Welsh Journals

RELIGION, LANGUAGE AND NATIONALITY IN WALES. By Glanmor Williams. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1979. Pp. xi, 252. £ 9.95. Professor Williams has collected ten of his essays, only six of which (he tells us) have seen print before. The appearance of all ten, but especially of those four hitherto unknown ones, is welcome. This, his second offering of such a collection, differs from its predecessor by ranging widely over all Welsh history, from the mists of time to the shadows of the present, and by addressing itself in general to an intelligent but not necessarily pro- fessional audience. There is another and more important difference. On the earlier occasion Professor Williams spent much time demolishing legends, many of them created and nourished by a bigoted nationalism. This time, though he still gives no comfort to those unhappy attitudes, he almost overwhelms one with his deep attachment to Wales and its people. His love of all things Welsh shines through all these essays-love of the language, the customs and traditions, the Christian faith of Wales. The remarkable thing is that this unstinted and even blatant attachment has not corrupted his judgment; it is rare indeed to find passionate sentiment-especially national sentiment-so firmly kept clear of sentimentality. All the essays have things of much interest to say; in their range and depth, and their frequent reliance on other people's work, they testify to the progress which the last generation has seen made in Welsh history. The excellent list of readings attached underlines the point. Nevertheless, the result is very much the author's own. Professor Williams is as much at home with the castles and monastic buildings of medieval Wales (a survey which never becomes a catalogue) as with the motives and fortunes of nineteenth-century Welshmen who emigrated to America. He is a genuine democrat who does not have to prove his credentials by denigrating the gentry (who get an appreciative but clear-sighted appraisal) or by worship- ping the lower orders (who yet get respectful sympathy). His comprehensive account of the Welsh migration into Tudor England, a very valuable conspectus, deals firmly with the sort of narrowmindedness that can blame a man for seeking his fortune where fortune waits-in London-rather than prove his domestic virtue by rotting in the economically backward valleys of his birth. The essay may be criticized for overemphasizing, in the traditional fashion, the alleged importance of the Tudors' Welsh origin, more regarded by posterity than by themselves. Henry VII was not the first king to recruit Welsh support, nor his son the first royal prince of Wales; and if it signifies that he called his son Arthur, it also matters that no other member of the family ever showed the slightest interest in their nominal Welsh descent. Still, there is Harry of Monmouth, talking to Fluellen, who no doubt stands in for a determinedly English Elizabeth. Professor Williams can see the virtue of odd men without denying their oddity: his kindly portrait of that devoted pedant, the Rev. Griffith Jones with his circulating schools, does not omit the warts. The opening essay, written for the occasion and bearing the same title as the whole volume, not only lays out some highly illuminating dominant themes but also suggests many lines for future exploration. Yet in the end there is some sadness, too: one begins to feel that the historian, well aware of the fact, has been celebrating a past which, if it has