Welsh Journals

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Legend and a Prevision', nor was G. R. Elton's first book (p. 708) called The Tudor Reform of Government. Thomas Percy 'marquis, then duke of Exeter' (who appears in the index, p. 740) did not exist. Indisputably the most puzzling character in this book is (p. 529) 'the Bretwalda of Bamburgh'. T. B. PUGH. University of Southampton. ROYALIST OFFICERS OF NORTH WALES, 1642-1660: A PROVISIONAL LIST. Compiled by Norman Tucker, F.R.Hist.S. Printed and bound by Gee and Son, Ltd., Denbigh, North Wales, and published by the author, 1961. Pp. 71. 25s. In his latest book, Mr. Norman Tucker provides a list of royalist officers, 1642-60. He has collected nearly 800 names and he includes brief biographies varying in length from a single line to a whole page, according to the information at present available. There can be no doubt that such a compilation will be consulted by Civil War specialists in Wales, and perhaps beyond. In addition to published works, the author has evidently examined many of the relevant papers in the National Library of Wales and the University College of North Wales, together with stray material from unexpected quarters. He has a sound knowledge of the principal North Wales families, whose inter-relationship is a notorious mine-field for the dabbler and the unwary. He has been able to include the names of indigent officers who applied for pensions after the Restoration and also of several officers who signed the petitions and certificates of maimed soldiers (the strongest contingent, by far, coming from Denbighshire). Many problems, of course, remain, as the author freely acknowledges. The mysterious Colonel Thomas slain at Naseby and the Colonel Owen killed in the attempt to relieve Beeston continue to elude identification. But even when the resources of the British Museum, the Public Record Office, and the Bodleian have been properly tapped it is unlikely that the list can be very considerably augmented. Although no great battle took place in North Wales, yet this area was of undoubted value to the royalists, as Brigadier Peter Young recognizes in his appreciative foreword. (Indeed, he does so in a more ample manner than in The Great Civil War, Burne and Young). In any list of officers, then, the royalists would certainly predominate. But the exclusion of parliamentarians from this compilation gives a decidedly incomplete picture. True, some who had marked parliamentary sympathies have been recruited for this volume. We may concede that Thomas Glynne (listed as doubtful on p. 15) and William Lloyd, of the Bodidris family, joined the commission of array in Caernarvonshire. But they were most perilously placed. Both had been arrested for disaffection at the outbreak of the war; Thomas Glynne received the special thanks of Parliament at its conclusion whilst Lloyd was mortally wounded by the royalists during the second.