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CAERNARVONSHIRE ADMINISTRATION THE ACTIVITIES OF THE JUSTICES OF THE PEACE, 1603-16601 UNTIL the last three decades or so, the early seventeenth century was regarded, in many respects, as the Cinderella of Welsh historical studies. In the standard textbooks, early Stuart society aroused very little interest and attracted very little stimulating discussion. The misleading notion of a 'blind and undiscerning loyalty' was regarded generally as an adequate description of the Welsh social scene for practically the whole century before the 'great awakening'-the well-known political and religious changes of the following two centuries2. The social structure of Stuart Wales remained uncultivated territory until the pioneering researches of Professor A. H. Dodd analysed the principles which governed the political behaviour of the gentry in and out of parliament.3 He has clearly shown that the Welsh members of parliament played a far more distinctive role in the issues which dominated the period than had previously been realized, and that the fountain-head of every political act performed by them perhaps until 1641 was their attachment to the settlement imposed by the Union legislation of 1536-42.4 Very little groundwork had been done either on the local government of the Welsh counties. In this respect again the older manuals tended to ignore the local community and to regard the Court of Quarter Sessions, for example, as the basic instrument of county administration without examining sufficiently its broader contribution to the locality which it served.5 In the early seventeenth century, Justices of the Peace continued to implement the statutes and ordinances of the central government and obeyed proclamations and orders, under the constant supervision of the Privy Council, the Courts of Great Sessions and the Council in the Marches of Wales. 1 I am indebted to my colleague, Mr. Gwynedd O. Pierce, for a number of valuable suggestions. 2 W. Llewelyn Williams, The Making of Modern Wales (1919); H, T. Evans, Modern Wales (1950); Idris Jones, A History of Modern Wales (reprint, 1965). 3 A. H. Dodd, 'The Pattern of Politics in Stuart Wales'. Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, 1948, pp. 8-27; idem. Studies in Stuart Wales (1952); idem. History of Caernarvonshire (1969). A valuable sociological analysis of the gentry in west Wales appears in H. A. Lloyd. The Gentry of South-West Wales, 1540-1640 (1968). Dodd, 'Pattern of Polities', op. cit., p. 26. 5 T. M. Bassett. 'A Study of Local Government in Wales under the Commonwealth, with especial reference to its relations with the Central Authority' (unpublished M.A. thesis. University of Wales, 1941); W. Ogwen Williams. Calendar of the Caernarvonshire Quarter Sessions Records, 1541-1558 (1956). is an indispensable guide to the social and administrative background of the mid-sixteenth century.