Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

queen's alleged paramours, Norris and Brereton (both of them among the richest commoners in England, with incomes worth over tdl200 p.a., from royal grants), held valuable offices in north Wales, the Marches and the county palatine of Chester, respectively, but it is unlikely that Cromwell destroyed them (and the king's wife) on false charges in order to facilitate the far-reaching administrative changes that took place in their Welsh sphere of influence later in 1536. The rehabilitation of Anne Boleyn has been achieved in this study by representing her as an early Protestant martyr, but doubts concerning the true nature of her religious convictions still remain; when her end was near, her belief in the efficacy of good works hardly suggests that she was a steadfast Lutheran. Dr. Ives regards a miniature portrait (c. 1575) of Anne (concealed in a ring that once belonged to Elizabeth I) as a vital link in establishing an 'authenticated image' of the most controversial of English queens (pp. 54-56); 'Anne Boleyn: Art, Image and Taste' (pp. 273-301) is the best chapter in this fascinating book. Indisputably Anne was a remarkable woman and her brief and meteoric political career had a lasting impact in English history; the accession of her daughter, Elizabeth I, ensured the permanence of the Protestant Reformation. Queen Anne was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Whit Sunday, 1 June 1533, with St. Edward's crown and when Henry VIII put his anointed (and disgraced) consort to death he did irreparable harm to the sanctity of monarchy. Anne Boleyn's tragedy set an ominous precedent that proved most damaging to English kingship. The execution of Charles I in 1649 would not have been possible if four queens had not been beheaded in Tudor England. T. B. PUGH Southampton WILLIAM MORGAN at FEIBL: WILLIAM MORGAN AND HIS BIBLE. By Isaac Thomas. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1988. Pp. 89. £ 3.95. William Morgan, the translator of the scriptures into Welsh, would have been flattered to know that his labours and achievements have this year been so well publicised in a varied selection of academic and popular works to suit all tastes and age groups. Even in his own day and age some of his contemporaries among litterateurs, such as Morus Kyffin, Huw Lewys, Humphrey Pritchard and Dr. John Davies, praised him lavishly because they were equally aware of the spiritual needs of Wales and appreciated the nature and magnitude of his work in providing God's Word for a peasant community. In their eyes he was a cleric who had added yet another significant dimension to his Christian vocation by supplying his fellow countrymen with what Protestant church apologists considered to be fundamental to its beliefs, namely, the publication of the Bible in the vernacular. Such an achievement occurred in different languages in the age of the Renaissance when greater dignity was placed on the role of the native languages in western Europe in relation to the classical traditions of Greece and Rome. Alongside the humanist interpretation, the spiritual