Welsh Journals

August 1374 may have received a brokerage commission from the Bardi, since part of the loan was used by the Crown to repay debts due to the Bardi since the 1340s. This seems a very plausible suggestion. A virtue of this admirable book is the author's reluctance to squeeze his evidence too hard. The reader may ask how guilty were Latimer and Lyons, and in what respects. Dr. Holmes's answer is to present the evidence and leave it at our disposal. On occasion he uses the term 'courtier' somewhat loosely, though he is good on Alice Perrers, a corrupt courtier without question. One wishes he had said rather more about the king's Council. Until the return of Lancaster to England in 1374, there is no serious attempt to conjecture the sources of executive authority. The fact that neither the chancellor, treasurer nor the keeper of the privy seal was impugned in 1376 calls for more comment. This is a book of highest quality and all students of England in the late- fourteenth century will read it with profit. J. W. SHERBORNE Bristol THE ADVENTURERS. By David Fraser. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1976. Pp. xiii, 336. £ 3.00. There has been a revolution in the scale of provision and the scope of school textbooks in history in recent years. Publishers have poured out material for the whole age-range. Quality has been variable; but generally the revolution has been exciting and profitable for pupil and teacher. If history department heads can afford it, they can stock their shelves with beautifully printed and illustrated texts and folders which incorporate, in varying degrees, original documentary material and constructive exercises. For sound commercial reasons, doubtless, Welsh history in schools has benefited less than it might from the provision of new materials; and this despite such vital contributions as those of, for example, Dr. Roderick and Mr. Hugh Thomas for lower secondary and 'A' level pupils respectively. The publication of yet another good textbook by David Fraser is, therefore, a significant and welcome event; and it takes the history of Wales forward three centuries from the point at which it was left by The Invaders and The Defenders. Although sixth formers would profit much from reading this book, in conjunction with Hugh Thomas's more detailed A History of Wales, 1485- 1660, its particular merit must be as an '0' level textbook. The W.J.E.C. '0' level examination is among the most conservative of any of the Boards and treatment here of the period 1485-1760 is generally conventional. Political and religious themes are dealt with most fully, from Henry VII's treatment of Wales, the Act of Union and the Reformation, through the Civil War and its aftermath in Wales to the teachers and preachers of the eighteenth century. There is a reasonably generous ration of social history. Indeed, such topics as agriculture, industry, dress, food and piracy are treated so interestingly that one would wish for more. Again, far from presenting a parochial view of Welsh history the author sets his story