Welsh Journals

unfortunate that the author has decided to treat the first, and longer, part of the book as a mere 'introduction', with pages numbered in Roman numerals. The name and place indexes refer only to the roll, not to the introduction. It is difficult to make much of the bare entries, and not easy to find where there might be enlightenment in the editorial matter; and there is no subject index. It is therefore difficult to get much of an impression of what is really going on in any particular case, or to assess its significance. More generally, the book has a static quality. It analyses the structure of government in institutional rather than political terms. We learn about 'the gentry' in society but little about individual gentlemen, about who actually wielded power or about how that changed over time, or about the issues, if any, which excited controversy. One fears records, unfortunately, cannot provide statistics for useful comparison with other areas. Monmouth is unlikely therefore to be projected to a prominent place on the national historical stage, whether Welsh or English. But it is useful to have any Elizabethan quarter-session record in print. The detail will fascinate and tantalize. John Williams the elder of Estavarney was indicted for the murder of his younger namesake with a dagger worth 40 shillings (the detail to prove it was a 'serious' weapon?); Matilda ferch William, spinster of the same place, was also arrested on suspicion. Mr Howell is to be congratulated on making available the research which has evidently occupied for over forty years the interstices of a distinguished career in education. C.S.L. DAVIES Wadham College, Oxford THE FOREST OF DEAN. NEW History 1550-1818. By Cyril Hart. Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd., Stroud, 1995. Pp. xxii, 330; 21 plates; 9 maps. £ 29.99. Dr Hart has long been the doyen of Forest of Dean local historians, with an impressive list of publications going back over half a century, of which The Industrial History of Dean (1971) is probably the best known. Now retired after an equally long and distinguished career as a professional forester, but still much involved in the public and business life of the forest, he has here assembled a collection of essays and edited texts which adds considerably to what was previously known about several aspects of the history of the region between the mid-sixteenth century and the early nineteenth. The book is divided into five sections, of which the first two deal mainly with the iron industry of the Forest of Dean during its heyday. They