sparsely
populated country like Wales.
IV. The Reformation which tended to popularize literature and freedom, and
which made itself, at first, the most felt in England, and in those parts of
England which lay nearest the continent, so that it came to Wales and
Cornwall as an English movement.
V. All the above facts tended to make an English education a thing more to be
desiderated; and they came to the view of Wales, without meeting there any
national organization, which could produce social, and educational results of
an independent character.
The Reformation ami the Discovery of Printing, two great boons to the human
race, happened near each other in point of time, and powerfully contributed
to the breakdown of the Feudal system, and to render the whole country
amenable to one central, civil authority. The spirit of enquiry and of
progress were abroad, and now that the old enmity was in good measure
subdued, a general desire seems to have been spread abroad, among the more
intelligent classes to learn Enghsh, which was fostered by the ruling powers,
while any systematic instruction in the native language was ignored to the
great loss of the nation.
The country had evidently suffered severely from this want of a centralized
power and was too much in the condition of a conglomeration of
semi-independent baronies and lordships, under which it was impossible to
obtain due redress for grievances, nor could it make the progi-ess it would
have done under a responsible and impartial Government.
This state of things was somewhat in accord with the traditions of the middle
ages, both in Great Britain and on the Continent, a^, well as Ireland; but as
further light and
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CHAP. II.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 33
education spread among the people, law and order followed in their train.
To illustrate farther what I mean, — the principles of the Reformation, and the
invention of printing, came to the English from the Dutch and Germans; while
the Revival of learning, which diverted men's minds from the narrow sphere,
of the schoolmen's speculations, was partly of Latin (i.e., Romance) growth.
All these mighty levers, which transformed the character of the age, were
appropriated in England, as part of the national life, and naturally made
their power felt through the medium of the English Tongue, which, at the same
time, received considerable additions from Latin sources; although it was
still the few, and not the many who had the privilege of being able to read:
but they were not appropriated in Wales, in so far as it was a part of
England, and under the influence of English Universities and English laws;
and because, in Wales, there was no Welsh University providing for an
educated class of men capable of writing Welsh, and no Welsh laws involving
its being spoken.
Just so, we may suppose, that if these events had happened three centuries
before, when Norman-French was uppermost, they would have given a great
impetus to the use and study of French, perhaps estabUshing it as a permanent
tongue; but there would have been still this great difference — that, however
much French might have been taught in the schools, and exclusively adopted in
the courts, it was nowhere the language of the mass of the people; hence the
comparison is not a perfect one between the relation of English to Welsh now,
and the relation between English and French in the thirteenth century; neither
does it follow, that, because the EngUsh people failed to be permanently
bilingual, as remarked by Professor Jones in 1887, before the Royal Education
Commission in London —
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34 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [ CHAP.
II.
that Wales may not be so, under the different circumstances in which she is
now, or may be placed.
The "Welsh people, or a few of them, and from what part of the country I
know not, addressed a memorial to the King in which they expressed a desire
for Union with England and the introduction of its laws, and in which they
promised to study English, were it but to learn how they might “better serve
and obey his highness."
This was an appeal to a sovereign, who like his father, had felt obligations
to Wales, and partly, if not wholly as a result of it, was enacted the
statute of 1535 by which Wales was finally united to and incorporated with
England; if we except the measure passed in 1689, whereby the remaining
shadow of the Court of the Marches was abolished.
The text of the commencement runs thus —
Albeit the dominion, principality and country of Wales justly and righteously
is, and ever hath been incorporated, annexed, united and subject to and under
the imperial crown of this realm, as a very member and joint of the same,
whereof the Ejng's most royal Majesty of mere droite and very right, is very
head, King, lord and Euler, yet notwithstanding, by cause that in the same
country, principality and dominion, diverse rights, usages, laws and customs
be far discrepant from the laws and customs of this realm; and also because
that the people of the same dominion have, and do daily use a speech nothing
like ne consonant to the natural mother tongue used within this realm, some
rude and ignorant people have made distinction and diversity between the
.King's subjects of this realm, and his subjects of the said dominion and
principality of Wales, whereby great discord, variance, debate, division,
murmur and sedition have'grown between his said subjects. His highness,
therefore, of a singular zeal love and favour that he beareth toward his
subjects of his said dominion of Wales, minding and intending to reduce them
to the perfect order, notice and knowledge of the laws of this his realm
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CHAP. n.J [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 35
and utterly to extirpe all and singular the sinister usages and customs
differing from the same and to bring about an amicable concord and amity
between English and Welsh, declares Wales incorporated with England, with
like liberties to subjects born there as in England; and the extension of the
laws of inheritance and other English laws to Wales.
The statute annexes Lord MarchersMps to coimties already established, creates
the fresh Counties of Monmouth, Brecknock, Radnor, Montgomery and Denbigh.
Divides Wales into the north and south Wales assize circuits and gives
Monmouthshire to the Oxford circuit. Provides for Parliamentary representation.
Appoints the sole use of the English language- in all courts. Interdicts the
enjoyment of any kind of office throughout the King's dominions to persons
USING THE Welsh tongue on pain or forfeiture, unless they adopted the English
speech.
It is evident, from the above, that the Act was conceived in a kindly spirit
toward the Welsh, and in part that it represented their own aspirations.
The last two provisions were, however, eminently unsatisfactory. I cannot
regard them as expressing the will of the people; it is almost incredible to
believe, that they could be immediately carried out. Who was responsible for
them? Was it the king himself, or was it Roland Lee, who undertook the office
of Lord President of the Marches in 1535, and was remarkably active in his
post? Whoever it was, the author must have been an Englishman.
Referring to the said Roland, the antiquarian, Thomas Wright, ia his history
of Ludlow Castle, calls his a “mission of reforming and civilizing," but
I suspect he started in it, devoid of one important qualification, viz.: A
literary and colloquial knowledge of the Welsh language; which would have
given him a proper understanding of the peculiar
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36 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [ CHAP. H.
condition of the people, whose good he should have sei-ved. For all we know,
this active Lord President of the “reforming and civilizing” turn of mind was
an official of the class represented by the school inspectors (or masters)
more frequent in former days than now, whom a Glamorganshire teacher speaks
of as "rank Englishmen whose hobby is to stamp out the Welsh language
altogether." {See Teachers' replies Cfmp. IV.)
If it had been enacted that all judges to try cases in Wales, should have a
competent knowledge of both languages, and that other government officials
should be subject to the same rule, the material power of Wales in succeeding
generations might have been substantially increased, and its educational
status have been on a much more satisfactory basis than it is at present.
As it was, these provisions contributed to give rise to a state of things,
wherein, almost all the educational advantages which follow in the train of
an advanced civilization, were made to flow through a foreign medium, and as
an even more serious disadvantage, those whom the people naturally looked up
to as leaders, became gradually so thoroughly Anglicized, that they partially
lost that position, wherein mutual benefit would have accrued to both rich
and poor, from hearty sympathy and mutual understandmg vidth what was good
and worthy to be admired on either side.
On the other hand, however, we may remark that NationaUty, in those days, was
dangerous stuff, although language does not always affect it in the way
sometimes imagined; the son of the king, under whom Poyning's Act was passed
to Anglicize the Celto-Normans of Ireland, and discourage the use of the Irish
language, was probably not sorry of an opportunity to consolidate his own
kingdom by having, even in its most remote districts, officials attached to
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CHAP. II. J [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 37
one language, and that the language of London — the central seat of power —
and we must acknowledge Wales has, in many other respects, enjoyed untold
advantages from the Act of Union. Poyning's Act, by the way, was of a similar
character to the Statutes of Kilkenny.
Edward I., in 1284, had promulgated the Statutes of Rhuddlan, by which he
intended Wales in future to be governed, and for this purpose the laws of
Howel Dda were read before him and his counsellors; some of them he retained,
in particular the provision for the division of land among all the sons of a
deceased man, except that illegitimate sons were excluded. In 1542, however,
the English Parliament passed another measure sweeping away the remainder of
Howel Dda's laws, which had been retained for so long a period, and
introducing primogeniture according to the English custom, though as will be
seen in the appendix, under head of Gavel kind, certain parts of the country
were allowed to retain the old custom.
I have hinted at a gradual extension of Welsh influence among the ruling
class up to the fifteenth century; but after the Act of Union, increased
facilities for an education which was much moulded by English ideas, and the
conditions in which they were placed, gradually tended to create an
artificial separation in aims and feelings between them and the mass of the
people which is painfully to be felt at the present day; to this state of
things the practice of intermarriage with the English nobility has powerfully
contributed. We have already seen that in pre-Tudor times the descendants of
such marriages, if brought up in Wales, frequently became Cymry; but after
the Act of Union it was hardly to be expected. Henry VH., for instance, found
a wife for his cousin, Charles Beaufort, in the person of the heiress of
Raglan, and grand-daughter of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.
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38 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP.
II.
For some years, however, such as Lord Herbert of Chirbury (author of the
"Trioedd Arglwydd Herbert"), Sir E. Stradling of Glamorganshire,
patron of John David Rhys, the Mostyns, and the Pulesdons vrere more or less
Welsh in speech and feeling.
Henry VH. was probably a Welsh-speaking sovereign; Henry VHI. not; and had
the former undertaken this business, we cannot believe that he would have
initiated such a one-sided policy.
About 1542, Henry VHL, in the presidentship of the same Roland Lee, gave
license, to transfer the canons of Abergwili College, which had been founded
by Bishop Beck in 1323, to Brecon, and founded there what is known as Christ
College, on the site of the Friars Priory, which had lately been suppressed.
One of the objects in establishing this college, evidently, was to spread the
knowledge of the English language. The charter says, — -
And, whereas, also our subjects dwelling in the southern parts of Wales being
oppressed with great poverty are not able to educate their sons in good letters,
nor have they any grammar school; whereby both clergy and laity of every age
and condition are rendered rude and ignorant, as well in their offices
towards Grod as in their due obedience towards us; but they are so little
skilled in the vulgar-tongue of England, that they are not able to observe
our statutes in such cases enacted, and that, which they ought, and are bound
to perform, they are unable to understand on account of ignorance of the
English language.
In the days of manuscripts, Welsh literary undertakings had flourished in
proportion to the population in a greater degree than in England; now it was
a recognized fact that to be abreast of the age a man must learn English; and
that through the English press, he must mainly look for literary
enlightenment and instruction, besides which, there was the
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CHAP. II.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 39
difficulty of finding a sufficiently numerous clientele of readers to make
Welsh printing remunerative in those early times, as well as that, of not
having such a central point for publication, as London presented for English
works; so that, for 150 or 200 years there was remarkably little printed in
Welsh except a few religious treatises and books, some of which weie designed
indu-ectly or directly to spread the knowledge of English; even the Bibles of
1588 and 1620 were chained with the English Bible, that the people might
learn English.
W. Salesbury, in the introduction of his English and Welsh Dictionary, thus
writes to Henry VIII: —
Your excellent wisdom has caused it to be established, that there shall be no
difference in laws and language, considering how much hatred and strife
arises from difference in language, and community of language is a bond of
love and friendship; and it is also, in the judgment of all wise men,
particularly suitable and convenient, that those who are under the government
of one head, and a most generous King, should use one language.
He goes on to say, that as many in Wales could read Welsh perfectly; by means
of his dictionary they might teach themselves and others also [to read
English], so that, in the quickest way, the knowledge of the Enghsh language
might spread through the whole country.
The result of these views was, that, except in the case of a select few,
Welsh, as a medium for intellectual education, or for acquiring general
knowledge, was almost wholly neglected, of which neglect Bishop Davles
complains in 1567, and Morris Kiffiin in 1595.
John Edwa/rds, translator of the "Marrow of Modern Divinity in
1651," says, "no nation cultivates such enmity to their language as
the Welsh!" While Vicar Prichard leaves his testimony in 1630, that not
one per cent, of the people could read Welsh; although, eighty-seven years
before, W. Salesbury says.
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40
WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. II.
that many could. Possibly these readers had come from schools taught by the
monks; and a future historian may be able to tell us how such as Salesbury
himself, learned to read Welsh.
Just 100 years after the John Edwards above-quoted, Thos. Richards wrote in
the preface to his dictionary:—
" I know too well there are some who have such an aversion to their
mother tongue that they profess a hearty desire of seeing it entirely
aboUshed, that no remains of it may be left in this Island. So great an
eyesore is the language of their forefathers become unto them * * * their
prejudice and ignorance render them altogether unfit 'to pass a right
judgment upon it “[The Dictionary]. And again s—
" Fe edrych pob iaith yn chwith ac yn anhyfryd i'r neb ni fo yn ei
gwybod. Ac onid yw yn gywilydd-gwarthus iddynt hwy fed mor wybodus
oddigartref , ac mor hyfedr a chyfarwydd mewn ieithoedd ereill, fod, ar yr un
pryd yn anwybodus gartref, heb fedru siarad yn iawn, chwaethach darUen a
'sgrifenu Iaith eu Mamau."
In addition to these testimonies there is that of John Penry (quoted by Ivor
James), when petitioning the Queen and ParMament in 1587, he says, there is
no market-town in Wales, where English is not as common as Welsh. From
Chepstow to Chester, all round the country, and the sea-shore, they all
understood English.
These facts — with those I shall advance further on — indicate that up to the
time of the publication of the Welsh Bible, and for years after, Wales was
not far from nmning neck and neck with Cornwall in the process of
Anghcization; there were, however, forces at work which limited its extent,
and which up to the present day have tended to build up a nationality that
may yet have a further development in the next century. On the one hand we
see a process of disintegration, and what the writer of “Siluriana” has
called “denationalization and
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CHAP. II.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 41
deodorization," and on the other we shall see that there has been a
contrary tendency expressive of individuality and national feeling clothed in
that language which can most adequately express it, and coincident with a
knowledge of the cosmopolitan English.
If it was a Tudor who gave the language a deadly thrust, it was a Tudor, on
the other hand, who assisted in its preservation; for a principal mainstay
against this tendency, which had lately been initiated, was an order for the
publication of the Welsh Bible by Queen Elizabeth and her Parliament in 1568,
and which was carried into effect in 1588; although there were then persons
not unrepresented in the present day, who feared that such a measure would
revivify the language.
Dr. Morgan, Vicar of Llanrhaiadr-yn-Mochnant, to whose labours the Welsh are
indebted for the translation they now are privileged with, in his Latin
dedication of the Bible to the Queen,* says that the Act sets forth, at the
same time, "our idleness and slothfulness, because we could neither be
moved by so grave a necessity, nor be constrained by so favourable a law, but
that such work (than which there could not be anything of greater importance)
was allowed to remain almost untouched." CIoss in his history of the
Church of England in Wales, says, that there was a desire on the part of the
bishops to suppress the Welsh language, and they thought that if they refused
to translate the Bible they would thus compel the Welsh to learn English.
It is some consolation to look back to that period and feel that twenty long
years of waiting preceded an event fraught with so much importance to the
future of Wales, and which is still bearing daily fruit, also to feel that
apathy.
* A revised translation got out by Bishop Parry, which is now the standard
version, was published in 1620.
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42
WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [chap. II.
indifference, and delay in the nineteenth century do not necessarily impose
impassable barriers on the attainment of such a desirable object, as the
general recognition of the language of the people in educational and legal
matters. Had the Welsh Bible never existed, how different would the future of
Wales and her language have been?
We may look to Ireland, what would not she have gained had a similar measure
been secured for her? It was true that there was a spirit of greater
opposition there to the English Government than in Wales, but perhaps not an
invincible one. In a future chapter remarks will be made on the educational
position of the Irish language, which differs from the Welsh in having no
background of modem literature.
It should be remarked that while the Government allowed their order for a
translation, reviewed by the five bishops (Hereford included), to "be
printed and used in churches by the first of March, 1566," to become a
dead letter, the object was in fact attained mainly by a country priest, one
of the very few in the diocese at that time who actually preached at all.
Here, then, is encouragement again to private individuals to wrest the palm
from supine officialism.
A learned book called Institutiones Linguce Britannicee, by Dr. John David
Rhys, appeared about the same time as Dr. Morgan's Bible. It was framed, some
have thought, with the idea of giving Welsh parsons a scientific knowledge of
the tongue that they might read and understand the Bible better: the former was
presented to Queen EHzabeth* by the wife of John Scudamore, of Holme Lacy (an
M.P. for Herefordshire in successive sessions), a favorite at court, and
member of the family, who had kept Sion Kent, at Kentchurch, and had taken up
arms for Owain Glyndwr.
*See Llyfryddiaeth y Cymry, p., 66.
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CHAP. II.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 43
Queen Elizabeth was mindful of her Tudor descent, and one of her maids of
honour was Blanche Parry, of the Golden Vale, Herefordshire, which was then a
Welsh speaking district. The poet Spenser introduces a Scudamore,
prominently, in the "Faerie Queene," Book iv. Whether in
Herefordshire, or elsewhere, Spenser seems to have picked up some Welsh: — “How
oft that day did sad Brunchildis see The green shield died in dolorous vermeU
[vermilion]? That not scuith guridh* it mote seeme to bee, But rather y
scuith gogh signe of sad Crueltie. [Book ii.] Again:
And Twede the limit betwixt Logrisj land and Albany.
[Book iv., Canto xi. 36.]
What English poet these days would think of alluding to England, as Logris
land?
In Elizabeth's reign it is probable that most of the County landowners were
famiUar with Welsh, perhaps more so than with English, in spite of her
father's enactment that offices must not be filled by any person using the
Welsh tongue. What was the practical interpretation of that claim? I am
unable to say; it may have simply prohibited Welsh as an official language;
but the tendency, doubtless, was to foster the growth of a class of people in
Wales whose national place would have been as leaders, but who are separated
from their neighbours by a chasm, artificially caused by their exclusive use
of a foreign idiom; which tendency, has of course, been much developed and
strengthened by the banishment of Welsh from the higher schools and colleges.
The seventeenth century was a comparatively uneventful one for the Welsh
language; but during that period perhaps even
* These stand for ysgzoydd loerdd (a green shield), and ysgwydd coch (a red
shield.)
fZoffi-is land, of courses the Welsh Lloegr.
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44 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. II.
more than now, was English well established as the ofl&cial language;
aTid during the Civil Wars, as remarked by Ivor James, * the appeals to the
country on either side were almost exclusively issued in English. After the
accession of Charles II., however, it was ordered that the book of Common
Prayer should be provided for Welsh speaking districts in the Welsh Dioceses,
and in that of Hereford.
The total number of Welsh Bibles printed from 1600 to l700, averaged only
some 3,200, every decenniad, being very much below the wants of the
population. One of the benefactors of the country towards the end of that
period was T. Gouge, who instituted schools to teach the poorest children to
learn English. Rees, the author of “Protestant Nonconformity in Wales,"
while highly admiring his piety and philanthropy, says this was a “great
mistake," and rendered them comparatively useless to the children of the
poor. It is somewhat singular to find in a report of the work carried on by
T. Gouge, and his friends in 1674, it is mentioned, that 32 Welsh Bibles had
been distributed, which were “all that could be had in Wales or London."
The opposition to Welsh similar to that of the sixteenth century, cropping up
again in the seventeenth, as is thus referred to by Rees: —
The promoters of Welsh literature at that time were greatly discouraged, and
even opposed by many persons of influence and authority, who thought that no
books should have been printed in the Welsh language, in order to induce the
people to learn the English. That opinion has operated most disastrously
against the intellectual and spiritual advancement of the Welsh nation, ever
since the Eeformation. (2nd Ed., p. 195.)
Towards the beginning of the eighteenth century political reasons again were
influential in discouraging Welsh nationality
*S^e Y TraetJiodydd—188Q.
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CHAP. II.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 45
when the attachment of the people to the house of Hanover was by no means
strong.
Another change, however, was at hand, which has profoundly affected the
History of Wales, we may almost call it a second great tidal wave of the
Reformation, rolling in two centuries after the event. The first tidal wave
had, as we have seen in conjunction with other causes, rather depreciated the
status of Welsh, as a medium to reach the inteUigence, and improve the
culture of the people; the second, which the last decades of the eighteenth
century, saw rapidly rising to its height, has been largely the means of
creating a modern national literature, in which every cottage, and every
hamlet, in extensive districts of the country has, more or less, a direct interest;
so that Welsh literary culture no longer was confined to the John David
Rhyses, the Dr. Davieses, the Edward Llwyds, and a few clerigwyr, and
representatives of the old well-known families, but was participated in,
though in a necessarily imperfect fashion by the fanners, small tradesmen,
nonconformist preachers, and even working men who took the places of the
gentlemen bards of the fifteenth century.
ReHgion, undoubtedly, lay at the root of the dispositions which principally
facihtated this change, and, as it should be regarded principally fi-om this
standpoint, it will be out of place for me here to criticize its history, but
this much is said, lest any should think that undue prominence is given to
the indirect, secular effects which followed in the wake of the movement.
Of course I am alluding to the great Methodist arising, which, apart from any
religious teaching it afforded, was the me^ns of acquainting the great mass
of the Welsh people with the power and disciphne of organization, and of
giving them the opportunity of learning to read their own language; at first
the Bible; next, a denominational vernacular Uterature;
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46 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. II.
which speedily sprang up, not only among the Methodists but among the other
leading dissenting bodies; which, while giving the facility to read
indirectly, paved the way for writing Welsh to become a common self-taught
art (though, as will be seen later on, by no means so universal as it might
be), and thereby furnished a stepping-stone for the dissemination of a
secular and vernacular literature, which in the branches of poetry is by no
means inconsiderable.
This work had partially been anticipated early in the century by Griffith
Jones, of Llanddowror, who, seeing the inefficiency of schools conducted in
English, established circulating schools for a few months at a time, at a
place. By means of his effort, a large number of persons, including adults,
were taught to read, and thus the way was gradually made for the later
Methodist and other dissenters, under whose auspices it became a rare thing
to find any adult brought up with them, unable to read his or her language.
All the while we must recollect, or at least since 1790, Welsh was
practically excluded from the day schools,; it was the establishment of
schools on the first day of the week, which this revival made possible, that
so vastly increased the number of readers in the vernacular; and it is
probable the increase has gone on from that day to this. Such an impetus was
strengthened early in the nineteenth century by the establishment of the
Bible Society and the issue of cheap Welsh Bibles, so that in Welsh-Wales
instead of there being only one per cent, who could read Welsh, as in
Prichard's time, there was certainly a very much larger proportion in 1820,
about the time when the Eisteddfodau began to be a factor in the national
life.
It is a suggestive fact that Methodism broke out first, and most extensively
in those districts, where the poems of Rees Prichard and the schools of
Griffith Jones had exerted the
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CHAP. II.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 47
most powerful influence. Some of my readers not familiar with the history of
Wales, may need to be told, that Rees Prichard was a Vicar of Llandovery, who
died about 1644, and whose religious and didactic poems, entitled
"Canwyll y Cymry," so commended for their colloquial style by the
Rector of Merthyr in 1887, to the Royal Commission on Education, became
almost a household book in Wales, and have been again and again reprinted,
the last edition being quite a recent one by Wm. Jones, Printer, Newport,
Mon.
Had it not been for this change, there is, humanly speaking so, some ground
to believe that the Bishop of David's would have been correct when he said,
not long ago, that Wales was “only a geographical expression." Perhaps,
however, in his case, the wish was father to the thought.
The author of the Prize Essay on the "Character of the Welsh as a
Nation," pubhshed in 1841, undoubtedly takes cognizance of the indirect
efliect of this multiplication of readers on Welsh literature; he says —
During the last twenty five or thirty years, a great revival has taken place
in Welsh literature; but it is remarkable that the interest felt in its
cultivation, has by no means impeded but rather assisted the difEusion of the
English language, (p. 23.)
The consideration of the educational and hnguistic state of Wales during the
great industrial era which embraces the last fifty years, I propose to
consider in the next chapter.
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Statistics for
Welsh Texts Section / Ystadegau’r Adran Destunau Cymraeg