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morcellement in the March of Wales. He now examines Edward Fs organization of those areas of Wales which, aggregated by Llywelyn, fell to the king by conquest. He recognizes the principality which Edward bestowed upon his heir apparent in 1301 as one which was 'institutionally continuous' with that of Llywelyn. It was, too, even though consolidated by the introduction of a shire structure, a principality which was excluded from the administration of the common law of England. Against this background, the acts of 1536 and 1543 are afforded a careful scrutiny, extended in a characteristically cogent argument set out in an appendix. The view advanced here is that this Tudor legislation 'exorcized fractionization by unifying Wales politically within itself. This unification was achieved by assimilating the government of the whole of Wales to that of the principality of Wales, and it was an arrangement which was to leave Wales under a separate jurisdiction for another three hundred years. One might perhaps wish to make a clearer distinction, increasingly necessary in respect of the later centuries, between what is broadly political in effect and that which is more strictly judicial, but the ideas put forward are stimulating. This critical essay bears witness to the author's abiding and continuously active concern with the fundamental problems of government in Wales. Those who read it will respect again the authority with which the constitutional themes are handled. They will also take account of the author's sensitivity to the various other influences which have worked 'to mark out the principality as a historic national region, and therefore as a possible participant in whatever scheme of devolution, if any, the future may devise and decree'. J. BEVERLEY SMITH Aberystwyth ENGLISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS (General editor David C. Douglas): VOLUME IV, 1327-1485. Edited by A. R. Myers. Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1969. Pp. lxvi, 1236, end papers. LIO-50. This volume demanded both wide knowledge of national archives to enable the fundamental themes to be effectively illustrated, and a first-hand awareness of regional documentation to wipe away that smug, Home Counties aspect which often marks historical writing about England as a whole. Professor Myers possesses both. For over thirty years he has been publishing important sources and careful, well-documented studies con- cerned with fifteenth-century English government and politics; to the non-specialist he is best known for his impressionistic survey of England, 1307-1536 (1952). But his residence at Liverpool has also enriched the writing of local history in the north-west Midlands and Welsh borderland. No single volume in a series such as this should be unduly criticized for its terminal dates: Professor Myers's themes transcend a quibble about 1307 or 1327, 1485 or 1509. Each part- The Political Framework',