Welsh Journals

unlikely to be superseded, but it is doubtful if such self-consciously professional soldiers are really fitted to analyze a war in which the part of the amateur, less often gifted than otherwise, was of prime importance. The main flaw running through all their good work is the decision to try to relate the military history of four tremendous years without more than a sidelong glance at politics. It is impossible to understand the course, to say nothing of the issues, of the war without an effort to come to grips with politics. What happened, or did not happen, at Oxford or Westminster helped to mould military developments. At the same time the pressure of local politics-at Conway, say, or Stafford-often held up action and cut across the schemes of enterprising commanders. All this can be seen, for instance, in the formation of the New Model Army. The colonels are no doubt right to find in some leaders more grasp of broad strategy than historians have been willing to admit, but we must remember that points of contact between the minds of such men and run-of-the-mill officers were few. After all, the war was for a great part of its course one in which local security, symbolized in fortified country- houses and protracted sieges of partially walled towns, drained the energies and supplies of both sides. The wish, natural enough in tidy- minded soldiers, to impose a pattern on what was often a merely messy business, leads the colonels to neglect important aspects. They fail thus to consider the implications of that 'neutral spirit' all over the kingdoms which was something more than simple apathy. It is curious, too, that they pass by without comment the king's decision to raise his standard at Nottingham (why Nottingham ?) just when, as he was sharply reminded from Wales, one of his principal recruiting areas, the corn was ready to be gathered in and the warning nip of autumn was in the air. Anyone who thinks Wales played a big part in the first civil war will find no confirmation in this book. In Mr. Tucker's desultory pages, which take in the second war and, it seems, the rest of the interregnum, they will find even less enlightenment. Mr. Tucker has read a lot, but could have read more. Sir William Brereton's letter-books-still, unfortunately, in manuscript-are, for instance, very relevant to his theme. But he has dipped into the Caernarvonshire Quarter Sessions records and quotes a pleasing little tale about violent resistance to pres- sing. His control over his often interesting material is very weak, and the opening chapters are almost ludicrously scrappy. After that he settles down into a confusing narrative, which is very little assisted by the sketchy maps. There is hardly any attempt at analysis, and Mr. Tucker takes it more or less for granted that North Wales was, and should be, mainly royalist. It may, of course, be impossible to sort out motivations in what was never, even in its early stages, 'a clear-cut issue', but it might have been worth trying. What does emerge clearly from this book is its author's enthusiasm. What a pity it is not enough! IVAN ROOTS. Cardiff.