Welsh Journals

modules (already with us), there is clearly going to be an ever-increasing demand for such surveys. Hopefully, all historians addressing this market will perform the task as well as John Warren. KEITH DOCKRAY Bristol WALES AND THE WARS OF THE ROSES. By H.T. Evans. Reprinted with an introduction by R. A. Griffiths. Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd., Stroud, 1995. Pp. 176. £ 18. 99. Fifteenth CENTURY ENGLAND, 1399-1509. Edited by S. B. Chrimes, C.D. Ross and R. A. Griffiths. Second Edition. Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd., Stroud, 1995. Pp. 192. £ 30.00 hardback, £ 9.99 paperback. H.T. Evans (1877-1950) published Wales and the Wars of the Roses in 1915. It was his only major work of scholarship, although several contributions to the Dictionary of Welsh Biography came from his pen; he was, however, one of the first authors of Welsh history textbooks for schools. He was by profession a schoolmaster who was for twenty-seven years headmaster of the Aberaeron County School, one of that succession of grammar school headmasters to whose support and encouragement so many Welsh 'lads of parts' owed so much. Wales and the Wars of the Roses was a pioneering work. It was the first study of fifteenth-century Wales and it continues to stand on its own; what work has been done on the period since it first appeared has largely been done by Professor Griffiths and he pays tribute to Evans's achievement in his introduction. The author drew on sources like the Life of Sir Rhys ap Thomas, not available in print (apart from the version in the Cambrian Register) until 1993, and the chronicle of Elis Gruffydd, which still awaits both editor and publisher. He also made extensive and profitable use of the rich corpus of contemporary poetry; indeed, his first chapter is entitled 'The historical value of contemporary Welsh literature' and throughout the book points are illuminated by apposite quotation. The utilization of such evidence is something which we take for granted today, but we have the advantage of properly edited texts; it is a salutary exercise to remember that Evans was dependent on manuscripts and on unedited collections in which the texts were not always entirely reliable. It is fair to say that it is impossible to study many aspects of fifteenth-century Wales without recourse to the work of such poets as Guto'r Glyn and Lewis Glyn Cothi, who moved at the highest levels of native society.