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the romanticism of some modern historians, and the credulity of some distant antiquaries, respectively. No one could be more obviously fond of his country and devoted to its interests than Professor Williams; but he knows that the cause of love is served best by submitting it to the discipline of truth. Welsh history still at times needs to be rescued from the blinkered enthusiasts. An age of romantic nationalism is too often an age of bad history, and here Professor Williams's affectionate scholar- ship offers the soundest antidote. The big book is eagerly awaited. G. R. ELTON Clare College, Cambridge THE GENTRY OF South- West WALES, 1540-1640. By Howell A. Lloyd. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1968. Pp. 256. 45s. Given the absence of great magnates (except the Devereux who are, in fact, treated at some length), the relatively weak position of the Church as landowner, and the smallness of the towns, the gentry, however defined, were the leaders of society in the three counties of south-west Wales. Dr. Lloyd's painstaking and thorough investigation comes close, inevitably, to being a general social history. His picture is not a cheerful one. The gentry showed little interest in economic innovation. They failed to develop new techniques in agriculture. Their contribution to commerce and industry was small. Their rents lagged behind the general price-level. Only by extending their estates could they hope to improve their economic position, and this was a slow, piecemeal process. They played little part in national politics. In spite of Gelly Meyrick's activity in building up a Devereux party, the role of the south-west was far less conspicuous than that of the Marches or of north Wales in the Essex conspiracy; indeed, besides Meyrick himself, only two representatives of the south-west were amongst the eighty-five imprisoned for active participation in the attempted coup in London. Only the Perrot family made much impression in parliament; most notably in the person of Sir James, a fiery member of the puritan opposition in the early Stuart parliaments, active in the smelling out of real or supposed conspiracy. (In 1624 he reported his own wife as a recusant.) The author sees a 'self-centred apathy to external affairs'. Delays in the collection of ship-money were, he believes, due rather to poverty and administrative inefficiency than to political principle. Enthusiasm for the king's cause seems to have been minimal, and party allegiance in the Civil War more convincingly explained in terms of personal animosities and local insularity. Even litigation seems to have been largely local; few cases went to Star Chamber. Dr. Penry Williams argued that this might imply considerable resort to "the Council of Wales