Welsh Journals

THE WELSH BORDERLAND UNDER QUEEN ELIZABETH1 DURING the sixteenth century there were within the British Isles at least three frontier zones; and although only one of these, the boundary between England and Scotland, marked off one kingdom from another, each separated different systems of administration, each ran in wild or mountainous country, and each lay remote from the centre of government. Each, in consequence, displayed some of the political difficulties peculiar to a border country. As long as the crowns of England and of Scotland rested upon different heads there was little that English statesmen could do to solve the funda- mental problems of the northern border; but in the other two regions, in the frontier between the western English shires and the multifarious lordships and counties of Wales, and in the frontier between the Irish Pale and the disorderly remainder of Ireland, more could be attempted. In Ireland, English administrators believed that only the annihila- tion of Irish customs and the Irish language could subdue the island to the English Crown. To them the heart of the problem lay in the gradual transformation of many early English settlers into Irish tribesmen: the Burkes, for example, had changed in the course of centuries from Norman barons to Gaelic chiefs, from emissaries of English government to enemies of law and order; and in the circum- stances the only solution seemed to be the destruction of the old Irish culture.2 In Wales the problem was seen differently. Disorderly the country might be; but the heart of the problem was thought to lie in the English marcher lordships rather than in the Welsh tribal system. English administrators were content to order the use of the English language in the law courts, to abolish Welsh methods of inheritance, and to prohibit certain Welsh customs, such as cymorth and arddel, which were thought to be oppressive. They were anxious to modify, not to destroy; to mould society into the English pattern, but not necessarily to eliminate Welsh culture. In this they were only 1 This article was originally written for a projected symposium on the Marches, to be edited by Professor T. Jones Pierce. In consequence, certain subjects, especially those connected with economic history, have been largely omitted, since it was expected that they would be discussed by other contributors. I am most grateful to Professor Jones Pierce for allowing me, in view of the delay in the appearance of his symposium, to publish it here. 2 See, for example, W. Gerard's discourse printed in Analecta Hibernica, II, 93-291; Sir John Davies's 'A discovery of the true cause why Ireland was never entirely subdued' in H. Morley (ed.), Ireland under Elizabeth and James I (London, 1890), pp. 229, 284-99; and C. Maxwell, Irish History from Contemporary Sources. 1509-1610 (London, 1923). pp. 166-7. 388.